will@cvradio.com SHARE Tuesday Uranium Energy rep to discuss industry The Association of Desk and Derrick Clubs will host guest speaker, Uranium Energy Corp. senior adviser Harry Anthony to talk about an introduction to In-Situ Recovery Uranium at 11:30 a.m. at Portis Country Kitchen, 615 N. Upper Broadway St. Suite B. Cost: $12 for lunch. Reservations needed by April 15 at SNash@dewbre.com or DorothyJ@headingtonenergy.com WEDNESDAY Business financial aid seminar offered The Small Business Administration will offer a seminar on financial assistance to start or expand a business from 10-11:30 a.m. at the Corpus Christi Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 1823 N. Chaparral St. SBA Guaranty Loan Programs can be an option to take care of financial needs, including working capital, land and building purchase, equipment, inventory and leasehold improvements. Information on government contracting and business consulting services will be provided. Information: 361-879-0017, ext. 301 or elizabeth.soliz@sba.gov THURSDAY Get social in Rockport-Fulton The Small Business Administration and SCORE Corpus Christi will present at Rockport-Fulton's Chamber of Commerce Simply Social event from 1:15-2:15 p.m., 319 Broadway St. Free. Information: 361-879-0017 ext. 301 or elizabeth.soliz@sba.gov. Friday Luncheon set for accounting students The Corpus Christi Chapter of the Texas Society of CPAs will host a luncheon for accounting students and CPAs at 11:30 a.m. at Katz 21 Steaks & Spirits, 5702 Spohn Drive. Free for accounting students and $15 for CPAs. Information: 800-428-0272 ext. 279. Compiled by Natalia Contreras CONTRIBUTED PHOTO McCullough Someone who graduates from college as a liberal-arts major can have only one of two outcomes. That person will be put in charge of everything or they will be unemployed. I told that to a liberal-arts major recently and his heart sank. "Oh, no." I had to explain that this was my idea of a joke. But liberal arts majors, unlike students studying to be lawyers, or doctors, or tax accountants, always have to explain why they are liberal arts majors. I got the same questions from my own family when I was an English major in college. Are you going to be a teacher? Are you going to teach it in college? I never knew really what to say. It seemed pretty lame to say I just liked the stuff. Now, I know what to say. I want to be David McCullough. McCullough, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, spoke Tuesday at Christus Spohn Health System's Lyceum. Speaking about the Wright brothers, the subject of his latest book, and of President Harry Truman, whose biography won him one of his Pulitzers, McCullough focused on how much of their life preparation came in their early years of reading. The home of Orville and Wilbur Wright was stocked with encyclopedias, the works of the classical Greeks, American and European histories as well as works by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Darwin's "Origin of the Species" as well as John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Neither brother went to college. Yet neither did Truman. Which is not say they were uneducated. Like the Wright brothers, Truman was well read, especially in history. And both the Wright brothers and Truman had a sure grasp of the English language. They knew how to speak and write in clear and solid English sentences. Their writing, depending on the purpose, could be compelling, instructive and wholly transparent in its meaning. In essence, they were liberal arts majors. Of course, just being well read didn't lead the Wright brothers to become the first to build an airplane and then, at Kitty Hawk, N.C., on Dec. 17, 1903, make the first heavier-than-air human flight. That took qualities of character determination and discipline and of mechanical prowess. But the groundwork was laid by a lifetime of reading about ideas, studying and discussion of those ideas. Touting the benefits of a liberal arts education can be an elusive thing. Families who are toting a heavy bill for college tuition, books and fees might not be persuaded about the salability of a liberal arts degree on the weight of its ability to "transform" a graduate. What they want to know is, how much is the kid going to make? And given the hefty price of college, who can blame them? Neither does the Texas Legislature seem to value liberal arts education. If it did, legislators would give much richer support in its formula for funding to all those English, political science, psychology, foreign language and other liberal arts classes than it does now. In Texas' public schools, it's always the "fluff" courses such as journalism, speech, music and theater that get the ax when the budget cutters start doing their work. Yet these are the courses where kids learn how to express themselves, to speak before an audience and how to organize thoughts on their feet. Yet, like so many at the Lyceum, I was enthralled by McCullough and his ability to tell a story that not only entertains, but teaches and inspires. Isn't this the product of a liberal arts education? And this is my own thought you're not going find that kind of education on your iPhone. Where do you find such a liberal education? "Read, read, read," McCullough said. "Learn a language other than your own, travel and live somewhere you have never lived before." Perhaps now, at a time when a presidential candidate can propose draconian measures for difficult issues, is when a liberal arts perspective is more needed than ever. The knowledge that comes with studying history, literature and human institutions now becomes critically necessary. Not everyone can be a David McCullough. But the famed author, who was an English major at Yale, had another piece of advice that we all can follow. "You have to ask questions and be curious about your surroundings." That, too, is part of being a liberal arts student. Nick Jimenez has worked as a reporter, city editor and editorial page editor for more than 40 years in Corpus Christi. He is currently the editorial page editor emeritus for the Caller-Times. His commentary column appears on Wednesdays and Sundays. The City Council is on a fact-finding mission regarding how to regulate transportation network companies, which is great because I'm 100 percent pro-fact. It has been a life's mission. The question is, which facts? Because the council was given plenty of those in the weeks before March 8, when it approved an ordinance governing transportation network companies, or TNCs, a preferred term for nontraditional taxi services summoned and paid for via phone app. The council didn't make its decision in an information vacuum, and that includes its decision to require fingerprinting as part of the driver background check. Council members knew that the popular TNCs Uber and Lyft had a history of disputing fingerprint requirements for their drivers, and of leaving town rather than submit Houston being a rare exception. The council knew that Uber insisted that its method of background-checking drivers was more effective than fingerprinting, and that our police chief and other law enforcement authorities insisted otherwise. So the fact-finding must not mean those known facts. Nor could it mean the detailed letter from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to Mayor Nelda Martinez, the one dated March 28, in which Turner described Uber's explosive growth in Houston despite fingerprinting supposedly being to Uber what water was to the Wicked Witch of the West. That letter also disclosed some alarming facts about driver applicants who slipped through Uber's background check but not the fingerprint check such as the woman with 24 aliases, five birthdates, 10 Social Security numbers and a warrant for her arrest. The fact-finding couldn't mean those facts because Martinez, a fingerprint advocate, shared Turner's fact-filled letter with the council. Perhaps the facts in need of finding are the ones that came out of a court earlier this month in California, where Uber agreed to pay at least $10 million to settle a lawsuit. Prosecutors in California accused Uber of misleading customers by claiming falsely that its background-checking of driver applicants was the most comprehensive available. This would seem to be a key fact if the council is to make a fully informed decision about whether it erred when it voted in favor of fingerprinting. This also is actual new information that wasn't available March 8 because it hadn't happened yet. But, on second thought, it's not the right kind of fact because it doesn't lead to the conclusion that appears to be the point of the fact-finding. The council has so much to learn from this mission. And who better to teach it than its newest, youngest member, Michael Hunter? Hunter, 28, whom the council appointed to finish out Lillian Riojas' unexpired term, says there is much to be learned from looking into what other cities have done. A novel approach indeed. "This," he told reporter Matt Woolbright, "is the start of the process of doing it the right way." As his older council colleagues no doubt are grateful to have been taught, his process of doing it the right way can't start until their process of doing it the wrong way stops. The thing is, what other cities have done is not new news to the other eight council members. They knew that Austin is facing a rollback referendum on its fingerprint requirement. They also knew that other cities, having discovered nothing wrong with fingerprinting other than that Uber either had left or would leave if they required it, made the more fully informed decision not to require it. But it would be ill-advised for Corpus Christi to decide not to fingerprint without having explored how best not to do it. Some on the council, including Mark Scott, are interested in knowing more about how College Station came to adopt a TNC ordinance without fingerprinting. Apparently there is something special about College Station's method of not requiring fingerprinting. Perhaps chemists at Texas A&M University found the right mix of elements. The quest for a specific fact that will justify not fingerprinting is understandable. Vocal pro-Uber customers have this endearing tendency to insist to fingerprint proponents that they don't have all the facts. Seeking said facts is just good representative government. The irrefutable fact is that there's a minuscule risk that a TNC driver will rape or kill a passenger. The risk is minuscule because most people aren't rapists or murderers, not because fingerprinting is of no value. Here are two more facts already known to the council: Fingerprinting can't flag all criminal TNC applicants, but it can find some. The real fact that the council needs to discover is how a majority of its members will vote. The kind of fact being sought exists only in the word "manufacture." CALLER-TIMES file Rodeo Corpus Christi will start at 2 p.m. Sunday at American Bank Center. SHARE SUNDAY RODEO: Rodeo Corpus Christi will start at 2 p.m. at American Bank Center, 1901 N. Shoreline Blvd. Cost: Tickets range from $15 to $30. Information: www.BucDays.com THEATER: The Aurora Arts Theatre will present "Our Lady of the Tortilla" at 2:30 p.m. Cost: $15, general admission; military, student, seniors and children discounts available. Information: 361-851-9700, www.auroraartstheatre.com. PETS: The Nueces County Animal Control will host rabies vaccination clinics for Coastal Bend residents from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Bluntzer Fire Station, at the corner of Farm-to-Market roads 666 and 624. Cost: $8. Information: 361-387-5701. MONDAY FOOD: Kona Ice will offer free shaved ice on National Chill Out Day on Monday. Kona Ice will be at Coastal Community & Teachers Credit Union, 6810 Saratoga Blvd., from 11 a.m. to noon and at Pete's Chicken-N-More, 4101 S. Port Ave., 12:30-1:30 p.m. Cost: free. Information: www.kona-ice.com. MEETING: The Gulf Coast Antiques and Collectibles Club will meet at 7 p.m. at the Lindale Senior Center, 3135 Swantner Drive. There will be a short business meeting and a program on "Wall Pockets" by James Gerdy. Bring an item for Show and Tell. Cost: Free. Information: 361-852-7700. VEHICLE: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will host an AutoCheck Motor Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the first entrance to the campus. In three to five minutes, AutoCheck measures harmful pollutants emitted from vehicles. Cost: Free. Information: 361-825-3070. CONCERT: The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Department of Music presents the University Symphonic Winds Concert at 7:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. The Symphonic Winds performance includes original works for band, transcriptions, marches and music of all styles, with an emphasis on new music. Cost: Free. Information: 361-825-3756. THEATER: The Port Aransas Community Theatre will host auditions for "Bye, Bye, Birdie" from 6-8 p.m. at 2327 State Highway 361, Port Aransas. Cost: Free. Information: 361-749-6036. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Corpus Christi Police Cmdr. David Blackmon and Senior Officer Tracy Roberts walk through the Corpus Christi Housing Authority properties in January. Blackmon and Roberts work off-duty as private security for the housing authority. Employing private security is one of the measures the housing authority takes to keep residents safe. Police data indicates a high volume of domestic violence calls in the S. Port Avenue, Ayers Street and Tarlton Street area. Much of the neighborhood is composed of public housing. By Kirsten Crow of the Caller-Times Outside a beige pier and beam home police find the woman, petite and broken, crouching on the sidewalk in her socks. She presses a cellphone to her ear, her hand barely visible behind a curtain of long, dark hair. Her face is wet with blood and tears. Her shirt is stained with thin crimson streams. It's about 4 a.m. An officer walks her boyfriend toward a squad car. He twists his neck to shout. "Get out of here," he says. "Bitch." She was punched in the face and has a swollen lip, an officer tells medics. Medics examine the 24-year-old woman's face as it is alternately illuminated red, then blue, in the flashing cast of light bars atop the police units. They try to assess her injuries. Does your nose hurt really bad? Are any teeth loose? Her face is so small, it nearly disappears behind an ice pack. Her lip is split, but she decides a trip to the hospital isn't necessary. The call is one of four domestic violence reports Corpus Christi police officers working the Delta district respond to on a graveyard shift in early January. It's among the first cases of the year. Data on 911 calls indicate the neighborhood an area centered around South Port Avenue, Tarlton Street, and Ayers Street is active for emergency calls for domestic violence. Responding to those calls, police are expected to restore the peace, break up fights, document incidents, help victims secure emergency protective orders and make arrests. The scene outside the beige house is, in grim fashion, like many domestic violence calls in the city. They can be dangerous. They're messy. And the minutes between a 911 call and police arrival can see building pressure and explosion. Behind a chain-link fence, family members bicker: should they have cleaned up the blood? I told you, don't clean it up they need it as evidence, a woman says to her husband. Officers piece together a narrative through differing witness accounts. He came home from a strip club drunk, the woman says. She confronted him; they argued. Locking the bedroom doors, he beat her, hitting her face seven times, she tells officers. Her parents used a knife to pry open the door. Then he ran. Sitting in the back seat of a police unit, the woman's boyfriend tells officers she accused him of being at a strip club. They argued and he ran out of the house, hopping a fence as she gave chase. She fell when she tried to go over the fence, landing face-first in the driveway, he says. That's how she got hurt. Officers point out there is no blood on the driveway. Although the woman's father started cleaning up, officers find a small pool of blood on the porch. Inside, there is a trail to the bedroom, and in the bedroom, police find blood on the wall and door handle, the officer's report shows. The bedroom door is damaged, showing signs it was forced open. The woman refuses to give police a statement. She doesn't want him arrested. "I'm sure he does feel bad," the officer counters. "But the argument already escalated. That's why I'm here." Her boyfriend is arrested on suspicion of assault-family violence causing bodily injury and unlawful restraint, both Class A misdemeanors. The cases are pending. LIVING WITH VIOLENCE A digital heat map, based on 2015 police data collected and analyzed by the Caller-Times, serves as a blueprint of domestic violence calls spread among Corpus Christi's estimated 113,376 households. It's a framework of what could seem to be random bright patches of blues, yellows, oranges and reds. The splashes of color represent clusters of those calls. Last year, detectives investigated eight homicides suspected as the final acts of violence between family members and intimate partners. In 2014, there were 14 people killed in domestic violence-related incidents. Most offenses are misdemeanors that draw less attention, but represent manifestations of a potentially deadly relationship dynamic. Of the 4,500 emergency calls for domestic violence in 2015, more than half at least 2,800 could qualify as misdemeanors. That includes about 2,400 reports of assault with bodily injury. Emergency calls to police often are only made when an altercation rises from routine abuse to crisis. Laid out across the city, locations for those 911 calls capture the reach of an underlying disease incubated beneath the rooftops of family homes, stretching the length and width of Corpus Christi's boundaries. The map identifies numerous areas with higher emergency call volumes. A bird's-eye view shows more "hot spots" in older, more central areas of the city that taper off when approaching Corpus Christi's extremities to the north and south. Experts say domestic violence cuts across all races, cultures, religions, educational backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. Underreporting is common, and the variables that push victims to place 911 calls can be difficult to track. One neighborhood that shows clusters of domestic violence 911 calls includes South Port Avenue, Ayers Street and Tarlton Street, where a large red blotch hovers. It's on the edge of that area where the victim told police her boyfriend locked her in a bedroom and beat her. Much of the area is composed of Corpus Christi Housing Authority properties. In the neighborhood, some calls are never made, said James Ritter, who lives in one of the larger housing authority properties. On a warm weekday afternoon in January, the complex was quiet other than the stirs of children returning from school, holding the straps of their backpacks tight to their chests while walking against the strong breeze. But on Friday and Saturday nights, domestic abuse is a part of life, Ritter said, standing on the porch of his apartment. He's lived there for two years and has learned not to interfere. He once came to a victim's defense, only to be attacked by the abuser and the abused, he said. Many people won't call the police, Ritter said. And he no longer calls he doesn't consider it helpful. Ritter added that making reports to law enforcement could make the caller a target in the neighborhood. What has generally improved is the housing authority kicking out people who shouldn't be there, he said. His young daughter has witnessed domestic violence, Ritter said, prompting him to ingrain a message. "With (my daughter) seeing a man hitting a woman, I don't want her thinking it's all right for her boyfriend to hit her," he said. HOUSING AUTHORITY The Corpus Christi Housing Authority campus bounded by Ayers Street, Tarlton Street, Roosevelt Drive and South Port Avenue comprises six complexes and more than 1,000 units. Domestic violence victims many of whom have a limited income, or whose abuser controls the finances are frequently referred to the housing authority to begin their new lives. Federal guidelines give preference to domestic violence victims for public housing. There are limitations on addressing domestic violence, housing authority officials said. But they do what they can, including facilitating educational efforts, maintaining a security service staffed by off-duty Corpus Christi police and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy. Last year, the Women's Shelter of South Texas put on two presentations, one an outreach program on healthy relationships, and another an overview of emergency shelter and other services. Sign-in sheets for the presentation at La Armada I and II in February 2015 show seven people attended. Traditionally, there has been low attendance for women's shelter programming, said Marisa Smithwick, the housing authority's senior vice president of asset management. "Typically, victims of domestic violence are not going to be allowed to attend these kinds of functions or more on point, are scared to attend," she said. Frequently, trouble is linked to people who are not on the lease commonly, husbands or boyfriends who move in, bypassing the housing authority's requirement for yearly background checks of everyone age 18 and older, officials have said. When there is an incident, victims are required to meet with staff, Smithwick said. It's a window to reach out. "I always tell the staff, when we meet with the clients it's our opportunity to talk to them ... are they going to school? What are their aspirations?" she said. "There are different opportunities that we have to kind of grab them and see if they're going to break through or they're going to talk to them and we can guide them and give them assistance." Victims who are attempting to escape their abuser can request an emergency transfer, said Gary Allsup, CEO and president of the Corpus Christi Housing Authority. There were three such transfers in 2015. Residents are encouraged to report any violence, Allsup added. There is a "one-strike rule" that applies to crimes such as assault. It's an immediate eviction for the aggressor. Those not on the lease are legally banned from the property and can be arrested if he or she returns. "You won't see many repeat offenders with us," Allsup said. If there were more the housing authority could do, they would be doing it, Smithwick said. "I think it's everywhere, and we do our part, I think, to help it. But I think the schools need to do their part, I think the women's shelter needs to do their part," she said. "I can go to sleep at night knowing that I think we do above and beyond getting our clients whatever help they need." ON PATROL They walk in a steady stride, side by side, between the faded stucco facades of the 1940s-era military barracks turned low-income housing. Consulting a thick binder, the officers review the inventory of follow-ups and complaints before setting out on their patrol of the housing authority's campus. Part of the work of the Housing Authority Police Patrol also known as HAPP is following up on criminal reports and quality of life concerns, said Corpus Christi police Cmdr. David Blackmon, who works off-duty as private security with Sr. Officer Tracy Roberts. Blackmon, who has worked for the housing authority about 19 years, knows many of the residents, he said. The layout of the campus requires foot patrol, which fosters opportunities to meet tenants and for residents to get to know police. Sometimes that's how issues are brought to the attention of law enforcement, Blackmon said. He enjoys the community policing, Blackmon said, and has continued the work with the housing authority even as he moved up in the ranks most recently, promoted from captain to commander in January. He disagreed with a resident's assessment that officers are ineffective. Police take cases of domestic violence seriously, Blackmon said. He added that it's important to report family violence. When making a report to police or the housing authority's Crime Lead and Fraud hotline, residents can remain anonymous. Anytime there is a concentrated population, "there is a potential for increased crime," Blackmon said. "Domestic violence isn't exempt from that." HAPP patrols housing authority properties at least four hours per day, twice a week. In cases of family violence, officers regularly check on units where there has been reported trouble, Blackmon said. "We'll go back and revisit the complaints ... we'll talk to people that are adjacent to these properties to find out, 'Have you heard anything else, does everything seem to be going good?'" Blackmon said. "Because oftentimes if things aren't going good, then you don't hear from that victim." He believes residents are generally open to talking with police, Blackmon said. The housing authority has an ear to the community, raising a consideration of whether "family violence higher than average here or are they more willing to report than in other areas of the city?" he said. HAPP officers have played a role in helping at least five women get out of violent relationships, Blackmon said. Those individual cases matter, he said. "If you have one win, you've had an effect." QUESTIONS ON CALLS Although there are hot spots for emergency domestic violence calls shown throughout the city, the majority appear in older, lower-income neighborhoods. Population density should be considered when analyzing comparative data, experts say. There's also a question about how repeat calls from the same addresses affect the data. A higher 911 call volume in lower-income areas likely has to do with resources, said Frances Wilson, president and CEO of the Women's Shelter of South Texas. Women with more means may have greater opportunity to get away without involving police. "I think it's probably happening just as frequently in the more affluent areas. We say one in four across the board," she said. "We don't say one in four if you make $25,000 per year or less for a family of four." With fewer resources, "survival is more immediate," said Margaret Bassett, director of the expert witness programs in the University of Texas' Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Information on abusive relationships in wealthier areas is elusive, she said. Those victims are less likely to call police, go to shelters or use social services. Calling police is usually a last-ditch effort to end an abusive incident meaning reaching the end point may be closer for women who lack resources. And it could be that "calling the police works," she said. EMPLOYMENT A FACTOR Population density wouldn't account for the various concentrations of dots on the heat map, said Assistant Police Chief Mark Schauer, pointing out the number of large apartment campuses going up on the Southside. The city's population is shifting south. Schauer doesn't think it's a cultural issue, density issue, income issue or related to "the price of the homes." Domestic violence is underreported and can affect anyone, he said: It's a complex topic with many unknown variables. "There's not a very good, solid reason why we're getting calls in cluster areas," he said. There are various possibilities, from the proximity of neighbors to the response of neighbors. One variable could be related to unemployment and underemployment. When it comes to complex issues like crime, different studies can suggest different conclusions, he noted. But one study on domestic violence found that recidivism was shown at a lower rate for men who were employed versus those who were unemployed, Schauer said. It's possible that it could partly come down to what's at stake. Someone who works a minimum wage job can likely get another after an arrest but a bank president would have a difficult time finding similar employment after facing an embarrassing charge, he said. That could influence whether or not domestic violence is reported. Emergency calls are frequently driven by whether a victim has reached a breaking point, Schauer added. "That's why I believe a lot of it is still underreported until it gets to a critical stage where it just blows up and they can't contain it anymore," Schauer said. EDUCATION AND PREVENTION There's not a way to go "proactively into those neighborhoods and somehow keep people from assaulting" each other, Schauer said. Unlike some other crimes, there often are no immediately visible precursors that give police a chance to prevent the abuse. "Family violence, it's behind closed doors. So we're driving by, we don't hear it, we don't see it," Schauer said. "And you could just get off work as a person going to beat his wife, and all we see is a person getting off work and going in the house." It's a crime that can't be reduced through increased patrols, Blackmon said. There is hope some measures can prevent subsequent assaults safety planning, for example, and the police department's recent institution of lethality assessments, which can help police identify higher risk of abuse and brief victims about the likelihood of serious harm. It also puts victims in touch with advocates immediately after an incident. Knowing the alternatives to remaining in an unhealthy relationship plays a meaningful role, experts say. But the most effective proactive measures likely lead back to the earliest years reaching children when they are young, and possibly bringing life skills classes to schools, Schauer said. Prevention includes instilling expectations in relationships, Wilson said: It's about raising children who, as adults, wouldn't think of using "power or control or any type of abuse to get their way, and to learn how to communicate with one another, and create the relationship they really want." "If we don't do that work (prevention), then basically what we are is just a shelter," Wilson said of the nonprofit's role. "And we're going to just keep being a shelter and keep seeing victims. And the goal is not to have victims." Twitter: @CallerCrow Contributed photo Ximena and Scarlett Torres were baptized on April 9, three days before they underwent a long separation surgery. "We're hoping they're going to lead fully functioning lives," said Dr. Haroon Patel, the pediatric surgeon who headed the 12-hour procedure. "We want to get them to (be) fully functioning individuals, to be able to go to school, to go to college, and go to work and be productive members of society. There's no reason they cannot be." SHARE Contributed photo Scarlett (left), Ximena (right), and their sister Catalina were born May 16 at Corpus Christi Medical Center Bay Area Hospital. Scarlett and Ximena, conjoined at the pelvis, were surgically separated Tuesday at Driscoll Children's Hospital. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES file Silvia Torres holds her daughter, Catalina, at the Ronald McDonald House on April 6. Catalina's twin sisters, Ximena and Scarlett Torres, who were conjoined at the pelvis at birth, underwent a 12-hour surgery to separate them Tuesday. Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times Dr. Haroon Patel (right), the pediatric surgeon and urologist who was the team leader of the Torres' separation surgery, speaks about the procedure at Driscoll Children's Hospital on Friday. Patel led a team of 13 other doctors and more than 30 nurses and other medical professionals during the 12-hour operation. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Paramedics from Driscoll Children's Hospital Transport Team transfer Catalina Torres to an ambulance on May 21 at Corpus Christi Medical Center Bay Area Hospital in Corpus Christi. Catalina's twin sisters Ximena and Scarlett were born conjoined at the pelvis. They underwent successful separation surgery Tuesday. Related Coverage Meet the Driscoll doctors who successfully separated twins By Chris Ramirez of the Caller-Times Detaching them was one thing. Now, a tiny pair of formerly conjoined twins, face a long journey of medical challenges, doctors say. But at least they've got a path. Officials for Driscoll Children's Hospital on Friday celebrated the successful separation of Ximena and Scarlett Torres, who were born in Corpus Christi nearly a year ago connected at the pelvis. However, data concerning conjoined twins can be sobering; recovery after such surgery is never guaranteed. Still, doctors who performed the historic procedure say separating the infants likely bought them more time. It may have also bettered their chance at a normal life. "We're hoping they're going to lead fully functioning lives," said Dr. Haroon Patel, the pediatric surgeon who headed the 12-hour procedure. "We want to get them to (be) fully functioning individuals, to be able to go to school, to go to college, and go to work and be productive members of society. There's no reason they cannot be. "They will have some challenges ... but with some adjustments there's no reason they can't do all the things any other 5- or 10- or 15-year-old does. Only time will tell." Silvia and Raul Torres, of Brownsville, came to Corpus Christi on vacation last April. Silvia Torres, 22, was pregnant and delivered Ximena, Scarlett, and a third daughter, Catalina, by cesarean section May 16, just a day short of 34 weeks. Scarlett and Ximena were joined at the midsection and shared bladders, a rectum, intestines and other lower extremities. Months of conference calls, leafing through medical journals, even mock surgeries all came down to Tuesday. That's the day a team made up of Patel, 13 other doctors and more than 30 nurses and other medical professionals went to work to separate them. The procedure lasted 12 hours. Ximena and Scarlett have been resting in separate rooms and have been assisted by breathing machines ever since. Births of conjoined twins, whose skin and internal organs are fused together, are rare. Conjoined twins occur once every 200,000 live births, and their survival is anything but assured. Forty to 60 percent of conjoined twins arrive stillborn, and about 35 percent survive only one day, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Jake Herrin can relate to what the Torres family is likely going through. He was in their place not that long ago. Herrin and his wife, Erin, learned 18 weeks into the pregnancy their twin daughters, Kendra and Maliyah, were conjoined. They were born in Salt Lake City on Feb. 26, 2002 at 32 weeks connected at the abdomen and the pelvis. They shared several organs, including a liver and large intestine. Experts claim such surgery tends to be more successful early in the children's life, within the first year or so. The Herrin girls had to be patient. They just one functional kidney between them at birth. Surgery would have meant putting one of them on dialysis. Maliyah's body at the time simply wasn't strong enough for that, Jake Herrin recalled. It wasn't until the twins were 4.5 years old that doctors were confident they both could withstand the procedure and recovery. Kendra and Maliyah were separated in August 2006 after two procedures that totaled 26 hours. The girls celebrated their 14th birthdays just two months ago. "They're into social media and videos on Facebook and have their own friends," Herrin told the Caller-Times in a phone interview from his home in North Salt Lake, Utah. "They're just like any other teenage girls." To date, there have been about 250 successful separations in which one or more twins survived over a long period. Most of them have occurred in the past 15 to 20 years, according to the American Pediatric Surgical Association. Herrin said the health challenges of formerly conjoined twins doesn't end with the separation surgery. Maliyah went on dialysis after the separation in 2006. Erin Herrin donated one of her kidneys nine months afterward. Jake Herrin said Maliyah's body is now rejecting the organ. That means she will need a transplant from a live donor soon. Herrin, a devout Mormon, encouraged Raul and Silvia Torres to lean on their faith, which they say they've done. "I'm sure there will be doctors visits and surgeries for a very long time," said Herrin, 35. "You just have to take things day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Otherwise, they can just get overwhelming." Some challenges already have emerged since the surgery. Ximena has undergone additional procedures to clear up infects that developed after she was separated from her sister. Doctors removed one of her kidneys, which was nonfunctioning, Patel said. A urologist rewired her ureter, the duct by which urine passes from the kidney to the bladder. The aim was to lower the risk of more infections. Patel said Ximena, like many people, can live normally with one kidney. "We had this complicated surgery and didn't want to have to come back again to an area ... that's already been operated before," Patel said. "It was the safest thing to do." What started as just a tour of Driscoll last week, just before the surgery, evolved into something inspiring for Texas Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa. While there, he met and spoke with Silvia Torres, whom he described at an attentive mother. "It's amazing the type of teamwork that goes on there, day in, day out, but especially for these two little girls," said Hinojosa, D-McAllen. "It felt like you were experiencing a miracle." Twitter: @Caller_ChrisRam TORRES TIMELINE May 16: Triplets Catalina, Ximena and Scarlett born at Corpus Christi Medical Center Bay Area Hospital at 10:52 p.m. Ximena and Scarlett are born joined at the pelvis. May 20: Ximena and Scarlett are moved to Driscoll Children's Hospital. Catalina eventually is released to her parents, Silvia and Raul Torres Sr. September: Doctors clear Ximena and Scarlett for separation surgery. The target date is in March. Late February: Surgery is postponed when the twins get sick. Tuesday: Separation surgery commences. The complex procedure runs from 8:37 a.m. to 8:47 p.m. Wednesday: Ximena develops a kidney infection. Undergoes additional surgery. Friday: Doctors perform another surgery on Ximena because of another infection. UNDERSTANDING CONJOINED BIRTHS HOW THEY'RE FORMED Conjoined twins are genetically identical, and are, therefore, always the same sex. They develop from the same fertilized egg, and share the same amniotic cavity and placenta. In the case of conjoined twins, a woman only produces a single egg, which does not fully separate after fertilization. The developing embryo starts to split into identical twins during the first few weeks after conception, but stops before the process is complete. The partially separated egg develops into a conjoined fetus. A HISTORY OF CONJOINED TWINS One of the earliest documented cases of conjoined twins were Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, born in Biddenden, England, in 1100. They were joined at the hip and lived for 34 years. The sisters were wealthy and, when they died, they left a small fortune to the Church of England. In honor of their generosity, it was customary for English citizens to bake little biscuits and cakes in the sisters' images and give them to the poor. Another set of famous conjoined twins was Eng and Chang Bunker, born in Thailand (then called Siam) in 1811. The term Siamese twins was coined as a reference to Eng and Chang, who achieved international fame shortly after leaving Siam as teenagers. The term is considered derogatory. The Bunker twins were joined at the lower chest by a narrow band of flesh, which connected their livers. They were exhibited in circus shows around the world before settling in the United States, where they married two sisters and had nearly two dozen children. They were successful businessman and ranchers in Wilkes County, North Carolina, where they lived until 1874. They were 63 years old when they died. TYPES OF CONJOINED TWINS Thoracopagus twins: There are nearly a dozen different types of conjoined twins, though this is one of the most common classifications. These twins are connected at the upper portion of the torso. Many times they share a heart, which, depending on how closely they are joined, makes it nearly impossible to separate them and save them both. Thoracopagus twins make up about 40 percent of all conjoined cases. Omphalopagus twins: Connected from the breastbone to the waist. About 33 percent of all conjoined cases are categorized in this manner. These twins may share a liver, gastrointestinal or genitourinary functions, but rarely share a heart. Craniophagus twins: Joined at the head. One of the rarest types of conjoined twins; only 2 percent of all conjoined twins are joined in this way. Source: University of Maryland Medical Center SHARE Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, right, looks at one of special prosecutors during a pretrial motion hearing at the Collin County courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in McKinney, Texas. Paxton is accused of encouraging wealthy investors to pump more than $100,000 into a tech startup called Servergy without revealing he was being paid by the company. (Jae S. Lee/The Dallas Morning News Via AP, Pool) Even the most committed partisan Texas Democrat should find no joy or humor in the situation Republicans walked into, eyes wide open, when they elected Ken Paxton attorney general and Sid Miller agriculture commissioner. There is nothing for Texans of any political persuasion to gain from the damage being done to our state as long as these two remain in office. Republicans should drop party-loyal pretense and repudiate these two for the sake of all Texans. It may be too early to demand Miller's resignation but Paxton's should have been solicited long ago. Miller at least deserves a round of denouncements from top party officials. The Paxton situation could be seen coming before he made the primary runoff in 2014. Already he had admitted that he recommended investments without informing investors that he received compensation if they invested. That's not just a technical error and it's not just dishonest. It's the dishonesty of someone who used self-righteous piety as a career steppingstone. Paxton's admission was attempted damage control in which he thought he could pay a fine and move on. But last year he was indicted on criminal charges, and last week the Securities and Exchange Commission piled on with federal charges mirroring the state's charges. Never mind that the established facts should preclude his being attorney general regardless of whether they result in a conviction. As a practical matter, he's too distracted by his criminal defense, and how to pay for it, to be a full-time attorney general. He can't use campaign funds or make the state pay his legal fees because the charges have nothing to do with the official duties of the elected offices he has held. Also, he's too ethically compromised to represent the state in ethics cases. Miller went into office clean but didn't stay that way. Since taking office, Miller took two trips that initially were booked as state business but that afterward he had to reimburse because no state business was conducted. He went to Oklahoma, chatted up some officials who weren't expecting him and got a controversial painkiller treatment known as the "Jesus shot," purporting to end pain for life without first having to die. He went to Mississippi, where he competed in a rodeo, which is easier to do pain-free. He has claimed that his intended visits with Mississippi agriculture officials fell through. The Texas Rangers are investigating these two trips. No matter what they find, Miller's cavalier attitude toward our tax dollars is an established pattern. Republicans are supposed to despise that sort of thing. Right now we should be extolling Republicans for having denounced these two. Not only has repudiation not been forthcoming, but Paxton has benefited from a cult of defenders who choose to denounce his accusers as witch-hunters with political agendas. It's a left-wing conspiracy, don'tcha know. What really happened was that a grand jury in Paxton's extremely conservative Collin County indicted him after the Texas Rangers, not known as a haven for lefties, investigated Paxton, who had the intimidating benefit of being a state senator at the time. In this overwhelmingly Republican-run state, the party is replete with honorable people who could replace these two. It had safe, ethical options during the 2014 primary. The party needs to quit acting like getting rid of Miller and Paxton would be a Democratic victory and stop rewarding Paxton, in particular, for having chosen the winning team. Policing its own would be a Republican victory. It would be what's best for all Texans. SHARE At the age of 4, Leiliana Rose Wright died from horrific child abuse in Grand Prairie. As shocking as the circumstances of her death are, given what we knew and when we knew it, our failure as a community to protect her is more shocking. For years, Child Protective Services investigators have struggled, sometimes doing a little better or a little worse, but always struggling. We have long known why low salaries and high workloads leading to constant caseworker turnover. For example, it's been reported that the CPS investigator assigned to Leiliana's case had 70 other cases. Under national standards, he should have had no more than a dozen. Critical tasks went undone and critical actions untaken. With so many cases, tragic outcomes were inevitable. When Texas does bring children into state care, the kids face new problems. Just this past December, a federal court found the states foster care system to be unconstitutionally unsafe because of high caseloads and a lack of foster homes. Recently we learned that children were sleeping in state office buildings or living in psychiatric hospitals because no placement was available. Attracting more foster parents requires recruiting, training and supporting them as part of a professional treatment team. Right now, though, the state pays only 85 percent of the cost of providing services. In Fort Worth, the state has a model program called Foster Care Redesign that is producing great outcomes, but with extra money from the community. So far the state won't commit to funding it statewide. Very few of our state leaders have called for an increase in spending on child protection or foster care. In fact, shortly after the federal court decision, I predicted that our lawmakers' instinct will be to look for cheap solutions, such as replacing leadership or reworking our practice model. The prediction recently came true. With Gov. Greg Abbott applauding, the head of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission announced the appointment of retired Texas Ranger Chief Henry "Hank" Whitman as the new top dog for CPS, saying, "I can't think of anyone better than a Texas Ranger to protect our most vulnerable Texans," and going on to tout Whitman's strength as an investigator. I have great respect for the Texas Rangers and wish Whitman the best of luck. If he is able to leverage his credibility to secure the resources CPS needs, his appointment will be a godsend. As Leiliana's case illustrates, though, being a great criminal investigator will be of little help to Whitman. The problem in Leiliana's case wasn't that CPS couldn't figure things out. The problem was that CPS was too overwhelmed to act. The announcement of Whitman also hints at a new law enforcement model and promises "high accountability." Although this sounds reassuring, it would actually be counterproductive. Child protection is primarily social work. Most cases involve neglect primarily due to poverty, substance abuse, and mental illness not abuse. Because of this, providing real help to the family is the best course for the kids, and that means spending money. Holding people accountable for not doing more than is humanly possible is an unfair and a punitive approach that leads only to increased burnout and higher turnover. We see that happening right now. Top leadership positions are vacant and morale is low. Public servants feel unfairly blamed for the problems of their underfunded agency and are worried their heads will roll next. Whoever is in the job will face the same intractable problems. Accountability simply doesn't work unless coupled with the resources to do the work. Nevertheless, every three years or so, the state announces a new commissioner who is going to fix everything. We know better. We have been to this rodeo before. There are solutions, but they will cost hundreds of millions of additional dollars. Knowing what we know, unless we as a community are willing to demand real action, we can't escape complicity in the death of the next Leiliana. F. Scott McCown is a clinical professor of law and director of the Children's Rights Clinic at The University of Texas at Austin. SHARE Revelations about the widespread use of shell companies and offshore banking by politicians and business figures have challenged the traditional model of investigative reporting. It could be the new way investigative reporting is done. The "Panama Papers" 11.5 million files, 2.6 terabytes of digital information in what one newspaper called "history's biggest data leak" came from a Panamanian law firm that specializes in setting up offshore companies. An anonymous source leaked them to a German newspaper, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which proceeded to share them with a network of other media outlets. This is new territory for journalists who usually pursue exclusives, the vaunted "scoop." Instead, this was a partnership model, coordinated by a nonprofit group that had been launched by another nonprofit group called the Center for Public Integrity, which allowed global collaboration. It was all based on trust rather than competition among journalists from different countries with differing objectives. The project did pose new challenges. Some technical, such as how to reverse-engineer databases to make the documents useful, and some more traditionally journalistic, such as how to put the information in context. But potentially more important than changes in professional reporting methods is the question of the appropriate target for investigative reporters in mainstream news media. Should the focus be on violations of norms and laws within the existing system the sphere to which conventional reporters have typically limited themselves or the nature of the system itself? The stories emerging from the Panama Papers identified specific individuals tied to illegal activity, but it also reminded us that these practices of the rich and criminal are routine. Follow-up stories, for example, have pointed out that the laws of some U.S. states, such as Delaware, allow the same shenanigans at home. The next step might be to point out that such strategies of maximizing profits without regard to the social costs are, well, kind of the way capitalism works. That could lead to people challenging the assumptions of the economic system, even if the political and business elites try to convince us that "there is no alternative," to quote the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But whether mainstream journalism can move into a deeper analysis of the routine workings of the economic system depends on the politics outside the newsroom. The freedom journalists have to report critically about an amoral wealth-concentrating economic system depends not only on freedom from government censorship, but on freedom from corporate constraints. Media owners rarely have much interest in funding and promoting such reporting, unless there are social movements demanding it. A vibrant public conversation, not just about electoral politics and the platforms of the two major parties, but also about the viability of the system itself, gives journalists more room to deepen their reporting. With a more robust public sphere, collaborative projects such as the Panama Papers will help individual journalists and small newsrooms push harder and further than we've seen in recent decades. Is this activist journalism? Perhaps. But when journalists ignore basic questions about the viability and fairness of an economic system, no one accuses the news media of being activist in favor of the wealthy. It's only when journalists challenge power at its core that the activist label is trotted out, to scare off both journalists and the public. The growing frustration of ordinary people to the everyday business practices of large corporations, combined with new models of journalistic collaboration using sophisticated techniques for analyzing data, could spark a flowering of democracy, around the world and in the United States. There are signs in newsrooms across the country that such progress is possible, as social movements for racial, gender and economic justice challenge the status quo. The success of reactionary demagogues at home and abroad reminds us such progress is not inevitable. An invigorated investigative journalism can help, not by yoking itself to any particular politician, party or program, but by keeping focused on how the routine cons and crimes of the wealthy and powerful are not only a product of individual corruption but of unjust economic and political systems. Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin and the author of "Plain Radical: Living, Loving, and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully." He can be reached at rjensen@austin.utexas.edu. Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. Despite the high level of security intelligence in Britain and Australia, another attack seems inevitable, simply because there are too many persons of interest to monitor effectively. It is assessed that there are as many as 1000 Islamist extremists in the UK, and perhaps 200 in Australia. Many of them want to go and fight for IS, but are being prevented from carrying out what they regard as their religious duty so inevitably their focus is on attacks closer to home. Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. The South Korean company is planning to build a new EV battery plant in Poland, in order to meet the increasing demand from European manufacturers. A source with knowledge of the matter spoke to Reuters, saying that the plant will be completed in about 18 months. The factory will be located in Wroclaw, Poland and will have a production capacity of 229,000 EV batteries per year, making it the second-biggest factory of its kind for LG Chem, following their production facilities in China. The company is supplying with battery packs a total of 25 car companies globally, including VW, Audi, Volvo and Renault in Europe while they are also GMs official battery supplier for the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt. They have production facilities established also in South Korea and USA, with a spokesman previously saying that they were considering adding a new production facility without providing more info. LG Chems new battery factory news came after their rival Samsung SDI -who provide batteries to BMW among others- said they were also considering building a factory in Europe and a report on Tesla discussing the possibility of using one of Frances former nuclear plants as a manufacturing facility. Note: Chevrolet Bolts Battery pack pictured PHOTO GALLERY If youre still unsure about those leaked images showing the upcoming, second generation Peugeot 3008s interior that surfaced on the web this week, a new set of scoop photos from China leaves no doubt about their authenticity. Peugeots new 3008 compact crossover will get a completely new, and very contemporary, dashboard that seems to mirror the one of the Peugeot Quartz Concept presented two years ago, in Paris. The images posted on WorldScoopforum reveal a free-floating display for the infotainment system, sitting right next to the digital instrument panel, squared-off steering wheel and fighter jet-like toggle switches that sit under the center air vents. Other features noticeable include electronic parking brake and a joystick gear selector. Peugeots 2017 3008 will be underpinned by PSAs EMP2 platform used on the 308 and Citroen C4 Picasso. The 308 compact hatch will lend most of its 3- and 4-cylinder turbocharged powertrains and, just like most modern crossovers, it will be offered with FWD. However, the automaker will probably add an AWD plug-in hybrid, later on. An exact reveal date hasnt been announced yet, but its highly likely that it will debut in Paris this fall. PHOTO GALLERY Our travelling photographer for this week's Trip Shot is Mark Boucher. As he pointed out to me, one picture is worth 1000 words, and with that in mind you're looking at the equivalent of over 10,000 words, give or take. Jack, my brother-in-law, is an avid road cyclist. However, he has never mountain biked, so he was in for a real treat, exchanging clip pedals for flat pedals. The trip started in Phoenix, Arizona. We had seven days to see and do it all, and lucked out with beautiful weather, great riding conditions, and no crowds at his time of year. We did Black Canyon and Sedona, both are a mountain biker's dream. We had a blast - enjoy the pics! __________ Been on a trip lately? Around the world, around the country, around the block, or around anything that felt like a journey? If you took pictures and want to share, drop me a line. [email protected] This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet. Photo: Google Street View The Lake Country Fire Department got to church just in time Friday morning. A Lake Country city councilor was driving by St. Edwards Catholic Church Friday morning at 10:30 when he noticed a fire had started beside the building. Fire crews arrived at the scene just as the fire, which began amongst some cedar trees, was crawling up the side of the church. It broke a couple windows and had actually just started to get into the attic space when the fire department arrived on scene, said Steve Windsor, Lake Country fire chief. Probably another five or 10 minutes and it would have been a whole different story, thats for sure. Fire crews quickly sprang into action, putting out the potentially devastating blaze. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but Windsor says there were no obvious signs of an ignition source, so theyre classifying it as suspicious. Photo: Contributed UPDATE: 7:23 p.m. Hua Hai Mai has been found and returned home. Vancouver Police are searching for eighty-five-year-old Hua Hai Mai, who was last seen in the 1500 block of East 57th Avenue around 11 a.m. MaI, who suffers from dementia, is likely wearing a black blazer, dress pants and white runners. He also uses a brown cane. He is Asian, 5'9" tall, has a skinny build and short black hair. Mai, who does not speak English, likes to take transit and has a bus pass on a lanyard around his neck with his name, address and phone number on it. . Anyone who sees Mai is asked to call 9-1-1. Photo: Contributed Police responded to more gunfire in Surrey, late Saturday. Surrey RCMP were called to the 16000 block of 93rd Avenue, in the Guildford area, about 10:30 p.m. Officers located evidence to support that shots had been fired in the area, however, no one was injured in the incident. Witnesses told police a light-coloured SUV was seen fleeing from the scene. Officers were canvassing the neighbourhood and speaking with witnesses late into the night, Staff Sgt. Joe Johal said in a press release issued after midnight. Anyone with information is asked to contact Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or www.solvecrime.ca. Photo: Flickr/RCMP Kamloops RCMP arrested a man for making threats with a gun, Saturday night. About 8:30 p.m., police received reports of a man in possession of a firearm, who had allegedly fired it and made threats to harm himself and others. Rural and city officers responded with backup by the Emergency Response Team, police helicopter and a dog unit They attempted to make contact with the man at his last known location, on Kootenay Way. He was found at a nearby home on West Shuswap Road and was arrested without incident. A search of the residence located a firearm believed to be associated to the incident. Nobody was injured in the events, Kamloops RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Cheryl Bush said in a press release. The 26-year-old is in custody, facing multiple firearms and threat-related charges. The suspect has a criminal record and is known to police. Photo: CTV UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. Vancouver police are continuing to investigate a fatal hit-and-run collision that resulted in the death of a skateboarder. Around 2:30 a.m., two men were skateboarding in the area of Heather Street and West 54th Avenue when one of the men was hit by a northbound car in the 6900 block of Heather Street. The driver of the vehicle left the scene without stopping. The skateboarder, a man in his twenties from Ontario, was rushed to the hospital where he later died from his injuries. The Vancouver Police Collision Investigation Unit remained at the scene throughout the night, and investigators are continuing to gather physical evidence from the scene and video from the surrounding neighbourhood, says Sgt. Randy Fincham. Police are looking for an older silver Mitsubishi car that is believed to have been involved in the collision, with fresh driver's side front-end and wheel damage.: Fincham says the cause of the collision has yet to be determined, but the driver is encouraged to come forward. Police are asking for anyone who sees a vehicle matching this description, or knows of a vehicle that matches this description that has since been taken off the road, or has been otherwise concealed, to call police. Anyone with information about this collision is asked to call the Vancouver Police at (604) 717-3012 or Crime Stoppers at 1 (800) 222-8477. ORIGINAL: 6:45 a.m. A skateboarder was killed in a hit-and-run collision in Vancouver overnight. Vancouver Police spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham says two men were skateboarding in the area of Heather Street and West 52nd Avenue about 2:30 a.m. Sunday when one of them was hit by a car. The driver of the vehicle left the scene without stopping, Fincham said in a press release. The skateboarder died as a result of his injuries. The VPD collision investigation unit has been called to the scene. Further information is expected to be released this morning. In an effort to get British Columbians out their front doors and exploring their own province, Destination BC has launched a major in-province marketing and media campaign. From print to billboards to social media and videos, the campaign aims to grab the attention of residents within the provincial borders. Those interested are invited to visit the Explore BC website which offers trip ideas, travel tips and deals. Visitors are also encouraged to tag #explorebc in social media posts when they share their images and experiences, locally visitors are asked to tag #explorekelowna too. The video above was posted to the Destination British Columbia Facebook page last week, and it already has more than 1,200 shares. The video highlights areas from around the province, including a vineyard of the sunny Okanagan. British Columbia, wilderness at civilization's edge. Mountains, ocean, rainforest and cities beckon us to explore, writes Destination BC. Dr. Charles Robert Ireland, of Signal Mountain, died on Saturday, April 16, 2016 at Alexian Village. He was born in 1919 in Tifton, Ga., to the late Eschol Lawson and Mary Gertrude Ireland. Dr. Ireland served in the Medical Administrative Corps in WWII. After a period of training at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine, he served as laboratory officer, Station Hospital, Mississippi Ordnance Plant, Flora, MS. After discharge from the service, he attended the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia, where he graduated with honors and was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. After a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Cardiology he began his practice in Macon, GA, He participated in the establishment of a Coronary Care Unit (the second in the state) at the Medical Center of Central Georgia and the Coliseum Park Hospital. Dr. Ireland was a charter member of the Board of Trustees, Coliseum Park Hospital and served at various times as chief of Staff at Coliseum Park, the Medical Center, and Middle Georgia hospitals. He is a past president of the Bibb County Medical Society. He was preceded in death by his wife, Arlyne in 2007. He is survived by his son, Bob Jr. and his wife Terry, daughter, Kathleen Mary and her husband Brian, four grandchildren, Stuart, Anne, Eric, and Ed, and stepson, Robert Ronald Hudson. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Caritas or a charity of your choice. Funeral services will be held in the chapel at Alexian Village on Wednesday, April 20, at 11:15 a.m. Interment will follow at Chattanooga National Cemetery. Please visit www.heritagechattanooga.com to share words of comfort to the family. Arrangements are by Heritage Funeral Home, 7454 E. Brainerd Road. A sign in support of net neutrality stands outside the Federal Communications Commission headquarters on May 14, 2014, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) If you thought the battle over net neutrality ended when the Federal Communications Commission slapped a series of unprecedented rules on Internet providers last year, think again. For months, the tech and telecom industries have been waiting for a court decision on net neutrality. It's the result of a legal appeal filed last year by companies such as AT&T and trade groups like the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. The lawsuit could overturn some or all of the rules, and nobody is quite sure how it'll turn out. Advertisement Any day now, the court is expected to release its decision - and many in Washington are bracing for the result. Here's why it's so important, and what you need to know to get caught up. 'Net neutrality.' Remind me again? Advertisement It's been a while, so as a refresher: Net neutrality is the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by your broadband provider. Under this idea, companies such as Verizon and Comcast shouldn't slow down or block websites or online content that they don't like, and they shouldn't allow some to go faster just because they've paid a fee. Net neutrality advocates would consider this to be discriminatory behavior and say that it would completely change the nature of the Web. In light of that, the FCC moved to preempt that kind of activity with its rules last year. And then the industry sued? Yes, in hopes of getting those rules overturned. This is actually not the first time that net neutrality has been taken up in court: Today's rules are a direct result of the FCC having to redraft its regulations after Verizon successfully persuaded a court in 2014 to toss out many of the old rules on the books. So how is the court likely to rule now? Anything could happen. But court-watchers on both sides say that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will uphold the most important piece of the FCC's new regulations: reclassification. Reclassification? In order to legally impose a ban on the blocking and slowing of Internet traffic, the FCC needed to "reclassify" Internet providers under a different category of the law. By defining them differently, the FCC gained additional authority over broadband companies, allowing the agency to regulate them as it does with legacy telephone companies. Internet providers in the lawsuit said the agency didn't have the right to do what it did, and they worry that it gives the FCC too much power to impose new privacy requirements, levy fees or even directly set prices for service. That's one reason for the lawsuit. Advertisement So the court could uphold the reclassification decision? That's what many in Washington are expecting it to do, anyway. But, they add, the three judges may rule differently when it comes to the FCC's rules for wireless carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile. Industry officials have argued that even if the FCC can legally reclassify providers of wired, fixed broadband, the law still doesn't allow the FCC to sweep wireless carriers under the same umbrella. The FCC has said that it is confident the rules will survive judicial scrutiny. Could this go to the Supreme Court? Maybe. Some legal scholars think it won't get that far. The ruling could spur Congress to finally write legislation addressing net neutrality that would resolve the impasse once and for all. Or, the Supreme Court may receive a petition but not act on it, as it generally tends to intervene when A) there's a clear question of constitutional interpretation involved or B) there are two competing rulings from different courts on the same issue. An appeal to the Supreme Court also carries a bit of risk for whoever is escalating the case. Here's why. With Justice Antonin Scalia's seat still empty, a 4-4 tie vote at the Supreme Court automatically allows the lower court's ruling to stand. Suppose you're an Internet provider and you "lose" at the D.C. Circuit. If you appeal to the Supreme Court and there's a split decision, you've still lost. Advertisement Still, other analysts believe that a Supreme Court confrontation is inevitable, because somebody could file a lawsuit on net neutrality in another appellate court, potentially provoking a circuit split for the high court to solve. Or they could bide their time until there's a ninth justice on the bench, which could offer more clarity as to the path forward. And there is a First Amendment component to the lawsuit that essentially amounts to Supreme Court bait, but it's unclear how much traction it will have with the highest court in the land. Sounds complicated. And you're not wrong. But important issues often are. A mother has accused two Georgia elementary school administrators of giving her an ultimatum: Allow your 5-year-old son to be paddled or face jail time. "They told me if he could not get a paddling he would have to be suspended and if he got suspended for even one day I WILL go to jail for truancy," Shana Marie Perez wrote in a Facebook posting that included video of son Thomas in a struggle with two administrators. "I could not go to jail or my kids would have nothing . . . I can't take care of my kids in jail." "I couldn't do anything to stop them," she added. Perez told NBC affiliate WXIA that the incident amounted to abuse and that she's considering legal action. The video, which has been shared nearly 60,000 times, was filmed Wednesday and shows the principal and the assistant principal of Jasper County Primary School in Monticello, Ga., attempting to bend the boy over a chair and spank him with a long wooden paddle as he resists and pleads for help. Perez, who pretended to be texting, filmed two more videos showing the altercation, which eventually resulted in the boy being paddled, according to NBC News. In response to the videos, the Jasper County School District posted a statement on its website last week saying the district is barred by state and federal law from commenting on the details of the incident. "The District respects every student's right to privacy," the statement said. "However, we can speak generally about the District's code of conduct which allows corporal punishment as one of the consequences for behavior. That code of conduct is provided to all parents. When corporal punishment is used, it is with parental consent." "The District is investigating the incident and looking into its discipline policies at this time," the statement added. The Jasper County Sheriff's Office released this statement in response to the controversy on their Facebook page. Perez told WXIA that the incident was the culmination of an ongoing dispute she has had with her son's principal over his spotty attendance record. She claims a medical problem has resulted in the boy missing 18 days of school this year, but administrators had her arrested for truancy, the station reported. When her son faced punishment for a disciplinary problem that arose last week, she told the station, administrators informed her that if she attempted to stop them from paddling her son, the boy would be suspended. Perez was out on bond when the incident occurred and feared that a suspension would land her behind bars, which would force her to miss work and be unable to take care of her children. Perez told WXIA that she declined at the beginning of the year to give school administrators permission to use corporal punishment. She said that when she met with administrators last week to discuss the recent disciplinary issue, she felt helpless to stop administrators from paddling her son. She called what happened "emotionally devastating." If she could go back, she said, she would have stopped the paddling - regardless of the possibility of landing in jail. "I feel like she manipulated me," Perez told the station, referring to the principal. "She knew that I was scared. She kept saying he couldn't miss any more days of school." "She said nothing is going to stop him - not a timeout, not an ISS, nothing but a paddle - because he doesn't have a consequence at school." The most widely shared video shows Principal Pam Edge and the assistant principal, Lynn McElheney, attempting to hold Thomas down while they calmly tell him that he's going to be paddled. McElheney tells Thomas that they will hit him only once on the buttocks. "Unless you wiggle around," Edge adds. While they struggle to keep Thomas still, he screams and squirms before appealing to his mother. "Mommy, help me," he cries. The fight to keep the doors open at St. Adalbert Catholic Church, which has been called the mother church of Polish parishes on the city's West and South sides, is the latest in a series of ongoing skirmishes between historic preservationists and church officials. The scaffolding that shrouds the church's twin 185-foot towers symbolizes a broader conundrum: Which churches should be saved? And how to go about saving them? The uniform and portrait of Army Specialist Christopher Patterson was front and center during a ceremony Saturday in North Aurora. (Linda Girardi / Beacon-News) A section of Illinois 31 in North Aurora was renamed Saturday to honor Army Spc. Christopher Patterson in a ceremony attended by about 250 people, including Gov. Bruce Rauner. Patterson was 20 years old when the Humvee in which he was riding struck an explosive device in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan on Jan. 6, 2012, killing him and three other members of the 713th Engineer Company on board. The West Aurora graduate was a member of the Indiana National Guard. Advertisement "I never thought a day like today would happen to my family," Mary Patterson said of her son's death and the subsequent honor he received. Christopher Patterson's family, friends, military colleagues, Valparaiso University classmates and local dignitaries attended the ceremony at the northeast corner of Illinois 31 and State Street. West Aurora Air Force JROTC members held U.S. flags during a staged procession to the site. Advertisement "My hope is every time you drive down this road and see the signage, you will think of all those who paid the ultimate price for your freedoms," Mary Patterson told those gathered. "Christopher, you will always be in my heart. May your love of humanity be with all those who read this sign in the future." Rauner rode with about 50 motorcyclists from the Illinois Patriot Guard in a motorcade that escorted Patterson family members from their home to the staging area. A soldier's uniform and Christopher Patterson's portrait were front and center. A U.S. flag measuring 60 feet by 30 feet erected by the North Aurora Fire Department waved in the breeze over the gathering. Gold Star families filled the first three rows of seats. Patterson was studying music at Valparaiso University in Indiana when he was deployed to Afghanistan. "His last concerts will always be close to my heart. I loved hearing his tenor voice I could usually pick it out of the choir," Mary Patterson said. "I will never forget his high school solo. It brought tears to my eyes because it was so beautiful." Her son had a strong faith and brought others "to Christ by sharing Bible verses with them," she said. He talked about becoming a chaplain when he joined the Army, she said. "Christopher would always have a smile or hug if he saw people were sad. ... He was special to so many. He served his country because it was the right thing to do," his mother said. Robert Patterson described his son as thoughtful and selfless. "To him, it was about everyone else. He wanted to be sure everyone succeeded. That's what drives me today," he said. Advertisement Rauner said he knew the sacrifice the Patterson family made, saying, "There is a hole in your hearts no one can fill." He also recognized the Gold Star families in attendance. "We can never bring your loved ones back, but what we can commit to do is never forget," Rauner said. Army veteran Douglas Rachowicz, the sole survivor of the Humvee attack, described Christopher Patterson as a highly skilled soldier who often would assist others in areas that were not "in their lane." Renaming part of a road in Patterson's hometown was fitting for the kind of person he was, Rachowicz said. "Nothing will ever be enough because we can't bring him back, but this is definitely a nice way to remember him," the Army veteran said. He wears a memory bracelet with the names of his comrades killed that day. The other three who died were Staff Sgt. Jonathan Metzger, Sgt. Brian Leonhardt and Spc. Robert Tauteris Jr. Advertisement Patriot Guard Capt. David Grier approached the governor's office about renaming part of Illinois 31 to honor the fallen soldier. "The Patterson family paid the ultimate price. No one should ever have to bury a son," Grier said after the ceremony. Alums from Patterson's Valparaiso music fraternity Matthew Maske, of Hampshire, and Mark Mackeben, of Yorkville were among those who attended the event. The group opened the ceremonies with an a capella rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. U.S. Marines veteran Carl Patterson, 23, received word of his brother's death the day he finished boot camp and officially became a Marine. "I am glad we can do this. I hate that we have to do this," he said, speaking after the ceremony. "Chris knew life was about doing what you can for your fellow man. ... That's how he lived his life." Advertisement State Reps. Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora; Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego; and Mike Fortner, R-West Chicago; and state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, attended the event, as did North Aurora Mayor Dale Berman. Holmes said she did not know Christopher Patterson personally but that did not diminish her "debt of gratitude" for the ultimate sacrifice the young man paid for his country. "For families, the loss never goes away," Holmes said. "There will always be an empty place at the holiday table, and the hole in their hearts can never be filled, especially for a young man whose life shone as brightly and as honorable as Christopher's," Holmes said. Chapa LaVia, an Army veteran, presented the House resolution designating the roadway as Spc. Christopher A. Patterson Memorial Highway. The designation will remain "for eternity," she said. Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News. After many years of battling bipolar disorder, Kevin Hines jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge only to survive and make it his life's mission to tell his story in the hopes of helping others living with mental illness. He will speak to students during the day, and the public is invited to hear him at no cost at 7 p.m. April 28 at East Aurora High School. A 54-year-old Antioch Township woman hit a man with a pipe then shot him in the hand during an early Saturday domestic dispute, police said. Vickie V. Orsini-Harvey and the man had gotten into an argument that escalated when she hit him with a metal pipe at her home in the 25400 block of West Hilldale Avenue, according to a news release from the Lake County Sheriff's office. Advertisement Orsini-Harvey then left the room to get a handgun, which she fired twice about 12:30 a.m., police said. The first shot damaged her home and the second struck the man in the hand, according to the release. The man, who police did not identify, called 911 and an ambulance took him to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where he was treated and released, police said. Advertisement Orsini-Harvey "admitted her role in the shooting" and was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm, aggravated domestic battery causing great bodily harm and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to the release. She is being held at the Lake County Jail on $500,000.00 bail and scheduled to be back in court May 10. emcoleman@tribpub.com Twitter @mekcoleman You are here: Home A college student in southwest China's Sichuan Province remains in police custody after he allegedly stabbed his roommate to death on March 27. Police of Longquanyi district of Chengdu city on Friday confirmed the detention and the incident. The victim, identified by his surname Lu, was a freshman in Sichuan Normal University. He was stabbed over 50 times and beheaded by his roommate, identified by the surname Teng, around midnight, according to Lu's cousin who was informed of the murder by the university at 1:10 a.m. on March 28. Lu, born in 1995 in Gansu Province, was raised by his uncle, following his father's death when he was just a toddler. The cousin said Lu had been outgoing and friendly. Lu allegedly got into an altercation with Teng on March 26, as Teng objected to Lu singing in the dormitory, but two other roommates helped the two make amends. Teng left the campus on March 27, and returned to his dormitory late at night, and asked Lu to accompany him to a nearby study room. Teng later returned to the dormitory, asking the other roommates to call the police and went back to the study room and locked the door. Teng was arrested at the school. Campus murders resulting from dormitory disagreements in recent years have raised concerns about students' psychological state and interpersonal relationships. In 2004, Ma Jiajue, 23, a biochemistry student at southwest China's Yunnan University, killed four roommates after what were described as "trivial squabbles." Another famous case involved a medical student ,Lin Senhao, who poisoned his roommate Huang Yang at Fudan University in Shanghai in 2013. A Chinese mainland spokesman on Saturday urged Taiwan to give fraud suspects "the punishment they deserve," stressing that the release of them will only make fraud more rampant and harm cross-Strait law enforcement cooperation. Taiwan police earlier on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud. "By releasing the suspects, Taiwan authorities disregarded many victims' interests and harmed them a second time. It also harmed the two sides' cooperation in jointly cracking down on crimes," said An Fengshan, the spokesman with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office. Late last month, Malaysian and Chinese mainland police cooperated on an investigation into five transnational telecommunication fraud cases involving victims on the mainland, and arrested a total of 119 suspects, including 65 from the mainland, 52 from Taiwan and two from Malaysia. The spokesman urged Taiwan to "immediately rectify their mistakes, eliminate the adverse impact, seriously pursue these suspects' wrongdoings and give them the punishment they deserve," so as to protect the victims' interests and prevent greater damage to the development of cross-Strait relations. Syndicates led by suspects from Taiwan and based in Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania have been falsely presenting themselves as law enforcement officers to extort money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls, according to the police. In the past few years, police from the mainland and Taiwan have arrested more than 7,700 suspects, about 4,600 from Taiwan, in 47 joint operations to fight telecom fraud based in Southeast Asia. In many cases handled by Taiwan judicial organs, Taiwan suspects were not brought to justice and victims on the mainland were unable to retrieve their lost money, An said earlier this week. Kenyan police deported 77 Chinese telecom fraud suspects, including 45 Taiwanese, to the Chinese mainland over the past week. Countdown [By Zhai Haijun / China.org.cn] If the European Union was a nation it would have the largest economy in the world; but a century after the First World War, can Europe produce enduring prosperity and permanent peace? Over the last five centuries, European states unified the world under their dominion but internal conflicts and contradictions dominate European history. And the 52 sovereign states of Europe are divided by geographical complexities and long-term historical conflicts that are sporadically reawakened and undermine prospects for unity. Norman Angell's 1910 book, "The Great Illusion," argued that the integration and interdependence of Europe would prevent future wars. However, between 1914 and 1945, wars and political conflicts killed 100 million Europeans. From 1945 until the early 1990s, the continent was occupied by the Soviet Union and the United States. This maintained a peaceful balance of power based on the fear of a nuclear war - driven by the conflict between contradictory socio-economic systems. At that time, the idea of a unified Western Europe was supported and promoted by the United States. After the collapse of the Communist-led governments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, members of the European Union signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. It was designed to foster prosperity and to draw new European states into an ever-closer union. However, the United States orchestrated a number of so-called "color revolutions" in Ukraine, Georgia, and other new countries surrounding Russia. In 2008, the Russian invasion of Georgia showed that Russia would not take this encroachment into their previous spheres of influence lying down. When the 2008 economic crisis struck, it shattered illusions of economic stability and competence in Western capitalism. Europeans lacked a concentrated and unified means of interstate decision-making to contain and control the crisis. This is largely because the interests of different European capitalist states conflicted with each other. Germanic political and economic structures are based on a different model than U.S. capitalism. Indeed, the Germanic and American models can be seen as two basic but distinct types of capitalism, the Germanic variety being more controlled and interventionist and the U.S. variety being more closely aligned to free market philosophy. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. You are here: Home Flash Suspected Rwandan rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) attacked a police station in overnight raid in western Rwanda, the army said on Saturday. "During the night of 15-16 April 2016, suspected FDLR terrorists elements infiltrated our country from the Democratic Republic of Congo and attacked a Rwanda National Police Station in Rubavu District, Bugeshi Sector, Kabumba Cell," Lt Col Rene Ngendahimana, the deputy army spokesman said in a statement. He said the attackers were repulsed back by National Defense and Security Forces to DR Congo, and the situation on the ground was reported to be under full control. The statement said any other development related to the incident will be communicated later. Bugeshi Sector lies on the Rwanda-DR Congo border where the rebels were blamed for attacks and sometimes fire exchanges with Rwandan army. FDLR is made up of elements blamed for the 1994 genocide. Flash Jean-Marc Ayrault, French Foreign Minister(2nd L) and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier(1st R) attend a press conference in Tripoli, Libya on April 16, 2016. French and German Foreign Ministers on Saturday said their countries will support the new Libyan government.(Xinhua/Hamza Turkia) French and German foreign ministers on Saturday flew to Libya in a sign to support government unity which they called "a major step towards establishing a government representing the whole of Libya." French top diplomat Jean-Marc Ayrault and his German counterpart Walter Steinmeier, expressed full support to Libya and vowed their determination to help to restore security, fight terrorism and provide public services for the benefit of all Libyans, France's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Ayrault and Steinmeier also called on all parties in Libya "to act responsibly at this decisive time for the future of their country by facilitating an immediate peaceful handover of power and by providing full support to the government of national accord." Unity government headed by Fayyez Sarraj, should "swiftly assume their rightful role in exerting sole control over all public bodies and security and military forces in Libya, in order to respond to the numerous expectations of the Libyan people, " they added. The top diplomats of Europe's two key powers pledged to reopen their embassies in the North African country "as soon as security conditions would allow," according to the statement. Since Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011, Libya has been plunged into chaotic violence, putting at risk the security in the Maghreb region. After four-year-long political vacuum, delegates from Libya's rival factions signed, on December 2015, a UN-brokered deal to form a national unity government. Parents cry after confirming that their daughter was found dead at their collapsed house after earthquakes in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] A total of 41 people have been killed in two strong earthquakes in Japan. At least 32 people were confirmed dead after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan's southwestern Kumamoto Prefecture in the early hours of Saturday. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said that the massive quake on Saturday was the main event while the 6.5-magnitude quake earlier that killed at least 9 people was a foreshock. The agency also warned that severe aftershocks might still follow, and as heavy wind and rain was predicted in the Kyushu area from Saturday night, residents should be wary of landslides and other secondary disasters. The prefectural governments of Kumamoto and Oita have required 160,000 residents in the danger zones to evacuate. The 7.3 magnitude quake that struck Kumamoto at the depth of about 12 kilometers early on Saturday triggered a tsunami warning which was later lifted. Numerous aftershocks followed the massive quake. As of 5:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, more than 30 shocks over magnitude 4 have been reported, causing extensive damages to the stricken region. Local media also reported a "small-scale" eruption at Mount Aso, a large active volcano in Kumamoto. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said later that the volcano was still active on Saturday afternoon but the eruption was not linked to the quakes. Over 2,000 people were reported injured in the quakes. In Kumamoto Prefecture, some 91,000 people were evacuated to over 680 shelters, and over 1,700 houses damaged, including 1,400 in the village of Nishihara. BEIJING -- China has banned unauthorized online lottery sales, citing risks to lottery players' interests The Ministry of Finance pointed to "rampant irregularities" in online lottery sales and said that lottery sales organizations have also entrusted Internet companies with sales services without official authorization. According to a statement, some Internet companies have even sold fraudulent lottery tickets. Online lottery sales must now be officially approved by authorities including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the General Administration of Sport and the Ministry of Finance. Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin said recently that the central government would spend 100 billion yuan ($15.3 billion) in the next two years to help resettle 1.8 million laid-off workers in coal, steel and other sectors that suffer from overcapacity. This shows the central authorities' determination to reduce overcapacity as well as resettle laid-off workers. But the resettlement of laid-off workers should not depend only on the central government's 100 billion yuan allocation. Enterprises have to play the principal role in the resettlement, and local governments should plan and coordinate the entire process. Four essential arrangements have to be made for the resettlement of laid-off workers in industries with overcapacity: internal arrangements in enterprises, job transfer and start-ups, early retirement schemes, and creation of public welfare posts. The parties involved in the process should shoulder their responsibilities according to the demands of the arrangement plans, and the resettlement fund should be channeled to the laid-off workers no matter which plan they choose. Internal arrangement in enterprises means enterprises should create new posts depending on their existing facilities and the technologies they use, in order to help laid-off workers get new jobs. In this process, the enterprises have to take the major responsibility and inject more funds to ensure laid-off workers are re-employed, and local authorities should offer preferential policies, funding support and subsidy to the enterprises. The enterprises should also use more resources to start targeted job-transfer training programs for workers who are likely to be laid off. Local governments, on their part, should start re-employment support programs, and expand their special re-employment and unemployment insurance funds. And to make the entire process effective, the authorities should strengthen monitoring and supervision of the support programs. For those workers who will retire within five years and could voluntarily seek early retirement, the enterprises could sign agreements with them to change the labor contracts according to the law. However, the enterprises still have to provide the basic living allowance to such workers and pay their basic pension insurance and medical insurance premiums. In case of enterprises that are likely to close down, they should terminate the labor contracts according to the law with employees who are close to the retirement age and ensure the resettlement funds are directed to them. As far as the workers are concerned, they could choose to get one-time monetary compensation, or receive basic living allowance from government-appointed organizations till they reach the retirement age. During this period, their basic living allowance, and pension and medical insurance premiums have to be paid by the government-appointed organizations using the enterprises' funds earmarked for the purpose. Since enterprises play a big role in reducing overcapacity, they should offer monetary compensation to laid-off workers, and pay their due salaries and social insurance premiums as well. Moreover, local governments should improve their tax and financial policies to help enterprises reduce overcapacity according to the central government's guideline. The local authorities, for example, could offer rewards to industries that are under huge pressure to resettle laid-off workers, in a bid to encourage enterprises to accomplish the task. And local governments are responsible for the resettlement of laid-off workers in respect of social security. The authority should encourage employees to join social insurance project, make sure they enjoy the benefit of social insurance including unemployment insurance and re-employment supportive policies, and guarantee the basic living of laid-off workers with financial difficulties. The central government, too, has responsibilities to fulfill. It should establish special funds, for instance, to guide, support and reward those enterprises that reduce overcapacity through mergers and acquisitions, debt restructuring and bankruptcy liquidation. The resettlement funds for laid-off workers are aimed at protecting workers' vital interests, and helping expedite reform and industrial restructuring. Therefore, the responsibilities of enterprises, the central government and local governments should be clearly demarcated, in order to prevent one party from passing the buck to another, motivate all parties involved to deliver results and raise funds for the resettlement of laid-off workers. The author is deputy director of Social Security Research Institute, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Taiwan police on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. Most of the suspects wore masks upon their arrival at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport. Taiwan police released all of them at about 2 a.m. Saturday due to "incomplete evidence for any crime and a lack of arrest warrants." They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud. Late last month, Malaysian and Chinese mainland police cooperated on an investigation into five transnational telecommunication fraud cases involving victims on the mainland, and arrested a total of 119 suspects, including 65 from the mainland, 52 from Taiwan and two from Malaysia. Chang'an Automobile's driverless cars (silver cars at the bottom lane) run across the Yellow River Bridge on Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, April 15, 2016. Two driverless cars produced by Chang'an Automobile in China started a 2,000-km test drive from Chongqing to China's capital Beijing on April 12 and arrived in Beijing on April 16. Chang'an is aiming to put driverless cars into commercial use in 2018. Worldwide, at least 18 companies are developing autonomous cars, including BMW, Audi and Toyota. China's contenders include auto makers BAIC group, GAC Group, SAIC Motor, Chang'an and BYD. [Photo/Xinhua] CHONGQING - Two self-driving cars on Saturday afternoon wrapped up a 2,000-km (1,240 miles) journey in China's first long-distance road test for autonomous vehicles. The vehicles, produced by Chang'an Automobile, left the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing on Tuesday and arrived at Beijing at about 5 p.m. Saturday. The cars successfully drove distance from other vehicles, changed lanes, overtook and performed other maneuvers including three-point turns automatically but still need the help of a driver in certain road sections and gas stations, the designers said. The maximum speed of the cars reached 120 kilometers per hour. Tan Benhong, deputy director of the Chang'an Automobile Engineering & Research Institute, said they would improve the technologies based on the results of the test and then to prepare for mass production. Chang'an plans to put driverless cars into commercial use in 2018, Tan said. Worldwide, at least 18 companies are developing autonomous cars, including BMW, Audi and Toyota. China's contenders include auto makers BAIC group, GAC Group, SAIC Motor, Chang'an and BYD. A pedestrian looks at his smartphone in front of an advertisement for taxi-hailing app Uber in Jinan city, east China's Shandong province, in this Dec 15, 2014 file photo. [Photo/IC] BEIJING - Undaunted by ride-hailing app Didi's dominance in the Chinese market, Uber sees potential to chip away at the company's virtual monopoly outside first-tier cities. Uber said on Thursday its ride-hailing service in Hefei, provincial capital of east China's Anhui Province, grew by over 30 percent daily since launching in March, the fastest uptake rate the company has seen in about 400 cities around the world where it operates. Uber now accounts for more than 50 percent of ride-hailing service in the city. UberPool, which allows drivers to pick up more than one paying passengers at a time, was launched last year to compete directly with Didi in ride-sharing services. China's "sharing economy" is booming, and ride services are gaining popularity as an alternative to public transportation for daily commutes. While conventional wisdom holds that top-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are the easiest places for a business to launch in China, Uber has had far better success in China's second- and third-tier cities, said Wen Yilong, who runs Uber's Hefei operations, in a company press release. Hangzhou in eastern China and the southwestern economic powerhouse Chengdu, both second-tier cities, used to be Uber's two best performing cities in the world. Smartphones and mobile Internet are closing the gap between China's megacities and the rest. That puts cities big and small on the same starting line because "apps used by people in large cities are also used by their peers in small cities," Wen said. Like many foreign companies, Uber has made inroads into the Chinese market through top-tier cities since 2014 and began to penetrate smaller cities during the second half of last year. The ride-hailing app seeks to expand its presence in 100 Chinese cities this year, including previously uncovered northeastern and western regions. Uber's ride-hailing service is currently available in 50 cities. Rival Didi has a far bigger presence, operating in more than 400 Chinese cities and held 84.1 percent of the ride-hailing market nationwide as of February, according to data compiled by iResearch. Liu Zhen, head of strategy for Uber China, said the company is eyeing a disciplined expansion in China and will weigh the decision to enter new cities based on a number of criteria, including local population, level of development and consumption patterns. Uber's global CEO Travis Kalanick said last month that the company is using profits earned from other foreign markets to fund operations in China, where he thinks competition and growth are both unrivaled. File photo of Shao Ziyan. [Photo from web] A woman died at the young age of around 20 but not before giving new life not only to a pair of twins, but also to four other people. Shao Ziyan had been in coma since Feb 23 when she gave birth to twin boys. After 53 days of treatment at intensive care unit (ICU), her heart stopped beating at 10:01 am April 15, Friday. Hours later, her heart, kidneys and liver were successfully transplanted to four people. Her corneas were also donated and frozen and would be used in the future, local online news portal in Zhejiang province zjol.com.cn reported Saturday. Shao's story was shared on the social media Friday night by doctors and moved many people. Donations surged since then and exceeded 230,000 yuan ($35,500) by Saturday. Shao's family launched an online donation appeal about six days ago. The story of the young mother who died at a blooming age is sad. She met and fell in love with hair stylist Chen Shanhai in Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province, two years ago and they decided to marry in the second half of this year after childbirth. However, Shao was diagnosed with acute liver enlargement due to pregnancy on Feb 22, and multiple organs failure. It was more than 40 days before the expected date of delivery, and both she and the unborn children were in critical conditions. The boys were safely born in C-Section the next day and were hospitalized for about one month and recovered from infections accompanying early birth. Shao was not as lucky as her sons. She had been in deep coma since then. The hospital in Jiaxing pronounced her brain dead and the family transferred her to a better hospital in Hangzhou, the provincial capital, on April 12 to have a final try. "The doctor told us that by donating organs the life of my daughter could be resumed in other people. It feels like she were still alive and had never left me," Shao Wanhua, Shao's father, said. It is extremely difficult in China to get donated organs, according to Dr Wu Xiaoliang with the First Hospital of Zhejiang Province in Hangzhou. Only one in 30-50 patients could get transplanted organs, and currently there are more than 2,000 patients waiting for organs in the hospital, said Wu. China has faced a severe shortage of donated organs because of traditional beliefs that many people cannot accept the idea of their body being buried incomplete. Because of the lack of organs, some patients have had to wait for months or even years for suitable organs. Only two in every one million deaths said they would donate organs after death in China, compared to 30 in developed countries, according to Wu. The organ donation system has developed fast since China decided to stop using organs from executed prisoners for transplant surgery on Jan 1 last year, making voluntary donations from citizens the only source, Huang Jiefu, chairman of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, said earlier this month. TAIPEI -- Political parties and media outlets in Taiwan have denounced telecom fraud and said the suspects must be brought to justice, after Taiwan police on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia. The Kuomintang (KMT) on Saturday released a statement saying that the party was concerned about the harm born by the victims and the negative impact the fraudsters' actions have had on the image of the island. The party called for a joint denouncement of the criminals and called for justice to be served. Hung Hsiu-chu, the newly-elected chair of the KMT, warned that Taiwan should avoid becoming known as an "exporter of fraud rings." Taiwan police on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who had been deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud. Taiwan's New Party said the immediate release of the fraud suspects at the airport triggered public outcry from both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. The prevalence of fraud rings in Taiwan have harmed numerous innocent people across the Strait, it said, adding the general public in Taiwan were outraged by the light punishment and what appeared to be the condoning of criminal activity. An article carried by Taiwan's Want Daily newspaper said Taiwan's handling of the fraud suspects rubbed salt into the wounds of the victim, making the island synonymous with the title: "a heaven for fraudsters." Netizens in Taiwan also condemned the crimes and called for penalties for any law breakers. MOSCOW -- Russia will work together with China to safeguard regional peace and international security, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has said. The direction and form of Russia-China military cooperation have been determined by the two countries' heads of state, Antonov said Friday during a joint interview with Xinhua and China Central Television (CCTV). "The cooperation between China and Russia in the military sphere is not directed against someone," he said. "Our interaction is aimed at strengthening the security of our countries, taking into account the international obligations of China and Russia, and the fact that both countries are permanent UN Security Council members," he added. Antonov went on praising the two countries' joint military activities, including various kinds of drills, which "secure the best compatibility and mutual understanding of our armed forces." Moreover, he said, multilateral military cooperation has improved markedly in the past three years within such frameworks as the UN Security Council, the UN Conference on Disarmament, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS, a thriving cooperation mechanism that groups the world's five leading emerging economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. "A more tight interaction between the military departments corresponds to the national interests of all the SCO member countries, and we expect this interaction to proceed," Antonov said. With more and more interaction between the Russian and Chinese defense ministries every year, Antonov said, prospects for cooperation with China have become much brighter. "There is a lot we can do together to strengthen security of China and the Russian Federation," he said when particularly mentioning the threat of terrorism in the region, which probably could spill over from the unstable Afghanistan. The issue of fighting terrorism has been chosen as a key topic for the Fifth Moscow International Security Conference scheduled for April 27-28, Antonov said. The anti-terror fight "requires common approaches, common understanding and common solutions," Antonov said, noting that several countries in the Asia-Pacific region are infiltrated by militants of Daesh, also known as the Islamic State or IS. He also blamed the United States for planning to deploy elements of a missile defense system in the Asia-Pacific region, which, besides presenting a direct threat to China and Russia, has a wider implication as to undermining the global security system. By saturating the region with warships, fighters and bombers and setting up different kinds of military bases, the United States does not contribute to strengthening regional peace and security, Antonov said. Countries in the region should take the initiative and make joint efforts for the establishment of a new and broader security system, he noted. Debris is pictured after an earthquake struck off Ecuador's Pacific coast, at Tarqui neighborhood in Manta April 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] QUITO -- The strongest earthquake to jolt Ecuador in decades has killed 233 people, the country's President Rafael Correa said on Sunday, as rescuers raced to dig out survivors trapped in the rubble. At least 233 people have been confirmed dead so far, up from an initial count of 77 dead and nearly 600 wounded, Correa wrote on Twitter while flying back from Italy to deal with the 7.8-magnitude temblor which struck off the country's Pacific coast Saturday night. Vice President Jorge Glas was heading to Portoviejo, the hard-struck city on the Pacific coast, Correa added. The earthquake struck at 18:58 local time (2358 GMT) with its epicenter at a depth of 10 kilometers located in northwest of Ecuador's coast. The quake, felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, cracked highways and collapsed buildings in a swath of western towns, causing panic as far away as in the capital city of Quito when buildings were swayed. A state of emergency has been declared in six provinces. There were deaths in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil, all of which are located several hundred kilometers from the center of the quake. Pedernales, a tourist spot town of 40,000 near the quake's epicenter, were largely flattened. The quake was the strongest to hit Ecuador since 1979 and accessing the disaster zone was extremely difficult due to landslides in the hilly country. Up to now, over 135 aftershocks, some as strong as 5.6 on the Richter scale, have been reported in the wake of Saturday's powerful quake, the country's seismological institute said. Ecuador's Risk Management agency said 10,000 armed forces have been deployed to help and 3,700 national police and firefighters were heading to the towns of Manabi, Esmeraldas and Guayas. In addition, five shelters have been set up for evacuation. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the tsunami threat from the quake has now mostly passed. Police officers check a collapsed house after an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 17, 2016.[Photo/Agencies] A group of 20 Chinese tourists have been moved away from an earthquake-hit area of Japan, China's consulate-general in Fukuoka said on Sunday. The tourists were moved on Saturday, with weekend quakes also reported in Ecuador in South America and the Pacific island nation of Tonga. The consulate-general warned Chinese tourists not to visit the Kyushu area of Japan, where a quake jolted Kumamoto prefecture on Thursday night. Forty-one people were killed and 1,500 injured. There were no reports of Chinese casualties. On Saturday morning, a magnitude-7.3 quake hit Kyushu's other prefectures of Oita, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Miyazaki and Kagoshima. In Ecuador, the Risk Management Agency said 10,000 armed forces personnel were deployed to help people in a coastal area stuck by a magnitude-7.8 quake. The country's vice-president put the death toll at 77, with 588 people injured. A magnitude-6.1 quake hit Tonga on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said. It struck 277 kilometers southeast of the capital Nuku'alofa at a depth of 66 kilometers. In Japan, rail services on the Kyushu Shinkansen line were suspended and road links cut. The Chinese consulate-general in Fukuoka, which sent two teams to Kumamoto prefecture, said it was trying to help Chinese citizens, Chinese employees in the China-funded companies and travelers from the country. The Chinese embassy in Tokyo on Saturday asked Chinese citizens in Japan to take measures to safeguard themselves from earthquakes and other disasters. Japanese seismologists fear that a series of quakes jolting Kyushu could trigger tremors elsewhere on the southwestern island, according to the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun. The epicenter of Thursday's quake is gradually moving eastward, Ichiro Kawasaki, professor emeritus of seismology at Kyoto University, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. He said that when a quake occurs, different pressure is exerted on other faults around it, which could trigger further quakes. In an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, Takashi Furumura, a professor of seismology at the University of Tokyo, said Thursday's quake occurred in an area with a complex structure of multiple fault lines running next to each other. "There is a possibility of a larger aftershock than what we have seen so far, and vigilance is needed," Furumura said. The Japanese government mobilized 25,000 members of the Self-Defense Forces for rescue operations in the disaster-stricken areas. Cheng Yonghua, China's ambassador to Japan, sent a letter of sympathy to Kumamoto Governor Ikuo Kabashima on Friday, expressing his condolences to families of those who died. Residents stand in front of the debris of houses after an earthquake in the city of Chone, Manabi Province, Ecuador, April 17, 2016. The strongest earthquake to jolt Ecuador in decades has killed 233 people, the country's President Rafael Correa said on Sunday, as rescuers raced to dig out survivors trapped in the rubble. [Photo/Xinhua] QUITO - The strongest earthquake to jolt Ecuador in decades has killed 262 people, as rescuers raced to dig out survivors trapped in the rubble. The official death toll from Saturday's devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake has risen to 262 dead and 2,527 injured, Vice-President Jorge Glas, visiting the quake zone, said on Sunday. At a press conference broadcast live on television, Glas said the priority was to continue searching for survivors in the rubble and to help the injured. The earthquake struck at 18:58 local time Saturday (2358 GMT) with its epicenter at a depth of 10 kilometers located in northwest of Ecuador's coast. The temblor so far has generated at least 189 aftershocks of various strength. The quake, felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, cracked highways and collapsed buildings in a swath of western towns, causing panic as far away as in the capital city of Quito when buildings were swayed. Ecuador has declared a state of emergency in six provinces and has mobilized around 14,000 army and public security personnel to affected areas. "We will overcome this. I send a message of calm and my deep solidarity to those who lost their relatives," said Glas, who is in charge of coordinating emergency response. Glas visited the affected cities of Manta and Portoviejo in the northeastern province of Manabi, the hardest-hit and difficult to reach due to damaged highways. "We are facing logistical difficulties," said Glas, noting that specialized rescue teams have reached the worst-hit zones, with technologies and supplies. (Photo : GETTY IMAGES) Giants pandas pause from eating bamboo in an enclosure at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on June 30, 2015 in Chengdu, China. Twin female cubs were born by artificial insemination to seven-year-old Kelin at the center on June 22. China's Sichuan province is home to the majority of the the world's nearly 1,900 endangered giant pandas. Advertisement Shanghai Zoo will be the home of two male giant pandas starting on Sunday after the zoo's two female giant pandas left on Friday morning. Ya'er and Xing'er came from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding located in Sichuan Province in southwestern China. Chengdu is the largest hub for giant pandas in the mainland. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The two male pandas have distinguished behaviors, according to park officials. Ya'er is described as curious and active, while Xing'er always climb trees. "Ya'er is a naughty boy and he liked romping with his mother in childhood, while Xing'er loves rolling around and playing in water," said Pan Xiuwen, a park official in Shanghai Zoo. The two giant pandas left Chengdu on Saturday and arrived in Shanghai on Sunday night. Predecessors Two female giant pandas previously lived in Shanghai Zoo, namely Shuangxin and Shuangxi. The twins were born in August of 2011 and were transferred to Shanghai in 2014. Shuangxin and Shuangxi are already four years old, the age when giant pandas reach sexual maturity. They were sent back to Chengdu where they will be partnered with their mates to procreate. The twins were put on a flight to Chengdu on Friday morning after eating apples, their favorite food, and undergoing medical checkups. However, the two did not went quietly. "Shuangxin is a good girl and always listen to us, but she did not cooperate this time. She probably knew it was her last day here," zookeeper Tang Pinggui said. Advertisement TagsGiant Panda, giant pandas in Chengdu, Ya'er, Xing'er, Shanghai Zoo, breeding giant pandas, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Sichuna province (Photo : Weibo) Customs officials in Chengdu intercepted live ants from Germany. Advertisement Customs authorities in Chengdu said on Saturday that customs officers found more than 100 live ants in a package that came from Germany. This is the second time in less than a year that live ants were sent to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in southwestern China. Officials said that each black ant were 1.5 to two centimeters long. The ants were contained in test tubes with some water. The species of the ants are still unknown. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Three ant queens measuring three centimers long were also found. Small ants have hatched from the ant queens' eggs. On October 30, Chengdu customs also seized a parcel filled with 400 live black ants around 1.5 to 2 centimeter long and were also sealed in a test tube. Authorities were able to trace the package and found out that another similar delivery will arrive on November 1. Another 400 black ants were confiscated in the second package. Both were addressed to the same recipient, who did not have a live animal quarantine license. The packages came from Hamburg, Germany, and was shipped to Dubai and South Korea before arriving in China. The ants were identified as Paraponera clavata ants, commonly known as bullet ants due to their powerful venom. They also reproduce rapidly, with the queen laying up to 2,000 eggs each day. It is unclear if the recipient of the latest confiscated ants is also the recipient of the two previous packages. The first quarter of 2016 saw 707 batches of non-native hazardous plants and animals trying to enter Henan province, its quarantine bureau said. "At least 400 alien species of animals, plants and microorganisms have invaded China. Of the globe's 100 most dangerous alien species, more than 50 have invaded China," said Chen Hai, head of the Sichuan quarantine bureau. Ants such as the bullet ants are not native to China and can hurt the environment as it has no natural predator in the country. Advertisement Tagslive ants, weird news in China, live ants in customs, ants found in package, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China customs officials, Germany China, hamburg (Photo : Reuters) Google is withdrawing support for Adobe's Flash Player on Chrome. Advertisement Tech companies are always pushing customers to, as much as possible, use newer versions of softwares and hardwares. True to this practice, Google has announced that its flagship Internet browser, Chrome, will drop support for operating systems older than the Windows 7 and the Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement With this announcement from Google, the Chrome browser will no longer support Windows XP, Windows Vista and older Windows operating systems. On the side of the Mac, any versions of the Apple operating system that are older than the Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks will no longer be supported as well. Google Chrome is considered by many tech analysts as the most popular Internet browser. Due to rampant incidents of online hacking and identity theft, Google announced that the recently released Chrome version 50 will require a computer that runs at least on Windows 7 or OS X 10.9. Google added that the reason for this requirement is security related. Older versions of Chrome will still continue to run on older operating systems. However, these versions of the Internet browser will not receive regular updates and security patches which could leave users vulnerable to hackers. Aside from Google, Microsoft, in the past, has also expressed its decision to stop releasing security updates for older versions of its once mighty Internet browser, the Internet Explorer. Some tech analysts consider this decision as part of a marketing strategy in order to sell Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 10. However, some security experts said that it is more than just for commercial gain, but also for the benefit of the users. Microsoft is pushing users to use its new Edge browser. Windows users, who still prefer to use Internet Explorer, are required to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11 if they want to receive regular security update and patches. Moreover, Internet Explorer 11 is only available to computers running Window 7 or newer versions. Advertisement TagsGoogle, Chrome, Google Chrome, windows, windows vista, Windows XP, OS X, Mac, OS X10.9, Mac OS X 10.9 (Photo : Photo:Getty Images/ Kevin Frayer) China struggles with economic slowdown Advertisement China's corporate debt surged profoundly prior to the lending and spending bout prompted by the Chinese government in an attempt to keep the Chinese economy bustling. Underlining the deceleration, China said on Friday that the growth fell to 6.7 percent in the first three months of the year. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Lending money to companies like Bohai Steel has always been an easy thing for Chinese banks. Lenders had no problem compensating their state backing as the Chinese economy was still solid. Chinese officials from the Census and Economic Information Center (CEIC) also said that China's total local loans have proliferated a great deal to 98.6 trillion since the beginning of 2009, commensurate to 144 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of China in the recent year until the end of March. Co-founder of J Capital Research, Anne Stevenson-Yang, said that defaults are not apt in posing a risk to Chines banks because it is anticipated that the government is supporting them. But a series of defaults could result to a lending retreat and subsequently tarnish the Chinese economy. China is undergoing research on new ways to contend with the heap of bad corporate debt that has been upsetting the Chinese economy for a while. One of which is a proposal that will allow banks with bad loans to sell that debt to investors, said Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China. Zhou added, together with deputy central bank governor Pang Gongsheng, that they would be taking necessary measures to ensure that the resolution would not risk China's financial or economic condition like the one that transpired in the 2008 global crisis. Advertisement TagsBohai Steel, business, News, business news, slow economy, bad loans, china (Photo : Getty Images) Chinese military and defense experts said China will most probably not defend North Korea in case of conflict despite a standing defense pact between the two sides Advertisement China's military experts said that Beijing is highly unlikely to come to North Korea's rescue and provide military aid in case of a breakout of conflict or war brought by Pyongyang's nuclear provocation in the Korean peninsula. Despite a long-standing mutual defense pact between the two nations, mainland experts said Pyongyang's development of its nuclear program has jeopardized China's security interests and heavily damaged their relations, ending in the revocation of the pact. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement China and North Korea signed a friendship treaty 55 years ago whereby Beijing had committed to defend North Korea in the event of an attack against potential outside enemies. Treaty of Friendship The pact, known as the "Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance" was signed in 1961 by the two sides. It has been rendered null and void following the deterioration of the Sino-North Korean relations, experts said. "The treaty is China's only legally binding bilateral security pact remaining in force. But it exists only in the legal sense and it is highly unlikely that China will provide military aid in the event of an attack," said Professor Pang Zhongying, a Chinese international relations expert. Pang added that at the time the defense treaty was inked by both China and North Korea in 1961, the Chinese government was "immature and inexperienced" in committing itself to a "vaguely-worded treaty." The mainland scholars' perspective and comments were made in reaction to a recent article of the government-backed People's Daily newspaper which said that China was still committed to protect Pyongyang against potential enemies despite its belligerent actions in the Korean peninsula. Professor Shen Jiru, an international relations expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Beijing should not be bound by the treaty in the wake of North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear programs. "The treaty was a relic of the cold war which made no mention of specific circumstances under which China would provide military aid," he said. The US and South Korean governments said that North Korea tried to launch a missile in observance of the birthday of Pyongyang's founder, Kim II-sung last Friday but failed. Advanced missile and rocket technology The attempt was North Korea's latest move to show its advanced missile and rocket technology amid the standing United Nations resolution imposing harsh sanctions against Pyongyang. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, when asked if Beijing will defend North Korea in case of a war, said China will neither tolerate chaos and instability in the Korean Peninsula region nor allow Pyongyang's development of its nuclear program. Advertisement Tagschina, North Korea, Treaty of Friendship, Treaty of Friendship Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, mainland scholars, defense treaty, war, North Korea's nuclear program (Photo : Getty Images:China Photo Press) The police said that suspects from Taiwan have been falsely posing as law enforcement officers to elicit money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls. Advertisement Taiwan has received criticism from Chinese citizens prior to its self-ruled decision on releasing 20 fraud suspects a day after they were deported from Malaysia. The police said that suspects from Taiwan have been falsely posing as law enforcement officers to elicit money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Last month, there has been a coordination between Malaysian and Chinese police to investigate into the transnational telecommunication fraud where a total of 119 suspects were arrested which included 65 from the Chinese Mainland, 52 from Taiwan and 2 from Malaysia. Executive Yuan spokesman, Sun Lih-Chyun spoke in defense of Taiwan saying that there was no legal reason to detain the suspects. He explained that the evidence was with China and not with Taiwan. He also said that Taipei has been communicating with Chinese associates to discuss the matter. An Fengshan, Spokesman for the Chinese State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, did not welcome the decision saying that Taiwan had been apathetic towards the interests of many victims and has hurt them further by releasing the suspects. On top of that, An also urged them to immediately amend for their actions according to the office website. Another Chinese mainland spokesman said on Saturday that Taiwan should give the fraud suspects the punishment that due is to them, emphasizing that discharging them will make fraud more prevalent and could only damage cross-Strait law enforcement cooperation. Taiwan's cabinet said in an issued statement that they would not protect criminals from due punishment and they had already ordered the Ministry of Justice to gather enough facts for the investigation to follow. On top of that, Taiwan's Justice Ministry sent a formal letter, requesting China's Public Security Bureau to cooperate with them by providing information on the crime. On a separate note, China's Ministry of Public security also said that the Taiwanese people had an involvement in the telecom fraud in China. Advertisement TagsTaiwan, gained, negative feedback, china, fraud suspects (Photo : Getty Images) China's mobile live streaming industry will generate over 100 billion yuan by 2020. Advertisement Chinese tech giants are reportedly investing heavily in the country's mobile live streaming market to stimulate the audience's palate as they predict the industry will generate more than 100 billion yuan by 2020. Investors including Sequoia Capital and Tencent China as well as pioneering companies in the A-share market have allegedly been throwing their hats into the market, according to China Daily. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "This year, the live streaming industry is going to witness booming developments," Xie Chen, Huachuang Securities Co.'s senior analyst, said. Xie predicts that in four years' time, the scale of online gaming and online streaming will reach as much as 106 billion yuan. For instance, Bus-Online, a bus TV wireless network operator in China, reported a 40 percent increase of share price since launching its latest streaming platform B-Live on March 26. On the other hand, aside from receiving a 68 million yuan investment from Shenzhen-listed online gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Chinese mobile live broadcasting app Inke Inc. has successfully accomplished its B-Round financing in just three months. In addition to online streaming platforms, even self-made cyber celebrities like Papi Jiang, who is popular for producing humorous videos, managed to secure a 12 million yuan investment from various companies. Smartphones are the main avenue for live video streaming, China International Capital Corp reported, pointing out that "mobile live streaming has become the new trend." Its study revealed that China's mobile Internet users jumped from 85.8 to 88.9 percent in 2014 and 2015, respectively. What's more, the number of mobile smart devices also increased to nearly 13 billion, accounting for 85 percent of the mobile Internet users. Mobile live streaming users as well have reached almost 11 billion. Meng Wei, China International Capital Corp.'s analyst, thus believes that mobile Internet expansion will initiate change and development in the country's live streaming market. Advertisement TagsLive Video streaming, Papi Jiang, China International Capital Corp, Beijing Kunlun Tech Co, Bus-Online, wireless network, Tencenr China, Sequoia Capital (Photo : Getty Images/Kevin Frayer) Chinese authorities are looking to rehabilitate workers ahead of a massive layoff. Advertisement China is looking to rehabilitate millions of workers potentially to be laid off from steel and coal industries. Following global trends, China's steel and coal sector are likely to perform lukewarm. The country has drafted new policies to provide counseling including career guidance to the workers. These sectors are expected to axe off 1.8 million workers. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement As per new guidelines, the workers will be offered assistance to plan for early retirement as well as for starting their own businesses. The measures also include efforts to find new jobs for the laid off workers. The document states, "Proper placement of workers is the key to working to resolve excess capacity." The current approach followed by the Chinese government is a far cry from its efforts two decades back when it tried massive restructuring of state run industries. Currently, the steel and coal sector in China is going through glut stage. In order to counter the trend, the Chinese government is looking to reduce excess capacity by 10 to 15 percent. The released document also enumerates other plans such as providing early retirement benefits for people who are within five years of mandatory retirement. The age for mandatory retirement stands at 60 years for men and 55 years for women. The government also plans to hold job fairs at companies which have laid off more than 100 workers. It also seeks to offer seed funding, consulting services and training to people looking to start their own businesses. The Chinese economy has been facing stagnation for quite some time. However, its employment numbers held up despite the swings. According to government releases, the economy gained 13 million new urban jobs last year. Advertisement Tagschina, Economy, steel industry (Photo : Getty Images/Lintao Zhang) China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei has fired back at Donald Trump following the latter's critical rhetoric of China. Advertisement United States presidential aspirant Donald Trump may have a legion of followers, but China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei is none too impressed. Responding to Trump's proposal to impose up to 45 percent tariffs on China to force it to modify its trade policies, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Lou stated that any such action would violate World Trade Organization rules. He also branded Trump as an "irrational type." China's finance minister also said that if the country does pull through with Trump's proposal, the US would not be entitled to retain its title of being major global power. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Lou stated that the US needs to recognize the mutual dependency between the US and China. He stressed that economic cycles in both the countries are intertwined and that both countries have more in common than they have in difference. In a campaign statement, Trump accused China of being "in total violation of WTO regulations." He further claimed that the United States of America, "incompetently allowed them to get away with this." Trump further stated that should he become the president, all the trade and other agreements will be renegotiated to ensure that the US becomes a "beneficiary." The Chinese finance minister stated that the US needs to bolster its investments in the public and private sector to boost its domestic economy as well as the global economy. He also urged the US to speed up its deregulation process. China is currently working towards more egalitarian progress by following various measures such as land reforms. Lou said that China is now encouraging farmers to transfer or lease out their lands. They are also being encouraged to use land for equity financing purpose. Advertisement Tagsdonald trump, china, US, Lou Jiwei Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a bill into law that will allow church members to undergo firearms training so that they can protect their congregations against violence. The Church Protection Act allows places of worship to select members who would be given firearms training for security purposes. The law does not require people to have a permit to carry a holstered weapon, making it the ninth state in US to do so. Bryant wrote in a Twitter post that he passed the bill because "churches deserve protection from those who would harm worshipers." Author of the bill, Republican Andy Gipson who is also a Baptist Pastor said, "I wish we lived in a world where this bill wouldn't be necessary." Gipson asserted that he filed the bill in response to Charleston shooting in South Carolina last year. "A number of congregations ... don't have the resources to hire professional security," said Gipson, whose church has about 100 members. After the law was approved, he thanked the governor on his Facebook page for the measure he said will secure the churches. "The bill is effective immediately and, among other things, extends the protections of the castle doctrine to local churches who elect to establish a trained and licensed security team for protection of the congregation," Gipson wrote in a Facebook post. "Thank you Gov. Bryant!" The NRA touted the act a "big win" for gun rights in Mississippi. "It's a great day for law-abiding gun owners in Mississippi. This will allow them to carry firearms for personal protection in the manner that best suits their needs," said Chris W. Cox, Executive director of NRA Institute for Legislative Action. Opponents of the bill said that this measure endangered public security, instead of alleviating it. "There's simply no good reason to pass a law that makes Mississippi less safe from the threat of gun violence," Everytown for Gun Safety said in a statement. Senator Hillman Frazier (D) said that the gun law was passed in the guise of offering protection to churches. "We don't need to pimp the church for political purposes," he told lawmakers during a debate on the bill last month. "If you want to pass gun laws, do that, but don't use the church." According to Mississippi Association of Police Chiefs, it creates loopholes in the state licensing system, and makes it difficult to verify if the gun has not passed into the hands of a prospective assailant. "This bill would put law-enforcement officers and all Mississippians directly in harm's way," Ken Winter, MAPC executive director, said in February. home US Ark Encounter jobs open for Christians only The soon-to-open Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky will need from 300 to 400 employees before it welcomes the public in July, but in order to be considered, an applicant has to be a Christian. "We are a religious group and we make no apology about that, and (federal law) allows us that," said Ken Ham, founder of the ministry Answers in Genesis, as quoted by Fox News. "We're requiring them to be Christians, that's the bottom line." U.S. District Judge Greg Van Tatenhove ruled in January that Answers in Genesis can include religious affiliation as a requirement for those seeking employment in the theme park based on an exemption to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This is despite the organization seeking around $18 million in tourism sales tax rebate. It is expected that Ark Encounter will open jobs for ticketing, food service, warehouse workers, Web developers, among other positions within the theme park. Employees will be required to sign a statement showing that they "profess Christ as their savior" and that they are Christian. Raw Story says that aside from a salvation testimony, applicants also have to submit a "creation belief statement," and they need to sign a confirmation that they agree to Answers in Genesis' Statement of Faith. This includes, among other things: "Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ," and "The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation." Many scientists and educators are reportedly not happy with Answers in Genesis promoting the literal reading of the Bible. According to Fox News, the organization, which also owns the Creation Museum, preaches that Adam and Eve lived at the time of dinosaurs, and that the Earth is 6,000 years old. The life-size replica of Noah's Ark, Fox 5 reports, will be open to the public for 40 days and 40 nights when it opens on July 7, reminiscent of the Bible's account of the 40-day/40-night rain that wiped the Earth clean. "We are so excited that the construction progress and schedule landed on this 7/7 date. Genesis 7:7 states that Noah and his family entered the Ark. So it's fitting we allow the public to enter the life-size Ark on 7/7," Ham said. The organization expects to run their normal operating hours on Aug. 15. However, this might change depending on how big the number of visitors is. home World Christian Aid, 12 other agencies urge U.K. to step up efforts in helping refugees; relocation scheme to cost Britain A500 million Thirteen refugee and humanitarian agencies have collaborated to urge the United Kingdom to increase its efforts in protecting those who have fled from their respective countries due to war and conflict. They said that Britain "has fallen short of welcoming its fair share of refugees." In a joint briefing note titled "A Safe Haven? Britain's role in protecting people on the move," the organizations acknowledged the U.K.'s effort in providing assistance to those countries that are hosting refugees. However, they also said that "delivering aid does not absolve the UK of its moral responsibility to offer a safe haven." The groups have stressed that a huge number of people who ran away from violence, conflict, hardships, and human rights violations are now all over Europe, but they are suffering from the inhumane conditions that they are living in. They said that this is the result of political failure. The brief was prepared by representatives of Oxfam GB, the British Refugee Council, and IRC-UK, along with Action Aid UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Doctors of the World, Freedom from Torture, Islamic Relief, Plan UK, Refugee Action, Scottish Refugee Council, and World Vision. In a press release, Christian Aid said that among the things that they are urging the government to do are to expand the legal routes to the U.K. which are safe and legal for refugees to take and to make sure that they are given access to an asylum system that is not only humane but also fair and effective. They are also asking for an improvement in the reception at country borders as well as in the conditions within countries hosting the displaced people. "The UK is trying to pretend that this is someone else's problem, and that refugees and migrants could and should be dealt with elsewhere. But people who are desperate will take huge risks to reach safety," said Maya Mailer, Oxfam's Head of Humanitarian Policy. "The UK needs to accept its moral responsibility to offer a safe haven to the world's poorest and most vulnerable - men, women and children - who have been made homeless by war, violence and disasters." Meanwhile, the BBC reports that it could cost Britain roughly 589 million to resettle 20,000 Syrians by 2020, as pledged through their Vulnerable Persons Relocation program. Thus far, they have taken in 1,194 people from Syria, 605 of which are below 18 years old. According to the report, Syrian refugee minister Richard Harrington, in his written reply to Labour's Coventry MP Jim Cunningham's parliamentary question, said that the first year's expenses are going to be paid through the country's overseas budget. However, the program would still need 99m for 2016-2017, 129m for 2017-2018, 149m for 2018-2019, and 83m in 2020-2021. While 129 million has already been allocated, it is not yet known where they would get the money for the remainder of the cost. "This is a huge figure," said Home Affairs Committee chairman Keith Vaz, as quoted by the BBC. "As the Home Office refuses to provide regular updates on the numbers being resettled, or where they are being placed, there is an unacceptable lack of transparency in the use of these significant funds." Under the scheme, refugees can stay in the U.K. for five years and then apply to settle there. home World Christian convert in Austria fears Islamic retaliation, says baptism could be his death sentence Austria has seen an increase in the number of Muslims converting to Christianity. However, these new Christians could be at risk of possible retaliation from the Islamic community. According to a report by Kurier, the Archdiocese of Vienna receives five to 10 requests for conversion each week. Eighty-three adults were approved for baptism in Vienna in 2016, and Friederike Dostal of the Austrian Bishops' Conference estimates that about half of them were Muslims, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. This is a rise from one-third in 2015. A further rise is expected in 2017 since there has also been an increase in the number of refugees in the past months. Breitbart says that the Austrian Catholic Church knows what these converts could face if radical Muslims find out that they left Islam -- the penalty for apostasy, based on the Sharia law, is death. "In Austria, it was once very safe for converts, that has changed due to the strong migration movement," said Dostal, saying that refugee quarters can also be unsafe. An elderly Afghan man, who prefers to use his Christian name Christophe for fear that using his real name could compromise the safety of his family, is waiting to be baptized in a church in Vienna by the end of the year. "This could be my death sentence," he told Kurier, as translated using Google Translate. It takes a year to prepare a person for baptism in what is called Right of Christian Initiation of Adults, explained Breitbart, and they spend these months learning more about the faith and church rituals. At the same time, this helps the church and the Asylum Court determine if a person seeking asylum is truly a Christian. Conversion does not mean automatic asylum, however. The risk of persecution one could face in their home country after they have left Islam is considered by the courts, but each case is individually examined. Christophe has lived in Austria since 2012. He said that while he was still in Afghanistan, a friend from Pakistan brought him a Bible, which he read daily, albeit in secret and only in his home. He was arrested by the Taliban, but he managed to escape and eventually found his way to Austria. "Although I was a Muslim, but did not feel connected," he narrated of his time as a youth. "Even at school I began to look for alternatives. Christianity for me is the religion of humanity. Jesus I admire his life and suffering." Christophe told the Austrian publication of what he believes: "Christianity is the true religion. There is no turning back for me." home US Christian counselors, therapists disagree with Tennessee bill protecting their religious liberty Tennessee has passed a bill this week that, if it becomes law, would allow counselors and therapists to refuse to provide patients with mental health services if they deem that this would go against their religious principles. However, not everyone has accepted this bill warmly. Tennesseee Senate Bill 1556/Tennessee House Bill 1840, nicknamed by some as "Hate Bill 1840," states that "no counselor or therapist providing counseling or therapy services shall be required to counsel or serve a client as to goals, outcomes, or behaviors that conflict with a sincerely held religious belief of the counselor or therapist ... " According to The Gazette, those who support this bill say that it is needed in order to protect the religious liberty of counselors -- it says that, among other things, therapists cannot be criminally prosecuted or penalized for refusing a patient therapy based on the therapist's religious beliefs. The opposition, on the other hand, believes that this would make discrimination against LGBT legal. It seems, though, that even those the bill is aiming to protect are not that supportive of it. The publication says that some pastoral counselors and some of those who belong to Christian counseling networks find it quite unnecessary and that it could cause discrimination against patients who are part of the LGBT community. "I'm not supportive of the bill as it is, but I don't understand the need for it either," said Chris O'Rear, president of the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists, expressing his personal opinion. "I don't know what to degree this is actually a problem or whether certain people just want it to be a problem." Presbyterian minister Douglas Ronsheim, executive director of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, said that "we would not support the bill in any way" because it violates his organization's code of ethics. Their code of ethics says that their members respect "various theologies, traditions, and values of our faith communities and committed to the dignity and worth of each individual." Part of it reads: "We are committed ... to avoid discriminating against or refusing employment, educational opportunity or professional assistance to anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, health status, age, disabilities or national origin; provided that nothing herein shall limit a member or center from utilizing religious requirements or exercising a religious preference in employment decisions." The International Association of Christian Counselors, meanwhile, does not have a formal position with regard to the bill, but their code of ethics "does not eliminate anyone" either. Delores Horsman, director of the association, said it doesn't matter whether or not a therapist agrees with a patient, what's important is they offer whatever counsel they can. As an example, she cited a person with a fever who seeks the help of a doctor. The doctor should help, regardess of who the patient is. "Everybody needs to be loved, and as Christian counselors we have to find ways to love people," she said. Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee has 10 days from Monday, April 11, to either sign the bill or veto it. home World Church of England, investors urge ExxonMobil to disclose impact of climate change policies on its business The Church Commissioners of England has co-filed a resolution asking Exxon Mobil, a gas and fuel company, to reveal how climate change policies would impact its business. The resolution states: "Shareholders request that by 2017 ExxonMobil publish an annual assessment of long term portfolio impacts of public climate change policies, at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information." According to the press release by the Church of England, more than 30 institutional investors have already expressed that they will support the motion. They want to have Exxon reveal its portfolio and strategy in line with the agreement arrived at during the Paris climate conference in December last year. This global climate deal aims at keeping global warning to below 2 degrees celcius, thereby limiting the negative impact of climate change. "We are delighted with the scale of support this resolution has received so far," said Edward Mason, Head of Responsible Investment for the Church Commissioners. "The resolution is part of a much wider trend following the Paris Agreement for investors to ask companies to improve disclosure on how they are positioned for the risks and opportunities posed by climate change." ExxonMobil has reportedly tried to have the Securities and Exchange Commission strike down the resolution but this was denied. Previously, the company, according to The Guardian, spent about $30 million for researchers and lobby groups to deny climate change but pledged to stop in 2007. However, the publication discovered last year that it was still funding climate denial. Also, The New York Times reports that it is very likely that Exxon had known about the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere from as far back as 1957, based on documents gathered by activist research group Center for International Environment Law. Competitors Shell and BP have already agreed to a similar resolution last year. The Church of England, according to Premier, owns shares at Exxon Mobil worth 5.8 million. They co-filed the resolution with New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli as Trustee of New York State Common Retirement Fund. home Life 'Jesus Lunch' causes disagreement between Wisconsin school disctrict officials and parents Many students at the Middleton-Cross Plains School District in Wisconsin are treated to free lunch every Tuesday, but the school officials are asking the parents who host the event to cease the weekly luncheon. Nicknamed "Jesus Lunch," the luncheon not only provides free food to hundreds of students, it also leads them to Christian worship. Speaking to Christian Post, Beth Williams, one of the organizers, said they created the event so parents could spend lunch with their children as well as have a few minutes talking about the Bible. "I can tell you that there is an excitement from the students. Many have said that it is a highlight of their week. Our numbers fluctuate weekly, but we have had up to 475 students attend on any given week," she said. "The school officials have not really been very interested in finding out about the content of the Jesus Lunch. Since we are off school grounds, it does not really apply to school guidelines." The school begs to disagree. High school principal Steve Plank and district administrator Don Johnson said that Fireman's Park, the place adjacent to Middleton High School where the lunches are held, is leased by the city, which makes it part of the school campus, thereby subject to the school's rules. The parents, they contend, are not meeting expectations on policies. "The school district's concerns related to this event come down to policy expectations that MCPASD maintains a policies in place to ensure student safety, health and welfare," says the letter sent to parents on Tuesday. "The policies in question include food handling, visitors to campus, and expectations around student organized events. We are in no way interested in opposing religious practice in otherwise legal circumstances." Johnson said, as reported by Channel 3000, that they believe that religious and political events have no place in their campus unless it's sponsored by a student group, follows school regulations, and is approved. The school also finds that not all students are happy or comfortable with the religious event. "There are some students that when they know this day is coming, they will leave school early," Plank said. "(We) have some students that staff will find sitting in the hallway crying." The school is reportedly looking for an amicable solution to the matter. Arch of Triumph of Palmyra, not Temple of Baal, to rise in New York and London The plan to build a replica of the arch of the Temple of Baal in New York City and London has been abandoned and instead, the Arch of Triumph of Palmyra will rise. This was announced by the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), which promotes the use of digital imaging and 3D printing in archaeology and conservation. A report in the New York Times last month said the Temple of Baal's entrance would be installed in New York and London as a tribute to the 2,000 year-old structure that was destroyed by the Islamic State last year in Palmyra, Syria. However, many Christians opposed the plan. Quoting the World Net Daily, CBN News said according to Matt Barber, Baal worship involved burning infants alive. "Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants men and women alike would engage in bisexual orgies," Barber said. "The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of 'mother earth,'" he explained. The Telegraph reported that the original plan to reproduce the Temple of Baal has been scrapped. "There will be no simultaneous unveiling in New York they may transport the London arch there later, or build another one and the Palmyra arch that is being reconstructed is no longer the entrance to the Temple of Bel (which survived an attempt to blow it up in August 2015) but the Arch of Triumph (partially destroyed in October) formerly located at one end of the Great Colonnade," the report said. Prof. Dr. Maamoun Abdulkarim, director-general of the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums in Syria, said Palmyra is one of the most unique cultural heritage sites and its destruction underscored the importance of large-scale reconstruction. "We know that the plans to restore Palmyra to its former glory are grand, but they can be realised if the task is treated as a global mission under the international criteria," he wrote in the IDA website. "The IDA's Arch of Triumph of Palmyra serves as a model for how, together, we will bring life back to Palmyra and restore the site as a message of peace against terrorism, and will further collaborate in this way on other heritage sites in Syria." The arch will be built at Trafalgar Square in London. Writing in Charisma News, Michael Snyder, founder of The Economic Collapse Blog, lauded the move to cancel the planned reconstruction of the entrance of the Temple of Baal. "Of course let us not underestimate the prayers of God's people. Once this story went viral, Christians all over America started praying against this arch. From personal experience, I know that the prayers of righteous men and women are extremely powerful, and we may never know how much of an impact they had on this situation," he wrote. Bill defining person as human being from moment of fertilisation pushed in Alabama A committee at the Alabama House of Representatives has approved a bill to amend the state Constitution by changing the definition of a person. The bill aims to change the Code of Alabama 1975 to define "persons" as "any human being from the moment of fertilization or the functional equivalent thereof." Its sponsor, Republican Rep. Ed Henry, declared that "I believe in life, and protecting it, no matter if we're going to be sued," according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Henry said the bill is "not a direct attack on abortion." "But if Alabamians believe life begins at conception, then it does cause abortion to be in conflict with our values," he said. If the bill is passed by three-fifths of the state House and Senate, it will have to be approved by voters. Pastor Tom Ford of the Grace Baptist Church said the bill aims to end abortion in the state. "We state the obvious, that the baby in the womb is a person. And to take that innocent life is murder," Ford said, AL.com reports. Pro-life Dr. Jime Belyeu, an OB/GYN, said life begins at conception. "The baby initiates the process of implantation. Scientifically, pregnancy has been long recognized at beginning at fertilization, so anything that would prevent implantation would be considered abortion," he said. Brock Boone of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposed the bill, saying it could result in unintended consequences including barring rape and incest exemptions under abortion laws and birth control. "A woman's use of many common forms of birth control would be a form of homicide," he said. A similar bill was passed by the Alabama Senate in 2011 but failed in the House, LifeSite News reported. Alabama's Supreme Court ruled that year that mothers had the right to sue when their unborn child wrongfully dies before viability, saying "each person has a God-given right to life." Christian counsellors say religious freedom bill for patients is not needed, will violate their oath A bill was passed by lawmakers in Tennessee that provides that no counsellor or therapist will be required to provide service to any hospital patient if this will violate the patient's religious beliefs. SB 1556 was passed by the Tennessee Senate with a 26-5 vote last week and is now up for signature by Gov. Bill Haslam. The legislation is supported by the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Religion News Service reports. However, Christian and pastoral counsellors said the bill is not needed and will violate their oath since it will discriminate against LGBT people. Chris O'Rear, president of the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists (TAPT) and director of Insight Counseling Centers in Nashville, said personally, he does not support the bill as it could become a problem especially for patients in rural areas that have limited mental health services. "Our code of ethics says if we feel we can't objectively counsel a person for any reason, then we should refer them to someone else," says O'Rear, who is an ordained Baptist. "But sometimes a client doesn't have a choice because perhaps they don't have many options where they live. I don't think these people should be turned away in that case." Douglas Ronsheim, a Presbyterian minister and AAPC executive director, said the bill violates his organisation's code of ethics and "we would not support the bill in any way." The AAPC code of ethics says members should "avoid discriminating against or refusing employment, educational opportunity or professional assistance to anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, health status, age, disabilities or national origin." The code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, the American Counseling Association, the Association of Marital and Family Therapists, and the American Psychological Association also prohibit discrimination. Delores Horsman, a certified Clinical Christian Counselor and director of the International Association of Christian Counselors, said while the organisation does not have a position about the bill, they have one regarding the issue of discrimination. "Our code of ethics does not eliminate anyone. If someone comes for counsel, our heart is to offer whatever kind of counsel we can whether we agree with them or not. We should still offer something," she said. She likened this to a doctor who helps a patient, saying, "Everybody needs to be loved, and as Christian counsellors we have to find ways to love people." Deaf Bible Society uses modern technology to reach out to world's 58 million hearing impaired people The Holy Bible is for everyone, including the differently abled. Having this in mind, a non-profit organisation is leading efforts to break the barriers of disability to bring God's Word to those who cannot hear. The New Mexico-based group Deaf Bible Society is tapping modern technology to enable the estimated 58 million deaf individuals around the world to also appreciate the Holy Bible. According to its website, the group "works with various ministries to offer the global deaf community unlimited and free Bible access in their heart sign language." It added that the deaf community is "one of the largest unreached people groups in the world." The Deaf Bible Society has developed a mobile application, complete with translations of the Holy Scriptures, especially for the hearing impaired. This revolutionary app, already updated twice, has so far been downloaded 300,000 times. JR Bucklew, the organisation's Deaf Bible director, says technology has really enable the group to reach more deaf individuals. "Technology has really given us a platform in the last few years to take the Gospel to the deaf, unlike any other time in history," Bucklew says in a report on MNNOnline.org. He also encourages the public to have greater awareness and appreciation of the deaf community. "Sign language and spoken languages are very different. American sign language is not English with gestures. It's a completely different language with its own grammar rules, syntax, and everything," he adds. The group also urges more individuals to educate themselves about how they can communicate with and reach out to the deaf community. This can be done by being an advocate in respective churches, where spiritual needs of the deaf can be studied. To be able to educate more people about the deaf community, the Deaf Bible Society provides a free information kit for those who sign up on their website. "The call of the Great Commission is to go to every nation with the Gospel and that must include the deaf," Bucklew says. Tears as Pope Francis met Muslim widower of martyred Syrian Christian One of the refugees Pope Francis met on Lesbos was the Muslim widower of a Syrian Christian woman killed for her faith, reports the Associated Press. The women was killed by extremists when she refused to renounce her faith, Francis said. The Pope departed from his prepared text during his address earlier today in St Peter's Square. He said that among the 300 refugees he met yesterday in the refugee camp on Lesbos was a widower with two children. Francis said: "He is Muslim, and he told me that he married a Christian girl. They loved each other and respected each other. But unfortunately the young woman's throat was slashed by terrorists because she didn't want to deny Christ and abandon her faith." He added: "She is a martyr!" and said the widower had wept as he told the story. Adults and children broke down in tears before the head of the Roman Catholic church during his visit. While borders have now largely been shut for migrants, Francis symbolically took a small group of refugees with him on his aircraft as he left the island after a five-hour visit. "The Pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees, accompanying on his plane to Rome three families of refugees from Syria, 12 people in all, including six children," a statement issued by the Vatican said. The individuals were selected from lots drawn, media reports said. They had been in camps before a deal between the EU and Turkey came into effect to halt the migrant flow on March 20. Sant'Egidio, a Christian community which offers help for those in need and headquartered in Rome, will be looking after the families. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Defending a Texas state law banning the sale of sex toys, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz argued in a 2007 court brief that individuals have no legal right to use them, even in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Prior to becoming a U.S. senator, Cruz was for more than five years Texas' solicitor general, arguing the state's legal positions in court. He often cites that experience to burnish his credentials as a Christian conservative. On the campaign trail, Cruz frequently reminds audiences that he used the job to defend capital punishment and oppose abortion, while preserving the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and defending a monument to the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds. But Cruz makes no mention of a decade-old case he lost his defense of Texas' sex-toy ban. The story was first reported by Mother Jones magazine. The law, approved in the 1970s, banned as obscene any device "useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." The same law also declared that anyone possessing six or more such items was presumed to be promoting sex-toy usage through manufacture, sale, lending, delivery or other means. Joanne Webb, a 43-year-old mother of three and former fifth-grade teacher, was arrested in 2003 after selling a sex toy to an undercover police officer during a gathering of adult couples similar to a Tupperware party held at a home in a Fort Worth suburb. Though the criminal charges against Webb were eventually dropped, a collection of sex-toy companies sued in federal court to challenge the constitutionality of the state's ban. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals later ruled that the Texas law violated 14th Amendment privacy rights. Then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, now the state's Republican governor, unsuccessfully appealed, asking the full appeals court to review the case. As solicitor general Cruz co-wrote an 83-page brief arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court "has never suggested that the substantive-due-process doctrine ensures individuals' ability to stimulate their genitals in ways that are neither connected to procreation nor associated with any particular lifestyle." In an interview Friday night on New York's WABC radio, Cruz was asked if he would ban the sale of sex toys if he became president. "Look, of course not, it's a ridiculous question, and of course not," Cruz responded. "What people do in their own private time with themselves is their own business and it's none of government's business." Cruz campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart noted in an email that as solicitor general, Cruz had an obligation to defend Texas' laws in court, regardless of whether he agreed with them. "Senator Cruz personally believes that the Texas law in question was, as (Supreme Court) Justice (Clarence) Thomas said in another context, an 'uncommonly silly' law," Stewart said. "But the office was nevertheless duty-bound to defend the policy judgment of the Texas Legislature." Cruz defended the Texas ban as "protecting public morals discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification" and argued that in doing so the state had a vested moral interest in discouraging "autonomous sex." Cruz's brief also suggested that the legal sale of sexual enhancement drugs such as Viagra was different because it can't be described as a "device." Couples, even married ones, willing to use sex toys may also "believe that hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy would enhance their sexual experiences," Cruz warned. ___ Michael Biesecker reported from Washington. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mbieseck ___ Follow Will Weissert at https://twitter.com/apwillweissert Two men were shot multiple times overnight in a car parked in a northwest Houston neighborhood, leaving one dead and the other critically wounded. Shortly before 4 a.m., Houston patrol officers responded to 3308 Crestdale Drive, where they found the two men with gunshot wounds in a black 1999 Mercedes-Benz E430. The man sitting behind the wheel was pronounced dead at the scene. The passenger was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition, said Brian Evans of the Houston Police Department's homicide division. A 15-year-old girl is recovering from injuries after being shot during a party in Spring, according to reports Saturday night. People at the family gathering were playing with water guns when a real gun was pulled," police told KHOU and other TV stations. The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p. With crazy homeless people randomly smashing, slashing, and stabbing passersby, graffiti spreading across the city with no one bothering to clean it, racial tensions stoked by race hustlers in Gracie Mansion, welfare rolls mushrooming, a reborn pay-to-play political culture, school discipline so dead that public education fails more than ever, police demoralized by a mayor who not only doesnt have their back but publicly slanders them, while the city council weakens the quality-of-life policing tools that brought New York back to life under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, you have to wonder if any element that created the urban dystopia of Mayors John Lindsay, Abe Beame, and David Dinkins is still missing. And sure enough, now even police corruption is back. With five top cops recently demoted, and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton telling the New York Post that investigations by his Internal Affairs Bureau and the FBI are turning up evidence that stinks as foully as that uncovered by the 1970s Knapp Commission investigation into corrupt cops, but that he cant talk about it while the probe continues, you can only imagine whats about to hit the fan. All we need now is a brush with municipal bankruptcy and a president who responds by telling New York to drop dead, as the Daily Newss famous 1975 headline put it, and the recurring nightmare will be complete. Just to get ready, lets recall what the commission headed by Whitman Knapp, a lawyer, ex-prosecutor, and later a federal judge, turned up, in hearings so riveting in 1971 and 72 that my friend Mike the Cop would sometimes come over, put his gun on top of the fridge, and join me in open-mouthed amazement as the squalid testimony poured out of the TV. There were grass-eating corrupt cops, small fry who took a monthly $5 or $10, adding up to $6.2 million a year citywide, from bodega owners to overlook Sunday beer sales or $2,000 annually from individual liquor store owners to let customers double park while they ran in for a bottle; and meat eaters, who stole drugs from dope dealers or took big bribes to suppress evidence of felonies, including a $50,000 payoff to destroy wiretap tapes nailing a heroin kingpin. We heard of two dope-addict police informers who would steal goods to order for cops in exchange for drugs that the officers purloined from the NYPD evidence room. We heard from a detective who took fat payoffs from East Side brothel boss Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker, in exchange for warning her when a police raid was imminent, that corruption was systemicwith entire precincts, from the captain on down, sharing a monthly pad of payments from numbers racketeers, totaling up to $15 million a year, to look the other way while they publicly took bets. At least one cop thought that the deal included arresting competing gamblers, so that the NYPDs function wasnt so much to prevent crime as to license it, as the New York Times put it when the scandal first broke. And we learned that two police whistleblowers, Frank Serpico and David Durks, couldnt stir Mayor Lindsays Investigation Department chief or one of his deputy mayors to take action to clean up the mess. When Serpico complained about corruption he had seen to his captain, the commander replied that he could go to the commissioner, and by the time this thing is through, youll be found floating in the East River, face down. Or you can just forget about the whole thing. But Serpico didnt forget it and got shot in the head, non-fatally, in a drug bust some thought a set-up by his fellow cops. Even before the Knapp Commission hearings began, a joint committee of the state legislature noted that ghetto residents, seeing the pervasiveness of police corruption, have a deep cynicism concerning the integrity of the police to maintain law and order in the community. It wasnt just that minority communities knew, in those pre-Compstat days, that the NYPD didnt care about crime in their neighborhoods. They saw that not only were the police not part of the solution, but they were also a key part of the problem. How big a part became even clearer when the next major cop scandal, long in the making, broke on Mayor Dinkinss watch, in hearings chaired by ex-judge Milton Mollen in 1992 and 1993. Todays corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days, the Mollen Commissions report noted. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. . . . Todays corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality. Unlike the old corruption, which was systemic and infected the entire NYPD, the new corruption festered in only a few precincts and involved only a limited number of cops. Nevertheless, declared the commission, From the top brass down to local precinct commanders and supervisors, there was a pervasive belief that uncovering serious corruption would harm careers and the reputation of the department. And that corruption was brutal. Graphically brutal, as presented in a gripping recent documentary, The Seven Five, which intercuts clips from the Mollen Commission hearings with recent interviews with the chief malefactors from the 75th Precinct in East New York, Brooklynthen the nations deadliest, with some 1,000 murders a year, and as ravaged as any war-torn city, as the film shows in 1980s photos of collapsed buildings and blood-drenched murder victims sprawled on the neighborhoods truly mean streets. Michael Dowdwhom the New York Post later headlined as THE DIRTIEST COP EVERtells of being sent in 1984 to protect a woman from her abusive husband while she got her clothes from her apartment. After the woman left, Dowd and his partner, Chickie, found that the husband had a huge bag of marijuana, two guns, and perhaps $20,000 in stacks of bills. So they helped themselves to $8,000, telling the dreadlock-coifed husband that it was his lucky day that nothing worse was happening. And so began Dowds criminal career, two years after graduation from the Police Academy, where the chief lessons he learned were cover your ass and that a good cop is one who would never give up another cop. In November 1986, a scandal in the 77th Precinct in north Brooklynwhere 12 cops, including a sergeant, had been arrested and a 13th had killed himselfscared Chickie straight. The Seven-Seven cops had made a practice of calling in fake 911 reports of robberies in progress at a specific address, so that they could smash into the premises with axes and sledgehammers borrowed from the neighboring firehouse and steal whatever valuables they could find, including drugs and loaded guns, which they sold to pushers. So Dowd inducted his new partner, Kenny Eurell, into his criminal enterprise, mainly providing protection for a Dominican drug lord for $8,000 a week. When the kingpin underpaid him, Dowd raided his business with extra zeal, until the drug boss put out a contract on his lifecalled off after Dowd confronted him and offered to duel at 20 paces, then and there. A yet bigger drug lord, who sold Colombian cocaine out of a string of bodegas, then hired the pair for $24,000 down and $8,000 a week to warn him of impending raids, harass his competitors, and guard his shipments. We were like their Brinks, said Dowd. They had a police escort. By 1991, Dowd, now a drunk and an addict, snorting coke off his police cruisers dashboard and feeling like he was God, invincible, went into the drug business for himself on Long Island and got arrested with Kenny and four other cops in May 1992. Out on bail, he dreamed up such reckless schemes that Kenny turned on him, secretly recorded him, and got off with no jail time, while Dowd served 13 years of a 14-year sentence. A Mollen Commission member asked Dowd if he considered himself an NYPD cop or a drug trafficker. Both, Dowd replied, explaining in a later interview, It wasnt like you were hurting people. You were hurting fucking drug dealers. The Mollen Commission contained a dramatic mystery within a mystery: a witness, identified only as Officer Otto, who testified via videotape, his face concealed in shadow, his voice electronically disguised, and the precinct whose misdeeds he recounted unspecified. Part of that testimony, which came from a young cop named Barry Brown, turned out to be false, and the six cops jailed on account of it were later released because of his perjury. But Brown was an undercover police spy, who claimed he lied under orders to preserve his cover, so that ultimately he had to quit the force but was never charged with perjury. Nevertheless, the squalid scandal he revealed at the 30th Precinct in West Harlemthe Dirty Thirtywas emphatically real. The corrupt copscalled Nannerys Raiders for the sergeant who supervised them and ultimately became their crime bossadopted the Seven-Sevens tactic of making fake 911 calls about robberies in progress at dope dealers apartments, which they would batter open to steal cash and drugs to sell at half-price out of the police station itself. Like Dowd, they took protection money from drug kingpins, anywhere from $600 to $1,000 a week. Notwithstanding Browns perjury, its hard to imagine that many of the 33 cops arrested were innocent. New Yorkers old enough to remember how rotten all this wasa memory almost washed away by the amazing transformation of the NYPD under Giuliani and Bratton, whose crime-prevention policing gave cops something they could devote themselves to with pride and utterly changed the NYPDs cultureare uneasily holding their breath to see just what wrongdoing the current investigation will disclose, how high it goes, and how far back it stretches. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images watch now If you've ever requested an Uber or rented a room on Airbnb, then you are among the millions of Americans participating in the "gig" economy. These digital marketplaces provide customers with convenience and workers with the freedom to create their own schedule. Yet that freedom comes at a cost. Many of these jobs don't offer benefits such as sick leave or reimbursements, allowing companies to save on employee expenses. "We've seen this for more than a decade in sort of the white collar jobs. People who are teachers might tutor, [and] lawyers who become moms maybe can do legal work on the side," AOL co-founder Steve Case told CNBC's "On the Money." "We're just now seeing that broaden and giving that same opportunity to people in other fields." More people are entering the gig economy workforce, more than 50 million in 2015, an increase of 700,000 from 2014, according to figures from the Freelancer's Union, calling into question how the new economy should be regulated. While the vast majority of workers in this economy have other sources of income, about 15 million Americans say working these gigs makes up more than 40 percent of their pay. Uber, Lyft and grocery delivery app Instacart are just some of the "on-demand" companies facing lawsuits from workers. These dissidents are calling for the companies to reclassify their status from independent contractor to employee, the better for them to partake of benefits offered to full-time workers. Case helped make the internet a part of our everyday lives, and is now the founder of venture capital firm Revolution. His investments in the gig economy include Zipcar and OrderUp, which the firm has since exited, as well as Handy. He also sits on the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. The businessman defended the on-demand business model, telling CNBC that both workers and policymakers must adapt to the new reality. "We need to recognize that the nature of work itself has changed," says Case. "I think that will accelerate in the third wave and that will put more pressure on policymakers to keep up with the innovations." That "third wave," which is also the name of his new book, references what he's calling the next era of the internet. Case explains the first wave was the foundation. Companies like AOL built a platform that allowed people to get access to the web, while the second wave consisted of companies building on top of the internet and helping people search, shop and connect online. It's where the world saw the rise of Google, Amazon and Facebook. Steve Case Katie Kramer | CNBC In the third wave, which we are entering now, Case argues the internet will become as ubiquitous as electricity meaning it will not be the internet of things, but the internet of everything. "The third wave is really integrating the internet in seamless and pervasive ways throughout our lives, and I think it's going to change the nature of work," he said. "It's also going to change how our kids learn in classes, how we stay healthy, how doctors and hospitals work, energy, transportation, even the food sector." Case believes it will require a different mindset and a different playbook for businesses and citizens. "My guess is what will happen there will be some benefits that are more portable and more modularized than those that are offered," he said. "Maybe when you take an Uber car you pay a slight additional fee that goes into a bucket that provides some of these benefits like workers' comp and other kinds of benefits." While Case believes it will be harder to start a business today than it was in the second wave, he advises entrepreneurs to keep a few things in mind. "The big opportunities to improve people's lives will require a different mindset, more perseverance, more partnerships, and more engagement on policy." A meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers on an agreement to freeze output ran into last-minute trouble in Qatar on Sunday due to what looked like a new spike in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, sources told Reuters. Oil ministers met with the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani - who was instrumental in promoting output stability in recent months - in an attempt to rescue the deal designed to bolster the flagging price of crude. According to two sources, Saudi Arabia said it wanted all OPEC members to participate in the talks, despite insisting earlier on excluding its regional arch-rival Iran because Tehran had refused to freeze production. "The Saudis changed everything early this morning," an OPEC source said. "They want all OPEC members to join first." Failure to reach a global deal - the first in 15 years between OPEC and non-OPEC nations - would signal the resumption of a battle for market share between key producers and likely halt a recent recovery in prices. Brent oil has risen to nearly $45 a barrel, up 60 percent from January lows, on optimism that a deal would help ease the supply glut that has seen prices sink from levels as high as $115 hit in mid-2014. Saudi Arabia has taken a tough stance on Iran, the only major OPEC producer to have refused to participate in the freeze. Tehran says it needs to regain market share after the lifting of international sanctions against it in January. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg that the kingdom would restrain its output only if all other major producers, including Iran, agreed to freeze production. Iran's top central banker is adding to growing doubts about an agreement to freeze output at a meeting of oil producers in Doha, Qatar on Sunday. Ahead of a pivotal meeting that may determine the near-term outlook for crude prices, Iran on Saturday announced that it would not participate in the conference. The country, still trying to recover from Western sanctions, is seen trying to preserve market share, and has steadfastly resisted any suggestions that Iran should freeze or curb output in order to prop up prices. On the sidelines of an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington, D.C., Valiollah Seif, head of Iran's central bank told CNBC that asking Iran to freeze output right now is unfair. Read MoreNo Iran? Maybe no problem for 'soft' Doha deal "What Iran is doing right now is trying to get back and secure its share of the market," Seif said, adding that "what Saudi Arabia is asking Iran to do is not a very fair [or] logical request." On several occasions, the leadership of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said they would agree to an output freeze as long as Iran did too. Currently, analysts believe the two rivals are unlikely to reach a near-term consensus. Family aims to raise awareness about invisible illness Michelle and Jason Kemp's two children were born with cystic fibrosis. The Columbia family shares their story to raise awareness about the genetic disorder. Some years ago, when a biologist studying mosquito-borne viral illnesses returned from abroad to his home in Colorado, he became ill with fever, rash, joint pain and body ache. Soon his wife, too, became ill with similar symptoms. The children remained healthy. The couple tested negative for malaria and other tropical diseases, and within a week their symptoms resolved. Only when their blood was tested for Zika did they learn they both were positive for the virus. Yet only the biologist had traveled overseas and likely acquired the infection through a mosquito bite. Researchers wondered how his wife got the Zika infection. Upon questioning, the couple confirmed that they had sexual intercourse a few days after his travel, and scientists believe this was one of the first confirmed cases of Zika virus being spread through sexual transmission. This story highlights a major shift in the thinking about the Zika virus. While we are well aware of the transmission of Zika through mosquitoes, we now need to know that Zika can be transmitted through sexual contact from men to their partners. In short, Zika virus is a sexually transmitted disease. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed what had been feared that the Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and other severe fetal brain disorders. This has put many young couples living in Zika-affected areas, such as Puerto Rico and Brazil, as well as those traveling to these areas, in a quandary about planning a pregnancy. The question I am most often asked by young couples who fear the complications of microcephaly (small heads and brains) in their newborns is, "How long should one wait before having unprotected sex with a partner who is returning from a Zika-affected area?" The CDC recommends that if a man lives in a Zika-affected area or is traveling from this area and has possible symptoms of the virus such as fever and rash, then he should abstain from sexual contact for at least 6 months or use a condom. Why? Because while the symptoms of fever and rash resolve in a week, the Zika virus is present in the semen for months from men who have had a symptomatic Zika infection. What if the male partner did not have any symptoms? Studies show that four out of five people with a Zika infection do not show any symptoms of the virus. At present it is unknown whether asymptomatic men can transmit the virus to their sexual partners. So the CDC recommends that if a man lives in or has traveled in a Zika-affected area and does not show any symptoms of infection, he should still abstain from sex or use condoms for two months after returning from travel in order to prevent any risk of transmission. Women in these areas need to be extra vigilant about using insect repellent. According to the CDC, women may safely use Deet, a strong repellent, during pregnancy, saying that the risk of Zika is far worse than that posed by repellents. All this highlights another major point: We still know little about the Zika virus and its complications, and the CDC's recommendations are evolving every few months. We do know that the virus is spreading to more and more areas. Presently, there are 43 countries and territories, mostly in South American and Central America. Experts say it is inevitable that the virus will spread to the Southern United States, perhaps as soon as this summer. Already, it is found in northern Mexico and Puerto Rico. One of the greatest public health challenges will be to halt the further spread. For this the CDC requires more funding, which Congress has not released. President Barack Obama had requested $1.8 billion in February. Part of that is coming from money leftover from the Ebola virus scare. The balance roughly $1.3 billion is a small price compared to that of treating the complications of the Zika virus. If successful, we will have alleviated fear and anxiety among millions of young couples in the Southern United States who wish to have a healthy baby. Dr. Manoj Jain is an infectious disease physician in Memphis.
FILE - In this April 14, 2015 file photo, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
SHARE By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal WASHINGTON The reports delivered to U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and other lawmakers last week were blunt in their assessment of the fight against ISIS and terrorism. The ideology of ISIS echoes Nazism in its genocidal ambitions and tone, one counterterrorism expert warned. Last month's bombings in Brussels leave no doubt that the threat ISIS poses to the West is far greater than anticipated, concluded another. The potential for an ISIS-directed attack in the United States is real and could be similar to the massacres that killed dozens in Brussels and Paris, predicted yet another. Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the warnings underscore what U.S. officials have long known would be a prolonged battle against ISIS and terrorism. "This is not something that's going to be short term," he said. "The root cause of what is happening in the Middle East is going to take decades to overcome." Corker called the experts before his committee last week to get an update on how the United States and its international partners can best confront ISIS and the threat of transnational terrorism. Afterward, he said their testimony made clear that a lot of challenges lie ahead and the challenges exist on multiple fronts. One on front, ISIS has developed an unprecedented ability to communicate with its followers across the world. New technology allows ISIS to use encrypted platforms for communications, making it more difficult for intelligence agencies to monitor those activities on the same level as before. Intelligence gathering and sharing are crucial to stopping ISIS, Corker said. But that has proven problematic, particularly in Europe, where many countries are reluctant to share secrets with their neighbors and where privacy concerns often trump security matters, he said. "For a period of time, in our own country, the pendulum was swinging in the wrong direction relative to this issue," Corker said. "Hopefully, with what we've seen happening in other places and what has happened in our own country, our own citizenry understands the importance of us interdicting and doing the things that are necessary on the intelligence front." In the United States, the principal threat continues to be from home-grown, ISIS-inspired actors like Mohammad Abdulazeez, who opened fire last summer on a military recruiting station and a Navy and Marine Corps operational support center in Chattanooga, said Matthew Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia, just outside of Washington. Five servicemen were killed in the attacks. The FBI reported last year that homegrown, violent extremist cases totaled almost 900, had been reported in every state, and that most of them were connected to ISIS. On another front, more than 250 Americans have traveled to Syria and Iraq or have at least tried to join ISIS fighters, Olsen told the committee. "The fact that so many Americans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight, along with thousands more from visa waiver countries in Europe, raises the real concern that these individuals could be deployed here to conduct attacks similar to the attacks in Paris and Brussels," he said. While intelligence gathering remains the best way to fight terrorism, Corker said, Americans in Chattanooga or New York or Washington or other U.S. cities also can play a role, just like the Brussels taxi driver hailed as a hero for leading police to the apartment of the three airport bombers. The driver told police he had grown suspicious of the three men because they were overly protective of their bags when he took them to the airport. Americans, too, should be on the lookout for unusual behavior or anything suspicious, Corker said. "We've all got to be aware of our surroundings, aware of the people we come into contact with, and know that the threat is real," he said. "We've got to continue living life as we know it. We've just got to do so with greater awareness of our surroundings." April 15, 2016 - J.W. Wilson stands in his warehouse of Gibson Companies. The small business owner states the county does not adhere to its LOSB program rules. The program was intended to help small local businesses contract with the county. But a county disparity study found that 55 percent of the county's contracts went to businesses outside of Shelby. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal) By Linda A. Moore of The Commercial Appeal Last year J.W. Gibson, president of Gibson Industries, didn't get a $629,000 contract to sell office supplies to Shelby County. The bid originally went to a large, out-of-state provider, which was subsequently rejected by the County Commission after Gibson raised his concerns about the bid process. The contract was later awarded to another, larger provider that subcontracted with a different locally owned small business. That Gibson, who is African American, didn't land the contract is not unusual, nor is the fact that it originally went to a business outside of the county. As the County Commission prepares to dig deeper into the findings of a recently received study on the diversity of its contractors, Gibson's inability to do business with the county sheds light on how county purchasing has not only failed to be racially inclusive, but has left many locally owned firms and small businesses out of the equation. The $310,000 study was conducted by Oakland, California-based Mason Tillman Associates. The consultants analyzed purchasing data from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2014 and found that more than 88 percent of the county's contracts went to businesses owned by white men. It also found that 55 percent of the county's contract dollars, $104.5 million, goes to firms outside Shelby County, sending $48.6 million to vendors in other Tennessee counties, $54.9 million to vendors out of state and $918,805 to contractors outside the U.S. That's not a good financial formula, said county Commissioner Mark Billingsley, who believes money paid into county coffers by county taxpayers should circulate through the county to local businesses and their employees. "When we spend our money locally it comes back to us locally," Billingsley said. "I think as one of the largest buyers of services and supplies in the county, we should be doing business here at home." Gibson, a county commissioner himself from 2006 to 2010, has been in business for 24 years and distributes medical supplies, laboratory equipment, office and janitorial supplies. Although unsuccessful with the county, he recently secured a $4 million contract with Shelby County Schools for office supplies. Gibson sponsored the ordinance that created the county's locally owned small business program, which mandates that 20 percent of the contract dollars go to small businesses in Shelby County. "I felt strongly that there was too much of our taxpayer dollars exiting the state of Tennessee without locally owned small businesses having a fair share at it. I can attest to that as a small business owner. I live and breathe that every day against the big boys with buying power," he said. The LOSB program was deliberately race- and gender-neutral, although the consultants' recommendations for the county include the creation of a program for minorities and women-owned businesses. The LOSB program has a sliding scale for small businesses, allowing bids to be accepted at up to 5 percent higher than the lowest bid. The study report puts LOSB participation at 8.64 percent of contract dollars, significantly less than required by the ordinance that created the program. But those numbers are wrong, said county chief administrative officer Harvey Kennedy. He provided the quarterly LOSB reports mandated by the ordinance that showed the numbers at 20 percent or higher. The study report is a draft and some numbers may be adjusted. "We have asked for an Excel spreadsheet of the information that they used to compile that information," Kennedy said. Still, many local small business owners have little faith in the program. In the disparity report's anecdotal comments from small business owners of both genders and all races, some benefited from the LOSB program, while another said it needed stricter monitoring and others who were certified LOSB vendors found no value at all. One minority female business owner said she made no effort to become certified because she said owners must be part of the "insider network" to do business with the county. Participants in that portion of the study remained anonymous in the report. "It's nice to be certified with Shelby County but what does that mean if you're not actually getting any true business from them?" she said. "I would be happy to become certified with the County if they were truly interested in working with me." Study consultants recommended that the LOSB program be monitored more closely and that there be a rotation of firms to fulfill small contracts. Gibson believes other corrections should address the fact that small contracts under $5,000 require no advertising and no competitive bids. "As a commissioner I put forth that ordinance and they turned it around and said to hell with it," he said. "We're going to do it our way and our way is 55 percent going outside the county. It's a direct smack in the face of the locally owned small business initiative."October 2, 2014 - Memphis and Shelby County Health Department employees Torrian Fasom (left) and McKinley Wallace take samples of standing water to check for mosquito larvae. (Brandon Dill/Special to The Commercial Appeal)
By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal WASHINGTON Dr. Tim Jones isn't looking to cause alarm. He just wants everyone to be ready. Public health officials in Tennessee are preparing for more cases of Zika virus to be reported in the state with summer and mosquito season approaching. Of the 346 cases of Zika confirmed in the continental United States, only two have been in Tennessee and, like all the others, both involved people who had recently traveled to other countries or territories where the virus is prevalent. But with federal health officials warning last week that a Zika outbreak could affect much of the United States and potentially overwhelm federal resources, states like Tennessee are stepping up their own preparations for whatever may come. "We know we're going to have more cases" in Tennessee, said Jones, the state epidemiologist. "With what we know now or what we reasonably expect to happen in the coming months, I think we are doing everything that can be done." The state recently updated its testing lab so that, within hours, it is capable of confirming suspected cases of Zika, Jones said. Confirming the two previously reported cases took weeks because the state relied on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do the lab work."They obviously have a huge backlog, and it was taking three weeks or a month once we sent a sample down there for them to get the results out," Jones said. With the changes to the state lab, "we would be getting results back in a day," he said. State officials also are starting to hold regional training sessions for mayors, public works departments and other local officials to educate them about Zika and prevention efforts. The state also has begun requiring cases of microcephaly a birth defect linked to Zika be reported to public health officials. In Shelby County, where one of the two Tennessee cases has been confirmed, public health officials have been working closely with the state to keep on top of the latest developments about Zika, said Alisa Haushalter, director of the county health department. While there is no statewide mosquito-eradication program in Tennessee, Shelby County has a robust program that has been in place for years because of the region's history with yellow fever epidemics. The county spends $2.5 million a year on mosquito control. Funding for the program comes from a 75-cent tax on monthly utility bills. Mosquitoes and larvae are captured and tested for different diseases, such as West Nile virus. The county is buying additional equipment that will allow it to capture the type of mosquito that can spread Zika, Haushalter said. Because of the area's geography and climate, mosquito season in the Memphis area starts around mid-April and can run all the way through October. Spraying is done only in targeted areas, but property owners can assist in mosquito eradication by emptying birdbaths or outdoor water bowls and getting rid of other pools of standing water that might be a mosquito breeding ground, Haushalter said. At a White House briefing last week, federal health officials stressed that while states have made progress in preparing for an outbreak of Zika, "they really have a lot of homework to do," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's not just the health department this is an all-of-government, all-of-community effort," Schuchat said. "People need to take personal responsibility, as well as what the community is doing." Zika is spread primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito, but also can be transmitted through sexual contact. Officials initially thought the mosquito that can carry the virus was limited to a dozen states but acknowledged last week it is present in at least 30 states, including Tennessee, and reaches much farther northward than anticipated. The best defense is for Tennesseans to educate themselves about Zika and know how to protect themselves from contracting the virus, Jones said. "We don't want them to stay up at night, being afraid or canceling picnics," he said. "That is not warranted." For more information on Zika, see http://tn.gov/health/topic/zika-virus. Logan McNeil, 13, suggests progress could be made between races if people could listen to each other. (Jane Roberts/The Commercial Appeal) SHARE By Jane Roberts of The Commercial Appeal In the aftermath of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, and dozens of other police-related deaths around the nation, including Memphis, dozens of parents came to the National Civil Rights Museum Saturday to begin changing the script for what black and Latino families simply call "the talk." "I don't know the talk white America has in their homes, but I know what our (talk) is," said Nadid Amatullah-Matin, whose stepson, Abdul Kamal, was shot by police after an altercation at his estranged wife's home in New Jersey in 2013. He was unarmed. She read the description of his bullet wounds from the police report. "I shake when I see a police officer," she told the mostly African-American audience in the Parent2Parent symposium. "I thought we had educated ourselves and our kids, that we made enough money to live in a nice house. That doesn't protect you from it. "Wake up, because this is genocide going on. We don't wear physical shackles anymore, but they are still there," she said. Saturday's discussion was part of The Ethics Project, a St. Louis-based effort to help white parents understand the terror families of color have that their sons, fathers, uncles and grandfathers will encounter the police. "It's so much a part of our nature, we can't let our sons out of the front doors without giving them instruction on how to come back alive," said Dr. Christi Griffin, founder of the project. Days after Brown's death in 2014 in Ferguson, Griffin was in a mixed-race town hall meeting, listening as local African-Americans told of their experiences with the police. "I could feel so many people in the audience who were white had been given a wake-up call. They had no way to know our reality, that our sons and fathers walk out the door every single day not knowing what they will encounter," she said. "It seemed very, very apparent to me that something needed to be done." Griffin, a lawyer for 23 years in St. Louis, began gathering white audiences across St. Louis to hear the stories and join the battle for change. Saturday's session with the 17th symposium she has led and the first outside St. Louis. The discussion, emotional and raw, will be part of the documentary "The Talk" airing on PBS this fall. The film, directed by two-time Emmy-winner Geeta Gandbhir, includes conversations about police brutality against men and women and how police academies are responding with changes in training. "When PBS reached out to me, it was the perfect backdrop to be at the National Civil Rights Museum," Griffin said. The panel included five speakers, including Omar Paez from Memphis, who spoke about the talk Hispanic parents have with their children. "It is not stop, don't shoot," he said. "What we talk about is 'What happens if you don't see me tomorrow? Where do I start looking for you?' "It may not be at the local precinct or where you think to look," he said, noting that rhetoric in the presidential campaign about immigrants and Hispanics in particular has triggered new levels of anxiety for Hispanic children who are being taunted in school about being deported "as soon as we have a new president." Tomica McNeil, a black woman who said she was detained by police in Mississippi and later received an apology from the district attorney asked for unity. "If we don't help our counterparts, white or Latino, to help us this in dialogue it has to get in other households we are going to stay in this trouble." For more information on The Ethics Project, go to theethicsproject.org Pupils in Michele Dial's first-grade class at Lakeland Elementary (from left) Jeremiah Logan, 6; Oliver Ball, 6; Kaiden Mullins, 7; and Mason Ladd, 7, participate in a math exercise as part of the Common Core curriculum. State education officials have approved new English and math standards, marking the symbolic end of controversial Common Core standards in Tennessee. (Commercial Appeal file photo) SHARE By Melanie Balakit, The Tennessean State education officials have approved new English and math standards, marking the symbolic end of controversial Common Core standards in Tennessee. Tennessee is the latest state to phase out Common Core, joining Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Like its predecessors, Tennessee's English and math standards have a new name, but still have roots in Common Core. Common Core standards ignited a political brawl last year when state lawmakers, who saw the standards as federal overreach, pushed to scrap them. In response to cries for state-specific standards, Gov. Bill Haslam authorized a review of the state's English and math standards. The state developed a more rigorous review process to assess the standards, including two online public reviews, educator review and legislative input. The review process took almost two years. "We started with the current state standards. From there, we executed an unprecedented transparent, comprehensive review and replacement process," State Board of Education Executive Director Sara Heyburn said. "The results were a set of new, Tennessee-specific standards brought to us by the Standards Recommendation Committee, whose members were appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and confirmed by the General Assembly," Heyburn said. Standards set grade- and subject-specific goals in the classroom. The state's new standards, known as Tennessee Academic Standards, clarify the progression of standards and clarify glossary definitions of math and English standards. In math, additional clarification was added to standards regarding math formulas, and several bridge math standards were eliminated to further narrow the course content. Tennessee adopted Common Core in 2010 with little controversy as part of the state's application to the Race to the Top federal funding. Common Core was created by the National Governors Association to ensure all students graduate with the same skills, no matter the state where they live. A total of 45 states adopted Common Core, and several states have either dropped the standards or are reviewing them. Tennessee's new state test, TNReady, is still aligned to Common Core standards. "Tennessee's new Academic Standards for math and ELA are comprehensive, rigorous and a step forward for Tennessee students," said Fielding Rolston, state Board of Education chairman, in a news release. "We are very grateful to all of the parents, teachers, and leaders who took part in the public review process to help create these new standards." Schools will implement the Tennessee Academic Standards for mathematics and English language arts in the 2017-18 school year. The State Board of Education will work with the State Department of Education for education training and implementation, Heyburn said. The State Board of Education is leading reviews of the state's social studies and science standards. April 15, 2016 - Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo (left) and Charles Speed with Germantown Lumber stand with shovels ready for during a groundbreaking ceremony at the site where the former Saddle Creek fountain will be restored behind the Germantown Civic Club Plaza. Germantown Leadership class of 2016 has led the capital campaign for the project. (Brandon Dill/Special to The Commercial Appeal) SHARE By Jane Roberts of The Commercial Appeal The sage who suggested it's easier to tame a wild idea than invigorate a mild one would have smiled to see blue ribbons fluttering on shovel handles Friday as Leadership Germantown Class of 2016 put its stake in the ground for the newly-named Fountain of Youth. In two weeks, the class hopes crowds will line the streets when the city's long-loved fountain returns to town and its new home between the Pickering Center and Tennessee Genealogical Society offices off Poplar Pike. For decades, the four-tiered iron fixture welcomed residents and guests at the northeast corner of Poplar and West Farmington part of the original Shops of Saddle Creek, which opened in 1987. When the shopping center began planning for expansion two years ago, it was mothballed. "My office is in Market Square. I'd drive past it multiple times a day. When it would freeze over in the winter, it was just so beautiful. I hated to miss that," said Alisha Dumas. She and 17 other members of the Leadership Germantown class decided to save it as their class project, which initially required assessing the damage and seeking the city's help in the fountain's revival. The fountain restoration effort has a website (gtownfoy2016.com), Facebook page, logo, T-shirt and sponsorship campaign. Engraved pavers, incorporated in the hardscaping, are selling for $75. "Storage means it was outside, next to the public works garage sitting on bread pallets," said Dan Roberts, class member. "It was in three or four pieces with a crack in the eight-foot basin. That is the part that really needs to be fixed." The fountain is at Robinson Iron Corp. in Alexander City, Alabama. The cost of repairs, plus delivery, are estimated at $6,800. The class gift includes $5,000 for upkeep for three years, including the cost of sustainable landscaping. "So far, we've raised $25,000," Roberts told the crowd Friday. "Our plan is to get to $75,000. "I've got the (paver) forms in my pocket," he said. "I remember these more than I remember my wallet and car keys now." The remainder will go to the eight public schools in Germantown five run by Germantown Municipal School District and three Shelby County Schools operates. "What we are doing with they funds is even more valuable," Dumas said. "They go to young people, those who will be the future leaders in the community." The city bought the fountain for $10 when Saddle Creek construction started. Center operators had no plans for the water feature. "We're very, very grateful for all the effort the Leadership Germantown class has put into this project. Each class has put together a significant project in the community, but this one is probably the largest in magnitude and scope," said Mayor Mike Palazzolo, noting the class' new knowledge of the city's list of necessary approvals. "We appreciate your patience and understanding about process," he said, laughing. "You've captured a city icon. It's incredible. Next year's class will have a lot to live up to." The fountain is expected to be delivered April 29. The base will be planted and landscaped in mid-June, with a ribbon-cutting to follow. Class member Josh Cathey, chief operating officer at GMSD, attended the groundbreaking with his young son. "One of the little bricks will have his name on it. In 20 or 30 years, he can come back and see he was part of this," Cathey said. "I had no idea the level of emotional attachment and passion this fountain had in Germantown until we started talking about where we were going to put it, and how we were going to move it," he said. "It was very eye-opening for me." Associated Press files Labor organizers held a day of demonstrations across the country last Thursday for a $15 minimum wage in a repeat of strikes and protests, such as this one near a McDonald's restaurant in Times Square, held last year. "Fight for $15" organizers, including the Service Employees International Union, scheduled protests last week in 320 cities, including Memphis. The campaign began with fast-food workers in New York City in 2012. SHARE Mike Groll/Associated Press Last month, supporters of a $15 wage rallied at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y. March 31, a deal was struck to raise the minimum toward $15 per hour, but it wasn't a uniform statewide increase. Celina Alvarez, 51, works at Jugueria de regreso al Eden, her shop in the Queens borough of New York, Monday Aug. 3, 2015. As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has rolled to victory in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don't pay the legal minimum now and probably won't pay the new, higher wages either. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg) By Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg, Special to The Washington Post In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the nation's first minimum-wage law. It set the wage at $0.25 an hour and covered only a fifth of the workforce. Speaking to the country the night before he signed the bill, Roosevelt told listeners to "not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day" tell them "that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry." Last August, almost 80 years later, the city council of Birmingham, Alabama, voted 7 to 0 (with one abstention) to become the first city in the Deep South to enact a minimum wage above today's federal level of $7.25. The ordinance planned an increase to $8.50 per hour by July 2016, with a second increase to $10.10 set for July 2017. In response, state lawmakers leapt from "calamity-howling" to obstructionism. In February, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill designed to block Birmingham and other cities not just from raising the local wage floor, but also from mandating benefits such as paid sick leave. Alabama's Republican House Speaker Mike Hubbard insisted that the bill isn't about the policies themselves, but about preventing "all sorts of problems" that arise when cities are allowed to set their own minimum wages, presumably because there's nothing preventing local businesses from relocating to avoid the higher labor costs engendered by an increase. It's not a crazy concern. When the national minimum wage goes up, no business is at a competitive disadvantage they all face the same wage floor. It's fair to wonder whether sub-national minimum wages might encourage businesses to avoid an increase by moving, a question with implications for people all over the country from Olympia, Washington, to Lexington, Kentucky, to Bangor, Maine who are trying to secure a raise. The geographical variation that has sprung up over time, however, has allowed economists to test Hubbard's claims, and the evidence supports the actions of the Birmingham city council. Partly because of federal inaction, 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, have set minimum wages above the federal level, with floors ranging from $7.50 in Maine and New Mexico to $10 in Massachusetts and California to $10.50 in Washington, D.C. (rising to $11.50 in July). Southern states are the least likely to be in this group. City lawmakers began to adopt higher wage floors at the local level more than a decade ago. Four counties and 19 cities have minimums above their state's level, including Santa Fe ($10.84), San Francisco ($12.25) and SeaTac, Wash. ($15.24). Several more have either proposed or passed higher minimum-wage laws that have yet to take effect. This variation has provided opportunities for something rare in empirical economics: quasi-experimental studies. In one famous paper, economists Alan Krueger and David Card compared fast-food employment in New Jersey, which raised its minimum wage in 1992, with that in Pennsylvania, which did not. "We find no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment," they concluded. Are sub-state localities different from states? Another important study gets at this question by looking at county-level data, comparing every contiguous county across state borders where minimum wages differed over the course of 16 years. Instead of "all sorts of problems," the researchers found "no evidence of job losses for high impact sectors such as restaurants and retail." Case studies of cities with higher wage floors are less common, but those that have been done support the findings of the state and county research. Studies of San Francisco and Santa Fe, the two cities with the longest track records of higher minimums, reveal "no statistically significant negative effects on employment or hours (including in low-wage industries such as restaurants)." Businesses don't appear to relocate in response to local minimum-wage increases (at least not enough to create significant job losses), for several reasons. First, restaurants and other retailers, which are disproportionate employers of low-wage labor, must stay near their customers. Second, there are other ways to absorb higher wage costs than by laying off workers. Some evidence, for instance, suggests that companies raise prices, generally by less than 1 percent per every 10 percent increase in the wage. They may also become more efficient. The prospect of higher labor costs can incentivize employers to eliminate waste and to raise performance standards, while at the same time higher wages enhance workers' motivation. Companies end up with less turnover and shorter vacancy periods when filling job slots. Finally, companies can cut profit margins or top-level salaries to meet higher wage mandates. This last mechanism is one reason such policies get so much pushback from business, and it is particularly germane in an economy where income inequality stands at historically high levels. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the real earnings of low-wage workers in Alabama are down 6 percent compared with 1979, while those of the state's highest-paid workers are up 17 percent. Those low-wage workers have been left behind. And now the Alabama political establishment has blocked action to help them. This is the same political establishment that professes to support "local control" when it finds it convenient. For example, dozens of Alabama state representatives who voted to pre-empt Birmingham's minimum-wage ordinance were all for "necessary freedoms to address ... issues at the local level" when voting on a school-reform bill in 2013. Rep. David Faulkner, sponsor of the pre-emption bill, even acknowledged the contradiction: "While we say that we want local control of certain things, I don't believe the minimum wage is one of those." No wonder Birmingham's citizens and city council tried to fight back. The council voted to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 immediately to try to pre-empt the pre-emption bill, and Raise Up Alabama, a coalition including workers, unions and clergy members, is fighting the state's decision. If they lose the battle, it won't be because the facts weren't on their side. Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ben Spielberg works on issues related to inequality, economic opportunity and full employment at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Associated Press Files President Franklin Roosevelt appeals to the nation via radio for immediate enrollment of all employers under the July 1933 agreement to raise wages and create jobs. The bill Roosevelt signed set a 25-cents-an-hour minimum wage. SHARE By Thomas C. Leonard, Los Angeles Times When California legislators voted to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022, labor activists cheered. Discounting fears that a $15 minimum might cost some low-wage workers their jobs, activists and their political allies celebrated a victory for fairness and economic justice. Progressive labor activists took a very different view 100 years ago, when 15 states established America's first minimum wages. Labor reformers then believed that a legal minimum would hand a raise to deserving white Anglo-Saxon men, and a pink slip to their undeserving competitors: "racially undesirable" immigrants, the mentally and physically disabled, and women. The original progressives hailed minimum-wage-caused job losses among these groups as a positive benefit to the U.S. economy and to Anglo-Saxon racial integrity. In 1910, 22 percent of the U.S. workforce was foreign-born. A Who's Who of American economic reform warned that immigration was leading to "race suicide," what President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 called the "greatest problem of civilization." This race suicide theory claimed that because non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants had low living standards, their competition in the labor market undercut the wages of the American workingman. The key assumption was that Anglo-Saxon natives were more productive, but that immigrants worked cheap. As Stanford sociologist and avowed nativist Edward A. Ross put it, "the coolie, though he cannot outdo the American, can underlive him." Woodrow Wilson, echoing many others, said that Chinese immigrants could "live upon a handful of rice for a pittance." Similar charges were made against Jews and Catholics arriving from southern and eastern Europe. The American-born worker, who refused to lower his family's living standard to the immigrant's level, opted instead to have fewer children. Thus, concluded the theory, the inferior races would outbreed and displace their white Anglo-Saxon betters. Progressive economists proposed a minimum wage as the ideal remedy. It lifted up the deserving while excluding the unworthy and did both in the name of progress. Journalist and progressive social reformer Paul Kellogg in 1913 advocated a minimum wage of $3 per day for all immigrants, double the $1.50 per day ordinary laborers were then paid. Kellogg knew that no firm would hire an unskilled immigrant for $3 per day. That was the purpose of his high minimum wage, as he wrote, to exclude "Angelo Lucca and Alexis Spivak" from American shores, thus protecting American jobs for "John Smith and Michael Murphy and Carl Sneider." Kellogg targeted "racially undesirable" immigrants, but a high minimum wage would also protect the American workingman from unworthy economic competition already in the American workforce. The developmentally disabled, then called "feeble minded" or "defective," also were treated by many labor reformers as low-wage threats. Unable to command a minimum wage, they too would be pushed into unemployment and then could be removed to institutions or to labor colonies. According to British reformers Beatrice and Sidney Webb, when a minimum wage cost a disabled person his job, this was "not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health." In the case of women, the minimum-wage argument was subtler than the eugenic hysteria directed at immigrants and the disabled. Rather, it was couched in the paternalism of protecting women's health and virtue. In reality, labor reformers wanted to protect employment from women as much as they wanted to protect women from employment. Women made up 21 percent of the U.S. workforce in 1910 and reformers like Florence Kelley, who led the campaign for minimum wages, accused them of undercutting male breadwinners entitled to a "family wage." Labor reformers have far more inclusive views these days. Unlike their namesakes, 21st century progressives consider job losses a social cost, not a putative social benefit. Much of the economic debate about raising the minimum wage in California and New York has in fact centered on how best to avoid causing unemployment. Today's progressives would say their namesakes were wrong on race and gender and wrong on the effects of the minimum wage on employment. We know better today, they say. The original progressives were indeed wrong reprehensibly so on race and gender (even if the 2016 presidential campaign demonstrates that part of the electorate thinks otherwise). But were they wrong that a minimum wage set high enough will cost low-wage workers their jobs? If they were right, and a $15 per hour minimum by 2022 proves to be too high too fast, the workers who will lose their jobs will disproportionately be people of color, immigrants, the disabled and women the very people labor reformers vilified as low-wage threats a century ago. Thomas C. Leonard teaches economics and history at Princeton. SHARE Every year it seems, Shelby County Schools, after finding budget efficiencies, finds itself in a financial hole. SCS Superintendent Dorsey Hopson has told his school board and the Shelby County Commission, the local funding body for SCS, that the district is facing an $86 million budget deficit next school year. Hopson has laid out about $50 million in potential cuts, which school board members may or may not go along with. Even if they do, that still will leave the district in a $36 million financial hole. Will the board find a way to close that gap? Will county commissioners? Will the school district have to once again dip into its reserves? This year, the budget issue has a more alarming face that, we feel, puts the community at an educational crossroads at deciding what kind of public education system it wants. The cuts outlined by Hopson affect instruction. Is that the prudent road to take just as the district is beginning to make progress, especially in its iZone schools, toward having students master core subjects at grade level? Is it wise for the district to be forced to make cuts that impact what happens in the classroom when the SCS still has scores of failing schools? It is not. But building the community's and state's will to adequately fund public education which our business, government and criminal justice leaders say is key to this city's future prosperity and safety has been difficult. The cuts include the CLUE program, which would eliminate 34 teacher positions from the gifted and talented program for prekindergarten through second grade, saving $3.2 million. The program would only be available to students the state requires to be placed in it. Other cuts would involve $18 million to the academics department, $2.5 million to innovation, $9 million to business operations and $19.5 million across other departments. Another $14.6 million in cuts could come from cutting staff proportional to lost enrollment. That would include teachers, guidance counselors and other school-based staff, but would not affect any staff-to-student ratios. The district last year decided to close a $36 million budget shortfall using its fund balance, but we agree with Hopson that "smart business practices dictate" that the district shouldn't rely on that on a recurring basis because it is a sure way to deplete the fund if the district keeps making withdrawals without replacing the money. While some county commissioners have not ruled out helping the district, Hopson surely will be asked if the district has found every possible efficiency. That is a legitimate question. Hopson, however, can point out that the district has shed more than 2,000 jobs since the legacy Memphis City Schools merged with the legacy county school district. He also can counter the perception that the district's staffing is top-heavy. The district's administration accounts for about 2 percent of the district's budget. The district does have an efficiency problem when it comes to underutilized schools. After saying there were no plans to close schools this year, Hopson switched gears Wednesday night when he told school board members the district could move up its time line and close as many as 10 schools before the fall, including district-controlled schools and consistently underperforming charters, saving the district between $6 million and $8 million. That is easier said than done. Closing a neighborhood school always draws the ire of residents and some school board members. When money is short, the options for what has to be sacrificed to pay the bills never are good. But after years of cuts and the loss of students (and the state education dollars that follow them) to charter and Achievement School District schools while overhead costs have not made a corresponding drop, the district finds itself having to outline cuts that impact the classroom. Can this community afford to let that happen? SHARE Kathy Gibson By Kathy Buckman Gibson, Special to Viewpoint I am excited to announce that the Shelby County Early Childhood Education Plan (SCECEP) will officially launch this Thursday at the Macon Cove Campus of Southwest Tennessee Community College. For many years, my family and I have supported efforts to improve education in Shelby County, with a focus on early childhood and pre-K. We have not been alone in these efforts. Whether it is the Greater Memphis Chamber pre-K moon mission, the effort to fund pre-K via a tax referendum or a collaboration that helped Shelby County receive a U.S. Department of Education pre-K expansion grant, our community has built momentum for early childhood education reform. The addition of the SCECEP, a comprehensive plan to add quality programming and capacity from birth through third grade, will help us continue building on that momentum and move us toward the ultimate goal of increasing the number of children reading proficiently at third grade. Currently, only 38 percent of Shelby County third-graders read on grade level. We must change this. Third-grade reading proficiency is one of the best predictors of high school graduation. When Shelby County received the federal pre-K expansion grant, it became clear there were deficiencies in early childhood education that needed to be addressed. PeopleFirst Partnership, a local nonprofit, with support from local philanthropies and the Boston Consulting Group, convened more than 30 organizations to study child care and education from birth to third grade. After months of intensive research, the SCECEP was approved on Dec. 18, 2015. The plan has 23 recommendations divided into three categories: birth to three, pre-K, and kindergarten through third grade. The recommendations are led by partners throughout Shelby County, including city and municipal school districts, the Chamber of Commerce, Memphis Tomorrow, Seeding Success, the Early Success Coalition and many others. Since its adoption, the SCECEP has played a role in key wins for education. On April 6, the Tennessee pre-K Quality Act, sponsored by state Rep. Mark White of Memphis, was signed into law by Gov. Bill Haslam. With help from Literacy Mid-South and Seeding Success, summer literacy programs are being expanded to prevent summer slide. These are a few examples of the work the SCECEP already has begun, and I am thrilled about the progress we can make together moving forward. This work cannot be done alone, and it is gratifying to see partners come together to help. This plan will not be put on a shelf. Implementation has begun and will continue. I am convinced that with our community coming together to implement this plan, we will see more children having the skills in place to be reading at grade level by third grade. Reading on grade level will offer every child the best opportunity to graduate high school ready to enter the workforce or to attain a higher degree. I ask that you will join us in this work by volunteering, voting and advocating for our children at every opportunity. Kathy Buckman Gibson is chairwoman of the Shelby County Early Childhood Education Plan. 23 May 2022 - Understand the French healthcare system, how you access it and how you are reimbursed - Useful if you are new to the French healthcare system or want a more in-depth understanding - Reader question and answer section Aimed at non-French nationals living here, the guide gives an overview of what you are (and are not) covered for. There is also information for second-home owners and regular visitors. SUBSCRIBE Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates straight in your inbox. SHARE By Larry Caplan Ticks are my most hated pest. They lie in ambush in tall grass, waiting for the next unsuspecting person or pet to wander by. They carry numerous diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. And they will spend several hours feeding on our blood. Ticks are not true insects, which have three body segments and six legs. Ticks are arachnids, a class of creatures related to insects. They have two body parts and, when mature, eight legs. It is important to note that they are not insects; this is why many insecticides used to control them have little effect. The three main tick species found in Southwestern Indiana include the American dog tick, the lone star tick, and the deer tick. All of these can be found in grassy places, especially if they are near wooded areas. All of them feed on multiple hosts at different stages of their development, including rodents, birds and dogs. All of them carry various diseases that can affect humans and pets. Tick control is difficult. Keep overgrown and heavy vegetation cleared and cut in infested areas. Eliminate unnecessary vegetation around yards or property, along wood edges, or along the edges of trails and paths. Treating the yard with insecticides doesn't work well again, because ticks are not insects and also because the products available don't last very long. For preventing outdoor exposure, avoid tick-infested areas, and wear protective clothing. Stay on established trails, and avoid brushing against vegetation. Wear light-colored clothing, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts so that ticks can be more easily seen. Tuck in your shirt and pull your socks over the pant cuffs. Apply an insect repellent to your shoes, socks and pants. Effective tick repellents are those containing DEET or permethrin. Occasionally check yourself and your children for ticks, especially on the head, groin and underarm areas. Inspect pets after they have been outdoors. If you do find one on you, don't panic. A tick is slow to attach itself to a person, and doesn't begin feeding and transmitting diseases for several hours. Use tweezers, and grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible. Pull upward with a steady, even pressure. Yanking the tick quickly can leave the head inside your skin, causing an infection. Don't squeeze, crush, or puncture the tick, and don't handle it with your bare hands. After removing the tick, flush it down the toilet, then disinfect the bite site and wash hands thoroughly with soap and water. Consult a physician immediately if a rash or flu-like symptoms develop. Ask my office for a link to our publication on ticks to get more information on identifying the different ticks, and the various diseases they carry. For more information on ticks, contact the Purdue Extension Service at 812-435-5287, and ask for publication E-71, "Ticks." Larry Caplan is an extension educator-horticulture with the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service, Vanderburgh County/Southwestern Indiana. You can send email to him at LCaplan@purdue.edu. JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Charles Blackburn is welcomed back home by kiss girl Lena Phelps of Evansville during a welcome home parade for veterans at Evansville Regional Airport while taking part in the Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Honor Flight to Washington D.C., Saturday. Thousands of individuals attended the parade in support of the 85 veterans that took part in Saturday's Honor Flight. SHARE JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Asya Mathies, 5, of Evansville waves flags for veterans while sitting on her father's shoulders during a welcome home parade for veterans at Evansville Regional Airport who took part in the Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Honor Flight to Washington D.C., Saturday. Thousands of individuals attended the parade in support of the 85 veterans that took part in Saturday's Honor Flight. JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS World War II veteran Frank Turber is welcomed back home by Sen., Jim Tomes during a welcome home parade for veterans at Evansville Regional Airport while taking part in the Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Honor Flight to Washington D.C., Saturday. Thousands of individuals attended the parade in support of the 85 veterans that took part in Saturday's Honor Flight. JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Korean War veteran Fredrick Roeder gets a kiss on the cheek from kiss girl Danielle Shrode during a welcome home parade for veterans at Evansville Regional Airport while taking part in the Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Honor Flight to Washington D.C., Saturday. Thousands of individuals attended the parade in support of the 85 veterans that took part in Saturday's Honor Flight. JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Vehicles exit from the Evansville Regional Airport at the conclusion of the Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Honor Flight to Washington D.C., Saturday. Thousands of individuals attended a welcome home parade in support of the 85 veterans that took part in Saturday's Honor Flight. By Jessie Higgins of the Courier and Press The halls of Evansville Regional Airport were filled with excitement Saturday morning as 80 local World War II and Korean War veterans left for Washington D.C. on the area's fourth Honor Flight. "I don't know why they went to all this trouble," World War II veteran Don Prickett said with a grin and a look of obvious excitement on his face. Prickett's daughter, Debbie Storm, laughed. "That sums him up," she said. This was Honor Flight of Southern Indiana's fourth Washington trip. The 80 veterans and their companions spent Saturday touring war memorials and monuments. They watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and went on a general tour of Washington. The flight took more Korean War veterans than previous trips. "I've come to see them take off all of the times they've gone," Joseph Raley, a Korean War veteran, said with a smile Saturday morning, as he readied to board the plane. Raley served in the Marine Corp. during the conflict. "I spent my 21st birthday there," he said. Another Korean War veteran to make the trip Saturday, Sylvester Nord, was in the Army's Infantry during the conflict. "I was on the front for five months," Nord said. Nord said he spent those months chasing Chinese soldiers up and down North Korean mountainsides until he wounded in combat. "On Sept. 20, 1951 I was wounded," Nord said. "I didn't think I was in any danger that night. Of course, that's when it happened." Honor Flights are free to the veterans. Local veterans can register to attend an upcoming trip at honorflightsi.org. The next Honor Flight out of Evansville will be held Oct. 22, 2016. SHARE By Sarah Loesch of the Courier and Press Jim Madison said Indiana's bicentennial offers everyone an opportunity to learn more about the past, present and future. "Things are always changing," Madison said. "I think that is one thing historians bring to the table. We know that what is will not be." Madison was the first lecturer in the Shoulder's Family Commons Lecture Series at Harrison High School. He is the Thomas and Kathyrn Miller Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University and is on the board of Indiana Humanities and the Indiana Historical Society. He most recently published a book on Indiana history called Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana. Madison said in recent years the knowledge surrounding Indiana history has grown, especially since he wrote his first book on the subject in the 1980s. One piece of knowledge which is still not definite is the meaning behind the word Hoosier. Madison said no one will probably ever know what it means and he likes that. "It makes Hoosiers kind of a mystical, magical people," he said. "We're special, we Hoosiers." The professor said he urges people to find their story and meaning for the word. Once they have one they like, he wants people to spread it. Despite the constant change with history, Madison said there is one thing in Indiana which will never change. Indiana has a brand. "We are Hoosiers. I think we need to embrace it," he said. "More importantly we need to know where we are." Madison said being globally aware is important. Conversations need to happen that discuss where Indiana currently is as a society and where its citizens see it going, he said. Cory Herrin, principal of the Indiana Career and Technical Center, said it's important to his family to understand their origins. Herrin said as an Evansville native he has always had the interest of Indiana history, but he appreciated how Madison presented it. He said it was interesting to see the continuum of how early events continued to impact Indiana throughout the years and into today. "We are people of the world, but yet we are all anchored in one location," he said. "Really to understand your anchor you have to really know your history, where you are and where that comes from." By Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY NETWORK IndyStar Washington bureau SHELBYVILLE, Ind. Rep. Todd Young ran for the House in 2010 as a fiscal conservative who would help rein in spending. After defeating Democratic incumbent Baron Hill one of the wins that contributed to the Republican takeover of the House Young eagerly took a seat on the House Budget Committee. "This will be ground zero in making decisions about what our priorities are at the federal level of government," Young said at the time. "We're going to shake things up." Today, as Young seeks the GOP nomination to run against Hill for the Senate seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Dan Coats, he's facing an electorate complaining that Washington hasn't been shaken up enough. In a year in which anti-establishment candidates are collecting the most GOP presidential delegates, Young is the Senate Republican candidate who best represents party leaders. He's backed by the Chamber of Commerce, which is running $1 million in ads touting Young's candidacy. He has a long list of endorsements from Indiana GOP officials, and is supported by outside groups with ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. CANVASS PODCAST: Indiana Primary Election Preview "The D.C. establishment thinks that they can buy your vote," Rep. Marlin Stutzman, Young's May 3 primary opponent, charged in a recent fundraising missive. "They have chosen Todd Young to play as their puppet in this upcoming election." Young argues Stutzman may talk like a tough conservative, but doesn't have much to show for it. "We need people in Washington who do more than give speeches and cast votes," Young said at the Shelby County Lincoln Day Dinner this month. "I'm not running on some vague platitudes. I'm running based on my record." That's a record that includes having beaten Hill once, secured an influential committee assignment and scored some legislative success. His record also includes something he doesn't highlight on the campaign trial: being one of the few House Republicans willing to end the partial government shutdown in 2013, which earned him the ire of tea party groups. But Jonna Reece, vice chairwoman of the Delaware County Republican Party, likes a record she says shows Young makes his own decisions. "His stance is not always the popular stance," Reece said. "I think that's important." Raised primarily in Indianapolis and Carmel, Young said he did not grow up in a political home. His parents a small-business man and a registered nurse had never attended a political rally or Lincoln Day Dinner before Young ran for office. Young, 43, did marry into a politically connected family. His wife, Jenny, a fellow attorney, is the niece of former Vice President Dan Quayle. The couple and their four young children live in Bloomington, one of the state's most liberal communities. "I'm a Bloomington conservative," Young says in his stump speech. "My wife and I call it missionary work." Young's political experience before running for Congress included stints with the conservative Heritage Foundation and former Sen. Dick Lugar, who was defeated in the 2012 primary after being accused of becoming too moderate. The part of Young's biography he emphasizes frequently on the campaign trail is his service in the Marines, and degree from the U.S. Naval Academy. It's a background that comes through in Young's demeanor, including the intensity and discipline with which he often speaks. "The fact that he trained as a leader resonated with me," said Charlie Hocker, a retiree from Greensburg who heard Young at a candidate forum in February and again at the Shelby County Lincoln Day Dinner this month. Although Hocker is volunteering for presidential candidate Ted Cruz, the senator who encouraged the 2013 government shutdown that Young voted to end, Hocker said Young's attitude convinced him that he'll stand up for what he believes. "We've got a bunch of wishy-washy people in Washington that promise the world and don't do what they say," Hocker said. Young said some Republicans overpromised on what could be accomplished without controlling both the legislative and executive branches. "They tended to be rhetorical conservatives who would talk a big game about what was possible," he said. "But in the end, they never became known for their hard work of actually advancing conservative principles." In 2012, when retiring Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., gave Young lead sponsorship of a bill to require congressional approval of certain regulations written by the executive branch, Davis called Young "one of the hardest-working and most diligent new members of Congress." That bill, along with another measure Young often touts that would increase the number of hours someone must work before an employer has to offer health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, has passed the House, but not the Senate. Young also worked on less high-profile measures that were included in bills that have become law. And, after serving on the House Budget Committee for two terms, Young won a coveted seat on the Ways and Means Committee. The panel's expansive jurisdiction includes taxes, trade and aspects of extensive social service programs like welfare, Medicare and Social Security. Among Young's competitors for a seat on that committee was fellow Hoosier Rep. Todd Rokita, who had raised more money for the party. But Young developed relationships with House leaders and touted his graduate studies in economics at the University of Chicago and his willingness to work hard and take tough votes. Few votes were likely tougher than when he was among a minority of House Republicans who voted in 2013 to end the government shutdown and avoid a default on the nation's debt. "We must commit ourselves to avoiding the constant cycle of brinkmanship by working across party lines to address issues like job creation, stagnant personal incomes, our unsustainable national debt, and rising health care costs," Young said at the time. Young has also voted regularly against the alternative to House Republican's annual budget blueprint that's offered by conservatives pushing a greater reduction in federal spending. Stutzman has supported those alternatives, and has sometimes sponsored them. Young said he's opposed the more conservative budgets because they would impose changes too quickly to Social Security and Medicare. While changes are needed to the increasingly expensive programs, Young said, they have to be phased in more gradually to give people time to prepare. But Young has sided with more conservative House Republicans on several other budget votes taken since he began running for the Senate. He voted last fall with tea party members against a temporary funding measure, against a budget and debt-limit deal, and against the overall spending bill for this year. The Indiana Democratic Party accused Young of trying to appear as conservative as Stutzman before the primary. Young says he considers each bill on its own terms and he opposed the overall spending bill because it didn't include new restrictions on Iraqi and Syrian refugees, which Young considered a security concern. Young also cites that vote as an example of how contrary to what Stutzman says he's not a puppet of party leaders, who are a target of voters' anger this year. "I know so many of you are frustrated," Young said at the Shelby County Lincoln Day Dinner. "You may feel like, 'I've had enough of Washington, D.C. I want to send in the Marines.'" You can't send them all in, the former Marine likes to tell voters, "but you can send in one." Continue Reading Below Advertisement This brings us to the story of Erwin Mena. Beginning in the mid-'90s, he posed as a Catholic priest, wandering from parish to parish performing baptisms, taking confession, and soliciting donations from the faithful, all while insisting that people call him "padre." He had evidently studied theology at the school of Robert Rodriguez movies. Of course, Mena was just pocketing the donations. He would continue loitering around until the local diocese caught wind of him, at which point he would leave a parting message and disappear, sort of like a fake reverend Batman. Meanwhile, the local bishop would declare the problem solved, and Mena would turn up somewhere else and begin his scam anew. Erwin Mena / Facebook "No, a camel couldn't go through the eye of a needle. What a silly thing to even mention." Continue Reading Below Advertisement When Mena was finally arrested, it turned out that filching donations from the collection plate was only his side gig. He had been working some larger cons that were meant to net some bigger profits. For example, he pirated a copy of a Spanish documentary on Pope Francis, then collected $16,000 to "produce" the film himself. Sussex News Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Sorry... ..An error has occured: If you have any queries about this error, try emailing feedback@mirror.co.uk and we'll do what we can to help you. ZID:308457493 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Independent record stores all over the globe Saturday will be celebrating Record Store Day, an annual event created to boost the record store business. Indie and major labels press special, limited run vinyl LPs and singles just for the occasion, leading to long lines around stores, akin to Black Friday craziness in November. The vinyl format has been in a boom for nearly a decade. All the talk about vinyl means that some of us begin thinking about the records we've collected over the years before cassettes, compact discs, MP3s and streaming tried to kill off each successive format. Shows like "American Pickers" and "Pawn Stars" lead some of us to believe we might have a fortune in vinyl in a dusty box, but according to leading store owners in Houston you might just have junk. Some seasoned record store owners break it down for us novices. As it turns out, older isn't always better. According to Chuck Roast at Vinal Edge, 239 W. 19th, the Heights shop uses some straightforward considerations to decide what to buy from people who bring in vintage records. "Is there a market for this stuff? Are the people with this taste long dead or downsizing? Does it fit our stores direction? Roast says. If a record is what Roasts store is looking for, the staff then looks at its condition. The record itself and the sleeve should be in mint or near-mint condition. We like to see collections where the covers are in plastic sleeves. It indicates a well cared for collection, Roast adds. Common things that Roast and other store owners run into are water damage, mold, adhesive tape, mysterious stains and names. People used to love writing their names on their LPs and 45s. How else would you get your records back from a friend or an ex? What records does he see on a near-daily basis? I never need to see another Pablo Cruise record in my life. It is the cruise you dont need to ever take, Roast says. Kurt Brennan of Sound Exchange, 1846 Richmond, does brisk business selling music from the underground, but says that shoppers are still looking for the same things to round out their collections. The records most sought after have not really changed much in the past 40 years. Jazz, punk, soul and hard rock always top the list, Brennan says. Theyve gotten plenty of calls from people thinking that theyve found gold at grandmas house only to have to let them down when they learn that those Glenn Miller or Elvis Presley records arent all that rare. Regarding the notion that most people think all records are valuable, I can tell you that is all too true. The endless hyping of the return of vinyl records certainly isnt educating anyone either, Brennan says. When I get the daily hyper-ventilating phone call from someone cleaning out grandmas house I always try to give the caller some perspective. That is, the number of records in existence is always going to be many thousands of times greater that the number of records people actually want to buy, Brennan says. Quinn Bishop at Cactus Music, 2110 Portsmouth, says that hes seen a lot of baby boomers looking to unload their parents collections after theyve passed. That generation had a much different taste in music. We are seeing those customers bringing in tons of light classical, post-WWII pop vocalists and easy listening records that have almost no value, Bishop says. We not-so-affectionately refer to these records as "parent music and it is sometimes difficult to find an organization who will accept them as a donation. These are not the records that teens and twenty-somethings want to play on their new turntables. The millennials who are driving vinyl sales just have no interest in these items. I'm not sure that anyone else does either, Bishop says. Millennials these days are buying lots of Fleetwood Mac, if you can believe that. On a recent visit to Vinal Edge we saw a gaggle of collectors barely old enough to drink purchasing Macs Rumours as if it was the newest Taylor Swift release. Boomers who are pruning their living spaces down after the kids have left the nest are also coming by with crates of records to sell. The following seem to be in every box of records that is brought to us: Herb Alpert, Barbara Streisand, Sergio Mendes, Neil Diamond, The Carpenters, Dan Fogelberg and others, Bishop says. That Alpert Whipped Cream & Other Delights LP cover is still a timeless gem, though. The Moody Blues albums may have been making babies out there, because I suspect that the number of them being attempted to be sold back to record shops actually eclipse the number of those originally pressed, Bishop jokes. What Bishop says he will take are blue chip classic rock records from Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and David Bowie, plus timeless jazz records from the '50s through the '70s. Classic soul records are always welcome. How does Bishop assess a personal collection? We first evaluate content. Any parent music or titles like those listed above are culled out to leave titles which we would be likely to sell in our store for $4 or more, Bishop says. Any titles for which we are overstocked go into the former category as well. As at Vinal Edge, condition is key. Condition is everything as all of our records in the Record Ranch are in VG (very good) condition or better. We are often more forgiving for records of great rarity or unique pressings, Bishop says. What does a dream haul look like for Cactus Music? Ultra-esoteric rock and folk of the prog and psych variety. These type of records are easy to sell, interesting listening for our staff and excite our core customers. We've had a few buys that provided an educational experience for our buying staff, Bishop says. If you cant unload Grandma or Grandpas ancient classical records, you can always make art out of them. You can melt them and mold them into bowls or cut them down to make nerdy coasters. Contributed / Contributed After his arrest for two motor vehicle accidents in Orange, a Milford man allegedly urinated and defecated in his holding cell. According to the Orange Police Departments Facebook page, shortly after midnight on April 9, officers responded to the scene of two separate motor vehicle accidents on Grassy Hill Road, both of which included injuries to the involved parties. Police arrested Shaba Lyons, 25, of Marble Lane in Milford, for both accidents. He was charged with failure to drive in the proper lane, and DUI. If you dont think prescription narcotics and heroin are killing 700 a year in Connecticut, start paying attention to the death notices in the newspaper. I look at the pictures of those 20-somethings, 30-somethings, 40-somethings who die suddenly and I wonder whether they expired from overdoses. Its a rare family that admits their loved one died from an addiction, but I see that more and more in the newspapers death notices. Bravo, for telling it like it is, because if one addict can see the dead end of eternity waiting to greet their excesses, maybe theres a life to be saved there. Twenty years ago, after her son Ian lost a multi-year struggle with addiction briefly helped somewhat by treatment programs but enabled by those who thought they were giving him a break Ginger Katz of Norwalk started the Courage to Speak Foundation. We have a full-blown addiction crisis on our hands, Katz said the other day during a forum on the opioid and heroin crisis sponsored by the state Commission on Children. The room was full of professionals from throughout the state, there to brainstorm and share the current state of best practices. Addiction is a disease and I clearly understand it now, Katz said. Bringing the reality of the opioid and heroin scourge into the public eye is one of the first, easy things that can be done. The dead are piling up everywhere. For state Rep. Roberta Willis, D-Salisbury, the co-chairman of the legislative Higher Education Committee, the issue was brought home the year that Torrington, the big city in her nine-town district, scored 20 overdose deaths. Now shes trying to get her local hospital to change the after-care surveys sent to patients that focus on whether their pain was managed. Next thing to do is cut the number of pills that patients take home. A bill in the Legislature would limit opioid therapy to a week after discharge and not the typical 30-day supply. Something else thats relatively easy is in the home. Adults should lock away the Oxycodone, the Vicodin, the Percocet. The medicine cabinet is as antiquated as a candle-powered chandelier. Its a doorway to potential addiction. Some local police departments have boxes in their lobbies, where pills can be dropped off, no questions asked. Getting the kind of wide-ranging, persistent, literally never-ending treatment that addicts need may be the toughest solution, especially in this grim atmosphere over the Connecticut General Assembly. The states next budget, which takes effect July 1, currently has a $922-million deficit. Good, effective mental health and addiction services are already being slashed at a time when theyre most-needed. Joanne Montgomery, director of behavioral health services for the AIDS Project of Greater Danbury, said the overdose fatalities are entirely preventable. We need treatment on demand, she said during a news conference the other day with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. When people are ready to get treatment, we need to have the services available. You cant tell a using addict to come back in a week. They may not have a week. We also need to look at how we treat kids who are exhibiting signs of substance abuse in the school system, said Melissa McGarry, co-chairman of the Trumbull Drug and Alcohol Coalition. We need to look at screening kids in schools, whether their attendance is the trigger or their grades or any other behavioral issues. We need to get them help. Matthew DeLuca, a recovering addict who is a member of the towns Community Addiction & Recovery Education and Support Group, said that ending the stigma of addiction is important. It keeps so many sick, he said, stressing that guilt, shame and embarrassment are keeping people from seeking treatment, so theyre sliding deeper and deeper. Some of the greatest people I have ever met in my life I met in recovery, he said. Theyre talented people, theyre smart people, theyre educated people, but theyre sick and they have a disease. We need to start treating it like a disease. DeLuca said that long-term treatment is the only way to prevent relapses. Getting a full continuum of care, he said. That is what long-term recovery looks like. Norwalk Police Chief Tom Kulhawik, with 33 years on the job, said that over that time, enforcing drug laws has been the focus. But over the last year or two, at least myself and people around me have realized thats not working, Kulhawik said. Enforcement alone is not the issue. Its part of it but we need to also participate and not operate in a silo and work toward treatment, work toward recovery and try to work toward our partners. Kulhawik said that federal authorities offer little help beyond enforcement. If we bring somebody in at 2 oclock in the morning on a Sunday that wants treatment, where do we bring them? he said. The answer is nowhere. Connecticut, the victims of addiction are not only friends, neighbors, relatives or faces in the newspaper death notices. Its you, too. Ken Dixons Capitol View appears Sundays in the Hearst Connecticut Newspapers. You may reach him in the Capitol at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. Find him at twitter.com/KenDixonCT. His Facebook address is kendixonct.hearst. Dixons Connecticut Blog-o-rama can be seen at blog.ctnews.com/dixon/ Berlin, Windber and North Star bring plenty of momentum into Week 10 Check out what we learned in Week 9 of the high school football season across Somerset County. Lifestyle | Daily Life | News | The Sydney Morning Herald Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss Surprisingly, pro-cannabis campaigner Howard Marks (pictured) was on friendly terms with Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens How on earth did I end up on friendly terms with Howard Marks, the drug-smuggler and pro-cannabis propagandist who died last week? Yet I did. You might think we would loathe each other. He stood for almost everything I am against. But not quite. He was a fierce and instinctive defender of free speech, a rare and precious quality. I learned this one long-ago evening in Blackpool, when a squawking rabble of ignorant, intolerant students succeeded in having me driven off the stage at a debate. As a snivelling official of the National Union of Students switched off my microphone and ordered me from the room, Howard got up, put his arm around my shoulder and said quietly and firmly: If hes going, Im going too. He walked by my side as we left through a knot of hissing, hostile zealots. I vowed never to forget it, and I never have. He loathed my opinions, and I loathed his, but we both knew there was something higher and better than that the freedom to argue without hate or rancour. I debated against him four times. He was wholly frank about his aim the legalisation of selfish pleasure and the profits to be made from it. He was a criminal but had served prison time for it without complaining. Never did I hear him produce the sort of pious, oily rubbish you usually get from the advocates of the Big Dope lobby. WORRYING? THAT'S WHAT DADS ARE FOR During Midnight Special, there is a moving moment about fatherhood that makes the odd story worthwhile Theres a single, very moving moment in the new film Midnight Special that makes the whole rather odd story worthwhile. The small boy at the centre of the plot, who is being sought by angry armed men, turns to his father and tells him to stop worrying about him. His father replies: I will always worry about you. I like worrying about you. Thats the deal. In a world where fathers are increasingly being written out of the script of life, its a rare mention of an important thing. Advertisement He listened to my arguments. By the next time I met him, he would have read up the facts and prepared a thoughtful response. I cannot tell you how rare that is. Most Big Dope advocates never listen to a word their opponents say. What a pleasing contrast he was to the pitiful Nick Clegg, who ceaselessly calls for drug law liberalisation with the ingratiating smarminess of a newly hatched curate. He was at it again on the BBCs Newsnight last week. The programme, which recently gave the ridiculous Russell Brand a free platform for his wet opinions on drugs, filmed Mr Clegg wandering around Colombia, mouthing pro-legalisation pieties. The former Deputy Prime Minister clearly knows almost nothing about the subject. Hes never met a cliche or a fat, juicy slab of conventional wisdom that he doesnt like. He actually said that many people in this country are forced to steal to fund their drug habit, because both drug dealing and drug use are illegal. Forced to steal? By whom? No, they choose to do so because they are selfish and cruel and dont care about wrecking other peoples lives. And beside the fact (seemingly unknown to the former Deputy PM) that the police are rapidly giving up enforcing the laws against drug possession, how does this follow? If cannabis was legal in this country, the big producers wouldnt give it away free. In fact it would be more expensive because it would be taxed. Which is why theres so much crime in the UK surrounding smuggled but legal alcohol and tobacco. So why on earth would dishonest, greedy people stop stealing to pay for it, just because it was legal? The absence of thought here is amazing, as is Mr Cleggs complacent lack of interest in the growing correlation between cannabis use and mental illness, not to mention horrible, violent crime. Howard Marks looked like what he was, the ravaged, ruined advocate of a very bad cause. Mr Clegg, with his nice suit and his sweet tones, is far more dangerous, and a lot harder to like. Electronics shops are selling huge numbers of dashboard cameras to guard drivers against false accusations, something that happened years ago on Russias lawless roads. Meanwhile, carers who steal from old people are being caught thanks to tiny surveillance devices hidden in smoke alarms. When are we not under surveillance? How many cameras will it take to entirely replace our shrivelled consciences and the dead Christian religion that once sustained them? Well, so much for Jeremy Corbyn, who I have defended here for not being an Establishment mouthpiece. Tony Benn, who taught Mr Corbyn all he knew, was a patriot thrilled by Englands long struggle for liberty. He knew that the European Union meant the end of a thousand years of English history. He loathed its unaccountable power. By taking away our freedom to make our own laws, the EU knocks the stuffing out of any serious political movement of Left or Right. Mr Corbyn, by ignoring this lesson, turns out to be just another bureaucrat after all. Hed have done better to go down fighting. Having crushed him on this, his enemies now know that they can first bend him to their will, and then destroy him. Another foul-up vanishes into thin air Have you noticed the way that news suddenly stops happening in various foreign parts? After months when it produced far more news than it could consume locally, Ukraine went dark and silent. But bad things kept on happening. This always takes place in countries where the fashionable Left triumphs. South Africa, now a swelling disaster of disorder, mismanagement and corruption, is another example. The second act, where the liberal utopia goes wrong, just doesnt get reported. Last week Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (pictured) resigned after a failure to tackle the real corruption in which the country is neck-deep Well, last week the Ukrainian premier resigned, mainly because of his utter failure to tackle the real corruption (vicious and viral, affecting every corner of life) in which that country is neck-deep. Even The Economist, a naive cheerleader for the February 2014 EU-backed putsch in Kiev, admits: Corruption is still rampant. Key reforms are incomplete the oligarchs are still entrenched. Of course they are. The overthrow of the elected government, by a supposedly spontaneous foreign-backed mob, was always about pushing the EU eastwards. The rest was propaganda. I hope you didnt fall for it. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click here Democracy deserves to be cherished. As a foreign correspondent, I have covered protests, revolutions and wars around the world from people prepared to die or lose their liberty in its precious cause. But it is a delicate creature, dating back centuries yet in need of constant reinvention. In our nation, as elsewhere in the West, this core concept is going through difficult times, with populaces feeling disconnected from elites and voters disenchanted with governments. This is why I relish the success of this newspaper's campaign to force fresh debate over one of the daftest pieces of legislation in recent times: the law that binds Britain in perpetuity to give away 0.7 per cent of national income in overseas aid. The law that binds Britain in perpetuity to give away 0.7 per cent of national income in overseas aid is one of the daftest pieces of legislation in recent times, writes IAN BIRRELL (file photo of refugee camp) For this is the sort of decision that disengages people from politics. It was a silly stunt designed to make crude political points, utterly devoid of common sense and unsupported by hard evidence. There are so many arguments against the move to enshrine the anachronistic United Nations target in British law that it was simply embarrassing to see mainstream parties close ranks in such bovine style to pass the measure last year. It makes no sense on financial grounds to increase public debt while pumping rising sums of money into often-dubious projects abroad. It makes no sense on compassionate grounds, since this deluge of aid undermines development, inflames corruption and fuels conflict in the poorest parts of the planet. It does not even make political sense. The Government is now trapped in a self-inflicted nightmare of having every crisis, every cut and every spending shortage seen through the prism of an absurd foreign aid giveaway. So we see ministers struggling to save our steel industry while helping leather industries in Africa. And when tax havens hit the headlines, it emerges our cash-strapped government hands them huge sums each year. Already one in every seven pounds spent on aid by rich nations comes from Britain's hard-pressed taxpayers. Regardless of need, this is due to rise another 4 billion to an astonishing 16 billion by the next General Election. When The Mail on Sunday put forward an online petition demanding a new debate in Parliament, readers responded in droves This leads to civil servants frantically shovelling cash out of Whitehall doors as the year ends to ensure they hit an arbitrary target and fat-cat private contractors becoming richer in a booming poverty industry. So all hail the people! And, dare I mention, the power of the much-maligned press. For when The Mail on Sunday put forward an online petition demanding a new debate in Parliament, readers responded in droves. By the end of the first day, there were the 100,000 signatures needed to force Westminster to consider the request. Since then, numbers have more than doubled, now standing above 222,000 and we have won a debate on June 13. WE MUST hope politicians show respect for this strength of feeling. Spin is no longer enough: they should engage in serious debate and defend their dubious policies. For three weeks this paper has asked international development minister Justine Greening to answer ten pertinent questions about her policies. Each week she has refused, hiding behind a bland statement. This is typical of her department. It issues fusillades of statistics about its own brilliance and brags about transparency, yet is reluctant to back up its data. Let me give you two examples. Since this paper launched its campaign, DFID has rebutted claims that were not made and pushed out endless promotional material on social media. These include the boast that British aid 'supported freer and fairer elections in 13 countries in which 162.1 million people voted'. For three weeks this paper has asked international development minister Justine Greening (pictured) to answer ten pertinent questions about her policies I spent almost two weeks asking the team of press officers to tell taxpayers precisely how they did this; they failed to provide full details, despite the grandiose claim, finally saying it would take too much time. I was told to put in a Freedom of Information request instead. I did discover that those 13 countries include Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe hardly a shining example of good governance. DFID also pointed to a vote in Pakistan marred by sectarian violence, an election with only one candidate in Yemen and another in Uganda, where foreign observers condemned 'the lack of a level playing field, the use of money and abuse of incumbency'. Veteran Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has just claimed his fifth election, incidentally, in another vote scarred by ballot-stuffing, bribery and intimidation. DFID also claim to have helped 101 million people gain 'control over their own development and to hold decision-makers to account'. These include 4.1 million people in Ethiopia, home to a repressive one-party regime routinely accused of horrific human rights abuses. So how was this done? A spokesman said 'media support resulted in listeners to health radio programmes reporting more positive attitudes towards birth preparedness'. Listening to such a radio show may be helpful, but is not exactly the implied revolution in democracy. This kind of spin is duplicitous. It helps corrode faith in domestic politics. And it shows why we should rejoice at renewing debate over focusing only on a fixed spending target rather than the reality of needs in a fast-changing world. Obesity, for instance, is becoming a bigger problem than hunger. More citizens in poorer places go to sleep each night having consumed too many calories than go to bed hungry, underlining the breakneck pace of change on our planet. Over the years I have observed money flood into a self-aggrandising aid industry that seems more focused on its own needs than those of developing nations, condemning the poor to struggle on against the twin curses of conflict and corruption. AID is not just about responding to disasters the first line of defence for embattled ministers but hundreds of expensive, nebulous schemes to promote fashionable fads. One expert told me in despair about a multi-million-pound project to promote business in Nigeria, a highly entrepreneurial society, that relied on Europeans flying in to host workshops for state governors. 'After a nice few days in a hotel the governors went home and it was claimed we had influenced 10,000 small firms. Everyone had a lovely time but it achieves nothing.' No wonder I have heard anger from Africans and Asians provoked by the patronising attitudes of foreign do-gooders, sometimes propping up the dodgiest regimes. The aid debate has become an issue of trust, forcing my confrontation with a government I respect on many other matters. Politicians have a duty to respond to public concerns, not hide behind hollow claims and spurious statistics. Both sides in the campaign on the European referendum have made big claims about Britains future if we vote for Brexit. However, the lesson from history is clear: what happens in Europe affects us. Over the centuries we have occasionally tried leaving them to it, in the hope that Europe will then leave us alone. It never has. Our fates are entwined. Our language, religion and system of politics were all introduced here by Europeans, while our DNA comes from waves of northern European migrants. Nearly every English and British monarch had a European spouse. Warning: Dan Snow argues that events in Europe will always affect us Queen Victorias immediate family spoke German between themselves. Protestantism, plague, printing and physics all arrived from Europe, while London was founded by the Romans, Cardiff by the Normans, and Edinburgh by English settlers of German descent. This is why British strategists throughout history have tried to boost our influence in Europe in order to shape what happens or deal with the fallout. The greatest misconception is that the Channel is a moat. It is not; the sea around us has been a highway. It has enabled countless invasions of the British Isles from the continent, with at least five incursions in the hundred years following 1066. And, thanks to our long shoreline, the only certain way to defend Britain from aggressors has been to stop the invasions happening in the first place. The best way to defend our islands has been to confront the threat beyond them. The place to defeat an enemy was on his turf, not ours. The British have been repeatedly drawn into continental matters, because the Channel has provided no protection from their consequences. James I, his son and grandsons, attempted to gain influence through diplomacy. Charles II and James II wanted close relations with powerful France to counter the Dutch threat to England and chip away at Spains sprawling empire. TV Historian Dan Snow says he doesn't think Elizabeth, Wellington, Palmerston, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher would have opted for naive, optimistic isolation Both bound themselves in treaties with the French king. So sacrificing a degree of sovereignty in an attempt to secure influence beyond the kingdom is really nothing new. Britain built the largest empire in the history of the world by fighting all-comers between 1689 and 1815. We fought the French mostly, as part of unwieldy and expensive coalitions representing a large surrender of sovereignty. But the campaigns were largely victorious. Only once in this mighty struggle for global supremacy was Britain catastrophically defeated when we fought alone in the War of American Independence. The greatest battles in our history Malplaquet, Waterloo, Ypres, the Somme, Arnhem, the Rhine and the Ruhr were all fought as part of large transnational coalitions, designed to exert an influence over the course of European affairs. Victory at Waterloo in 1815 brought an end to 25 years of almost continual warfare, and a new approach was taken to maintaining the peace. Many in Britain were sick of Europe and keen to retreat into isolationism. But two towering statesmen, Wellington and Castlereagh, forced Britain to engage in a post-war settlement that would endure for decades. The Congress of Vienna naturally represented a limit on the sovereignty of the states of Europe. They couldnt just unilaterally invade or partition a neighbour, but the effect of this pooling of sovereignty was that Europe managed to avoid all-out war. Britain found itself on the losing side of many of the diplomatic twists but, in return, achieved a durable peace. There have been many bouts of isolationism by British Governments, periods when Britain refused to get involved. This aloofness simply meant that Britain was forced to live with a new reality over which it had exerted no influence. In the 1860s, Prussia rampaged through central Europe and emerged as the German Empire. This Second Reich was a vast European superpower and its economy soon overtook that of Britain. We had stayed out of it, but now had to live with the consequences. You can distance yourself from events, but that is no guarantee that they, in turn, will keep their distance from you. In the 20th Century, Britain could not avoid the consequences of the First or Second World Wars, and the least-worst option was to try to shape the horrendous conflicts. As the EUs strongest military power, it needs us working alongside them if we are going to have any hope of tackling the biggest humanitarian crisis on our continent since the Second World War, argues Dan Snow In contrast, Ireland, having left the UK, watched the course of the conflict entirely helplessly as its future was hammered out by others a spectator as fascism and democracy fought for the future. What happens in Europe affects Britain. For centuries British strategists have understood this and attempted to influence what happens in Europe. If we leave the EU, we will lose influence without gaining real independence. Take the refugees in the Aegean. There is a terrible war in Syria and its impact will be felt in Britain in as yet uncertain ways. As Europe's strongest military power, they need us to help solve the migrant crisis Should we be part of the infuriating and inefficient discussions to find a solution or stand aside, hope for the best outcome and assume that the Channel will cushion us from the fallout? I suspect Britain leaving the EU could make the situation worse. As the EUs strongest military power, they need us working alongside them if we are going to have any hope of tackling the biggest humanitarian crisis on our continent since the Second World War. I love history, not because Im obsessed with the distant past but because Im thinking about the future. History is where the present and future come from. It is the only guide we have when we try to guess what is going to happen. The past has convinced me that Britain does not flourish when it deliberately avoids the continent. Like it or not, our fate is linked to that of our neighbours. The EU is far from perfect but it is the best way we have of ensuring our interests are defended in Europe and our voice is heard loud and clear. If we leave we will become passive observers, victims of the decisions made in our absence. She wasn't able to travel the 15,000 An 89-year-old grandmother in Australia has been able to attend her grandson's wedding in England without even leaving her retirement home. Thanks to advances in technology, Alma Bilson was able to watch along as her grandson Trent Matchett married his fiance Helen 15,000 kilometers away. Mrs Bilson was able to experience the wedding from her Feros Village retirement home in Wommin Bay, on the New South Wales north coast thanks to staff at the care home and family at the ceremony. Newlyweds: An Australian grandmother has been able to watcher her grandson get married in England (above) via video link Rapt: Alma Bilson (above) was very excited to be able to watch the wedding when she wasn't up to travelling the 15,000 kilometers to be there in person Just like being there: Staff at her Feros Village retirement home set up the video on a television whilst family at the wedding used an iPad to Facetime Mrs Bilson was slightly overwhelmed by the experience, and had on hands on her cheeks in disbelief recounted the night later. 'They were just right there!' she said. 'It was like we were there, we all felt the same emotions as we would if we were sitting in the Hall in Whitney.' The 89-year-old was joined for the ceremony and reception, which started at 11pm Australian time, by two friends who celebrated by drinking a glass of champagne with the proud grandma. 'They were just right there': Mrs Bilson watched the ceremony, which started at 11pm Australian time, with two friends Young love: The proud grandmother got to chat to her grandson Trent and was commenting on all the clothes at the wedding Not missing out: The 89-year-old was even able to be in family photos via the iPad stream and meet the Bride's parents It wasn't just a one way video link either, with Mrs Bilson getting to chat to her grandson and new granddaughter, and meet the Bride's parents for the first time. She was even in the family portraits taken at the wedding, with Mr Matchett holding up the iPad in photos so the proud grandmother could participate. The 89-year-old was even blowing kisses to her family and commenting on the clothes of the guests, as well as keeping a close eye on her grandson as he waited for his bride to walk down the aisle. Tickled pink: The staff at her retirement village surprised the grandmother with champagne and a cake so she could celebrate too 'It was such a beautiful time': Mrs Bilson said she was grateful for everyone who enabled her to be able to experience her grandson's wedding And, just as she got to watch the wedding cake being cut at the reception via video, Mrs Bilson got to have sweets too, in the form of a Tim Tam cake made by the retirement village's chef. 'One of the Feros ladies, Cate, even bought me a beautiful corsage out of her own money,' Mrs Bilson said. 'It was such a beautiful time. I cant believe the effort everyone went to to ensure I wouldnt miss out. Im just so grateful to have this unreal experience!' Special day: The retirement home put in extra effort, with one of the staff members buying Mrs Bilson a corsage to wear on the night 'All my grandchildren are so special': The grandmother was slightly overwhelmed and said that family meant a lot to her Party till dawn: The 89-year-old admitted she had a later night than usual and 'might have a sore head' from all the champagne Mrs Bilson was slightly overwhelmed by it all, and incredibly grateful for the opportunity technology presented to her. 'It was an overwhelming experience. I wasnt feeling up to making the big trip but I didnt want to miss out on the wedding. Family is so important to me and all my grandchildren are so special,' she explained. A little boy, who blamed Batman when he was caught painting his mother's mirror with lipstick, has been melting hearts since a video of him was posted online. Laura Hopkins, from Inverness, Scotland, shared the adorable video of her son Noel accusing the superhero on the Unmumsy Mum Facebook page and it's since had more than 420,000 views. The clip, which was uploaded with the caption: 'If anyone sees Batman, can you tell him I'm wanting a word', begins with Noel leaning against the wardrobe with a guilty expression. Scroll down for video Laura Hopkins, from Inverness, Scotland, shared the video of her son Noel's adorable reaction to being caught painting the mirror with pink lipstick It starts with the little boy standing next to the pink scribbling on the mirrored door, looking a little guilty The pink scribble is clearly visible as Laura asks: 'Who drew on mummy's mirror?' 'I don't know,' bespectacled Noel says, as he rushes away to lean on the bed and gaze back at his artwork. 'Was it you?' the mother probes. After he insists it wasn't, Laura again asks her son who had done the damage. 'It was Batman,' he quickly replies. But thinking on his feet, football fan Noel soon blames Batman for the work after denying it was him The video, which was shared on the Unmumsy Mum Facebook page, has now had more than 420,000 views Stifling a laugh, Laura says: 'Batman did it?'. 'Batman did it,' Noel, who is wearing a Real Madrid football strip, confirms. As well as being viewed by half a million people, the adorable video has been shared nearly 2,000 times and has attracted hundreds of comments. Hundreds of people have commented on the clip, saying how cute little Noel is Francesca Bradford wrote: 'Awww, he's too cute! Love his glasses. God damn that naughty Batman.' Laura Elizabeth Scott said: ' Oh wow, he's unbelievably adorable.' Kaye Newson commented on what a 'gorgeous whistleblower' Noel was. Pregnant Chelsea Clinton has been hard on her mother's campaign trail of late and that didn't stop when she took a stroll around New York City with her husband and baby yesterday. The 36-year-old daughter of former US president Bill Clinton was photographed wearing a navy T-shirt emblazoned with the letter 'H' in support of her mother and Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary. Teaming the long-line tee - which covered her growing bump - with leggings, a beige mac, leather ankle boots and a navy cap, she pushed 18-month-old daughter Charlotte along in a pram as she walked beside husband Marc Mezvinsky, who was holding their Yorkshire terrier Soren. Scroll down for video Pregnant Chelsea Clinton has been touring the country in support of her mother's campaign to become the next Democratic presidential candidate and run for election On Saturday she was spotted walking around Manhattan wearing a navy T-shirt bearing the letter H in support of her former First Lady mother Hillary She teamed it with a beige mac, black leggings, leather ankle boots and a navy cap, as she strolled around the city with husband Marc Mezvinsky, their daughter Charlotte and Yorkshire terrier Soren Chelsea, who is Bill and Hillary Clinton's only daughter, later switched buggy-pushing duties with her husband of nearly six years, and took the dog instead - but at one point she almost lost her balance after tripping on the pavement. Like her heavily-pregnant pal Ivanka Trump, who has been busy campaigning for her father Donald to win the Republican nomination, Chelsea doesn't appear to be showing any signs of slowing down. She has been touring the country, and on Friday was at an event in New York alongside actor Sean Austin campaigning for her mother, the former Secretary of State, ahead of the primary election for the state on Tuesday. And while politics has always been an important part of her life, Chelsea said motherhood has made her care even more about her leaders - something she didn't even think was possible. Chelsea is due to give birth in the summer - at the very height of her mother's campaign to win the chance to run to become the next president of the United States Chelsea, shown here talking to an unknown woman, isn't showing any signs of slowing down like her pregnant pal Ivanka Trump, who has also been campaigning for her father Donald to win the Republican nomination She recently said: 'I'm here clearly as a proud daughter but also as a mom,' she said. 'I couldn't imagine a better grandmother for my children. I also couldn't imagine a better president for my children.' Chelsea announced her pregnancy on Twitter in December last year, writing: Next summer, Charlotte is going to be a big sister.' She added that she felt very blessed. The birth of Chelsea's second child will come in the middle of her mother's intense battle for the presidency, assuring that it will be an extra-busy summer for the Clinton family this year. However, they are actually exactly the same - a vivid pink hue The two hearts in the image appear to be totally different colours Another optical illusion is sweeping the internet which tricks the brain Yet another optical illusion has popped up on the internet proving just how little we know about how our brains work. The two hearts in the image appear to be totally different colours - one purple and the other a bright orangey red. However, the two shapes are in fact exactly the same hue - a vivid pink. Scroll down for video. Yet another optical illusion has popped up on the internet proving how little we know about how our brains work. These two hearts in the image appear to be totally different colours. One appears purple while the other is a bright orangey red In fact it is the placement of the geometric stripes that fools our brains into seeing something which isn't really there. The narrator on the video from Bite Size Psych explains: 'If you zoom in on the picture you find that the striped bars aren't actually the same colour. 'These surrounding blue bars make the heart seem purple while these surrounding green bars make the heart seem orange.' This gives us a vital clue to how our vision works. It suggests that we perceive an object's colour based on its proximity and contrast with surrounding shades. The narrator on the video from Bite Size Psych explains: 'If you zoom in on the picture you find that the striped bars aren't actually the same colour' These surrounding blue bars make the heart seem purple while these surrounding green bars make the heart appear orange The video has so far amassed 29,000 views on YouTube. This illusion is just the latest in a long line of puzzles and brain teasers that have taken the web by storm. Tim Urban and Andrew Finn of the website butwaitwhy.com have created a fiendishly difficult puzzle based around three jelly beans. This gives us a vital clue to how our vision works. It suggests that we perceive an objects colour not based on its actual colour but on how it compares to the surrounding colours The premise of the brain teaser is that you have to choose to eat one of three jelly beans laid out on a stump, two of which are poisonous. 'Two of the jelly beans on the stump are poisonous - youll die within 30 seconds of eating either one of them,' the riddle explains. 'But one of the jelly beans isnt poisonous and wont harm you at all. All three of the jelly beans are delicious. The situation works like this: You pick one of the jelly beans and eat it, and if you happen to pick the non-poisonous one, youre free to go.' Three jelly beans are laid on a stump and you have to choose one to eat, but two of them are poisonous and will kill you According to the riddle, you decide to pick up the green jelly bean. But just before you eat it, a man takes away the blue jelly bean explaining that it's definitely poisonous. That leaves the red one on the stump and the green one still in your hand. You get one last chance to change your mind about which one to take. You take the green jelly bean, leaving the red and blue Solving the riddle involves choosing between the red and green jelly beans - one of which is definitely poisonous. You might think that now it's down to two jelly beans that there's a 50-50 chance you have the poisonous one and decide to stick with green. In fact, it's twice as likely to poisonous and the red jelly bean is two thirds more likely to be safe. 'When you initially picked the green jelly bean, there was a 1/3 chance that it was the safe one to eat, and a 2/3 chance that it was poisonous and the safe one was still on the stump,' Tim Urban of Wait But Why explained. 'When the man removed a poisonous blue jelly bean from the stump, it told you no new info about the green jelly bean in your handthat still had a 1/3 chance of being safe. The blue jelly bean is taken away and you're told it's definitely poisonous. Should you swap with the red sweet or stick with the green? 'But removing the blue jelly bean told you a lot about the red jelly beanit told you that if the safe jelly bean had been on the stump, the red one is safe. 'Put another way, if you picked a poisonous jelly beanwhich you would do two-thirds of the timethen choosing to switch after he removes one will save you every time. 'If you picked the safe one to start off withwhich happens one-third of the timethen switching will kill you. So switching is a good choice two-thirds of the time.' The test is just the latest in a string of a popular brain teasers sweeping the net. Recently, puzzlers were challenged to find a hidden picture inside a red circle? The brain teaser was said to test the internet's vision with people able to see everything from a detailed image to just an outline, while others struggled to spot anything at all. Is your eyesight good enough to see the hidden picture inside this red circle? The brain teaser has appeared online quizzing internet users about whether they can see another shape hidden inside the red blob, above While some claimed they could see the whole image in perfect detail, others were left scratching their heads in confusion. When the dot is flipped you can clearly see a detailed sketch of a horse complete with a mane and tail, saddle and bridle and grass around its feet. Some people can only see the outline of the image before the red spot is flipped, while others say they can see much more. Try the test below to see how you get on. While some claim they can see the whole image perfectly, others are completely baffled by the image. When the dot is flipped, right, you can clearly see a detailed sketch of a horse complete with a mane and tail The online teaser shows how some people only see the outline of the horse rather than the other details in the picture such as the grass, mane, tail and saddle An image of an iPhone screen became an internet sensation recently as thousands of people deliberated over the photo, which was widely shared along with the question: 'How many threes can you see in this picture?' Social networkers came up with the most common answers of either 15, 19 or 21. But which answer is correct? There are in fact 19 number threes pictured in the image, but there could be 21 depending on how you interpret the question. Can you count how many threes are on the iPhone screen? If you see 15, 19 or 21 number threes, you have arrived at the same conclusion as the majority of social networkers... but what's the correct answer? Apart from the eight threes in the phone number, there are two threes on the key pad as the number eight button has been replaced. At 3.33pm, the time also contains three number threes and the battery power at 33 per cent contains another two. That totals 15, the answer many social networkers have come to. On closer inspection, however, there are a further four hidden digits, totaling 19. Three of the letters in the contact's name have been replaced with threes and the letter 'I' on the number four key has also been replaced. But many online posts give the answer to be 21, with people seeming convinced that there are a further two threes in the image. The differing opinions come down to the interpretation of the question. Many users have included the bar signal and the wifi signal, both of which show three bars. But whether 19 or 21 is the correct answer is a matter of opinion But many online posts give the answer to be 21, with people seeming convinced that there are a further two threes in the image. The differing opinions come down to the interpretation of the question. The images has been widely shared on Facebook and Twitter with the message. 'How many threes do you see in this picture?' Many users have included the network bar and WiFi signal, both of which show three bars. But whether 19 or 21 is the correct answer is a matter of opinion. The puzzle, which has been widely shared on Facebook and Twitter after resurfacing again online, has instigated heated debate - with many left flummoxed at how others arrive at a different answer. Twitter user Dani posted: 'This thing annoyed the hell out of me when someone said 21. I was like no there's 18 until I looked again properly haha.' How many threes can you see? Apart from the eight threes in the phone number, there are two threes on the key pad as the number eight button has been replaced. At 3.33pm, the time also contains three number threes and the battery power at 33 per cent contains another two. Three of the letters in the contact's name have been replaced with threes and the letter 'I' on the number four key has also been replaced Facebook Ravi Vidyadhar Pathak came to a grander total and said: '28 if it's saying to count everything that resembles to 3 including the network signal which is 3 dots the page info on left which is 3 the buttons having 3 letters ABC.' Another philosophical Facebook user Marc Joseph posted: 'I see only 2....and technically am correct cause you never asked how many 3's are there in the pic.' Athene Whitfield finally concluded the answer was 19 but had made so many previous guesses she posted: 'I got to that in the end but thought - I can't send an answer through again!!? Was getting embarrassed!' One user by the name of Sarah was so involved in the problem she posted a mock-up of the screen with the potential answers highlighted in purple. When a friend posted 'Not sure where you get 20 from' she posted: 'Now I'm not sure.' It follows an optical illusion poster featuring tigers that resurfaced online this week, asking viewers to guess how many animals it featured. On close inspection the picture has the big cats hiding in the bushes, bark and even the sky. The image, which appears to have been produced as a poster, has two adults tigers and their two cubs in the foreground. After that it becomes trickier to track down the felines in the picture but there are 12 other tiger faces hidden. The image appears to have been used as a poster but has resurfaced on the internet The puzzle has the big cats hidden in foliage, trees and even the ground with all 16 very difficult to find In the foliage to the right of the tigers, there's a fern in the shape of a tiger's face, with two hiding in the dirt beneath the tigers' feet. In the top of the picture, there are five feline faces hidden within the branches of the trees. While another two are seen in the wide trunk of the tree on the left of the picture and another tiger is face is seen on the left behind it and the last one is hidden in the soil below. The poster, which features 16 in total, appears to be aimed at children, like many of the logic puzzles which have stormed the internet recently. Another recent brain teaser saw a children's picture with tourists at a holiday campsite and challenged them to answer a list of nine questions. The image is thought to be from an old children's magazine, according to The Independent, but the tough questions are likely to also leave adults scratching their heads. A recent challenge which baffled the internet is a logic puzzle from an old children's magazine that involves studying a picture of tourists at a holiday camp site and answering a list of nine questions A series of clues is provided by the apparently calm scene involving boys at a campsite The black and white drawing showed three people at the campsite. One is standing by the cooking pot with a ladle, another is rifling through his backpack, and a third is taking photos. A sign nailed to a tree states said: 'On duty. Colin, 7. Peter, 8. James, 9'. The final name is obscured, but the number 10 is visible. CAN YOU SOLVE THE PUZZLE BY ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS? 1. How many tourists are staying at this camp? 2. When did they arrive: today or a few days ago? 3. How did they get here? 4. Is there a town nearby? 5. Where does the wind blow from: north or south? 6. What time of day is it? 7. Where did Alex go? 8. Who was on duty yesterday? 9. What date is it today? *Scroll down for answers Advertisement A picnic blanket with four plates, four spoons and a watermelon is laid out on the ground and a hen is scratching in the grass nearby. Nearby, a tent is pitched and a spider has built a cobweb between the edge of the tent and a nearby tree. The first question asks how many people are staying at the camp. They must also figure out whether they arrived that day or a few days earlier, how they got there and how far away the closest town is. In addition, they are asked whether the wind is blowing from north or south and what time of day it is. The next question is to state where someone called Alex went. Finally, they must figure out who was on duty yesterday and what day of the week it is. Unlike the many cartoons that have swept the web in recent months challenging users to spot figures hidden in a sea animals or Star Wars characters, this puzzle relies on deduction. The answer to how many tourists there are is relatively easy to figure out. As there are four spoons and plates on the blanket and four names on the duty list, the answer is quite obvious. Hungarian cartoonist Gergely Dudas, also known as Dudolf, posted his latest puzzle a few days ago to celebrate Easter, challenging fans to find an egg cleverly disguised alongside a group of bunnies The egg is cunningly disguised between a pair of white rabbit ears in the second row on the left hand side The cobweb gives a clue to when the group arrived as it must have been a few days earlier to give the spider time to build it. An oar leaning up against the tree is the key to figuring out how they got there - by boat. The hen indicates that the nearest town is not far away as it's managed to wander into the campsite. A flag on the tent, known as a windsock, shows that the wind is blowing from the south, but to figure this out you need to be aware that branches on the southern side of trees in the UK get more sun and grow more densely. ANSWERS TO THE CAMP RIDDLE 1. There are four tourists four spoons on the picnic blanket and four names on the duty list. 2. They arrived a few days ago A spider's web has appeared between their tent and a tree in that time. 3. They got there by boat Note the oars by the tree. 4. No, a village is not far ..because there's a chicken wandering around. 5. The wind is blowing from the south A flag that shows the wind direction is on top of the tent. (To tell which direction is which, look at the branches - they're normally bigger on the southern side of trees - if you're in the Northern Hemisphere.) 6. Its morning Take the answer from question five to figure out east and west then work out the time based on the shadows. 7. Alex is catching butterflies His net is behind the tent. 8. Colin was on duty yesterday Colin is rummaging through his backpack (marked with a 'c'); Alex is catching butterflies; James is taking photos as his tripod can be seen sticking out of his bag. This leaves Peter - then, according to the list, that means Colin was on duty yesterday. 9. Today is August 8th... According to the list, Peter is on duty, and there is a watermelon - which ripen in August - on the ground. Advertisement To figure out the time, you need to use the previous answer which tells you south from north to figure out where is east and west and deduce the time based on shadows. The answer is that it's morning because the boy by the cook pot's shadow extends to the west. Because we're asked where Alex went, we can assume he's not visible in the picture. However a butterfly net can be seen behind the tent. So the answer is that he's gone to catch butterflies. To figure out who was on duty yesterday first consider that Colin, Peter, James and Alex are staying at the camp. Gergley's original spot the panda puzzle left the internet baffled at Christmas 2015 The original Where's Wally-style snowmen picture was liked by 42,000 people and shared 100,000 times within days, with many struggling to find the panda at all Dudolf followed up the panda puzzle days later with another picture posted online, this time of a cat hidden among dozens of brightly coloured owls He planted a few red herrings in the owl picture like a colourful bow tie and festive hats, but the owl's facial features make it particularly difficult to spot the cat We know that Alex is catching butterflies and the person taking photos must be James, as there's a tripod sticking out of the bag marked J. The person looking through the backpack is Colin as it's marked with a C. That means Peter must be the one standing by the cooking pot. If Peter is on duty today, then according to the list on the tree Colin was on duty yesterday. Figuring out the day of the month isn't too tricky as according to the duty list it's the 8th of the month. But establishing what month it is may prove rather more difficult. The solution lies in the watermelon on the picnic blanket. The answer is August 8, but you would have to be aware that it's the month in which watermelons ripen to find the correct answer. Its long list of questions makes the puzzle even more baffling than a challenge by Gergely Dudas who first drove the internet mad trying to find a panda among a group of snowmen, and a cat blended into rows of owls. The Hungarian cartoonist posted his latest puzzle a few days ago to celebrate Easter, challenging fans to find an egg cleverly disguised alongside a group of bunnies. The panda craze was followed up by Reddit contributor, with the username Oneste, who created a mind-boggling puzzle in which he hid a panda amongst rows and rows of Stormtroopers - and TIE fighter pilots She's a contestant on this year's University Challenge, but this smart student has received more attention for her inquisitive look than for her brains. Hannah Woods, captain of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, is within reach of leading her team to victory, with the much-anticipated final airing tomorrow night. However the quiz star has become a cult figure during the course of the show thanks to one raised eyebrow, which has a legion of fans and two parody Twitter accounts set up in its honour. Scroll down for video Hannah Woods, captain of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, is within reach of leading her team to victory on University Challenge - the final will air tomorrow night. However the quiz star has become a cult figure during the course of the show thanks to one raised eyebrow, above Hannah will attempt to lead Peterhouse to glory against a team from St John's, Oxford tomorrow evening, and will surely be stealing the show again - with withering looks to rival those of host Jeremy Paxman. Her new-found fame has resulted in some boons for the PhD student, who has received a Valentine's Day card, a marriage proposal and a bottle of gin in the post thanks to her notoriety. Two accounts dedicated to her eyebrow have emerged on Twitter - Browfan, or @woodseyebrow, and Feacetious Eyebrow - with the handle @of_miss_woods. Both feature pictures of the quiz team captain as their profile pictures. 'It's absolutely bizarre! I do just have a naturally asymmetric face, but I think it's quite funny that people think I'm being terribly arch,' she told the Telegraph. Her fame has resulted in some boons for the PhD student, who has had a Valentine's Day card, a marriage proposal and a bottle of gin in the post thanks to her notoriety, above with her team and Jeremy Paxman Two Twitter accounts dedicated to her eyebrow are Browfan, or @woodseyebrow, right, and Feacetious Eyebrow, with the handle @of_miss_woods, left During the last airing of the popular British quiz show in February, many expressed their support for Hannah, and her eyebrow. @RicheyRevol said: 'Ah, Woods and her Roger Moore eyebrow. She should introduce herself as Woods, Hannah Woods at the start #universitychallenge'. @THEDAILYCHUFF wrote: 'Ah, it's the greatest eyebrow in the history of quiz shows. Go, Hannah Woods #universitychallenge'. Another, Sam Kelsall @kelsall, tweeted: Hannah Woods' eyebrow is already primed. It's a power brow. #universitychallenge'. The cultural history PhD student discovered a belated Valentine's Day card addressed to her after appearing on the show. Woods will attempt to lead Peterhouse to glory against a St John's, Oxford tomorrow evening, and will surely be stealing the show again, with withering looks to rival those of the show's host Jeremy Paxman The cultural history PhD student discovered a belated Valentines day card addressed to her after appearing on the show. She tweeted on February 17: 'Having checked my pigeon hole, belated thanks to the University Challenge fan who sent me a Valentine's Day card..!' She tweeted on February 17: 'Having checked my pigeon hole, belated thanks to the University Challenge fan who sent me a Valentine's Day card..!' She is the only female left in the final on a programme which has received criticism for a male-dominated line-up in the past. Now concentrating on finishing her PhD, she told the Telegraph: 'Fans on Twitter have variously suggested future career options from presenting history documentaries to appearing on Game Of Thrones and playing the next Bond villain. 'I'd just like to make it clear to anyone in charge of casting how very available I am.' Oscar Powell, from Peterhouse, Cambridge, stole last night's show with an array of animated expressions as his team took on St George's London in the quarter finals These are the hilarious facial expressions which won a University Challenge contestant a legion of fans - with many predicting he will become Prime Minister Woods is not the only member of her team to send Twitter into meltdown. Oscar Powell, stole the show in an episode airing in December 2015 with an array of animated expressions as his team took on St George's, London, in the quarter finals. The contestant, originally from York and now studying Geological Sciences at the university, helped his team soar to a convincing victory with his in-depth knowledge of all things geology. But it was his extravagant responses to Jeremy Paxman's questions - including sticking his tongue out, pulling his mouth wide open or scrunching up his nose - which most impressed fans. The most amusing moment came during the music round when the two teams had to guess Je Taime by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. The contestant, originally from York and now studying Geological Sciences at the university, helped his team soar to a convincing victory with his in-depth knowledge of all things geology But it was his extravagant responses to Jeremy Paxman's questions - including sticking his tongue out, pulling his mouth wide open or scrunching up his nose - which most impressed fans As the music played, Powell could be seen scratching his head, chewing his fingers and sticking out his tongue as he desperately tried to remember the artist. His performance sent the Twittersphere into a frenzy with viewers praising the eccentric character for having 'the best face on telly'. One viewer sent the contestant a tweet saying: 'Bravo Oscar, you have won not only #universitychallenge but the nation'. Another simply said: 'Powell for Prime Minister.' The next morning, Powell responded to the Twitter excitement by writing: 'Yes, I know I'm odd.' If Peterhouse win in the final tomorrow night, they will score the third consecutive win for Cambridge. In ten metres of swirling Mediterranean murk, four miles from shore, French archaeologist and maritime explorer Franck Goddio was preparing to end a days dive in Egypts Bay of Aboukir. Then I saw it, says the 68-year-old founder and director of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology. A giant block of granite. Swimming closer, impervious for the moment to the swirling current or the threat of sharks, he brushed away at the sand covering the stone until, to his surprise, a giant toe emerged. The foot was one of seven scattered pieces of an immense pink granite statue of Hapi, ancient Egyptian god of fertility and of the annual flooding of the Nile. Many of Goddio's finds are in astounding condition. Protected from decay by their bed of sand and from thieves by the water above them, the faces look at us as if freshly carved It was just one of hundreds of remarkable objects that Goddio and his team would recover from the sea bed in 2000 and 2001 after rediscovering the lost ancient Egyptian cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus. Founded in the 8th century BC at the mouth of the Canopic branch of the Nile, Thonis was the main entry point of goods into the country before the creation of Alexandria. The city was linked by canals to nearby Canopus, seat of the cult of Osiris. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC, leading to the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and, eventually, Cleopatra, the cities would be a key part of Greco-Egyptian culture. Then, in about 80 BC, the sea overran the cities, killing thousands. We have found human remains in temples, pinned under fallen blocks, Goddio says. It is very poignant. The calamity had smashed the statue of Hapi into seven pieces, but to Goddios expert eye there could be no doubt of their value. When I saw it, he says, I realised it was the find of a lifetime. These treasures are coming to London next month for the British Museums blockbuster Sunken Cities exhibition. Some of them are huge. At 5.4 metres and weighing six tons, Hapi is so large that to raise it from horizontal to vertical, the technicians had to hoist it on pulleys attached to the structure of the building and then glide it into position using pressurised air pads. Many of the finds are in astounding condition. Protected from decay by their bed of sand and from thieves by the water above them, the faces look at us as if freshly carved a forceful reminder that Egypt can still surprise us with new treasures. In 1933, an RAF pilot flying over the bay had seen dark shadows in the water and told a member of the Egyptian royal family whose land bordered the sea. Thonis was founded in the 8th century BC at the mouth of the Canopic branch of the Nile. (Above: a computer-generated image of how the lost city might have looked) A diver was sent down and came back with a head of Alexander the Great. I knew from ancient texts that Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus had existed, Goddio says. The ancient Greek travel writer Herodotus claimed there were great temples there and the pilots story increased Goddios suspicions. There was an obvious reason why the cities had not been discovered on land. It was because they could not be on land. The cities were under the waves. In 1996, Goddio narrowed down the location of the cities to the Bay of Aboukir, near Alexandria, but after three years of surveying the ocean floor they had found nothing. It was a tough time for me, Goddio admits. Then, 67 years after the RAF pilot had first buzzed the bay, Goddio and his team made their remarkable discovery. It turned out that Herodotus was right, Goddio says. He was talking about the kind of ships they used and we found the ships, over 80 wrecks. Everything he said has been confirmed first by discovering the cities, the temple and specific artefacts. And we have barely touched it. There is much more out there. THE LOST GODDESS The colossal queen (below) 4.9 metres high and weighing six tons being reassembled underwater. The Ptolemies were astute rulers who kept power in the family, kings often taking sisters as their queens. The sheer size of this statue makes it clear that queens were goddesses to be worshipped by Greeks and native Egyptians alike THE GODS HAVE RISEN The colossal statue of Hapi (right), god of fertility and of flooding of the Nile, being raised. At 5.4 metres and weighing six tons, it is the largest statue of an Egyptian god ever found. In a painstaking operation lasting several hours, it was brought up by nautical winches on barges. The statue was loaded on to a wooden pontoon and then floated back to Egypt WRITING'S ON THE WALL Franck Goddio with The Decree Of Sais. The 2,300-year-old stela is 1.9 metres high. Commissioned by Nectanebo I (378-362 BC), the hieroglyph inscription states that the pharaohs tax decree should stand in the main Egyptian temple in the city, proving that the team had found Thonis Heracleion FACE IN THE DARK The head of Serapis (below). Perhaps the most enigmatic and beautiful example of the entangling of Greek and Egyptian culture found by Goddio. This head of the Egyptian god is virtually identical to Greek sculptures of Zeus HEAD IN THE SAND Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus were important religious centres based on the worship of the Nile and its life-giving properties. Hundreds of religious items like this priests head were brought up from the underwater dig. Goddio and his team also found the remains of several unfortunate priests who perished when a temple collapsed The BP exhibition Sunken Cities: Egypts Lost Worlds is at the British Museum, London, from May 19 to November 27, britishmuseum.org Ambedkar is an avatar of India. As the maker of the Indian Constitution. As a spokesman of the Dalits who replaced Congress hacks. As an opponent of Gandhi whom no one else dared to oppose. As the one who burned the Manu Smriti, and criticised the very foundations of Hinduism. As a campaigner in Tank and temple campaigns. As a critic of the Congress policy on Muslims which would lead to Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to Ambedkar on his 125th birth anniversary in Mhow As a proponent of real democracy. As the only champion of real social justice, not just plans to achieve it. Ambedkar was all this and more. Among the best of the best. Ignorant Cynicism at the time of celebration makes us question the motives of those who celebrate the 125th year of his birth. Appropriating the memory of a person ignorant of what he stood for is absurd. Converting this appropriation for facile politics is unacceptably dishonest. Why borrow his persona without reference to his identity? Or even the slightest understanding of his thoughts, beliefs, causes and what he stood for? Babasaheb was wholly at odds with what Hindus believed in. The core of Hinduism is the caste system, based (as Lingat reminds us), on concepts of purity making the absurd holy, and the holy holier than thou. Ambedkar would not have approved of the caste system which dominates Indian politics The Manu Smriti was a good symbolic representation of what Hindu society and governance stood for. We dont know who Manu was because so much of our sastra is ahistorical. The legendary KP Jayaswal thought he was an apologist for a post-Mauryan brahmin who snatched the throne - adding to the hypocrisy of Brahmins. The sublety of the dharmasastra was as dangerous as the Hindu faith that inspired it. Today the BJPRSS want to appropriate Ambedkar without giving credence to Ambedkars passionate belief that Hinduism was a social evil. Will the Hindutva combine accept this? Ambedkar would not have approved of the caste system which dominates politics. He would certainly not have approved caste-based reservations. Or the other backward classes (OBC) category to include anyone who has a political hold on our rulers, like the Gujjars and Jats. Its time to come back to reservations for SC and ST only. The OBC was for some recognised categories in the South. Not for Northern groups to appropriate. I am not sure whether Ambedkar would have wanted reservations in legislatures to continue, but he would have endorsed the reservation at Panchayat level. Culprits I am sure he would have denounced destroying the Babri-Masjid and exposing the real culprits behind the Bombay and Gujarat riots. He would have opposed the Hindu treatment of Wendy Donigers book and the oppression of Hussain and others. He would have given short shrift to ghar wapsi. You can adulate a person without agreeing with all of their beliefs, but when you are in total opposition to his views on Hinduism, do you have the courage to attack his fundamental attack on manuvad and Hinduism itself? In fact, there is no meeting ground between SCs and the Sangh Parivar, between Ambedkar and Modi. The Congress had their own quarrel with Ambedkar. Gandhi wanted to take over the Dalit struggle. Every struggle needs allies, but stealing the struggle itself? When the plebs stop fighting for themselves and the oppressed, surrender the battle to others, and when allies take over the helm of the campaign, democracy is lost. In one of my long articles, I treated this as Ambedkars fundamental and basic belief in social democracy. It sustained my critique of the liberal takeover of racism in England when I lived there. But despite the Poona Pact which Gandhis blackmail forced Ambedkar into, the Congress was unrelenting in its political appropriation of the SCST vote after independence. Responsible Now all the political parties lay claim to it. If anything is responsible for all this political support for Ambedkar Jayanti, you know why. I am not saying all should not rise to honour Ambedkar. He was of a kind that doesnt exist now. But we should do so with honesty, penitence and repentance. Ambedkars analysis of Pakistan is time and context-related. But why did he go so far in support? I read his stance as saying, if you Hindus are going to treat Muslims so badly, they will have no choice but to justifiably ask for Pakistan. Six years later, Nehrus recalcitrant refusal to negotiate in July 1946 could well have been the last turning point, though historians are divided on this. I have come to believe some of this. Ambedkars eventual belief in social democracy and the pedagogy of the oppressed transcends many learned books; as, indeed, did his belief in social justice. He put it so well, when at end of the Constituent Assembly he said: On the 26th of January (1950), we are going to enter into a life of contradiction. In politics we will have equality, in social and economic life we will have inequality...How long shall we live this life of contradictions... We must remove this contradiction... or else those who suffer inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy. While this Assembly has so laboriously built. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is scheduled to meet China's military and civilian leadership India and China are looking at instituting a new, sixth border personnel meeting point along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC). The development comes as Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar begins talks with the Chinese military and civilian leadership on Monday, with the aim of reducing tensions along the boundary. The nations are in discussions to open a sixth border personnel meeting point, likely in the middle sector of the border, after the opening of two new meeting points last year in the western and eastern sectors. Officials on both sides say these have helped address differences along the LAC. The move is expected to be discussed among a range of other confidence-building measures to increase trust between the two sides, when Parrikar meets his Chinese counterpart Chang Wanquan on Monday. The pair will meet at the Ba Yi building in Beijing, where the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) leadership sits. Later on Monday, Parrikar will meet one of the Chinas highest-ranking generals, Fan Changlong, who is one of two vice-chairmen on the Central Military Commission headed by President Xi Jinping. He will also travel to Chengdu, the headquarters of the PLAs newly set-up western theatre command which covers the entire border with India. On Saturday, Parrikar met members of the Indian community during his stopover in Shanghai, and was briefed on the smart city projects at the urban planning exhibition centre. The two new border points were opened last year following frequent disputes over incursion incidents, which officials said have been triggered by differing perceptions of the LAC in certain areas. Officials said Parrikars visit was aimed at examining the entire breadth of defence ties, besides addressing the situation along the border. Both sides are also discussing plans for defence exercises to be held later this year, with a desire to scale up the annual counter-terrorism drills. India and China recently held first-ever joint drills along the LAC. While the construction of the third phase of the Metro line is in full swing in Greater Kailash-II, it has left the residents of the area and surrounding localities concerned. This is because the Metro station is located near Savitri Cinema, on a narrow road. Residents say the road on which the entry/exit point is being constructed is the only entry to GK-II, and that the development will grossly choke the road, causing traffic jams for hours. It could also lead to encroachment problems. Residents of GK-II and surrounding localities have raised their concerns with DMRC and L-G Najeeb Jung The residents have also shot a letter to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and DMRC on the matter. Recently, we came to know from the site map of the Metro station which has one of its entry/exit point at the sharp turn of GK-II near Savitri Cinema. Over 5,000 people are estimated to use this point per hour. The location of this entry/exit point is unequipped to handle a large crowd and at the same time it could create trouble for the residents of the area as it would clash with the U-turn under the Savitri flyover, said Chetan Sharma, Chairman, Federation of GKII Complex RWAs. DMRC, which is aware of the grievance, told Mail Today that it had held a meeting with the residents recently where a solution was sought. The residents had suggested another such outlet be constructed on the other side towards Chirag Delhi. But, they were told this would require the acquisition of private land. Initially, this entry/exit point was planned inside the Savitri complex. But that plan involved acquisition of private land and was proving to be extremely time-consuming. Therefore, the current plan was drawn up in consultation with PWD, said the spokesperson for DMRC. In the letter addressed to the Lieutenant Governor and DMRC, the residents mentioned that they were surprised that the RWAs in the area were not consulted before the finalisation of the blueprints in any meetings, be it DMRC or UTTIPEC. The construction is already on in full swing and we request that a review of the designs be done owing to the traffic problems that would arise once it becomes operational, said the letter. DMRC says the entry/exit point for the Greater Kailash Metro, near the Savitri complex, will help the residents of GK-II and CR Park reach the Greater Kailash Metro station (near TCIL Building) without crossing the busy Outer Ring Road. The design has been prepared in consultation with the PWD and approved by the UTTIPEC. However, the residents say that being a shorter route, it would be used more and the facility as per the current plan would not be able to handle a large footfall and block the traffic. Ashitosh Dikshit, President of Citizen Alliance, said: There is not enough space to even have a pick and drop facility. There would be no footpaths left for the pedestrians as the road will be encroached upon. DMRC should have done more in terms of the exit points. Last-mile connectivity would also be a problem. Dikshit added that the road usually suffers traffic jams at peak hours, the service, if not addressed in time, would add to the woes. General Dalbir Singh visited the Army's Northern Command headquarters at Udhampur to discuss tensions in the Valley As the curfew continues in north Kashmirs Kupwara and Handwara area, the chief of Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh, on Sunday visited the Northern Command headquarters at Udhampur to discuss the situation in the Valley. The Northern Commander Lt Gen DS Hooda briefed the Chief of Army staff on the overall security situation in the Command theatre, a defence spokesman said. He said the Army chief interacted with the Corps Commanders and took a first-hand assessment of the prevailing internal security situation, specifically in view of the recent incidents at Handwara and Nut Nusa. Protests erupted in the Valley after allegations spread that a soldier molested a schoolgirl in Handwara town, about 75 kilometres from Srinagar on Tuesday April 12. The protesters were fired upon by security forces, leading to the killing of two youths and a 56-year-old woman. On April 13, another demonstrator was killed after being hit by a tear-gas shell, which was fired by the police. On Friday afternoon the Army opened fire on protesters in Kupwara - killing yet another youth - and taking the death toll to five. On Saturday Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti visited Handwara and said civilian killings were unacceptable. The chief minister said she had a telephone conversation with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar late last evening, and also met Army Commander Lt Gen D S Hooda, and told them that incidents like those at Handwara and Kupwara are unacceptable and come as a major setback to the efforts of the state government to consolidate peace dividends in the state. I have told General Hooda to exercise maximum restraint while dealing with law-and-order situations, she said. In a significant move, Congress veterans have said that while poll pacts at state level are prudent, the grand old party must lead the front of their non-BJP allies for the 2019 national polls. The Congress will fight the next Lok Sabha elections on its own. However, we may have an understanding with like-minded parties, Congress veteran Satyavrat Chaturvedi told Mail Today. Echoing similar sentiments, another senior party leader, Anil Shastri, said: Any such national level grouping, in which the Congress is not the lead player will be a non-starter. Congress veterans believe the party will emerge as largest player in 2019 polls. (Pictured: Former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi at Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary celebrations) The rumblings within the Congress started recently after another senior leader, Digvijaya Singh, made a controversial remark saying the grand old party was open to fighting the 2019 national polls with the JD-U to defeat the BJP. The remark was interpreted by many as the Congress having given up on its ambitions to provide the next prime ministerial candidate, even as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gave ample hints that he was gearing up for a national role. The Congress was quick to downplay Digvijayas remark, saying it was too soon to talk about any such formation at the moment. Down to 44 in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, from 2006 in 2009, the Congress managers are worried that giving too much play to Nitish Kumar may send a message that the grand old party was playing second fiddle to regional parties. Sources said the Congress fully supported Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress-JD-U-RJD alliance against the BJP-led NDA, keeping in mind the political realities of the state. In West Bengal too, the Congress forged an understanding with the CPI-M to corner the TMC. There is no clarity if the Congress will have any truce with a regional party in UP, which goes to the polls in 2017. These arrangements have further fuelled rumours that the Congress has doubts over its role in the future national politics. Sources said the Congress must strongly dispel such faulty notions. State level pacts are prudent but nationally the Congress has to play the anchor of a secular coalition, said Shastri. According to Congress strategists, regional leaders have the right to nurse ambitions but must not lose sight of their limitations. A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenged him on her home turf. The feisty Trinamool Congress chief said that she is not scared of Modi at all. Modi ji, I am not scared of you If I wish, the people of Bengal would stop you from entering the state. But I have no such intention, the CM said at a rally at Jorasanko Assembly constituency in north Kolkata. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee attacked PM Modi addressing a rally in Jorasanko The prime minister is slated to visit the state on Sunday, where he will address two rallies at Nadia districts Krishnanagar and Kolkatas Shahid Minar Ground. There are some leaders in the BJP who say Bhag Mamata BhagI want to ask who are they to ask me to go? I was born here in Bengal and they are asking me to go so that they can come and stay here, Banerjee said. The CM also alleged that the Election Commission of India (ECI) was showing off. She said the poll panels decision to issue a show-cause notice to her based on her announcement of upgrading Asansol to a separate district was not based on correct information. Sometimes there is a show-off in show-cause. You cant possibly say it is a strict step. I support show-cause for the right reason but if there is a political bias as well as political vendetta then we will speak up, Mamata said when asked on how she was going to deal with the strict step taken by the commission. Addressing another election rally in Kolkatas adjoining North 24 Parganas district, the Trinamool supremo also said that her party would win the Assembly elections and prepare for an all out fight in the 2019 general elections. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has provided the right ammunition for the newly-appointed president of the Karnataka BJP, BS Yeddyurappa. Two major scams allegedly involving Siddaramaiahs son came to the fore this week and the BJP has launched a political campaign against him seeking a CBI probe in the cases. Earlier this week, it was found that Matrix Imaging Solutions Ltd, in which Siddaramaiahs son Dr Yathindra S is a director, won a bid to set up a clinical laboratory and radio diagnosis and imaging services at the government- run Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). 'This is just the tip of the iceberg'- BS Yeddyurappa, Karntaka BJP chief The firm won the contract by placing the lowest bid, giving rise to suspicion. On Friday, in another embarrassing exposure, it was revealed that the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) had allotted prime land (worth Rs 150 crore) to a firm owned by a friend of Siddaramaiahs son in contravention of rules and regulations. Though Siddaramaiah has claimed innocence in both the cases, but this has dented his image severely. Now, the BJP is demanding a CBI probe in both the cases. 'These are merely speculative reports'-K Siddaramaiah, Karnataka Chief Minister While the government has remained silent over the tender awarded to a company owned by Siddaramaiahs son, a complaint has been filed with the Anti-Corruption Bureau by an NGO seeking a probe into the alleged preferential allotment of land. The BJP is of the view that only a probe by the CBI will ascertain the truth in both the cases. Siddaramaiah claims that both the cases are in accordance with the law, so, what is preventing him from handing over these cases to the CBI for an independent probe? Let him prove that there is no nepotism in both the cases, said Jagadish Shettar former CM and Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. Yeddyurappa went a step ahead and said legal action would be initiated against Siddaramaiah. The two scams are likely to become the highlights of his campaign as Yeddyurappa embarks on a tour of Karnataka this week to assess the impact of drought in the state. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just wait and watch More skeletons will tumble out of Siddaramaiahs closet, said the newly-appointed Karnataka BJP president. However, putting up a strong defence, the chief minister told the media on Saturday that the Congress High Command had not sought an explanation on the two deals. These are merely speculative reports. No one has asked for an explanation. Transparency has been upheld while awarding the contract. The BJP is day-dreaming of grabbing power by making irresponsible comments, he added. If you are one of those young doctors excited by the new recruitment policy of the UK government to hire more Indian doctors to tackle its acute staff shortage, here is a reality check before you board the flight: Going to the UK can prove to be a dead end for your career, because you will be entering a system that is notoriously racist, discriminatory and awful. The warning comes from some of the top doctors of Indian origin in the UK, including Dr. Kailash Chand, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) and an OBE (Order of the British Empire) recipient from the Queen in 2010. In an exclusive interview to Mail Today in the backdrop of recent move by the UK National Health Service (NHS) to recruit general practitioners (GP) and other clinical staff from India to work in the UK, Dr. Chand cautioned dreamy-eyed aspirants to be aware of the pitfalls of coming to work in the UK. Young doctors attending a coaching session to look for jobs abroad at the Karol Bagh-based Delhi Academy of Medical Sciences There are huge problems. Working conditions in the UK for doctors have deteriorated a hell of a lot. It is not as good as people think, said Chand, a GP with 35 years of experience. Health Education England, the NHS training and recruitment agency, had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Apollo Hospital chains to reportedly hire as many GPs as possible. The details of the deal, however, are still still closely guarded, as the hospital chain refused to respond to requests from Mail Today, regarding the number of doctors or clinical staff who will be covered under the agreement. According to UKs Department of Health, the immediate target is to meet a shortfall of 5,000 doctors in general practice by 2020. Though NHS has always turned to Indian subcontinent to address its staff shortages in the past (as many as 23 per cent of NHS is already filled with Indian doctors), the service had been under attack for its racist and discriminatory practices towards the Indian doctors. A 2001 report by Kings Fund, an English health charity, had accused NHS of perpetuating institutionalised racism against BME doctors, an umbrella term for people belonging to Black, minority and ethnic community, which also include Indian doctors, till the day they retire from service. The report had also noted how the career path for non-White staff is too often blocked and are more likely to get shunted into unpopular specialties and inner-city general practice. Nearly 15 years later, the situation appears to remain the same. Though 33 per cent of the NHS workforce is BME doctors, according to BMA, only five per cent of them are in high medical position. They are not many Indian doctors at a very high positions, said Chand, who counts himself as one of the lucky few. The Bedford-based British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), a 50,000 strong body of Indian doctors blames this extreme disparity on the unfair way in which non-White doctors are assessed for promotions to become specialists. There is a huge difference in pass percentage between Whites and non-Whites in the MRCGP exam that allows doctors to progress in their career towards specialisations, said Dr. Mehta, president, BAPIO. For instance, if you are a White UK-trained doctor; the pass rate is 98 per cent. But if you are a doctor from India, then the rate of clearing the exam is 34 per cent or even less in some specialties, said Dr. Mehta. This happens because the way MRCGP is conducted is not fair. The clinical assessment component of the exam is not conducted with real patients but with actors. Almost all these actors are White and prone to subjective racial discrimination based on aspects such as communication and behavioural traits of a doctor, unlike real patients who are more flexible and non-judgemental while interacting with a doctor, said Mehta. Even for the few who clear the test, aspiring to be a specialist in Pediatrics, Cardiology or Opthalmology is a distant dream. All glamorous specialisations go to European doctors, said Chand, who himself vainly tried to chase his dream of becoming a Paediatrician in the late 1970s only to realise that he did not even get shortlisted in any of the 40 hospitals he applied, eventually specialising in Emergency Medicine. Only non-glamorous specialisations such as Psychiatry, Geriatrics and Emergency Medicine known as Cinderella services go to BME doctors, he said. The discrimination doesnt end there. BME doctors who are in consultancy positions at various UK hospitals are often overlooked by their employers when it comes to conferring the annual merit awards, a recognition that also helps recipients to get a monetary incentive of more than 50,000 pounds. As many as 25 per cent of the consultants at the UK hospitals are BME. Yet, only 4.5 per cent of them get a merit award, said Chand. Complicating the situation further is the current state of affairs in UKs healthcare system. At present, there is very low morale among doctors working in the NHS. Not many local graduates want to work in general practice as the working conditions are awful with a lot of paper work and pressure regarding targets set by the Department of Health, said Mehta. Native junior doctors are leaving the UK in their hundreds to countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as they are unhappy with the new policy regulation of the government under which they have to work seven days a week, he said. There is currently a drought of doctors in the UK. There is a shortage of 5,000 in GPs alone. They will need another 10,000 to 15,000 in other specialties, added Dr. Mehta. The fact that NHS is reaching out to Indian doctors again in its hour of crisis is also a tacit admission that there are no suitable doctors available within the European Union to fill the shortage, a mandatory requirement, as per a new rule introduced by the UK government in 2006, to give preferential treatment for EU doctors in NHS. Doctors from the EU have had major problems of language and are not popular in the UK, claimed Dr. Mehta. Yet, for all the negatives, people like Chand believe that the British society was a lot more biased in the 1970s than it is now. At least multiculturalism is now acceptable in places like London, he said. Robbie Williams is reportedly heading back to the studio with Take That Robbie Williams is reportedly heading back to the studio with Take That to work on new music. It will be the first time Robbie has written with his former band-mates since 2010, and the tracks will feature on the groups mammoth Greatest Hits album, which will come out next year to mark their 25th anniversary. A source told The Sun: Robbie loves being part of the creative process and he has lots to offer. He influenced the last album he featured on with his electro sound, which reflected his solo work at the time. Robbie is also said to be set to join the band for their biggest ever tour, where theyll play the new songs live for the first time. In February Gary Barlow confirmed that the band would tour in 2017 to mark their 25th anniversary. The big goal for this year is getting another Take That album out, Gary told The Sun. Well do a Greatest Hits album next year and tour the year after. A Greatest Hits with everyone would be amazing but I personally cant imagine Jason coming back on stage for quite a few years. But if Rob could do something that would be brilliant.contactmusic.com YouTube to help develop musical talent YouTube has informally launched an initiative to develop music talent under the name YouTube Music Foundry, which gives artists new tools and guidance on how to successfully grow their presence on the video platform, according to YouTube. The Foundry program is one of many the company has created over the last several years to assist artists and the music industry in producing and optimising content. Among the tools artists are learning to use now include live video production, a rapidly growing technology that over the last several years has grown exponentially. hollywoodreporter.com Fossil fuels could be phased out in a decade The worldwide reliance on burning fossil fuels to create energy could be phased out in a decade, according to an article published by a major energy think tank in the UK. Professor Benjamin Sovacool, Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex, believes that the next great energy revolution could take place in a fraction of the time of major changes in the past. But it would take a collaborative, interdisciplinary, multi-scalar effort to get there, he warns. PM Narendra Modi met his 'Guru' PM Narendra Modi on Sunday met the ailing Swami Atmasthananda Maharaj, president of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission Order, who he considers his guru. This was his second visit to the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratisthan in Kolkata, where the 98-year-old monk is recovering from age-related illness. The PM spent about 15 minutes in the hospital. He went to the Maharajs room, touched his feet and was blessed by the senior monk. The two spoke in Gujarati and asked about each other's well-being. BJP on its toes in West Bengal The West Bengal Assembly polls have kept the BJP on its toes. On Sunday, a BJP delegation comprising Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, MP Bhupendra Yadav, party national secretary Shrikant Sharma, and Om Pathak met the Election Commissioners and submitted a memorandum, accusing the states chief election officer of acting in a partisan manner in the on-going polls and seeking his immediate removal. Sangh bolsters its stand in UP Ahead of the UP polls, the RSS has started strengthening its ground in the state. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was in Vrindavan this weekend, and backed the priests of Bankey Behari temple who are opposing the reported move by the state government to acquire and develop the shrine. We are with you, Bhagwat said. Bhagwat also said he would talk to Union minister Uma Bharti about the pathetic state of the Yamuna due to pollution. Ex-MLAs are now MCD contestants The BJP on Sunday announced the names of its candidates, including three ex-MLAs, for the MCD by-polls to be held next month in 13 wards of Delhi. Former MLAs Mahender Nagpal and Jintender Singh Shunty will contest from Wajirpur and Jhilmil wards, respectively. Vinod Kumar Binny has been fielded by the party from Khichripur ward. Swamys temple faith in Rajiv BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, a strident critic of the Nehru-Gandhi family, surprisingly hailed former PM Rajiv Gandhi for his efforts to resolve the Ayodhya dispute and said Rajiv would have built a Ram temple if elected PM for a second term. There are two conclusions you can draw from the latest research by think-tank New City Agenda on the propensity of the banks to fall foul of the City regulator. Opposing ones, mind you. First, the regulators Financial Conduct Authority now, Financial Services Authority before have done a splendid job in stamping down on bad practice. This view can be supported by the fact that 53billion of fines have been imposed on the banks since 2000 for a litany of misdemeanours everything from misselling payment protection insurance through to providing rank bad advice in the branches. In other words, the banks have rightly had to atone for their financial sins. Power: Despite issuing 53bn of fines, regulators have done little to change the hard-sell culture of the banks The alternative conclusion is that we have allowed a regulatory monster to form which is about as effective as sticking plaster on a gaping wound. Despite issuing 53billion of fines some of the proceeds admittedly going to good causes regulators have done little to change the hard-sell culture of the banks. Rather than stopping the banks in their tracks, they have allowed them to commit one misselling scandal after another. Only after the damage has been done have they moved in their tanks and hit them with fines. With the big banks now re-entering the financial advice market a market they served atrociously in the past it can only be a matter of time before another misselling scandal comes along. Of course, you will have your own view on the effectiveness or otherwise of financial regulation (please let me know). But my take is that for all the fining and all the redress, regulation has done little to lighten the dark side of our countrys biggest banks. For all the redress, regulation has done little to lighten the dark side of our banks Indeed, by abandoning an industry-wide probe into banking culture last year, the regulator has sent out a signal that it is happy for the merry-go-round to continue spinning. That is, banks missell, regulator issues fines; banks continue to make profits, regulator extends its tentacles ever deeper into the financial services industry. Banks happy, regulator beaming. Everyone pleased bar the poor old customer. Pension injustices Pension injustices are a blight on the financial landscape. They chip away at our faith in pensions as a savings vehicle, especially when they are allowed to linger, fuelling the anger of those victims who feel cruelly let down. Many people with Equitable Life pensions argue with justification they have never been properly compensated for the failure of City regulators to watch over the insurer prior to its near implosion in 2000. Sadly, as each year passes and more of them pass away, their cry for help grows ever quieter. A state of affairs that Government should be ashamed of. There are then those who believe they have been given a rum deal as a result of repeated Government changes to the state pension. Women born in the 1950s feel especially hard-done-by as a result of their right to enjoy a state pension being pushed back. Protest: Many people with Equitable Life pensions argue they have never been properly compensated A petition launched by the splendid Women Against State Pension Inequality has attracted more than 187,000 backers, indicating that their call for fairness has widespread support. Although the determined campaigners have attracted backing from numerous MPs and stirred members of the Work and Pensions Committee into coming up with possible solutions, the Government seems impervious to their collective call for pension justice. Lets also not forget those wonderful workers who between 1997 and 2004 lost the pension fund they had assiduously built. This was a result of their employer going out of business, leaving in place a works pension scheme with insufficient assets to pay all pensions promised. Although these workers (most are now retired) have since received compensation from the so-called Financial Assistance Scheme set up by the Government, they feel it is not enough. On average, they are receiving less than 50 per cent of the pension they would have got if their employer and company pension fund had not imploded not the 90 per cent they were promised by Government. The spirited Pensions Action Group (pensionstheft.org) has long spearheaded the campaign for justice on this issue. Last week, it published a powerful document outlining its case (available via the website). Kiss goodbye to cheap petrol. The oil price has been jumping in the last week as expectations rose that todays meeting of OPEC will lead to a deal to cut production. Combined with the possible weakness of the pound during the EU referendum, we can safely expect the price of a litre of petrol or diesel to keep on climbing. The sunny uplands of 1 a litre for unleaded are already behind us. Car owners and businesses with high fuel costs will be worse off, but it is not all gloom. Higher oil prices will be a fillip to North Sea oil, which is reeling under the recent low price with job losses mounting. BP boss Bob Dudley pocketed an eye-watering 14million pay packet despite huge losses last year Shareholders and the FTSE 100 index will benefit as oil group shares recover. The big oil groups may even be able to pay decent dividends again and their payouts have long been a crucial part of pension fund returns. It may also be welcomed by Bob Dudley, the overpaid chief of BP who suffered a drubbing from his shareholders last week because of his eye-watering 14million pay packet. BP made huge losses last year, due significantly to the falling oil price. Most oil bosses suffered a pay cut. Not Dudley. BP and Dudley cited the companys improved safety record. To give credit where it is due, BP urgently needed to improve its record after the deaths of oil workers and the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But avoiding death and disaster is a basic starting point for an oil company not the cue for a huge pay rise. More dollars per barrel will help BPs bottom line next year and may make next years numbers look a bit better. But that prospect should not allow BP or Dudley, or indeed other board members who agreed his 20 per cent pay rise, to forget their recent humiliation. The chairman said Were listening, but the scale of the shareholder rebellion against Dudleys pay requires more than emollient words from BP. And it requires more than just rethinking next years pay package. And remember this is not a complaint by the usual suspects who agitate against high pay. This is a revolt by City institutions and, most importantly, by the people who actually own the company. A vote on this scale against the pay report requires an immediate response in action. The head of the remuneration committee, Professor Dame Ann Dowling, should be considering her position. Her biggest single task is to oversee boardroom pay and almost 60 per cent of the shareholders have concluded she failed in that task. And yes, frankly, Dudley himself should voluntarily kiss goodbye to some of his pay as a gesture to shareholders. T.V. writes: I was dismayed to see a Herbalife stand inside the Barclays branch at Clapham Junction in London, where two young women were trying to recruit distributors to sell their products. In the US, most of the media treat Herbalife as a pyramid scheme. I raised the matter with bank staff, who simply shrugged their shoulders and said it was a Barclays scheme to help entrepreneurs. In my opinion, it is wrong for the bank to promote Herbalife to customers who will assume it is a respectable, bona fide way to make money. Support: Herbalife sponsors LA Galaxy, the American soccer club where Steven Gerrard plays I think the crucial point in what you told me is that the two women were telling Barclays customers how to make money by selling Herbalife products to friends, family and colleagues. This is not what they were supposed to be doing. Barclays has confirmed that the pair had permission for a display stand inside the branch, but this was for showcasing their products, and not for signing people up as distributors. Why does this matter? It matters because Herbalife is controversial. Not because of the vitamin supplements and shakes that it markets, but because it has recruited several million distributors throughout the world. They pay to join the scheme and sell the products, but they also earn money by recruiting yet more distributors. The American company says it has 38,000 distributors in Britain, though almost all of these seem to be nothing more than customers shopping for their own use. Very few are like the two women who used Barclays as a recruiting station. Daniella Goldman, a senior official at Herbalifes UK base at Uxbridge in Middlesex, told me: Herbalife is a bona fide, New York Stock Exchange listed public company which has been operating in the UK for more than 30 years. Distributors must always comply with an ethical set of company rules and code of conduct, that afford a high level of protection to the consumer. Controversial: The American company says it has 38,000 distributors in Britain She added: We are in favour of promoting UK small businesses and we commend Barclays for providing our members with this opportunity. But one claim by Ms Goldman stood out. Our members are compensated purely on the sale of Herbalife products, she said. This is strange. Logically, nobody recruits their own competitors. Greengrocers sell vegetables they dont sign up other people to become greengrocers and sell vegetables in competition. So why were the Herbalife distributors at Barclays trying to recruit their own rivals? Ms Goldman explained that when she told me members were compensated only through the sale of products, this did not mean they had to sell them personally. Members can earn production bonuses and royalties on product sales made by others in their sales network. This is why Herbalife is controversial and why in the United States the watchdog Federal Trade Commission is conducting an investigation into allegations that just like a pyramid scheme its big profits come mainly from signing up more and more distributors, rather than from genuine sales of products to end users. Last Thursday saw the world premiere in New York of Betting On Zero, a movie docu-drama about Herbalife and a Wall Street campaign by hedge fund giant Bill Ackman to prove it is a pyramid scheme. In the movie, Herbalife bosses hit back, claiming Ackman is nothing more than a market manipulator, out to drive down their share price. It is all a long way from Clapham Junction, but it asks the same questions and raises the same doubts. Could Herbalife survive if it used normal marketing methods? Or is the real money made through a never- ending chain of recruits? Its shakes may be fine, but its structure looks shakier. Bizarre hoops to jump through to get my own money back E.R.H. writes: In 1999 I invested in two funds with Invesco. This was intended for my old age and I am now in my 87th year. I asked for the account to be closed and the proceeds deposited into my bank account, and a few days later I was told the investments had been sold but the proceeds could not be transferred because Invesco needed identity documents, a photograph, household bills and so on. I do not believe I should be expected to jump through hoops to receive my own money. You found yourself dealing with staff at Invesco Global Asset Managements head office in Dublin. They used laws aimed at fighting money laundering and terrorist financing to ask for a copy of your passport, showing your photograph and signature, and certified by a solicitor, accountant, or embassy official. You were also asked for an original utility bill or a certified copy. You were then asked to complete a lengthy questionnaire about your connections or lack of them to Ireland, the US, Canada, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand. You were asked whether you, or anyone closely related to you or associated with you, is a politically exposed person as defined in European Directive 2005/60/EC. Finally, you had to give your bank details and explain where your money came from in the first place. I suggested to Invesco that it was a bit over the top to ask such questions of an 86-year-old living in Norwich, who just wanted to get his hands on his own money. Happily, common sense prevailed. Invesco will accept copies of your driving licence and your expired passport, without certification. The investment proceeds will immediately be transferred to your bank account and Invesco is adding 100 to make up for the inconvenience. First Utility stopped sending statements and then charged 600 Mrs J.H. writes: My husband and I are customers of First Utility, and until November we received monthly itemised statements for gas and electricity. Since December, we have received nothing, despite forwarding our meter readings. Out of the blue, we have now received a demand for 600. We requested a full breakdown, but this has been denied. Of course, you are entitled to a breakdown of the charges, particularly after you supplied the meter readings. A request for a nice round sum of money just isnt good enough. First Utility has told me: We apologise that Mr and Mrs H did not receive regular bills for a few months. This was due to a technical issue which we have now fixed. If you go online, you will find that your account has been updated to take into account the correct meter readings, and I understand First Utility has also been in direct contact with you to apologise. Makeover: Colin Morton was inspired after visiting his firms California headquarters Fund boss Colin Morton has just clocked up a quarter of a century in investment management. That is no mean achievement in an industry where turnover is notoriously high. But the 49-year-old is not stuck in his ways and is still prepared to embrace new methods of making money for investors. For the past 14 months he has overseen the transformation of Franklin UK Blue Chip, an investment fund he has run since 2000. A fresh investment process has been introduced, and a number of stocks have been jettisoned and new ones bought. As a result, it has been renamed Franklin UK Rising Dividends, a fund which, as its title implies, strives to increase the dividend income it pays out to investors. Though the makeover has yet to attract much attention, Morton believes it will come good in time. Since the new approach was implemented early last year, the fund has generated a positive return commendable given that the FTSE All-Share Index has fallen over the same period. Its ability to capture rising dividends has yet to be tested because it has just paid out its first year of income a touch over 15p per unit under the new investment mandate. But Morton believes there is no reason why the fund cannot be true to its billing. He says: I am sure we can build on this income distribution. Based in Leeds with the rest of Franklin Templetons six-strong UK investment team, he says the overhaul was triggered by a visit he made three years ago to the firms California headquarters. He recalls: Franklin has run a successful rising dividend strategy in the US for years and has tens of billions of dollars invested on this basis. I liked the idea straight away and thought it was something I could transport back to the UK. Rather than launch a new fund, Morton decided instead to apply the strategy to Franklin UK Blue Chip, which many investors mistakenly thought was a fund tracking the FTSE 100 Index. It took about 18 months for him to get his head around how the new investment formula would work. But it was finally applied to the fund at the end of January last year. He explains: The fund will only invest in firms that have grown their dividends in eight of the past 10 years. They must also have not cut their dividend in this time. Finally, they must pay out less than 65 per cent of their earnings in income, thereby indicating an ability to grow future payments. These parameters mean that there are 350 stocks to choose from and the fund is currently invested in 39. Choice: The fund is currently invested in 39 stocks The formula has resulted in some big firms being dropped from the fund, such as Aviva, BP, HSBC, Legal & General and Vodafone. It has also meant the purchase of new stocks, such as Cheltenham-based Spirax-Sarco Engineering and software company Micro Focus. The result is a fund with an overall yield of 3.4 per cent, a figure that Morton reckons is sustainable. The biggest obstacle to increasing the funds income year after year, he says, is the propensity of companies to pay one-off special dividends. While the fund is at the start of its income growth journey, a handful of investment trusts have delivered more than 40 years of consecutive annual dividend rises. For students and young, cash-strapped holidaymakers, hostels play a central role in their travel experience. Most are pretty grim peeling paint on the walls, dubious bathroom facilities, lumpy mattresses and cheap bedding. Larry Lipman, a 58-year-old entrepreneur with a strong record of building businesses, thought that there could be a better way of providing accommodation to bargain hungry holidaymakers and still make money. Four years ago, he founded Safestay, a hostel chain with a difference. Floated on AIM in May 2014 at 50p, the shares are 59p today, but they should move considerably higher as Lipman rolls out the business nationally and overseas. Quality: Larry Lipman offers keenly priced accommodation in Londons Holland Park Bright, welcoming and scrupulously clean, the hostels include cosy bars, 24/7 receptionists, free wi-fi (a must for the young) and top-quality bedding. They are also in grand buildings in central locations, but still cost an average of 20 per bed per night. So far, the group has just four premises one each in Edinburgh and York, and two in London, including a property in the middle of Holland Park, one of the most prestigious areas in the capital. Now, the aim is to move fairly rapidly to ten sites, developing a chain in the UK and selected parts of the Continent. Lipman is an experienced operator. Having established property group Safeland in 1988, he went on to found insurance and auctioneer specialist Hercules Property Services, storage group Safestore and workspace company Bizspace all of which were built up into firms worth tens of millions of pounds. Cheap luxury: Entrepreneur Larry Lipman Now, the plan is to do the same at Safestay, using the contacts and nous acquired during more than three decades in the property sector to find interesting, well priced sites that can be turned into appealing hostels. Safestays first London venture, for example, was in John Smith House, the 18th Century former Labour Party headquarters transformed into a brightly painted hostel with a courtyard bar. Like many early-stage businesses, it has not all been plain sailing. Last summer, for example, the company thought it was going to acquire a prize site in Milan, but walked away because the price was not right. There have also been two share placings for 3million in 2014 and just over 8million last year, to help fund the Edinburgh outlet. And some followers have grumbled about poor occupancy at new sites. Last week, the group unveiled results for 2015 showing revenues up from 1.9million to 4million and a doubling in the value of freehold property assets to 28.8million. There was a 600,000 pre-tax loss after Safestay invested in its hostels, developed its sales and marketing and created a more sophisticated website, capable of offering flexible prices according to demand. Occupancy rates are rising too, especially as properties become more established. John Smith House, for example, saw occupancy increase from 71.8 per cent to 78.6 per cent between 2013 and 2015, while average revenue per bed was up by 17 per cent. Looking ahead, occupancy rates should continue to increase as the hostels become better known. Pretty: Safestay's focus is on communal areas where people can meet and socialise with other travellers An interior view of the Grade I listed hostel in Holland Park, London The company, previously run almost entirely by Lipman, has also beefed up the board. Lipman is still chairman, but two hotel and leisure veterans have joined Philip Houghton as chief executive and Mark Beveridge as finance director. Cheap accommodation is increasingly easy to find, thanks to Airbnb and budget hotel chains such as Travelodge. Safestay is positioned differently, however, with a focus on communal areas where people can meet and socialise with other travellers in a safe environment. A billion pound food producer chaired by a Labour peer is facing industrial action after trade unions claimed that it is trying to claw back the benefit of the Governments newly-introduced National Living Wage from its workers. Food firm 2 Sisters, which is part of 3.5billion Boparan Holdings making Foxs Biscuits, Goodfellas pizzas and Marks & Spencer ready meals among other items, has told staff it plans to cut Sunday and Bank Holiday pay, overtime and time off in lieu for working unsociable hours. The company, which is chaired by Labour peer and former ITV chief executive Charles Allen, is the latest to be drawn into the row as firms try to absorb the cost of implementing Chancellor George Osbornes National Living Wage which rose to 7.20 an hour on April 1 for those over 25. Living Wage row: 2 Sisters is chaired by Labour peer and former ITV chief executive Charles Allen The firm has told staff at its Pennine Foods site in Sheffield that it wants to cut back on higher payments. John Higgins, a spokesman for the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union, said he expects a ballot on industrial action to be held as soon as this week. He said a quarter of the firms 800 staff would be hit, some by up to 2,000 a year. Staff at the Foxs Biscuit factory in Batley are also affected. Companies are trying to work out how to pay this increase and subsidise it from existing staff costs, Higgins said. The National Living Wage will increase to 9 an hour by 2020. Ranjit Boparan, who owns 2 Sisters, has been described as Birminghams first billionaire. Former Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King was previously an adviser to the company until last year. It is understood that staff at some other sites in the group may be facing similar contractual renegotiations. The company said: All colleagues at Pennine Foods and Foxs Biscuits in Batley are paid above the National Living Wage. We have been negotiating packages to ensure a fairer and more transparent wage structure which ensures that the majority of our employees will earn more than before, it said. B&Q was last week forced to retreat on plans to cut wages and has offered staff a two-year compensation plan But the company is expected to be cited tomorrow during a debate in Parliament on the National Living Wage and the steps that some companies are taking to recoup costs. Other companies in the spotlight include Samworth Brothers, which makes Soreen malt loaves, Melton Mowbray pork pies and Ginsters pasties. Meanwhile, B&Q was last week forced to retreat on plans to cut wages and has offered staff a two-year compensation plan to buffer the effect. Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, will lead the parliamentary debate. She said she understood the fears of small businesses over wage rises. British tax authorities are heading for a showdown with the media groups behind the Panama Papers expose, demanding they hand over the cache of documents. The Government has pledged 10million for a task-force to investigate the Panama data, but it is understood the authorities have so far only managed to get hold of some of the 11.5million documents. Revenue & Customs told The Mail on Sunday it was determined to get hold of the leaked information to pursue criminal investigations against tax fraudsters and would explore every avenue, nationally and internationally. Demand: Revenue & Customs told The Mail on Sunday it was determined to get hold of the leaked information It said: While we appreciate that the media is not an arm of law enforcement, given the seriousness of the allegations that they have published and the calls they have made for action to be taken, we would reasonably expect them to co-operate in giving us access to the Panama data. The documents were leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to organisations including The Guardian and the BBC, leading to headlines around the world alleging widespread tax evasion and to calls for a crackdown. Tax authorities from 35 of the richest nations met last week to discuss how to get hold of the Panama leaks and to manage the sharing and exploitation of the database. Sources suggested that they had already obtained part of the database, but not all of it. Guardian News and Media and the BBC both argue they have only electronic access to the papers. GNM suggested Revenue & Customs should contact the UK office of Mossack Fonseca directly. The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which was leaked the data, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which coordinated the newspapers investigation, have said categorically that they will not hand it over. If the data was held in the UK, Revenue & Customs could obtain it through a court order. Lawyers said German and US tax authorities may also be able to take similar action. The nations farmers are poised to wade into the EU debate tomorrow with a special meeting of the National Farmers Union council set to declare its official position. The NFU has so far avoided coming down on either side of the debate, but most observers expect the group to favour remaining in the EU. The critical meeting follows a series of 28 roadshows organised by the union over the past fortnight, and a report, UK Farmings Relationship With The EU. 'Critical': Farmers make big exports to the European Union Though not setting out a formal position, the report stated: For some sectors the EU market is critical. Thirty-eight per cent of all lamb produced in the UK goes to Europe. France alone purchased more than 200million worth of UK lamb in 2014. The report says the UK is a net importer of agri-food products, totalling 39.6billion in 2014. We import nearly twice as many agri-food products from the other EU countries than we export, however our exports are significant. In 2014, we exported 12.8billion worth of products. Approximately 73 per cent of our total agri-food exports were destined for other member states. The NFU in Scotland and Wales have declared they are in favour of staying in the EU. But the Country Land and Business Association has stayed neutral. In a letter to it last week, David Cameron said leaving the EU would be a leap in the dark for farmers. Our farmers have often spent generations building up their businesses; what they do not need is the uncertainty and risk that would come with leaving the EU. A boss at the Government-backed British Business Bank has delivered an upbeat assessment of increasing lending to companies, and is hopeful that it is sustainable. Chief operating officer Patrick Magee said: Theres good news in the bank lending market and the flow of finance is up. The bank market is beginning to recover and the credit appetite is coming back. The asset finance market has been doing really well. It was just under 13billion in 2012 and was more than 16billion in 2015. Then the alternative finance peer-to-peer lending market is growing and theres more equity out there. Small business: Money raised through the alternative finance sector last month was 66% up on March 2015 According to research firm AltFi Data, money raised through the alternative finance sector last month was 66 per cent up on March last year. It said 342.5million of financing was originated during the month, a 12 per cent rise on February, adding that Funding Circle, RateSetter, LendInvest, Zopa and MarketInvoice were the biggest lenders. This month, the International Monetary Funds latest half-yearly Global Financial Stability Report called for urgent action on the problems faced by eurozone banks. It said a third of these would have to overcome significant challenges to be sustainably profitable. But despite the IMFs warnings of a fresh financial crisis, Magee said: Were not back to the heights of 2007-8, but were getting back to what we hope might be a new normal. I dont have significant concerns that this isnt sustainable. People say, OK, theres more finance flowing, but then if you get global worries or other issues then markets begin to seize up again. Were pleased with the progress weve seen and hope that its sustainable because of the diversity on the supply side. In the Budget the Government announced three designated internet platforms for its new referrals scheme for firms rejected for loans by banks In the March Budget the Government announced three designated internet platforms for its new referrals scheme for firms rejected for loans by banks Businessfinancecompared, Funding Options and Funding Xchange. Meanwhile, the BBB announced last week that it has invested 30million in Cordet Direct Lending, a new debt fund focused on medium-sized businesses. Magee dismissed concerns the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme, where the Government acts as a guarantor for loans to small and medium enterprises, is lending to fewer firms. Just 446 were granted loans through the scheme in the final quarter of 2015 against 2,030 in the second quarter of 2009. He said: It had an exceptional period in 2009 because that was after the financial crisis and the banks had no capital and no credit. EFG is finding an appropriate level. Were reviewing it and improving it. Were still supportive of the scheme. Last week, the Bank of Englands Credit Conditions Survey for the first quarter of 2016 found that the proportion of small business loan applications approved increased for the fourth consecutive quarter. Meanwhile, demand from SMEs is expected to rise this quarter. Jo Harris, managing director for business banking at Lloyds Banking Group, said: Default rates on lending have fallen, reflecting an improvement in credit quality, and Bank of England statistics show there was an annual net increase of 1.6 per cent in loans and overdraft balances of SMEs in the year to the end of February. However, in the first quarter of 2016 there was a slight fall in demand from small firms, perhaps as a result of uncertainty in many markets. Lloyds increased its lending by 5 per cent in the last year. Isaiah Baskins (pictured) of North Carolina was taking his daughter to a doctor's appointment at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center when a hospital volunteer began shouting at him and another woman Two families were left rattled and angry after a hospital volunteer began screaming at them, allegedly using racial slurs and forcing them to leave. Most of the encounter at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina was caught on film and the man who filmed the video said that the woman 'called him a n*****' and told him to 'get his black babies out' of the waiting area. The nearly seven-minute video was posted to YouTube by Isaiah Baskins, who is black, in which an older white woman wearing a yellow top gets in Isaiah's face and shouts at another parent, Katie Thomas, who is white. 'Went to Baptist Hospital for my daughter's appointment and went into the family resource center and became a victim of racism. 'Before I started recording she called me a n***** and said get my black kids out. We weren't bothering anybody. I was just taking to someone I just met in the hospital,' Isaiah wrote on the video. Isaiah's and Katie's young children were playing together while they waited in the area before the lady started screaming at them. The video begins after the confrontation has already started. 'Lady what is wrong with you?' Isaiah can be head saying as the woman in yellow storms away from him. 'We need some help. There's something wrong with this volunteer.She's in here acting like a fool. She's already called me a n*****,' he says. The lady then takes a stroller belonging to Katie and pushes it out the door. 'You're getting out,' the lady says when Isaiah asks what she's doing. In the video a hospital volunteer (pictured) rabidly shrieks at Isaiah and another woman Katie Thomas after the parents began speaking in the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's family resource room 'You'er going all over the Internet. We haven'd done anything wrong to you,' Isaiah tells her. Katie then asks her what caused the woman to become so enraged. 'We were peacefully talking while our kids were playing,' Katie begins to say before the woman shouts 'shut your mouth up' back at her. 'I'm done with you. I don't care what you say,' the older woman continues. Katie asks her what's wrong with her, obviously shaken and confused by the outburst. The volunteer then begins screaming 'You shut up! What's wrong with you?' Isaiah continues to remind the volunteer he's recording her as she gets on the phone to call security. The woman gets on the phone to call security and shouts into the phone she's not 'going to take it any more'. Katie begins to ask what the problem is and the woman screams at her to 'shut her mouth up' The woman tells the hospital security to get Isaiah and Katie 'out of here' and then walks over to Isaiah and begins poking him The woman mentions something about Isaiah's underwear and shouts into the phone: 'Will you get these people out of here? I'm not putting up with it!' Isaiah and the woman can be heard getting more and more confused as to what is causing the volunteer's outburst. Isaiah asks the woman, 'Are you on your medication?' Then the volunteer comes at Isaiah saying, 'You just worry about your camera problems.' She then starts shrieking furiously through gritted teeth while poking at Isaiah's body. Her fury is so apparent she seems unable to finish her sentence as her enraged face fills the screen. 'Get out of mine,' the woman shouts rabidly into the camera. Isaiah asks her to stop touching him and puts his arm out to block her. She repeats over and over 'get out' to Isaiah. Then Katie shouts 'don't touch my son' as it becomes clear a toddler is standing next to the arguing adults. 'Don't touch that baby,' Isaiah tells the volunteer, who is continuing to shout at the two families to get out. When Isaiah tells her not to touch him she gets in his face and begins manically screaming into his camera. He repeatedly asks her what's wrong with her. Earlier in the video he claims she 'called him a n*****' and told him to get his 'black babies' out of the room The woman becomes so angry as she tries to get Isaiah to leave the room she has trouble finishing her sentences and shrieks from behind gritted teeth into the camera at him She continues to shriek 'out!' at the family as the children in the room begin to ask what's going on. 'Get his rear out of here! Get your damn underwear out of here,' the volunteer shouts. 'Gray underwear! Get your underwear and get your s*** out of here!' She points at Isaiah's, seeming to blame the fact she can see his gray undergarment as the reason for her tantrum. 'Something is wrong with you lady,' Isaiah says. She grits her teeth again and begins shrieking into the camera: 'Something's wrong with you! Children! Children! Are you a child? How old are you? Get out! Get out! How old am I you dumb -- how old am I?' The volunteer repeatedly starts pushing Isaiah out of the room as Katie gathers her children and Isaiah's outside the waiting room. Isaiah again asks her to stop touching him and she shouts, 'Gray underwear, that tramp! Dirty old tramp!' Then after a few minutes of the shouting back and forth she claims her anger is over the fact she can see Isaiah's gray underwear. Another man asks her why she cares about the underwear but she adamantly wants them to leave Another father exits the room with Katie and Isaiah and tries to defuse the situation when the volunteer starts going after him, too. 'What am I doing?' the other father asks. The volunteer points a finger at Isaiah and shouts , curtly: 'Gray underwear!' 'Who cares?' the father responds. She shouts that she doesn't want to see it. The other fathers says something about calling security and Isaiah agrees, again saying something is wrong with the woman. He then mentions angrily that she called his children 'black'. 'I don't care what color your underwear is,' the woman screams back, seeming to have misunderstood what Isaiah was speaking about. They then begin arguing in the hallway and the woman starts kicking Isaiah in the shins. Finally she goes back inside and security comes minutes later to begin speaking with all three parents. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (pictured) has since apologized to Katie and Isaiah and has ended its relationship with the volunteer Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has issued an apology since the video, which has nearly 200,000 views, came to light and has terminated its relationship with the volunteer. First the hospital commented on the video saying: 'We deeply regret and apologize for this behavior demonstrated by our volunteer in this video. 'We are dedicated to providing an inclusive environment for all, with respect, dignity and compassion. We are taking action, and this individual is no longer a volunteer with our organization. 'If they havent already, one of our senior executives should be reaching out to you shortly. Again, we apologize for this appalling incident.' Isaiah and Katie are looking into pursuing criminal charges against the woman and filed complaints with hospital security Later, they released a more formal apology to the Winston-Salem Journal. 'Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is shocked and appalled at the behavior demonstrated by our volunteer in this video. 'This behavior does not reflect our identity or our values. This individual is no longer a volunteer with our organization.' Advertisement Not that long ago, in a town not that far away, this adorable couple fell in love over the Star Wars films before carefully crafting outfits to match Finn and Rey, the heroes of the latest chapter in the sci-fi epic. Then, after Victor Sine, 25, proposed to Julianne Payne, 22, in March this year the pair got in touch with photographer Robert Lance Montgomery to put together this one-of-a-kind shoot for their family album. The pair, from Utah, had been attending the Salt Lake City Comic Con event in full costume and decided to make use of their outfits one last time and so traveled to a nearby desert that strongly resembles Jakku, the planet where Finn and Rey meet in the movie. Montgomery was then able to capture these incredible shots that look as if they have come straight out of The Force Awakens, with Julianne's one-year-old daughter Addie even dressed up as droid BB-8. Sine told ABC News: 'I've been pretty nerdy for a long time. I embrace it. And Jules loves things like and crafting and sewing, but she only recently -- when we started dating last year -- embraced her nerdy side. It's really cool to be able to do this together.' The pair will get married on May 28 and are planning to incorporate Star Wars into the ceremony by giving each of their guests a lightsaber to hold up for a photograph, and are discussing the idea of a giant duel as well. Just like the movies: Victor Sine, 25, and his bride-to-be Julianne Payne, 22, posed up a storm during this Star Wars-inspired photo shoot where they dressed up as Finn and Rey from The Force Awakens Supporting cast: Sine took on the role of John Boyega's character Finn from the latest Sat Wars film, Payne dressed herself up as Daisy Ridley's character Rey and Payne's daughter Addie, one, was dressed up as droid BB-8 In a land not far away... Sine and Payne teamed up with photographer Robert Lance Montgomery to capture the images which look like they've come from fictional planet Jakku, but were actually taken in a desert in Utah May the Force be with you: Sine and Payne grew up in California just 15 minutes apart but only met on Tinder last August after both moving to Utah before getting engaged in March this year Completely awesome, this couple are: Sine and Payne are now planning to get married on May 28 and want to incorporate Star Wars into the ceremony by giving each guest a lightsaber Pair of scavengers: Sine and Payne made their costumes themselves, including Rey's staff which was made from objects found in Home Depot, just like Rey's scavenging in the film Selfie: The incredible photo-shoot included several creative shots, such as this one where Rey's staff becomes a selfie stick Just stopping by: The pair went to take the photos in the desert after attending Salt Lake City Comic Con at the end of March Clash of the titans: Sine and Payne take on Darth Vader at Comic Con, a scene that fans of Star Wars will never get to see since the Sith Lord is long-since dead by the time Finn and Rey join the film franchise He's the artist whose 300,000 bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher was hidden from the publics gaze after her daughter Carol complained it didnt include her mothers trademark handbag. Last week The Mail on Sunday revealed that the 10ft bronze baroness completed by Douglas Jennings is collecting dust in a secret storage facility. The statue was to have been placed in Parliament Square. But anyone wanting to verify Mr Jenningss talents only need to pop along to Madame Tussauds in London, where Hollywood stars George Clooney, Robin Williams, Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie as well as former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy have all been made with astonishingly lifelike precision by the artist. Douglas Jennings, left with a model of Tom Cruise, was the artist behind the 300,000 bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher, right, that has been hidden from public view Mr Jennings has created wax models of George Clooney, left, Angelina Jolie, centre, and Robin Williams for London's Madame Tussauds attraction Last night, Mr Jennings said: Waxworks were my early career, but so important. I really honed my skill at Madame Tussauds. The level of detail is incredible. With Angelina and George I had to watch their movies over and over again, pausing the videos to get a 230-degree understanding of what they look like. 'But Robin Williams and Charles Kennedy were what we call sit-ins: you see them four times and get to know them so you learn what they are like. 'Robin was as mad and crazy as youd imagine him to be. Its sad because Robin and Charles have both died since. I hope Im not a bad omen. He also created wax sculptures of celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, left, and Mohamed Al Fayad, right, Former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed commissioned him to make a waxwork for display at the visitor centre at his Scottish home. The business magnate is dressed in traditional highland costume with a dog by his side. But Mr Jennings seemed to find Nigella Lawson more difficult to capture. The husband of Tara Brown has revealed he has not told their children the Channel Nine reporter is in jail after a botched child abduction attempt in Lebanon. Brown, 48, was arrested along with other members of a 60 Minutes team - David Ballment, 55, Stephen Rice, 58, and Ben Williamson, 37 - following an attempted kidnap of Sally Faulkner's children from their father, Ali Elamine, in Beirut. John McAvoy, Brown's husband and veteran TV producer, has been unable to tell their young children - Jack, seven, and Tom, five - the details on the 'living nightmare' their mum is going through, the Herald Sun reports. Scroll down for video John McAvoy (left), husband of Tara Brown (right), has revealed he has not told their children the Channel Nine reporter is in jail after a botched child abduction attempt in Lebanon 'It's hard to imagine it could be any tougher. From what we know, they are in good health, keeping their spirits up and are being well looked after by the Lebanese authorities,' McAvoy said in a joint statement with Denise Alexander Rice, Cara Williamson and Laura Battistel. 'You can't imagine how comforting it is to know that. That is all that is getting us through at the moment. 'Some of us haven't even told our children what's happening yet. It's not an easy conversation to have with a five or seven-year-old who ask as they go to sleep each night when mummy or daddy is coming home. Understandably we are all anxious and worried sick.' Ms Williamson has not told the couple's young daughters, aged eight and five, about the ordeal yet, the newspaper claims. Mr McAvoy (left) released a joint statement with Denise Alexander Rice, Cara Williamson and Laura Battistel - partners of the other members of Channel Nine's team that was arrested after a failed child abduction attempt David 'Tangles' Ballment (pictured) is a sound recordist who has worked with 60 Minutes for the past six years Mr Rice's three children - a teenage son and twin-daughters in their 20s - are aware of the situation their father is in. The prison where Brown and Ms Faulkner have been taken to is a grim, overcrowded block housing mostly murderers and drug dealers with up to 20 women per cell. Baabda Central Women's Prison is in south-eastern Beirut and built to house 50 prisoners, however as many as 90 people are packed in cramped dark cells behind razor wire fencing. Brown and Ms Faulkner are being held in Baabda Central Women's Prison, where as many as 90 inmates are packed into crowded cells (pictured) Baabda Central Women's Prison is in south-eastern Beirut and built for 50 people, however overcrowding means almost twice as many are held at the centre Prisoners are given one meal a day at the facility, and often seen wearing their own dirty clothing Prisoners are often seen wearing their own dirty clothes in photographs taken inside the centre, and just one meal a day is served to inmates. It comes after it was revealed talks between Ms Faulker, 29, and her estranged husband Ali Elamine have broken down. Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab, and Mr Elamine's attorney have failed to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their two children despite being urged by Lebanese officials, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Stephen Rice, 58, has won two Walkley awards throughout his career in journalism and has been with 60 Minutes since 2004 Ben Williamson's (pictured) wife, Cara, has not told the couple's young daughters, aged eight and five, about the ordeal yet 'I met the lawyer of Mr Elamine, he put his conditions, we accepted all of them and yet now I am told they will not accept the agreement,' Mr Moughabghab said. Ms Faulkner was arrested along with the 60 Minutes crew by Lebanese police on April 7 and charged with kidnapping offences after Ms Faulkner's children were snatched in a botched kidnapping attempt. Mr Elamine proposed last week that he would drop the kidnapping charge against his wife if she agrees to give up sole custody of the children - Lahela, six, and Noah, four. The 60 Minutes crew was arrested along with Sally Faulkner (pictured with her two children) on April 7 in Beirut, Lebanon Ms Faulkner was attempting to take her children from her former partner, Ali Elamine (middle), who she claims took them last year LEBANON KIDNAP CASE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR THE MUM, THE TV CREW AND THE KIDNAPPING CASE Brisbane mum Sally Faulkner and a Nine Network TV crew made up of reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound technician David Ballment, are facing kidnapping and assault charges in Lebanon following a bungled abduction of Ms Faulkner's two children in Beirut. WHAT HAPPENED? The Australians have spent a week behind bars in Beirut after being arrested for the alleged abduction on April 7. The TV crew was filming Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her ex-husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. A professional agency, Child Abduction Recovery International, is believed to have been hired to snatch the children. Two of its members, named in media reports as Britons Adam Whittington and Craig Michael, have also been detained and charged. THE ABDUCTION Security camera footage shows masked men jumping out of a car and snatching the kids from their grandmother and another woman on a Beirut street. The grandmother claims she was attacked and hit on the head with a pistol. The TV crew and recovery agency members were arrested shortly afterwards, while Faulkner hid with her two children in a safe house. Authorities later found the family, arrested Faulkner and returned the children to their father. THE CHARGES Faulkner is facing kidnapping charges. The 60 minutes crew is accused of: - hiding information - forming an association with two or more people to commit a crime against a person - kidnapping or holding a minor even with their approval - physical assault. The offences carry penalties of up to 20 years in jail. LEGAL CASE SO FAR Judge Rami Abdullah told the Australians during a second round of interviews on Wednesday that there was no chance their charges would be dropped. However, he indicated that if Mr Elamine was willing to drop legal action and come to an agreement with his estranged wife, that would help the case against all of the accused. The accused will remain in detention until facing the Baabda Palace of Justice again. Nine has refused to comment on speculation it organised and funded the recovery operation. Advertisement The requirements also included a full religious divorce and agreement that Ms Faulker will never take their children to Australia, as Mr Elamine fears she may never bring them back. The 60 Minutes crew was in Beirut to film Ms Faulkner's attempt to kidnap her children. Prosecutors have also claimed a member of the recovery team said Channel Nine paid $115,000 for the operation. Ms Faulkner (pictured) is facing kidnapping charges over the botched attempt to snatch her children from a busy street Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab (pictured), and Mr Elamine's attorney recently failed to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their two children despite being urged by Lebanese officials George Clooney, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, broke ranks over campaign financing on Saturday to condemn the 'obscene' sums of money in politics and praised Bernie Sanders in the process. Clooney made the remarks in an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC News' Meet The Press the day after he and his wife, Amal, hosted a fundraiser on Democratic Party hopeful Clinton's behalf Friday night in San Francisco with a price tag of up to $353,400 per couple. Scroll down for video George Clooney, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, broke ranks over campaign financing on Saturday to condemn the 'obscene' sums of money in U.S. politics and praised Bernie Sanders Clooney made the remarks in an interview with Chuck Todd from Meet The Press An excerpt was released on Saturday. The interview will air on Sunday. Todd asked: 'Let me start with a dinner you co-hosted on Friday night. A big fundraiser, I know that you have planned for later tonight. 'Uh, do you look at, uh, how much is being raised, and I think the cost of the Friday night dinner - $353,000 uh, a couple, to be a co-chair - do you look at it yourself and think, "That's an obscene amount of money?"' Clooney and his wife, Amal, hosted a fundraiser on Democratic Party hopeful Clinton's behalf Friday night in San Francisco with a price tag of up to $353,400 per couple The actor said: 'I think that - you know, we had some protesters last night when we, uh, when we pulled up in San Francisco, and they're right to protest.' San Francisco protesters are seen here One sign, referring to Amal Clooney's career as a lawyer, read: 'Why is a human rights lawyer fundraising for an imperialist murderer?' The Hollywood A-lister responded: 'Yes. I think it's an obscene amount of money.' Clooney added: 'I think that - you know, we had some protesters last night when we, uh, when we pulled up in San Francisco, and they're right to protest. 'They're absolutely right. It is an obscene amount of money. 'The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. 'It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely.' George Clooney said during the interview: 'It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely' Bernie Sanders has pounced on former secretary of state Clinton over the big-ticket event They go way back: Clooney is seen with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2003 Bernie Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont and Clinton's rival in the race for the Democratic nomination to run for the White House in the November 8 election, has pounced on former secretary of state Clinton over the big-ticket event and for accepting large sums of money for her campaign. Sanders told CNN in March: 'I have a lot of respect for George Clooney. 'He's a great actor. I like him. 'But this is the problem with American politics, is that big money is dominating our political system.' Sanders said at the time: 'So it's not a criticism of Clooney. 'It's a criticism of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests -- and it's not Clooney, it's the people coming to this event -- have undue influence on the political process.' Clooney and his wife were going to hold at their house a Saturday night fundraiser in Los Angeles. These photos shows protesters and a member of the Secret Service on Saturday Among those demonstrating Saturday was Frances Fisher (pictured in blue) A fundraiser for Sanders was to take place in the area, with tickets going for a far-cheaper $27 a pop. Fisher is seen holding a sign advertising the Sanders event In response to the dinner, the Sanders campaign on Friday evening sent out an email to supporters asking them to help reach their fundraising goals by chipping in $3.53 a piece, instead. Clooney and his wife were going to hold at their house on Saturday a fundraiser in Los Angeles, Variety reported. Tickets reportedly cost $33,400 each. A fundraiser for Sanders was to take place in the area, with tickets going for a far-cheaper $27 a pop, Variety reported. NBC News reporter Shaquille Brewster tweeted a video Saturday, writing: 'Bernie Sanders supporters shower @HillaryClinton's motorcade with [money emojis] as she passes their LA counter-fundraiser.' Music featuring the words 'We're in the money' can be heard playing during the stunt in the clip. Cash money was thrown at Clinton's motorcade on Saturday Music featuring the words 'We're in the money' can be heard playing during the stunt in the clip Police have launched a double murder investigation after a dinner lady and her teenage daughter were found dead in their home. Officers found the bodies of Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and 13-year-old daughter Katie at their semi-detached house in Spalding, Lincolnshire, on Friday lunchtime. Two people have been arrested in connection with the murders and were last night still being interviewed by police. Pictured: Katie Edwards, 13, is believed to be the girl found dead in her home in Spalding yesterday Dead: Katie is believed to have been found dead with her mother, Liz Edwards (pictured) and it is thought that the pair were stabbed to death Yesterday, officers stood guard around the property, which is in a quiet cul-de-sac, as they continued a forensic search of the house. A broken window on the ground floor of the property was clearly visible. Police would not confirm reports suggesting that both victims had been stabbed. Elizabeth's partner, Graham Green, posted a picture on Facebook of him and his girlfriend together. He wrote: 'My babe has gone but you will always be in my heart forever and ever and ever. RIP.' Neighbours said the dinner lady worked at a local school and lived at the house with her two daughters. Devon Baxter, 18, who has known the family for most of her life, said: 'I used to talk to the mum because she was a dinner lady at my old school. She was a very nice lady. Murders: Two bodies were found in a house on Dawson Avenue, Spalding (pictured), early on Friday afternoon Probe: It is believed that a dinner lady lived in the house (pictured) with her two daughters. Police have launched a murder investigation and made two arrests 'As far as I know she has always lived at the house on her own with the two girls. One of the girls went to a local comprehensive school and the other girl was a few years younger.' Superintendent Paul Timmins said: 'The events that unfolded in Spalding have understandably generated a great deal of local concern and upset. This type of crime is extremely rare and not something we often see. Indeed, we believe this is a completely isolated incident. 'There are extra officers in the neighbourhood and I would encourage anyone who has any concerns to please talk to our officers. 'This is very much an active investigation that is in its early stages and police would like people not to speculate as to the circumstances surrounding it. We are looking at a number of lines of inquiry and doing our utmost to get to the bottom of what has happened.' A Lincolnshire Police spokesman said: 'We can confirm that we are treating the suspicious deaths of two people in Spalding as murder. 'The bodies of two people were discovered at a house in Dawson Avenue just after 12.15pm on Friday. Forensic investigations continue at the scene. Two people have been arrested in connection with the inquiry. They continue to be interviewed.' Broken: The window pane was seen smashed, lying on the floor outside the house where the bodies were seen The mother and 60 Minutes crew who botched the kidnapping of her two children would not be in a crowded Beirut prison if the father had returned the youngsters after a holiday, a lawyer will claim in court. Lawyer Joe Karam, representing the chief planner of the child abduction, Adam Whittington, has shared further details of the high-profile scandal, Herald Sun reports. On April 7, the Nine Network crew filmed Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. Scroll down for video On April 7, the TV crew filmed Ms Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her estranged husband Ali Elamine (pictured with Noah and Lahela) Mr Elamine said he would grant Ms Faulker full access rights to their children if she agreed he could have sole custody Mr Karam said custody agreements between the parents had not been honoured, especially by the Lebanese-born father, Mr Elamine. Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner had sent the children to Lebanon last May to see their father after the parents split. Mr Karam said she claims Mr Elamine then told her on Skype he wouldnt be returning them to Brisbane. Especially he promised her the kids he brought here would be brought back, there is a gentlemens agreement that should have been respected in family matters, Mr Karam told Herald Sun. Mr Karam is representing chief planner Adam Whittington (pictured) of the 60 Minutes botched 'child abduction' in Lebanon Mr Whittington said Ms Faulkner (pictured) is 'throwing everyone under the bus' He said mediation is the top priority in family matters, in the interest of the children. The Beirut-based lawyer said a settlement could be made between Ms Faulkner and Mr Elamine, which would have positive knock-on effects and help the others charged. Mr Whittington, Ms Faulkner, Tara Brown and her television crew, three Beirut locals and one Briton have been charged with kidnapping and gang association with criminal intent. Mr Karam said no guns were involved in the botched abduction. Mr Whittington, 40, with duel Australian and British citizenship, believes he may have been the victim of a trap set up by a rival. 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown has told the media she is being kept in a barred, heavily meshed holding cell and was required to wear handcuffs each time she went outside He claims to have been eating breakfast at the time of the child abduction and was nowhere near the dramatic scenes. Mr Whittington founded the recovery team, Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI). In the Beirut prison, Mr Whittington said 'the rats are as big as cats, it is so small [they] can't move, and the toilet in the ground is blocked'. If their respective lawyers didn't bring them meals every day, he said they would be relying on meals every three days or so. Mr Whittington's comments come as it is reported Ms Faulkner's estranged husband might agree to drop the kidnapping charges against her if she agrees to never take their two children on holiday to Australia because he fears she may never bring them back to Lebanon. The case will be back before the Baabda courts on Monday from 5pm Australian time. Ali Elamine (pictured with his children Noah, four, and Lahela, six) has to decide whether to pursue child kidnap charges again his ex-wife Sally Faulkner which may get her 20 years in prison Sally Faulkner's lawyer has reportedly said she was paid for by the Nine Network and had used money given to her by 60 Minutes to the child recovery agency, Child Abduction Recovery International. She is pictured above with her children Lahela, five, and Noah, three Ghassan Mughaghab (pictured), the lawyer for Brisbane woman Sally Faulkner, there would be a very favourable flow-on effect for the 60 Minutes Crew if Ms Faulkner and Mr Elamine reached a private agreement Veteran journalist Stephen Rice (left), David Ballment (centre) and Benjamin Williamson (right) are also in custody in Lebanon CCTV footage supplied by Lebanese authorities appeared to show the bungled kidnapping earlier this week Nearly three-quarters of doctors struck off the medical register in Britain are foreign, according to shocking figures uncovered in a Mail on Sunday investigation. Medics who trained overseas have been banned from practising for a series of shocking blunders and misdemeanours. Cases include an Indian GP who ran an immigration scam from his surgery, a Ghanaian neurosurgeon who pretended he had removed a patients brain tumour, and a Malaysian doctor who used 007-style watches to secretly film intimate examinations with his female patients. Nearly three-quarters of doctors struck off the medical register in Britain are foreign, according to shocking figures uncovered in a Mail on Sunday investigation The revelations come just a week after it emerged health bosses want to lure 400 trainee GPs here from India, to help ease short-staffing in the NHS. Last night Julie Manning, chief executive of think-tank 2020 Health, said: The NHS has thrived on many international doctors coming to work in the UK but the public needs reassuring they are all truly fit to practise in the first place. Figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 460 doctors were struck off from January 2010 to December 2015. Of those 330 (72 per cent) trained abroad, and 130 in the UK (28 per cent). Foreign-trained doctors now make up a third of NHS doctors. Indian GP Bhajanehatti Lakshminarayana, 71, was struck off after being caught abusing his position to help refugees and asylum seekers stay in Britain for cash. He charged them 80 a time to write letters containing false information supporting immigration applications. Brain surgeon Dr Emmanuel Kingsley Labram, 61, from Ghana, repeatedly told a woman he had removed a tumour during an operation at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when he had not. Medics who trained overseas have been banned from practising for a series of shocking blunders and misdemeanours He actually only extracted four small fragments for biopsy. He hid the truth for two years. She only found out the tumour was still in her head after she went private and was told it was inoperable. Malaysian GP Davinder Jeet Bains used a Spy Watch to covertly video consultations with female patients, some of whom he sexually violated while pretending to examine them. He is currently serving a ten-year jail sentence for offences against 27 women, aged 14 to 51. Sudan-trained Dr Ashraf Kamal Elnazir, 55, swindled Kensington neighbour Gabriella Adler-Jensen out of 820,000. The widow was in poor mental and physical health but he manipulated her so she bestowed virtually the entirety of her estate on him. He was struck off in 2013 for disgraceful misconduct, but never convicted of a criminal offence. Other cases involve appalling incompetence. Italian-trained GP Dr Alex Ihekwoaba Chimezie was struck off after he failed to spot heavily pregnant Donna Hunt, 22, had pneumonia and sent her home with paracetamol. Brain surgeon Dr Emmanuel Kingsley Labram, 61, from Ghana, repeatedly told a woman he had removed a tumour during an operation at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (pictured) when he had not Three days later, she was rushed into hospital. Doctors performed an emergency caesarean and saved the baby but Miss Hunt died the next day. British doctors too have been struck off for the most appalling behaviour. GP Stephen Hamilton repeatedly raped a girl, once strangling her until she passed out and telling her: You deserve to ******g die. Of the foreign trained doctors who were struck off, by far the largest contingent came from India, followed by Pakistan and Nigeria. Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, admitted there is a problem with the high strike-off rate among foreign doctors. But he claimed racism played a part. Complaints about ethnic minority doctors tended to get escalated and formalised very quickly, he said, while complaints about white British doctors were more often dealt with by sitting down and sorting it out. Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: International medical graduates make a huge contribution to healthcare in the UK and the overwhelming majority provide safe and compassionate care. But we do recognise that doctors from overseas can find it difficult to adapt to practising here. One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild. In a devastating admission, Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure. Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity. But only five have been released into the wild, of which just three survive. Scroll down for video One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure In a move that will be seen to undermine the work of zoos, Dr Bexell, interviewed on tonights BBC2 Horizon documentary Should We Close Our Zoos? at 9pm, says: Weve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation. So I guess right now we would almost have to say it has been quite a failure and even though many of these projects even were considered successful for short periods of time, theyve lost ground. Should we continue them? Right now Im feeling no because Im really worried that its sending the wrong message to humanity. Its giving humanity false hope. Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity but only five have been released into the wild Dr Bexell, who has also reintroduced the black-footed ferret into the American West and the golden lion tamarind into Brazil, believes that zoos are misleading the public about the benefits of captive breeding programmes. She blames the worlds growing population and consumerism for driving pandas out of their natural habitat. I think we need to be brutally honest with the world that science is not just going to clean up the mess for you all, adds Dr Bexell, who is co-author of the book Giant Pandas: Born Survivors. We all have to get behind this. We all have to be a part of the solution. Dr Bexell said: Weve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation' The Government was criticised last night after refusing to publish official documents revealing details of discussions between Prince Charles and Ministers. The Information Commissioner had ruled it was in the public interest to release the confidential papers about a meeting between the Prince and members of the Government at Clarence House in 2014 after a request by The Mail on Sunday. But following a legal challenge paid for by the taxpayer lawyers acting for the Government succeeded in blocking the release of the material about the meeting of Charles with John Hayes, the then Transport Minister, and Brandon Lewis, then Housing Minister. Blocked: Government lawyers have barred the release of confidential papers documenting Prince Charles's meeting with government ministers despite the Information Commissioner ruling it was in the public interest On Wednesday a QC hired by the DfT, accompanied by six other Government legal advisers, successfully challenged the Information Commissioners ruling that the papers should be released at a hearing in London presided over by judge Peter Lane. The Mail on Sunday, which has been battling for 18 months to see the documents, was excluded from the crucial part of the hearing which was held behind closed doors. This newspaper first asked for details about the Princes discussions under EU rights of access laws known as the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) designed to ensure pubic bodies are transparent when policies have implications for the environment. The DfT argued that the meeting had not been about green issues and as a result the request should be treated as a traditional Freedom of Information (FOI) request. By reclassifying the application it was able to evoke a change in the law that states the Princes communications are exempt from FOI requests. But The Mail on Sunday insisted the matter was an EIR issue and complained to the ICO. Meeting: Ex-Transport Minister John Hayes (left) and former Housing Minister Brandon Lewis (right) In a decision notice dated October 20, 2015, the ICO found that much of the information about the meeting was environmental and should have been released under EIRs. The ICO said that while Charles was within his rights to write to Ministers, he should expect those comments to be made public. The DfT was ordered to release the information but instead chose to appeal the ruling just hours before the deadline for disclosure. Then, just days before the appeal hearing, the Department performed a partial U-turn and disclosed two documents it now accepted were environmental. These included a briefing note advising Ministers on which issues they might like to raise during the talks. The DfT was unable to say how much the appeal had cost. It said: The Government welcomes the tribunals decision that the disputed information was not of an environmental nature. The ICO said it was too soon to say if it would appeal the decision. Dr John Kirkhope, a Visiting Research Fellow at Plymouth University and campaigner for greater transparency on matters relating to the Prince, said: The Government should not be spending taxpayers money trying to keep the Princes dealings a secret. If he is going to lobby, the public should know about it. He is in a position to exert a great deal of influence on Ministers and his dealings should not be a secret. Labours candidate for London Mayor was last night embroiled in his partys anti-Semitism row after it emerged he backed Ken Livingstone over offensive remarks to a Jewish reporter. Sadiq Khan, who is battling Tory Zac Goldsmith in next months contest, objected to Red Ken being suspended as London Mayor in 2006 after comparing the journalist to a concentration camp guard. Mr Khan, a Muslim, said: Ken Livingstone has been elected to serve the city of London by millions of voters. Unelected officials should not be able to suspend a democratically elected Mayor unless he is guilty of a significant offence. Sadiq Khan, right, Labour's candidate for London Mayor, was embroiled in his party's anti-Semitism row after it emerged he backed Ken Livingstone, left, over offensive remarks made to a Jewish reporter An adjudication panel said Mr Livingstone had brought his office into disrepute with his unnecessarily insensitive remark. The Labour Mayor dismissed the row as a huge fuss over nothing. The revelation over Mr Khans comments comes as Labour faces growing controversy over anti-Semitic incidents since Jeremy Corbyn became leader. Earlier this month The Mail on Sunday revealed that Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz had been suspended for tweets in her name calling Adolf Hitler the greatest man in history and saying she hoped Iran would wipe Israel off the map. Labour has twice suspended its Woking branch deputy chairman, Vicki Byrne, for posting anti-Semitic tweets. It also suspended Khadim Hussain, former Lord Mayor of Bradford, for a controversial Facebook post. Labour peer Baroness Royall is leading an inquiry into alleged anti-Semitism among Young Labour members. Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz was suspended by her party for Tweets in her name calling Adolf Hitler 'the greatest man in history' A spokesman for Mr Khan said: Sadiq has consistently spoken out against anti-Semitism and pledged to protect Londons Jewish community as Mayor. 'Sadiq led the criticism of the Labour Party leadership for failing to take proper action to root out anti-Semitism and has said he wears a badge of shame over the problem. Sadiq was quite clearly talking about the process of suspending Ken Livingstone from the mayoralty and was not making excuses for the awful things that Ken said. Told the crowd the pope 'shouldn't have given him that much time, really' Donald Trump made fun of Bernie Sanders for his brief meeting with the pope, just a few hours after the Democratic candidate shook hands with Francis at the Vatican. The GOP frontrunner told the crowd at a rally in Syracuse, New York, on Saturday that Sanders had spent 'five minutes' with the pope - and that was already too much according to Trump. 'So the pope gave him five minutes. I wonder why the pope gave him five - he shouldn't have given him that much time really,' Trump said according to CBS News. Sanders and the pope met briefly on Saturday morning at Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where Francis lives. Scroll down for video Donald Trump (pictured left during a rally in Syracuse, New York on Saturday) made fun of Bernie Sanders (pictured right at the Vatican) for his brief meeting with Pope Francis The Democratic candidate attended a conference on climate change and economic inequality at the Vatican on Friday and flew back to New York on Saturday. The pope was on his way to the island of Lesbos in Greece and said hello to Sanders before he left. 'You know, he went to see the pope,' Trump told his supporters on Saturday. 'Five minutes. Then he came out. He said, "We talked about the environment, we talked about global warming, we talked about all these different things.'" 'And I said, wait a minute, he was only there five minutes. So the pope gave him five minutes. I wonder why the pope gave him five - he shouldn't have given him that much time really.' Trump also derided Sanders' meeting with the pope during a Fox News interview on Saturday, saying: 'Five minutes sounds like, you know, "Try and get me in to see him so I don't get myself embarrassed before I come back to New York." 'A five minute visit, you can not do much. After you say hello there's no time left.' Both Sanders and the pope have denied that their meeting was political. 'I was leaving Santa Marta. He knew that I was leaving and he was kind enough to greet me,' the Pontiff told reporters. 'I greeted him and his wife and another couple who were with them and staying at Santa Marta. Nothing more. 'It was a matter of politeness and if anybody thinks that greeting somebody amounts to meddling in politics, they should go find a psychiatrist.' Pope Francis (pictured visiting migrants and refugees in the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday) was about to leave the Vatican when he greeted Sanders and his wife at his Santa Marta residence The meeting came just days before Tuesday's Democratic party primary in New York, where polls say Sanders is trailing Hillary Clinton. But Sanders has said the trip was not a pitch for the Catholic vote and instead professed his admiration for the Pontiff. The Democratic candidate, whose parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, called the pope 'a beautiful man' during an interview with ABC News following the meeting. 'I am not a Catholic, but there is a radiance that comes from him,' he added. 'I just conveyed to him my admiration for the extraordinary work he is doing raising some of the most important issues facing our planet and the billions of people on the planet and injecting the need for morality in the global economy.' Sanders told CBS News he and the pope had chosen not to take pictures during the meeting so that it wouldn't appear political. 'But it is political, isn't it?' CBS News correspondent Seth Doane asked. 'No, if I was really being political, I'd be in New York City right now and not in Rome,' Sanders said. 'For me, the issues that the pope is talking about are issues that I've been talking about for many, many years.' Trump and the Pontiff clashed earlier this year over the billionaire's views on immigration. Pope Francis said in February that Trump was 'not Christian' for wanting to build a wall on the border between the US and Mexico. Trump hit back at the time, saying it was 'disgraceful' for a religious leader to question someone's faith. A Vatican spokesman later said that the pope's statement wasn't a personal attack on Trump, and the GOP frontrunner called the pope's explanatory statement 'beautiful'. Concerns: Harry Greaves, 29, (pictured) went missing on April 7 after trekking up a mountain Concern is growing for an English traveller who went missing after going on a solo trek up a mountain in Peru more than a week ago. Harry Greaves, 29, from Shropshire, was visiting friends in the village of Pisac, near Coscou, when he said he wanted to spend some time alone, on April 7. Carpenter Mr Greaves told his pals that he would return by April 10, but has not been seen or heard from since. The Lucie Blackman Trust, which works to support Britons in crisis abroad, said on its website that a thorough search had been made of the area Mr Greaves was visiting with no sign found of him. It wrote: 'He attended a permaculture course before heading into the jungle with a group. He sent two very positive and happy emails home and seemed to be enjoying his time there.' The website explained that Mr Greaves was an experienced traveller and was well known for being practical and well prepared. It said: 'Harry does often desire to travel alone and he is very practical, self-reliant and used to outward bound activities. He set out with full travelling kit including tent and sleeping bag. 'However, a thorough search of the area he intended to visit has been made without success. 'Whilst it may be that he decided to explore another area than previously planned, concern is mounting for Harry's safety and well-being.' Mr Greaves's family told the BBC it was 'out of character' for him to be out of touch for so long. The Lucie Blackman Trust said a thorough search had been made of the area Mr Greaves (pictured) was visiting with no sign found of him His sister, Ellen Greaves, said: 'He's done a number of outdoor trips before. We understand he went with provisions - with a tent and food.' Get your earplugs ready! Billions of noisy cicadas, part of a group known as Brood V, are set to come out of the ground in several US states in May, the website Cicada Mania says. The cicada website reports that: 'These periodical cicadas have a 17-year life cycle.' 'The last time they emerged was 1999.' Billions of annoyingly noisy cicadas, part of a group known as Brood V, are set to come out in several US states in May (stock image) When the insects come out, they mate, lay eggs in trees, then die, the New York Daily News reported. Young cicadas go underground after they're born - and come back out as adults 17 years later, according to the newspaper. Cicada Mania says: 'Brood V periodical cicadas will emerge in 2016 in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Long Island, NY.' Those states are expected to see members of the Magicicada cassinii, Magicicada septendecim, and Magicicada septendecula species, according to the website. According to Cicada Mania, 'Generally speaking, these cicadas will begin to emerge when the soil 8" beneath the ground reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit.' 'A nice, warm rain will often trigger a emergence.' 'So, definitely May, but something might happen in April if we have a particularly hot spring.' There could be as many as 1.5 million of the bugs per acre,The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported. Male cicadas make noisy mating calls to attract female members of the species (stock image) Wendy Weirich is the director of Outdoor Experiences for Cleveland Metroparks and told the newspaper: 'It's going to be a wild ride. It's like Rip Van Winkle for insects.' Other cicada broods are on mating cycles of varying length, including cycles that are 13 years long. Male cicadas make noisy mating calls to attract female members of the species, according to a 2013 story from The Washington Post. At the time, entomologist Russ Horton told the newspaper: 'After the male and female cicada have mated (3-5 days) the female will lay fertilized eggs 24+ in slits cut with her ovipositor on small live twigs.' 'It takes roughly 6 weeks for the eggs to hatch and the nymphs to emerge.' Said the incident had the potential to increase tensions between countries A Russian jet spiraled dangerously close to an American plane over the Baltic Sea earlier this week. The plane, a Russian SU-27, performed a barrel roll over a US RC-135 in international airspace, the US European Command told CNN on Saturday. The Russian jet began its course on the left side of the American reconnaissance plane, then went over it while spiraling on itself and finished on the right side. Russia's aircraft 'performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers' on Thursday during a routine flight, European Command spokesman Danny Hernandez told CNN. Scroll down for video A Russian SU-27 (file picture) came dangerously close to an American reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea on Thursday, according to the US European Command Hernandez said the RC-135 had been intercepted by the SU-27 'in an unsafe and unprofessional manner'. The Russian jet flew just 50 feet away from the American's plane wing tip, he added. The American plane didn't enter Russian territory during the flight, according to Hernandez. 'The unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries,' Hernandez told CNN. The US has complained about the incident to the Russian government. Russian military jets buzzed an American destroyer just a few days ago, also in the Baltic Sea. The guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook reported that pairs of Russian SU-24 attack planes made numerous close-range passes on Monday and Tuesday. On at least one occasion an SU-24 came within an estimated 30 feet of the Cook in international waters about 70 nautical miles from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which hosts Russian military forces. The repeated flights by the SU-24 warplanes were so close, they created wakes in the water, with 11 passes, a US Defense official said. The planes appeared to be unarmed. A Russian KA-27 Helix helicopter also made seven passes around the Cook, taking pictures. The Cook did not respond except to unsuccessfully query the Russian pilots by radio. Secretary of State John Kerry said that under US military rules of engagement, the Cook could have opened fire. The US Defense official said the commanding officer of the Cook believed that Tuesday's incident was 'unsafe and unprofessional,' but cautioned that a formal US military review of the matter was under way. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US raised its concerns through its military defense representative at the US Embassy in Moscow. Four friends had taken a seaside selfie just hours before two were murdered and two were maimed by a suicidal drunk driver jilted by his ex-girlfriend. James Moore and Natasha Tash Turnbull, both 24, were killed in a deliberate head-on collision at Lincoln Highway, near Whyalla, northwest of Adelaide, in December 2014. The pair were on a day trip with mates Jason Bristow and Amy Jones so Mr Moore, a palaeontology student at Flinders University, could plan the logistics for a future field trip in the hopes of finding the fossils of an extinct kangaroo, Adelaide Now reports. The foursome snapped their final selfie. Hours later, two of them were dead. Scroll down for video The seaside selfie four friends took just hours before two were killed. James Moore (left) and Natasha Tash Turnbull (right), both 24, were killed in a deliberate head-on collision at Lincoln Highway, near Whyalla, northwest of Adelaide, in December 2014. Amy Jones and Jason Bristow (centre) were seriously injured The foursome snapped a picture at the waters edge of Coffin Bay, near Port Lincoln, after enjoying a barbeque and pizza and later beginning their drive home. Hours later, half of them were dead. Michael Knowles, then-36, had slammed his Nissan Patrol into the path of Mr Moores Mitsubishi Pajero about half-past midnight. He was imposed a mandatory life sentence with a non-parole period of 23 years last Tuesday in the Port Augusta Supreme Court, after Justice Trish Kelly took sentencing submissions. She also jailed him for at least six years on two counts of causing death by dangerous driving but ordered the term be served concurrently with his sentence for two counts of murder. Michael Frank Knowles (pictured) will spend at least 23 years in jail for murdering two people in a failed attempt to kill himself in a road crash During the victim impact statements read out to the court, Ms Turnbull's grieving father Kieren spoke out about his heartbreak over the deaths of his daughter and her childhood friend. 'I feel useless, lost, without direction, angry and full of vengeance... I dream of spending time with you Mr Knowles, just the two of us,' Mr Turnbull said, according to The Advertiser. 'I think of the wonderful young people that you killed or mutilated for life, and for nothing but your own selfish and narcissistic needs.' 'I hope whatever you have left as a soul, truly haunts you for the rest of your life... it haunts my days and it haunts my nights.' At the opening of his trial last week the court heard Knowles had set out to kill himself following a breakup and had told his ex-girlfriend, Teri Gelligan, he planned to take his own life by driving into a truck. She had phoned the police over fears he would harm himself or others, after breaking up with him for his 'manipulative and childish' behaviour. Knowles crashed his vehicle into another car in 2014, killing James Stephen Moore (left) and Natasha Turnbull The court heard that Knowles made a series of Facebook posts in the hours before the fatal crash, including one simply stating: 'the pain ends now' Prosecutor Mark Norman said Knowles 'must have known' that driving his car into the other vehicle with sufficient force to kill himself would probably kill or seriously harm anyone in the other car. 'But despite that knowledge, and instead of choosing to drive into a tree or a rock or a brick wall or even an empty parked car, he chose to drive straight into James Moore's Pajero,' the prosecutor said. Knowles admitted causing the crash and being drunk, but disputed prosecution allegations that he was trying to take his own life. Ms Turnbull and Mr Moore died at the scene and their two friends Amy Jones and Jason Bristow survived the crash but both sustained serious injuries. The court heard that Knowles made a series of Facebook posts in the hours leading up to the fatal crash, including one simply stating: 'the pain ends now'. He was found guilty of murder on Monday in what is believed to be the first time in South Australian legal history that a person has been convicted of murder involving a road crash. If you need help, phone Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au. The Obama administration is preparing to intensify its military operations against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria ahead of ground operations aimed at destroying the group's self-proclaimed Caliphate. Dozens more special operations advisers could be deployed to help Syrian rebels prepare for major ground assaults including against the terrorist's de facto capital of Raqqa. Meanwhile U.S. Army Apache attack helicopters, already deployed in Iraq to help defend American assets there, could be authorized to carry out offensive strikes against ISIS targets. More U.S. special forces advisers could be deployed to Syria in order to help Kurdish fighters prepare for an eventual assault on Raqqa (pictured), the de facto capital of ISIS The information was revealed to the New York Times by five Defense Department and military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The new special forces soldiers would join around 50 already advising Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State, including Kurdish peshmerga forces. They would be separate to the 200-strong 'expeditionary targeting force' which includes Delta Force operatives and is designed to carry out raids on high profile targets in Iraq. Military operations in Syria, including a sustained bombing campaign, are believed to be building up to an attack on Raqqa, in the country's north. The city has become a base of operations for ISIS and is believed to be home to several of its most prominent figures, including the masked executioner Jihadi John until he was killed in a drone strike last November. Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman for the US-led global coalition against Islamic State, said that a 'huge' bombing campaign is about to be unleashed on the city. He added: 'We are not going to telegraph our timeline, because it is something they [ISIS] want to know, but it is coming.' He also said it will only be 'a matter of time' before a drone strike is launched against the group's spiritual leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Meanwhile in Iraq special advisers could be redeployed in order to help assist in recapturing the country's second largest city of Mosul, which fell into the hands of jihadis in 2014. Apache helicopters already deployed in Iraq to defend U.S. forces could be moved into an attack role to help recapture the city of Mosul, a key stronghold of the terror group It was the capture of Mosul that brought ISIS to the attention of the world as a major new power-player in the region after the Iraqi army largely abandoned their posts and fled rather than risk a fight with the brutal killers. The recapture of the city by government forces would be highly significant, and a major political blow to the terror group, which Colonel Warren insists is already on the back foot. Meanwhile the capture of Raqqa, deep inside ISIS-controlled territory, would shatter any illusion that the group has carved out its own functioning nation between Iraq and Syria, and provide a launching pad for attacks on other strongholds in the region. The Apache helicopters would likely be used to support a ground attack by Iraqi army forces. Officials told the Times that it is unlikely any additional resources will be deployed to Iraq, as embattled Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is already facing criticism about the encroachment of American forces by a populace still wary after the 2003 invasion. The news comes after Colonel Warren boasted that around 25,000 ISIS troops, believed to be half of their total fighting force, had been killed in a 20-month wave of airstrikes. Around 600 of that total had come in the last three weeks alone, forcing ISIS to surrender around 40 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq's north, and 10 percent of its Syrian territory, including the ancient city of Palmyra. Prominent figures such as Omar 'the Chechen' al-Shishani, one of the group's most competent battle commanders, and Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, a top financier, have also been killed. Iraqi forces, once in full retreat from ISIS, are now closing in on Mosul, which fell to ISIS in 2014. Pictured, soldiers show off an ISIS flag captured from a town surrounding Mosul Meanwhile operations by special forces have seen several high-profile targets captured, including one believed to be Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a chemical weapons expert. Colonel Warren said that such intense pressure on the group has caused it to become 'paranoid and in chaos.' But while military operations have yielded success in the Middle East, by far ISIS's biggest threat to the West has always been in its slick propaganda operation. From Twitter recruiters to HD-quality films of battles and executions, the group's ability to inspire attacks abroad still remains. Recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels have unearthed veins of sympathizers and trained fighters embedded in Europe and prepared to carry out large-scale suicide and gun attacks. Security services in France and Belgium have carried out dozens of raids on suspected terrorists in recent weeks, leading to arrests of high-profile targets such as Salah Abdeslam who are now believed to be informing on their former allies. The three other boys described them as 'weak swimmers' The Coast Guard sent two lifeboats and a helicopter to look for them Witnesses said the two boys were up to their waist when they disappeared A frantic search is underway after two teenage boys were swept away by strong currents off the San Francisco coast. The two 17-year-old boys, who have not been named, were playing in the water with three friends in Ocean Beach when they went missing, SF Gate reported. All five boys got pulled under around 4:20pm and only three - two aged 17 and one 18-year-old - made it back. The Coast Guard dispatched two motorized lifeboats and a helicopter in an effort to find and rescue them. Officials have launched a desperate search for two 17-year-old boys who went missing after being pulled under by strong current in Ocean Beach (pictured during the search), San Francisco, on Saturday All five held one another's arms and ran into the water late on Saturday afternoon, SF Gate wrote. The two boys had water up to their waist when the current swept everyone away. The three friends came back to the shore and were taken to the hospital in stable condition. They said the boys were weak swimmers, Fire Department spokesman Jonathan Baxter told the website. 'Ocean Beach conditions on a good day are generally enough to pull a grown man into the water,' Baxter added. The two 17-year-olds were both wearing swim shorts when they went missing. One of them wore blue shorts while the other's were grey. The San Francisco Fire Department also sent rescue teams looking for them while the Parks Department conducted an investigation on land. The search and rescue operation was still ongoing on Saturday evening. A young woman, 22, who works at a cattle station, is trying to beat cancer by taking high doses of Vitamin C and using an infrared sauna daily. Doctors told Carissa Gleeson, from outback Western Australia, chemotherapy would give her a 50 per cent chance at surviving five years of synovial sarcoma in her lower back, a rare cancer of soft tissue. She had visited the doctor with a lump on her back, and was diagnosed with the rare cancer in March last year, when she was just 21-years-old. Carissa Gleeson (pictured), 22, who works on a cattle station, has turned her back on chemotherapy and is instead using alternative medicine in an attempt to beat rare cancer of soft tissue, synovial sarcoma She had previously worked as a station hand - mustering cattle and even catching feral bulls While she admits 'it wasn't easy to accept', Ms Gleeson said she wouldn't accept the poor prognosis. 'I just woke up one day and said to myself: "Well, I have two options. I can sit here and feel sorry for myself or I can get up off my a*** and do something about it",' she told Sunshine Coast Daily. The 22-year-old now eats organically, has cut sugar save for some fruit from her diet, drinks alkaline water, takes Vitamin C intravenously and has ozone therapy, ultraviolet blood cleaning, and an infrared sauna daily to detox. 'I believe in what I am doing and I have 100% faith I can heal myself.' Since her diagnosis, her partner Andrew Briggs (right) has taken over the majority of work at the couple's 4,000-acre farm near Perth Instead she eats organically, has cut sugar from her diet, drinks alkaline water, takes Vitamin C intravenously and has ozone therapy, ultraviolet blood cleaning, and an infrared sauna daily to detox (pictured in sauna) However, she said she believes chemotherapy might be the right choice for many other cancer sufferers. Ms Gleeson pictured in her infrared sauna with partner Andrew Briggs 'I am not trying to encourage anybody to try and walk away from their doctor's recommendations,' she said. The Cancer Council said the use of alternative therapy to treat cancer was 'unproven'. 'Alternative therapies are often promoted as 'cancer cures' but they are unproven and have not been scientifically tested. 'They may cause harm or suffering to those who use them instead of conventional medical treatments,' the statement said. Ms Gleeson is working with US and Australian doctors, but her treatment is not funded by the government because it is considered alternative. To take the financial burden - averaging $5,000 a week - off her partner and father, Ms Gleeson has launched aGoFundMe page to help raise money for her treatment. Since her diagnosis, her partner Andrew Briggs has taken over the majority of work at the couple's 4,000-acre farm near Perth. She had previously worked as a station hand - mustering cattle and even catching feral bulls. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Department of Health, Cancer Council and Ms Gleeson for comment. You can donate to her GoFundMe page here or read more about her story here. Since her diagnosis, her partner Andrew Briggs has taken over the majority of work at the couple's 4,000-acre farm near Perth To take the financial burden, averaging $5,000 a week, off her partner and father, Ms Gleeson has launched a GoFundMe page to help raise money for her treatment (Mr Briggs and Ms Gleeson pictured) Ms Gleeson has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for treatment, costing an average of $5,000 each week, to give relief to her partner Mr Briggs While she admits 'it wasn't easy to accept', Ms Gleeson said she wouldn't accept the poor prognosis Doctors told Ms Gleeson chemotherapy would give her a 50 per cent chance at surviving five years of synovial sarcoma in her lower back, a rare cancer of soft tissue 'I just woke up one day and said to myself: "Well, I have two options. I can sit here and feel sorry for myself or I can get up off my a*** and do something about it",' she said Bitter rivalry between the candidates, tough questions from the audience and Wolf Blitzer's beard - it could only be the Democratic presidential debate in New York. But in the hands of Saturday Night Live, this particular debate also featured a slap-fight, a noogie, and questions from Seinfeld character Elaine Benes. Kate McKinnon was on form as a question-dodging Hillary Clinton while Larry David reprized his miserly Bernie Sanders impression. Larry David and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who worked together on Seinfeld, went head-to-head as Bernie Sanders and Elaine Benes, a character from the sitcom, on Saturday Night Live Benes grilled Sanders over his plan to break up the banks, to which he replied: 'Once I'm elected president, I'll have a nice schvitz in the White House gym, I'll sit them down and yadda yadda yadda, they'll be broken up' Some of the best interactions came between Benes, played by host Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and David, who produced the sitcom she is best known for starring in. After being introduced by Blitzer, played by Beck Bennett, Benes said: 'Hi there, I have two questions. My first is for senator Sanders.' Bernie interrupts: 'I couldn't hear the question.' After being informed that she hand't asked the question yet, Benes continues: 'You've been pretty vague in the past, how exactly are you going to break up the big banks?' Beck Bennett took on debate hosting duties as Wolf Blitzer, joking that he shaved his beard 'just ten minutes ago' After giving several evasive answers, Sanders says: 'Once I'm elected president, I'll have a nice schvitz in the White House gym, I'll sit them down and yadda yadda yadda, they'll be broken up.' Benes responds: 'What? No, no. You can't yadda yadda at a debate. Also, you yadda yaddaed over the best part.' Sanders shoots back: 'No, I mentioned the schvitz.' Benes then takes Sanders to task about raising taxes on the rich, saying it would be bad for actors who made a lot of money on famous sitcoms. After he shrugs off her concerns she mentions that it would also be bad for the creators of those sitcoms who also made a lot of money. After squirming around for a few moments, David's Sanders points to Hillary, saying: 'You should vote for her!' At another point in the debate, Clinton was taken to task about her stance on the minimum wage. Blitzer asks: 'You recently stood by governor Cuomo as he signed a $15 minimum wage into law. Do you no longer think it should be $12?' 'I have said from the beginning that it should be a combination of 12 and or 15,' Hillary responds. Bernie then cuts in suggesting she is lying before the two end up shouting at each other face to face before a childish slap-fight breaks out. While debating the national minimum wage Hillary and Bernie began shouting at one another before getting into a childish slap-fight, mocking their verbal clash at the real Democratic debate Hillary eventually overpowers Sanders, giving him a noogie and shouting: 'You feeling that Bern?' Hillary eventually overpowers Bernie before putting him in a headlock and rubbing her knuckles against his head. 'You feel that Bern, huh?' she shouts. The real-life Hillary and Bernie have been competing for votes in New York ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday. As well as a considerable number of delegates, the city has extra relevance as Clinton's adopted home state and Sander's birth place, meaning the competition has been particularly fierce. This 4-year-old girl, whose name has not been released, was shot dead after her 5-year-old brother grabbed her father's gun A 4-year-old girl was shot dead after her 5-year-old brother grabbed a gun belonging to her father, who then fled their Philadelphia home. The girl, whose name has not been released, was shot once in the face when the gun went off around 2.25pm on Saturday. She was pronounced dead at the scene five minutes later. Police are still searching for the father, who has been identified as 30-year-old Maurice 'Stephon' Phillips. No arrests had been made by Saturday night. A semiautomatic pistol has been recovered from the home. Phillips posted a photo on his Facebook of a semiautomatic pistol with a box of hollow-point bullets on February 14. Homicide Capt James Clark said police 'desperately' needed to find the girl's father, he told Philly.com. The girl lived in the home with Phillips and her mother Tera Riddick. Neighbors said she had five siblings, three sisters and two brothers. Riddick was known for being a protective mother who never let her children play outside the home, which is in Philadelphia's violent Kensington neighborhood. Neighbor Louise Sawyer said she once asked Riddick why she never brought her kids out. The mother responded: 'I'm not bringing these kids out here with all this trouble'. Police are still searching for the father, who has been identified as 30-year-old Maurice 'Stephon' Phillips. Last month Phillips posted this photo of a semiautomatic pistol, the same kind of gun recovered from the scene Phillips also posted this image of an assault rifle on his Facebook Sawyer said the neighborhood, where drug needles can be seen on the street, had been plagued with shootings and drugs. Sixty violent crimes have been reported in the neighborhood in the last month, according to data collected by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The family's home is in an area that police refer to as the 'gun grid'. Family friend Crystal Dougherty said the girl had been outgoing and loved Barbie dolls. 'She was a sweet, loving, little girl,' Dougherty said. 'She was full of life.' The girl lived in the home with Phillips and her mother Tera Riddick (pictured). Riddick was known for never letting her children play outside the home, which is in the violent Kensington neighborhood A man who allegedly shot and killed one firefighter and wounded another as they responded to a call for help Friday night, was released from custody Saturday evening, police said. Authorities had taken the man into custody and interviewed him after the shooting at a home in Temple Hills, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C., the Prince George's County Police Department said in a news release. A 13-year veteran of the Prince George's County Fire Department, 37-year-old John Ulmschneider died Friday night at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center. Volunteer firefighter Kevin Swain, 19, also was shot, and was in serious but stable condition after coming out of surgery Saturday, department officials said. Swain, who authorities said was shot four times, is expected to survive. Kevin Swain, (pictured left with girlfriend Betty-Ann Humbert) is in serious but stable condition after being shot in Maryland on Friday night, while fellow firefighter John Ulmschneider, 37 (right), was killed Swain (pictured) was responding to a call of a medical emergency at a property on Friday night before a man inside opened fire, hitting him and Ulmschneider Ulmschneider (pictured far left), who was nicknamed'Skillet', was a father and husband and had served the fire department for 13 years before being shot dead Ulmschneider, who was nicknamed 'Skillet', was a father to a 2-year-old girl and a husband As of Saturday, no charges had been brought against the shooter and he was released from police custody Saturday evening, according to a statement tweeted by the police department. Ulmschneider, who was nicknamed 'Skillet', was a father to a 2-year-old girl and a husband, ABC News reported. Images from Swain's Facebook show him with girlfriend Betty-Ann Humbert, who he had been dating for 17 months. The pair were wounded while answering the call for help around 7:30pm Friday. Firefighters went to the Temple Hills home after the brother of the man who lived there told authorities he was concerned about the man's safety, said Mark Brady, spokesman for the fire department. The man said his brother had trouble controlling his blood sugar and recently blacked out. He told authorities he was worried because his brother wasn't answering the phone or the door and his car was parked in the driveway, Brady said. When the firefighters arrived on the scene, the person inside was unresponsive and the property locked, so they decided to force entry, police Chief Henry P. Stawinski III said. As that was happening, the person inside fired several rounds through the door, striking the two firefighters and his brother, authorities said. Stawinski said that once officers got into the home, the gunfire stopped. He added that no officers had fired their weapons. There were no police officers present when the firefighters decided to enter the home, Prince George's County Police Department spokeswoman Julie Parker said. Brady said that's something firefighters do fairly routinely when there's a concern about someone's safety. He said anytime there is an incident such as this, the department will review its protocols and possibly make changes. 'The firefighter medics made a decision that this was indeed a reason they needed to get into that house as soon as possible. Time could have been of the essence,' Brady said. Ulmschneider was hit in the chest and later died from the wound. Swain was shot multiple times in the body and transported to a hospital in critical condition. Ulmschneider was flown from the scene (pictured) to MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center where he died. Swain came out of surgery on Saturday and is expected to survive The pair had approached a house on Sharon Road (file image) and attempted to enter only to find it locked when a man inside opened fire on them Brady said Ulmschneider was described as a 'good old hard working country boy who loved his job.' Diana Krieger, whose daughter is married to Ulmschneider's brother, told The Washington Post that he was a 'caring man' who had dreamed of being a firefighter since high school. 'He wanted to help others, he loved doing what he was doing, being a paramedic and a firefighter, and I really believe that he was doing God's work,' Krieger told the newspaper. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan ordered the state's flag to be flown at half-staff in Ulmschneider's memory. 'His legacy as a husband, father and firefighter, and his commitment to protecting others, will not soon be forgotten by his loved ones, the community, or Maryland,' Hogan said in a statement. The brother of the man who lived at the home was not seriously injured, Prince George's County police Chief Henry P. Stawinski III said at a news conference. He is in fair condition, after suffering a shoulder gunshot wound, The Washington Post reported. The alleged shooter, who hasn't been identified, was described by the newspaper as being a 61-year-old man. Two other firefighters with the Morningside Volunteer Fire Department suffered minor injuries while seeking cover after the shooting. A firefighter injured a knee and the other injured her jaw. The two were treated at the hospital and released Saturday. Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker told Fox 5: 'Once again, unfortunately, I've got to go before the people of Prince George's County and let them know that we have lost another one of our brave firefighters doing what they do every day.' She also says Bambaataa was unaware of the men who offered a bribe and that they did not have authorization to speak on his behalf He also claims to have recordings of men offering him money to shut up Savage says he has only just now gained the courage to speak out He alleges that he was molested on several occasions Afrika Bambaataa, hip-hop pioneer and creator of breakthrough 1982 track 'Planet Rock,' has been accused of child molestation by three more men. The recent claims come just a week after former music industry executive and Democratic Party activist Ronald Savage, 50, came forward claiming that Bambaataa abused him at least five times in 1980. Hassan Campbell, 39, told the New York Daily News that Bambaataa started hanging out at his Bronx apartment during the late 1980s. Campbell said the hip-hop legend would give him meals, a roof over his head, a bed or money whenever he needed it. But he said it was the 'worst place to be' as he told the Daily News that Bambaataa sexually abused him numerous times when he was 12 and 13 years old. 'He is a pervert,' Campbell added. 'He likes little boys.' Scroll down for video Accused: Afrika Bambaataa (pictured in 1986), one of hip-hop's 'founding fathers,' was first accused of abusing a 15-year-old boy in the 1980s, when he was in his twenties. He created hip-hop collective Zulu Nation But now three more men have stepped forward saying that the hip-hop legend sexually abused them as well. Hassan Campbell (pictured) said that Bambaataa abused him numerous times when he was 12 and 13 Another man, who requested anonymity told the Daily News that he knows what Savage is saying 'is true because he did it to me'. The 50-year-old New York man said: 'I have never spoken to anybody about this and when I did, I said "Holy s---, they finally caught up to him."' But those two men aren't the only ones backing Savage's sexual abuse claim, a 51-year-old former New Yorker named Troy, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, told the Daily News that Bambaataa abused him, too. Troy, who lives in North Carolina told the paper that he's 'been dealing with this for years'. 'Victim': Ronald Savage (pictured) said he was molested on multiple occasions and that he has since developed intimacy problems 'It's a shame this didn't come out earlier.' Campbell and Bambaataa's other accusers all say the music star showed them pornographic pictures or videos and then performed oral sex on them 'He showed me a book with a picture of a penis and said, 'You don't have to be gay for me to suck your d---,' Troy said. Savage told the Daily News that he first met the DJ and producer in 1980. At that point Savage, then 14, was one of many 'crate boys,' kids who would carry around crates of records for DJs in Bambaataa's Zulu Nation hip-hop collective. 'It was just about fun, hanging out, listening to music,' says Savage of those heady Bronx days. But according to his story, all that was about to change. Savage, who had the nickname 'Bee-Stinger,' was the youngest member of the Zulu Nation, a group dedicated to politically aware hip-hop that threw parties across Manhattan. 'I had a big name on the street. I was the youngest of the Zulu Nation. Nobody bothered me back then because nobody messed with the Zulu Nation,' he told the NY Daily News. But one day when he was 15, Savage said, he cut class and went to Bambaataa's home - and things turned nasty. 'I was in the living room, another gentleman was there, and they was DJing,' he told the paper. 'Bam told me I could go into his bedroom "cause the TV was on."' Two other men have come forward claiming that they were also sexually abused by Bambaataa (left in 2006). One man did not wish to be identified while the other man only gave the name Troy Savage said he was in the bedroom for around three or four minutes before Bambaataa took out his own penis and began touching himself. Savage alleges the DJ then performed the same act on him. He said that Bambaataa then left the room and another man entered with his penis already out. At that point, Savage said, he fled. But Savage accuses Bambaataa, now 58, of molesting him on a number of occasions. At one time, he says, Bambaataa came to his house and made Savage lie on the bed with his legs crossed while the DJ performed a sex act on him. 'I bugged out,' he said, 'It confused me 'cause I had never had sex before in my life and... my first time being touched was by a man.' The judicial delegate said that the experiences left him uncomfortable with close physical contact, hurting his relationships with girlfriends, as well an instinctive suspicion that other male friends might try something similar, something he said he has trouble shaking off today. Savage claimed that he didn't know who to trust with the information as his friends were in the Zulu Nation, and that he feared for his family's life. Only now, he said, has he been able to come forward. 'I'm not looking for any compensation from Afrika Bambaataa. That's not what this is about,' he said. 'The only thing I wanted was for this man to answer my question - why me?' Bambaata's lawyer, Kimi Tozaki, issued a rebuttal to Savage's remarks last week. 'Defamatory statements were published seeking to harm my client's reputation so as to lower him in the estimation of the community while deterring others from associating or dealing with him,' she wrote. 'The statements show a reckless disregard for the truth, were published with knowledge of their falsity, and are being made by a lesser-known person seeking publicity,' she added. Denial: Bambaataa's lawyer denies all of Savage's claims, saying Savage 'seeks publicity' from her client (pictured above in 2015), who is now 58. Savage says he just wants to know 'Why me?' Savage released an autobiography - 'Impulse Urges And Fantasies: Life Is a Bag of Mixed Emotions, Vol. 1' - in 2014. However, court records from restraining order made by Savage against an ex-girlfriend's new partner, Daniel Harris, suggest that he had already discussed his Bambaataa claims with her before 2011, the NY Daily News said. The records say that Harris told Savage in a July 2011 phone call, 'I know about the Bambaataa thing,' according to the paper. The publication also claimed to have heard recordings of 'two high-ranking Zulu Nation officials' offering Savage $50,000 to drop the claims, and that Savage can be heard on the recordings 'repeatedly' saying that he doesn't want the money. Tozaki told the NY Daily News that Bambaataa was unaware of the men's actions and that neither of them were 'given authority to speak on Bam's behalf.' 'My reason for coming forth is that something needs to happen,' Savage said to the paper. He added that he had sought legal council but that he was told the statute of limitations on the allegations had expired. New York state has some of the strictest child abuse laws in the country. As a felony crime there it has a statute of limitations of five years, sometimes starting only when the child discloses the crime, and ending when the child turns 18 at the latest. For civil cases, a suit must be filed by the time the victim turns 23. A teenage girl who claims she was groped by an elderly man on a flight has been told by the airline she 'wore extremely short shorts' and had repeatedly climbed over another passenger. Chelsea Schiffel was travelling with her family from LA to Sydney on a United Airlines flight in July 2014 at the age of 15 when she alleges she was touched inappropriately, News Corp reported. The girl alleges the man touched her breasts twice after her mother Narelle, 42, had got up to speak to a family member, who was seated in the rear of the plane. Chelsea Schiffel (pictured) was on a flight in July 2014 when she alleges she was touched inappropriately The teenage girl alleges the man touched herafter her mother had got up to speak to a family member When her mother complained to airline staff members and demanded for different seats, the pair were asked to return to their same seats for the remainder of the flight. In a letter to the family, United Airlines denied the pair's allegations and suggested her choice of clothing may have bear some of the blame. 'The flight attendants and passengers also stated that you and your daughter were allowed to move to other seats several times, that Chelsea repeatedly moved in and out of her seat, crawling over the other customer who was attempting to sleep, and that your daughter wore extremely short shorts,' the United Airlines said in a letter, obtained by News Corp. 'You have provided no evidence of any negligence on the part of United regarding this matter.' She claims the airline told her she 'wore extremely short shorts' and had climbed over another passenger She was travelling with her family from LA to Sydney on a United Airlines flight at the age of 15 (stock image) However, Chelsea said what a woman wears should not bear any responsibility for any alleged sexual attack on them. 'For me it comes across, by them saying that, (it) feels like they were telling me that I was asking for it,' Chelsea told the publication. The family has attempted to take legal actions against United Airlines but insufficient evidence has hindered the case. A black former soldier is suing the Ministry of Defence for injuries sustained during winter training when he claims his hands were exposed to freezing temperatures. Abdoulie Bojang, 30, was training in Banff, Canada, and is seeking 200,000 after he says his hands were exposed to temperatures of -30C. He claims the army 'failed to take into account his ethnicity' during the training exercises, according to the Sunday Times. A spokesman for solicitors Bolt Burdon Kemp said: 'Service personnel of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, including those of mixed race, are particularly vulnerable in low temperatures.' According to one lawyer at Irwin Mitchell at least 450 Commonwealth soldiers have suffered cold injuries in the past decade. Abdoulie Bojang, 30, was training in Banff, Canada, is seeking 200,000 after he says his hands were exposed to temperatures of -30C. He is suing the MoD over claims of non freezing cold injuries (File photo) The ex-soldier, originally from Gambia who now lives in Warwickshire, was medically discharged from the army in September last year. Bojang, who served with the Royal Logistic Corps, has lodged a claim in the High Court via his barrister Christopher Barnes. In the soldier's claim about the 2014 exercise in the Rocky Mountains, it says: 'During the afternoon he noticed that his feet were numb as were both of his hands. 'He made his way to the resort lodge to warm his hands and saw that they had changed colour.' A spokesperson for Bolt Burdon Kemp added: 'The MoD has acknowledged research indicating that these groups are 30 times more likely to contract an NFCI (non-freezing cold injury) than Caucasian service personnel. The ex-soldier, originally from Gambia who now lives in Warwickshire, was medically discharged from the army last September. He claims the army 'failed to take into account his ethnicity' during the training exercises (File photo) 'Even mild injuries can leave long-term effects such as problems regulating body temperature. HOW TO PREVENT NON-FREEZING COLD INJURIES Limit exposure Keep feet and hands as dry as possible Regular hot food and drink Early recognition of symptoms, evacuation and treatment Report incidents properly to help identify clusters of cases Most importantly, be aware of the early signs of cold injury Advertisement 'The damage to a military career and the prolonged pain can even result in depression. 'Many of our clients have problems with day-to-day living because their hands have been affected so that their manual dexterity is reduced. 'Personnel from the Commonwealth will often find that, following a cold injury, they are restricted to working in warm climates. 'This means they can no longer follow any plans they may have made to make a life in the UK, Europe or North America.' A non-freezing cold injury comes about when the core temperature of the body remains below its natural level for a long period of time. When someone's core temperature falls too low the blood vessels constrict, thereby reducing blood flow to hands and feet. This has the effect of reducing the amount of oxygen transported to those extremities. This is harmful even though body tissue does not freeze. Bojang, who served with the Royal Logistic Corps, has lodged a claim in the High Court via his barrister Christopher Barnes (File photo) If there is no immediate treatment nerve and blood vessel damage can occur, sometimes causing permanent injury. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: 'When compensation claims are submitted, they are considered on the basis of whether or not the Ministry of Defence has a legal liability to pay compensation. 'Where there is a legal liability to pay compensation, we do so.' Last year a parliamentary select committee chaired by MP Madeleine Moon heard that hundreds of military personnel are injured every year because the MoD fails to follow its own safety rules. Lawyers representing injured service men and women told the Defence Select Committee that the armed forces fail to learn from past mistakes resulting results in the death and injury of soldiers every year. Firefighters were forced to rescue a partygoer from a rooftop bar with a crane after he fell asleep in the toilet and woke up to find the club had closed. The drunk man was lifted down to safety from Rocket Bar in Adelaide at around 6.30am - an hour-and-a-half after it closed. Police said the man had fallen asleep in the toilet and woke to find the club had closed. The South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service was called to assist the man and used the bucket on the truck's ladder to bring him down. Video footage showed the young man being fastened to a harness before he was taken down in the crane. Scroll down for video Firefighters were forced to rescue a partygoer from a rooftop bar with a crane after he fell asleep in the toilet and woke up to find the club had closed The drunk man was lifted down to safety from Rocket Bar in Adelaide at around 6.30am - an hour-and-a-half after it closed A top expert on Islamist radicalisation is being investigated for saying that a slain Muslim shopkeeper was 'not a real Muslim', it has been reported. Shiraz Maher, a researcher at King's College London, wrote on Facebook that he does not 'regard Ahmadis as Muslims' - days after a taxi driver admitted killing Asad Shah because he 'disrespected' Islam'. Mr Shah, part of the Ahmadiyya community, was knifed to death in his shop in what was feared at the time to have been a sectarian attack against the peace-loving branch of Islam he followed. Shiraz Maher (right), a researcher at King's College London, wrote on Facebook that he does not 'regard Ahmadis as Muslims' - days after a taxi driver admitted killing Asad Shah (left) because he 'disrespected' Islam' Earlier this month, taxi driver Tanveer Ahmed, accused of his murder, said through his lawyer that he killed the much-loved family man because he had claimed to be 'a prophet'. Days later Mr Maher, a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, reportedly wrote on Facebook: 'I really wonder if I'm missing something here but I don't regard Ahmadis as Muslim.' According to Richard Kerbaj of the Sunday Times, the Sunni Muslim added: 'Obviously this does not mean I think they should be persecuted or suffer for their beliefs ... yes, condemn the murder and, more long term, suck up the heat out of Muslim hostilities directed towards them but that still doesn't mean that they should then be accepted as Muslim.' The newspaper reports that he has since apologised for his 'ill-advised and misjudged' comments 'given the circumstances of Asad Shah's murder and the political context thereafter'. Hours before his murder, Mr Shah had written on Facebook: 'Good Friday and very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation' He told the Sunday Times that he had often said Ahmadis should not be targeted for their beliefs. A representative from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK told the Sunday Times that his earlier remarks risked 'creating division'. King's told MailOnline this morning that it is investigating and insisted the comments were his own opinions. Mr Shah, 40, was killed at his Glasgow shop on March 24 - the day before Good Friday. Hours before his murder, he had written on Facebook: 'Good Friday and very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.' Mr Shah belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, which promotes peace and tolerance but has been persecuted by members of orthodox Islamic sects in Pakistan. Tanveer Ahmed, 32, remains in custody charged with murder. MailOnline has made attempts to reach Mr Maher for further comment this morning. Film producer Avi Lerner called Barack Obama a 'coward' for failing to crack down on Google over piracy. The 68-year-old said the White House's failure to force the search engine giant to improve its anti-piracy measures was costing Hollywood millions of dollars a year. 'It's a major problem and it's something that I don't know if anyone can stop, because the government, the president, Congress are all scared of Google,' said Lerner, who was behind a string of blockbusters including the Expendables movies and London Has Fallen. Producer Avi Lerner called Obama a 'coward' for not cracking down on the tech giants over piracy. He said his production companies lost $250 million after The Expendables 3 leaked online At a Beverly Hills gala thrown in his honor, the financier said his production companies lost $250 million after The Expendables 3 leaked online. 'The government, the president, is such a coward. He's scared of Google so we are losing millions,' he said. 'They should tell Google to stop piracy. They should make a law that anyone helping piracy -- and not helping to stop piracy -- should go to jail or get penalized or whatever.' A near perfect copy of The Expendables 3 leaked onto file-sharing sites in July 2014, three weeks before its theatrical release date. It was downloaded around 100,000 times within hours and Nu Image said more than 10 million copies were made before its release. Lerner believes that since a portion of Google's advertising revenue is coming from piracy-related sources, the company has no incentive stop it without being forced. Google, which was not immediately available for comment, modified its algorithms in 2014 to lower the search engine's ranking of piracy websites, but many studio executives believe the tech giant has not gone far enough. Hollywood lobbied intensively in 2012 for the creation of two pieces of legislation -- the Protect Intellectual Property Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act -- which would hold websites hosted outside the US to the same standards as those within the country. But Google, along with other big players in Silicon Valley, resisted action they claimed would stifle the Internet and pave the way for US authorities to shut down websites without due process. The movie mogul was at a gala thrown in his honor at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California on Saturday. Pictured left, with Gerard Butler, right, star of London Has Fallen, which Lerner helped produce The event marked the end of a boycott against the Beverly Hills Hotel after the owner, the Sultan of Brunei, passed Sharia law in his country calling for homosexuality and adultery to be punishable by stoning US congressional leaders put the legislation on hold following a wave of protests led by Google and Wikipedia denouncing the bills as a threat to Internet freedom, and the bills were never signed into law. 'We have to protect our intellectual property or why are we doing this? Why be creative? Why put your blood and sweat and tears into writing a movie only to have it stolen?' said Heidi Jo Markel, the founder of Eclectic Pictures who has worked with Lerner on several films. The producer, who was also at the dinner hosted by social services agency Aviva Family and Children's Services at the Beverly Hills Hotel, called on the United States to emulate Britain, which she described as much tougher on piracy. 'The UK has got so good about punishing people for theft and we just sort of look the other way. We've got to change that,' she said. The gala honoring Lerner marked the end of a boycott against the Beverly Hills Hotel after the owner, the Sultan of Brunei, passed Sharia law in his country calling for homosexuality and adultery to be punishable by stoning. It was the first red carpet rolled out inside the hotel since 2014. Loose Women's Lynda Bellingham was warned ten times about her husband Michael Pattemore, a friend of the couple has claimed. Denise Sutton, 50, who first met Pattemore in Moraira, Spain in 2003, said she spoke to Lynda on several occasions to express concerns about him. Her claims come just weeks after it emerged Bellingham's sons Michael and Robbie Peluso publicly alleged he had squandered thousands from her estate and evicted them from the family home. Denise Sutton, 50, (pictured) who first met Michael Pattemore in Moraira, Spain in 2003, said she spoke to Lynda on several occasions to express concerns about him Within months of her death, he had been to Dubai three times, as well as Peru, Canada and on a round-the-world trip for eight weeks. He has also posted selfies of himself in Canada, New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia and Cuba to his late wife's Twitter account. A friend has claimed she repeatedly warned Lynda about her husband Michael Pattemore (pictured together at her investiture ceremony in 2014) Speaking to The Sunday People, Ms Sutton said: 'I must have warned Lynda ten times not to trust Micky.' But the Loose Women star ignored her advice and said she had the situation under control - and assured her that her estate would be left to her sons, not Pattemore. The actress, famous as the 'Oxo mum', died of bowel cancer in 2014 and the brothers are now challenging Pattemore over her will. She died just 10 days after the publication of her memoirs, Theres Something Ive Been Dying To Tell You, in which she revealed for the first time she had terminal bowel cancer. Ms Sutton said that when she first met Pattemore, he slept on friends sofas and even took a 5,000 euro loan from her. And it was only when he started selling time share apartments that his luck turned around. It was during this time he met Lynda when she travelled to the area looking to buy a home. Ms Sutton said: 'He was telling me all about how Lynda had invited him to her home in North London and how he couldnt believe his luck.' She later bumped into Lynda in Spain - before later blurting out to her that she was concerned about him. Pattemore posted this photograph of Twitter last year showing him enjoying the sights of Cuba Another image showed him beside a small fixed-wing airplane, though it was not clear what country he was in The photographs, including this image of the Great Wall of China, were posted on his late wife's Twitter account Here is another selfie Pattemore posted of himself, this time taken in Tahiti Pattemore drinks a glass of wine while admiring Ayers Rock in Australia during his around the world trip Pattemore has denied accusations he is squandering Lynda's money - stating the will is still in probate Just a few weeks ago, Pattemore faced a huge backlash after claiming in an interview with Spirit and Destiny magazine that he regularly had sex with Lynda's ghost. That 'disrespectful' interview marked the final straw, her hotel guest relations manager son Robbie, 27, said. 'She should be remembered for all the wonderful work she did as an actress and the inspiring courage she showed at the end of her life, not for these tacky revelations that are tarnishing the reputation she worked so hard for,' he told the Mail on Sunday. 'When I read the interview about her ghost, I knew it was time to stand up for her, and give our side of everything thats happened since my mothers death. 'Our stepfather always says hes close to us, but thats not the case. We want the public to know that a lot of what theyve been told just isnt true.' Speaking recently about the allegations, Mr Pattemore has said the situation is 'frustrating' and insists the whole story hasn't been given. Mr Pattemore, from Crewkerne, Somerset, said: 'We are still going through probate so everything [in her will] is still frozen.' Yesterday he declined to comment when contacted by The Sunday People. He could not be reached for comment today. Robbie, left, and Michael Peluso, pictured with mother Lynda Bellingham when they were children Lynda, who found fame as the Oxo mother and with appearances on Loose Women, died in 2014 Detained journalist Tara Brown is a 'brilliant journalist' who was 'trying to expose the truth of a story' when she was arrested in Lebanon earlier this month, Today Show host Karl Stefanovic said defending his coworker on Sunday. In a statement released through Channel Nine, Mr Stefanovic said he has been trying to explain why Brown and the 60 Minutes crew's are in jail to his daughter who likes to ask a lot of questions - just like Brown, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Brown, 48, was arrested along with other members of a 60 Minutes team - David Ballment, 55, Stephen Rice, 58, and Ben Williamson, 37 - following an attempted kidnap of Sally Faulkner's children from their father, Ali Elamine, in Beirut. Scroll down for video Today Show host Karl Stefanovic (pictured) called 60 Minutes journalist Tara Brown a 'friend, colleague, mother and brilliant journalist' in a statement released on Sunday defending his coworker Mr Stefanovic said he has been trying to explain why Brown and the 60 Minutes crew's are in jail to his daughter who likes to ask a lot of questions - just like Brown (pictured with her husband John McAvoy) Ms Faulkner (pictured) is facing kidnapping charges over the botched attempt to snatch her children from a busy street Mr Stefanovic says he believes Brown was trying to get to the bottom of the truth of a complex story and that asking the right questions is what makes a journalist. 'Tara is a friend. She is a colleague. She is a mother. She is a brilliant journalist. She has asked those questions over and over again. She has consistently broken stories, and forensically exposed wrong doing in society all around the world. She has religiously and without favour fought for the truth,' he said in the statement. 'Journalism - by definition is the work of collecting writing and publishing news stories and articles. Who, what, when, where, why are the cornerstones of journalism,' he continued. 'It's brilliant in its simplicity and it's so easy to remember. Armed with those tools we go out into the wide world and ask away. At its most basic, we inform. At its best, it's powerful. We can expose the wrongs. We can make a difference. It all though starts with a question.' The Today Show host's comments come just hours after Brown's husband revealed he has not told their children that their mother is in jail in Lebanon. John McAvoy, Brown's husband and veteran TV producer, has been unable to tell their young children - Jack, seven, and Tom, five - the details on the 'living nightmare' their mum is going through, the Herald Sun reports. 'It's hard to imagine it could be any tougher. From what we know, they are in good health, keeping their spirits up and are being well looked after by the Lebanese authorities,' McAvoy said in a joint statement with Denise Alexander Rice, Cara Williamson and Laura Battistel. Mr McAvoy (left) has revealed he has not told their children the Channel Nine reporter is in jail after a botched child abduction attempt in Lebanon David 'Tangles' Ballment (pictured) is one of the 60 Minutes crew members in jail and has worked with 60 Minutes for the past six years as a sound recordist 'You can't imagine how comforting it is to know that. That is all that is getting us through at the moment. 'Some of us haven't even told our children what's happening yet. It's not an easy conversation to have with a five or seven-year-old who ask as they go to sleep each night when mummy or daddy is coming home. Understandably we are all anxious and worried sick.' Ms Williamson has not told the couple's young daughters, aged eight and five, about the ordeal yet, the newspaper claims. Mr Rice's three children - a teenage son and twin-daughters in their 20s - are aware of the situation their father is in. The prison where Brown and Ms Faulkner have been taken to is a grim, overcrowded block housing mostly murderers and drug dealers with up to 20 women per cell. Baabda Central Women's Prison is in south-eastern Beirut and built to house 50 prisoners, however as many as 90 people are packed in cramped dark cells behind razor wire fencing. Brown and Ms Faulkner are being held in Baabda Central Women's Prison, where as many as 90 inmates are packed into crowded cells (pictured) Baabda Central Women's Prison is in south-eastern Beirut and built for 50 people, however overcrowding means almost twice as many are held at the centre Prisoners are given one meal a day at the facility, and often seen wearing their own dirty clothing Prisoners are often seen wearing their own dirty clothes in photographs taken inside the centre, and just one meal a day is served to inmates. It comes after it was revealed talks between Ms Faulker, 29, and her estranged husband Ali Elamine have broken down. Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab, and Mr Elamine's attorney have failed to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their two children despite being urged by Lebanese officials, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Stephen Rice, 58, has won two Walkley awards throughout his career in journalism and has been with 60 Minutes since 2004 Ben Williamson's (pictured) wife, Cara, has not told the couple's young daughters, aged eight and five, about the ordeal yet 'I met the lawyer of Mr Elamine, he put his conditions, we accepted all of them and yet now I am told they will not accept the agreement,' Mr Moughabghab said. Ms Faulkner was arrested along with the 60 Minutes crew by Lebanese police on April 7 and charged with kidnapping offences after Ms Faulkner's children were snatched in a botched kidnapping attempt. Mr Elamine proposed last week that he would drop the kidnapping charge against his wife if she agrees to give up sole custody of the children - Lahela, six, and Noah, four. The 60 Minutes crew was arrested along with Sally Faulkner (pictured with her two children) on April 7 in Beirut, Lebanon Ms Faulkner was attempting to take her children from her former partner, Ali Elamine (middle), who she claims took them last year LEBANON KIDNAP CASE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR THE MUM, THE TV CREW AND THE KIDNAPPING CASE Brisbane mum Sally Faulkner and a Nine Network TV crew made up of reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound technician David Ballment, are facing kidnapping and assault charges in Lebanon following a bungled abduction of Ms Faulkner's two children in Beirut. WHAT HAPPENED? The Australians have spent a week behind bars in Beirut after being arrested for the alleged abduction on April 7. The TV crew was filming Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her ex-husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. A professional agency, Child Abduction Recovery International, is believed to have been hired to snatch the children. Two of its members, named in media reports as Britons Adam Whittington and Craig Michael, have also been detained and charged. THE ABDUCTION Security camera footage shows masked men jumping out of a car and snatching the kids from their grandmother and another woman on a Beirut street. The grandmother claims she was attacked and hit on the head with a pistol. The TV crew and recovery agency members were arrested shortly afterwards, while Faulkner hid with her two children in a safe house. Authorities later found the family, arrested Faulkner and returned the children to their father. THE CHARGES Faulkner is facing kidnapping charges. The 60 minutes crew is accused of: - hiding information - forming an association with two or more people to commit a crime against a person - kidnapping or holding a minor even with their approval - physical assault. The offences carry penalties of up to 20 years in jail. LEGAL CASE SO FAR Judge Rami Abdullah told the Australians during a second round of interviews on Wednesday that there was no chance their charges would be dropped. However, he indicated that if Mr Elamine was willing to drop legal action and come to an agreement with his estranged wife, that would help the case against all of the accused. The accused will remain in detention until facing the Baabda Palace of Justice again. Nine has refused to comment on speculation it organised and funded the recovery operation. Advertisement The requirements also included a full religious divorce and agreement that Ms Faulker will never take their children to Australia, as Mr Elamine fears she may never bring them back. The 60 Minutes crew was in Beirut to film Ms Faulkner's attempt to kidnap her children. Prosecutors have also claimed a member of the recovery team said Channel Nine paid $115,000 for the operation. Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab (pictured), and Mr Elamine's attorney recently failed to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their two children despite being urged by Lebanese officials News outlets in England and Wales have been gagged by the courts in order to prevent them revealing full details of the celebrity's initial extra-marital affair - or even naming them The married celebrity who took out an injunction to stop the Press reporting that they had a threesome with another couple allegedly had a second affair with a hairdresser. News outlets in England and Wales have been gagged by the courts in order to prevent them from revealing full details of the celebrity's initial extra-marital affair - or even naming them. However, the star's identity has been widely reported elsewhere, including in a Scottish newspaper, a popular blog and one of America's biggest news websites. Now, the Sun on Sunday has reported the celebrity - who has children with their famous spouse - had a second affair just five months after having the threesome with another couple. The hairdresser, who is based in America, claims to have met the multimillionaire on a dating app where they exchanged pictures and agreed to meet at a 500-a-night hotel for sex. The former lover claims the celebrity, who is known only as PJS, initially used a fake name and claimed to be both single and younger than their real age before admitting they were the well known celebrity. The lover said when they first met up they went to a bar and then walked hand in hand through a park before returning to the hotel and had sex. The stylist said: 'PJS made it seem like they had an open relationship. PJS didn't seem to care about us being seen. 'I don't think the partner found out about us but it looks like PJS knows how to cover tracks. 'I was told they spend long periods apart - I think they put on a front of togetherness for their children but it is a different story behind closed doors.' Appeal judges will decide tomorrow whether to lift the ban on identifying the married celebrity. This week a poll by MailOnline revealed eight out of 40 people asked on a London street believed they could name the star despite the ban. Britain's newspapers have asked the judges to lift a ban which is preventing them from reporting on a 'well-known' man's 'extramarital activities'. The Sun On Sunday wanted to publish an 'account' of the man's 'sexual exploits' with others. The star took legal action and earlier this year two Court of Appeal judges imposed an injunction - preventing the newspaper from identifying the man in an article. Gavin Millar QC, who is leading News Group Newspapers' legal team, told Lord Justice Jackson, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Simon that information had now been published outside the jurisdiction of England and Wales and was available to the British public via the internet. He said that, because of that, the ban should be lifted. She says he texted picture showing Cabinet Ministers outside Chequers, the Prime Ministers official country home John Whittingdale had two-year relationship with Stephanie Hudson who claims he showed her Advertisement This is the photograph 'privacy minister' John Whittingdale sent to his porn star lover - showing senior ministers relaxing over lunch. Married ex-Page 3 model Stephanie Hudson, 36, said the Culture Secretary texted her the image, which shows Cabinet Ministers outside Chequers, the Prime Ministers official country home near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The photograph is a major breach of protocol and is thought to be the first such picture ever to be published. It comes as Ms Hudson claimed Mr Whittingdale, the Minister in charge of media privacy laws, showed her highly-sensitive documents to show off' as he worked on his Ministerial Red Box over breakfast. Mr Whittingdale, the Minister in charge of media privacy laws, photographed Cabinet Ministers at a private meeting at Chequers and secretly texted it to Ms Hudson. The picture is above Cabinet Minister John Whittingdale (left and right) had a two-year relationship with former porn star Stephanie Hudson (left) who claims he showed her confidential Government papers at his constituency home The shocking revelations come days after it emerged that Mr Whittingdale, 56, had a sexual relationship with a dominatrix with claims the story had previously been buried because he was in charge of press regulation. Mr Whittingdale, MP for Maldon, Essex, last night refused to discuss his two-year affair with Ms Hudson. A spokeswoman said: John is a single man. He is entitled to a private life. And a source close to the divorced Mr Whittingdale insisted that Ms Hudson did not have access to Government papers. Last night, David Cameron was standing by Mr Whittingdale. However, a Government source told The Mail on Sunday: His [Mr Whittingdales] behaviour is causing raised eyebrows in Whitehall. The new claims are made by Ms Hudson, a medical receptionist, who appeared topless in tabloid newspapers until the early 2000s and once took part in a soft-porn TV series. In a candid account of their turbulent on-off relationship, Ms Hudson says: After meeting on the internet, Mr Whittingdale told her he was an arms dealer; He called his local Essex constituents oiks; The couple were asked to leave the Savoy Hotel for 'drunken heavy petting'; He took her to the Commons and turned off the lights to avoid being caught on CCTV and kissed and groped her; He said of immigrants: If you let one in, they all want to come; He two-timed her with a dominatrix. In a separate investigation, The Mail on Sunday has learned of new details of Mr Whittingdales political links to Eastern Europe and a pro-Vladimir Putin Ukrainian oligarch; in addition to relationships with two Eastern European women 20 years his junior. In an interview with this newspaper, Ms Hudson says Mr Whittingdale studied his Cabinet papers at his Essex home dressed in a blue silk kimono dressing gown at the breakfast table, after a long morning bath. She recalled: The Red Box was open on his breakfast table and all the papers were strewn on the table. He would show me his work schedule and the letters when I would sit next to him. He was always saying this important person had been writing to him and he had to respond to so and so. The now-married ex-Page 3 model (left) says the Culture Secretary showed her highly-sensitive documents to show off as he worked on his Ministerial Red Box over breakfast and revealed he was seeing dominatrix Mistress Kate (right) at the same time She added: I always felt he was trying to show he was important, you know: Look at me, I am big. It would have been easy to read the papers either across the kitchen table or when he was out of the room. There was something about Ofcom written on one of them. The couples relationship began in 2013 and continued after his Cabinet promotion following the May 2015 Election. Ms Hudson says Mr Whittingdale told her last July he planned to make a major decision that would anger the BBC. He said he had a big decision to make about the BBC that would upset a lot of people. Mr Whittingdale, a long-standing critic of the BBC, was brought into the Government with orders to lead a shake-up of the Corporation. And coincidentally, last night it was reported that he is looking to force the BBC to sell its 500 million stake in UKTV which owns ten channels including Dave, Gold and Yesterday and give half the proceeds to the Treasury. The special Cabinet meeting at Chequers where Mr Whittingdale photographed Ministers to entertain his lover also took place in July. Ms Hudson, who stored Mr Whittingdales number on her mobile phone under the pet-name Sexybum, says he told her in advance that he was going to Chequers another apparent breach of security protocol texting her the day before the meeting: Off to Chequers tomorrow. She replied: You mean chukkers men in white jeans? [A polo reference.] And Whittingdale answered: Er no the Prime Minister's country residence. On the day, while other Ministers were lunching on the Chequers terrace, Mr Whittingdale astonishingly took an impromptu mobile phone photo of ten senior Ministers including George Osborne, Michael Fallon, Nicky Morgan and Sajid Javid. He texted it that day to Ms Hudson who replied: Pretty house. The photograph at Chequers is likely to anger Mr Cameron, who bans mobile phones at Cabinet meetings, partly for security reasons. The extraordinary affair between the Cabinet Minister and porn star Ms Hudson, who is estranged from her American businessman husband, began in late 2013. The mother of three noticed that Whittingdale had winked at her profile on the dating website Match.com, to show he was interested. Ms Hudson says she was not deterred by the 20-year age gap, adding: Ive always liked older men. Their first date was at the trendy Saatchi Gallery off Kings Road, Chelsea. Initially, Mr Whittingdale, then chairman of the influential Commons Culture Select Committee, fibbed about his career. He told me he was a Russian arms dealer and had just come back from the Ukraine, said Ms Hudson. I dont know if he was just being careful or trying to make himself more attractive by sounding mysterious, but it wasnt necessary I liked him. Bizarrely, it was their shared interest in Margaret Thatcher that prompted him to own up to being an MP. He only told me he was an MP after I told him I admired Margaret Thatcher, said Ms Hudson. She and her twin sister Samantha were the first twins to appear topless in red-top newspapers together, known as The Boobie Twins. Ms Hudson also appeared in Playboy magazine and in a US soft porn cable TV series, Hotel Erotica, playing the role of Paloma, a postgirl, in a naked lesbian romp. Mr Whittingdale earns 135,500 a year, yet Ms Hudson says she paid for most of their dates. THE RED BOX RULES All Ministers are given a Red Box in which to carry Government papers. The documents sometimes contain top-secret information. The cardinal rule is that Ministers should never leave the contents of their Red Boxes where their security could be compromised. Cabinet Office guidance says that official documents must be appropriately protected. Government sources say Ministers should never read documents in public in case they are seen by unauthorised individuals. All Ministers are given a Red Box (pictured) in which to carry Government papers. The documents sometimes contain top-secret information Advertisement They first went to bed after their fourth meeting. Ms Hudson says Mr Whittingdale told her of his relationship with a dominatrix, known as Mistress Kate, who plies her trade in London, complete with her own dungeon. When the BBC last week revealed Mr Whitingdales relationship with the dominatrix, he insisted he met her under her real name on Match.com and had no idea she was an escort until approached by the media, at which point he ended the relationship. However, Ms Hudson says she believes Mr Whittingdale was sleeping with the dominatrix and her at the same time. Around February 2014, John told me that he would have to live like a monk for a while because the newspapers had found out a woman hed gone out with was a prostitute. He told me it was all over long before he met me. But last week, I discovered he was sleeping with her at the same time as me, and we always had unprotected sex. It made me angry. I feel so betrayed, not only that he was lying to me, but also he was taking that kind of risk with my health. Ms Hudson describes Mr Whittingdale as very intelligent, but cold and calculating. He would walk over anyone to get ahead. He would call me whenever he needed some emotional support or had free time. But when I would want to see him, he would not be there. We split up during our relationship about four times, but every time he would come back. There was one time when he kicked me out of his St Jamess flat [in London]. I came downstairs and cried. I eventually got a taxi home. She added: Emotionally, he hurt me a lot. Ms Hudson said that in December 2013, she and Mr Whittingdale got drunk on the cheapest red wine on the list in the American Bar at Londons Savoy Hotel. The final bill, which the MoS has seen, was 87.75. We started kissing passionately and it got quite steamy with his hands all over my boobs, she said. We were warned to stop by the staff as it was upsetting other guests, but we soon started again, and were asked to leave. John said wed better go. They also used his Commons office for trysts. He always turned the lights out so we wouldnt be recorded on CCTV going down the corridor outside. Once we were in the office, we groped each other and kissed passionately. According to Ms Hudson, Mr Whittingdale showed little regard for his constituents, and could be outspoken. I once asked him what he was up to and he said he was at a fete in his constituency with some reprobate oiks, by which he meant the local people. When we discussed immigration once, he said The trouble is if you let one in, they all want to come. Ms Hudson says her Winchester educated Tory ex-lover was embarrassed to be seen with her in public. He knew that I was a Page 3 model. He said it could be embarrassing for him as he once campaigned against Page 3. If he found my past embarrassing, why date me? A source close to Whittingdale did not dispute that he had a relationship with Ms Hudson, but claimed she did not have access to government papers. The source described Ms Hudsons claims as tittle tattle. Anti-EU campaigner Mr Whittingdale appeared to be in hiding yesterday and he pulled out of a Vote Leave speech in Oxford. How Page 3 model who claims Whittingdale showed her highly-sensitive documents was one half of 'The Boobie Twins' with her sister and starred in TV show Hotel Erotica In her glamour modelling heyday, Stephanie Hudson enjoyed the dubious distinction of being one of Britains first Page 3 twins, with her sister Samantha. They were crowned The Boobie Twins. She also made an appearance in an American soft porn TV series, Hotel Erotica. Stephanie Hudson, who has revealed she enjoyed a two-year relationship with John Whittingdale, was one of Britains first Page 3 twins and also starred in American soft porn TV series, Hotel Erotica. She is pictured above in the dark blue underwear Broadcast on a cable channel, and still available to buy online as a DVD, it centred on the sexual escapades of guests at the fictitious beachfront Blue Hotel. In one episode, Stephanie plays a postal worker who has a threesome with a male character and another woman. Before she and her sister sought fame in the US, Stephanie landed a small part in a Lynda La Plante Channel 4 drama, The Killer Net. In one episode of Hotel Erotica (DVD pictured above), Stephanie plays a postal worker who has a threesome with a male character and another woman Stephanie, from Malvern, Worcestershire, said: I went to America more to become an actress, as I wanted to make it big in Hollywood. 'My favourite actress is Emma Thompson, and I wanted to become as successful as her. Advertisement Twelve Syrian refugees have arrived in the Vatican after Pope Francis' visit to the Greek island of Lesbos. The refugees taken in by Pope Francis following his visit have hailed the pontiff as a 'saviour' for offering them a new life. 'All refugees are children of God,' the 79-year-old pope said on the flight back to Rome referring to their religion, adding that though his gesture was 'a drop in the ocean' he hoped 'the ocean will never be the same again'. In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, the families, who spent their first night in Rome at a Catholic charity, expressed their gratitude to the pontiff for his 'gesture of hope'. 'We saw friends and relatives die in the rubble, we fled Syria because we no longer had any hope,' said Hasan, an engineer from Damascus, who arrived in Italy with his wife Nour and two-year-old son. After fleeing to Turkey, Hasan and his family joined the migrant trail to Europe, piling into a rubber dinghy that set out from the Turkish coast for Greece. 'But it was overloaded,' said Hasan, recalling the pitch black of the sea at night and the waves rocking the vessel. Pope Francis sid one of the refugees he met on the Greek island of Lesbos was the Muslim widower of a Syrian Christian woman killed by extremists for refusing to renounce her faith. Francis told the faithful in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that 'she is a martyr.' Departing from his prepared remarks, Francis shared his experiences of the day earlier with thousands of people gathered for his blessing. He says among the 300 refugees he greeted Saturday on Lesbos was a Syrian widower with two children. The pope said: 'He is Muslim, and he told me that he married a Christian girl. They loved each other and respected each other. 'But unfortunately the young woman's throat was slashed by terrorists because she didn't want to deny Christ and abandon her faith.' Scroll down for video Twelve Syrian refugees have arrived in the Vatican after Pope Francis' visit to the Greek island of Lesbos. Journalists surround Syrian refugee Suhila, wearing a white head scarf (centre), and her daughter Masa as they arrive at the St. Egidio Community in Rome Suhila and her family are part of three Muslim families that Pope Francis flew back with him to Italy from Greece, where they were in a refugee camp on the island of Lesbos In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, the families, who spent their first night in Rome at a Catholic charity, expressed their gratitude to the pontiff for his 'gesture of hope' Syrian refugees Wafa, at center with white scarf, and her husband Osama, second from left, hold their children's hands as they arrive with another Syrian family Another refugee called Hasan, an engineer from Damascus, who arrived in Italy with his wife Nour and two-year-old son, said: 'We saw friends and relatives die in the rubble, we fled Syria because we no longer had any hope' Syrian refugee Nour, smiles back as she enters the St. Egidio Community in Rome. Three families of Syrian refugees boarded the Pontiff's aircraft shortly after 1pm at the end of his lightening visit to Lesbos 'In Lesbos, we understood that we were stuck in a place that we could not leave, (we were) in a trap, a prison', he said describing the pope as 'our saviour' for whisking them off the island, where thousands of migrants risk being sent back to Turkey under a new EU-Turkey deportation deal. Wafa, who was also on the papal flight from Lesbos with her husband Osama, eight-year-old daughter Masa and six-year-old son Omar, together with her husband, described the 'constant bombardments' in recent months around their home. 'Since then (my son) has barely spoken... he is locked in an impenetrable silence,' she said. 'Even today, he wakes up every night crying and we cannot get him to play with his sister.' Wafa said she and her husband, who are from Damascus suburb of Zamalka, had opted to cut ties with the past. 'But we know we took the right decision,' she said. After their stay on Lesbos, which seemed interminable, 'Francis gave us a new life,' she said. Ramy, a 51-year-old teacher from the eastern Islamic State-occupied city of Deir Ezzor, fled Syria with his wife Suhila and three children - sons Rashid, 18 and Abdelmajid, 16, and seven-year-old daughter Al Quds - after their home was destroyed in the war. 'We discuss a lot and find it hard to imagine what life will be like in the future: we don't know whether we will start over in Europe or whether, one day, we will be able to return to a Syria free of war and violence,' he told La Stampa. 'We are grateful to the pope, we will prove ourselves worthy of this opportunity and the gift he gave us,' he told La Stampa, while adding he did not know whether he would remain in Europe for the long-term or 'one day, return to a Syria that is free of war and violence.' Syrian refugee Wafa, center with white head scarf, and her husband Osama, left, answer reporter's questions with an interpreter. The three families, who had initially set their sights on reaching Germany or another European country, are now expected to seek asylum in Italy Two-year-old Riad sleeps on the shoulder of his father Hasan. Migrant arrivals in Greece have drastically fallen since Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants landing on the Greek islands in return for billions in EU cash and other concessions Over 1.1 million people have crossed clandestinely from Turkey to Greece since the start of 2015, with hundreds drowning en route Pope Francis waving to his congreagtion during the Regina Coeli prayer in the Saint Peter's square at the Vatican today The three families, who had initially set their sights on reaching Germany or another European country, are now expected to seek asylum in Italy. Their arrival brings to around 20 the number of refugees living in the Vatican, which has under 1,000 inhabitants. A similar intake across Europe would see six million people given asylum on the continent of 300 million. Last year, the pope had appealed to every Catholic diocese in Europe to take in a refugee family - an appeal that fell on deaf ears in most parts of the continent. Migrant arrivals in Greece have drastically fallen since Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants landing on the Greek islands in return for billions in EU cash and other concessions. Over 1.1 million people have crossed clandestinely from Turkey to Greece since the start of 2015, with hundreds drowning en route. A Vatican spokesman said earlier: 'The Pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees, accompanying on his plane to Rome three families of refugees from Syria, 12 people in all, including six children.' The Vatican said Pope Francis wanted to 'make a gesture of welcome' to the three families who arrived in the camp before the new EU deal with Turkey was implemented on March 20. It is understood that paperwork for the 12 people, including six children, was arranged in advance. Two of the families are from the Syrian capital Damascus, while the third is from the ISIS stronghold of Deir el-Zour in the north of the country, near the frontier with Iraq. Pope Francis said: 'Today I renew my heartfelt plea for responsibility and solidarity in the face of this tragic situation.' The Vatican will take responsibility for supporting the families. But the Catholic Sant'Egidio community will take care of getting them settled initially. While on Lesbos, Pope Francis blasted people smugglers and arms traffickers who he blamed for worsening the current refugee crisis in Europe. Addressing a large group of asylum seekers in a reception camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Pope Francis said migrants were not numbers but people with 'faces, names and individual stories' who were prayed upon by 'unscrupulous thugs'. The 12 asylum seekers arrived in Rome along with the Pope shortly before 4pm today following the short flight from Lesbos Pope Francis today greeted the three Syrian families he rescued from a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos following his visit The six adults and six children all arrived in Lesbos before a controversial new immigration deal with Turkey was implemented While on the flight, Pope Francis showed journalists some drawings made by children ahead of his visit to the refugee camp today The image, which was held up by the Pope, included a crying sun, a sinking boat and five refugees crying for help as their boat sank behind them Pope Francis brought three Syrian refugee families back to Rome with him following his trip to the Greek island of Lesbos Pope Francis brought a dozen Syrian asylum seekers, pictured, back to Rome with him following his visit to a Lesbos refugee camp The refugees, pictured, are from three families, and will be resettled in Rome at the Vatican's expense according to a spokesman The refugees joining Pope Francis all arrived on Lesbos before a new EU deal with Turkey to deport new arrivals Pope Francis kissed a refugee baby after his arrival at the Moria camp on Lesbos this morning with Patriarch Bartholomew, left Pope Francis was surrounded by children after his arrival in the refugee camp where he pledged to highlight their plight Pope Francis told the asylum seekers 'you are not alone' during his brief visit to the camp in Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos Pope Francis has been critical of the handling of the refugee crisis by the member states of the European Union Refugees in the Moria camp warmly greeted Pope Francis during his five-hour visit to the island of Lesbos earlier today Pope Francis, pictured arriving at the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos this morning told the asylum seekers: 'You are not alone' Pope Francis had lunch with some asylum seekers at the Moira detention camp in Lesbos, pictured, before he returned home The Pontiff was greeted at the camp by a large group of children, some of whom arrived in Greece without their parents. Addressing the refugees, he said: 'You are not alone. Do not lose hope.' The teenage boys who have made the perilous journeys from their homelands to Greece alone were lined up at the entrance, shaking the hands of the pope and two other religious leaders. Some were holding a Syrian flag. Many refugees fell to their knees and wept as Francis approached them. Others chanted 'Freedom! Freedom!' as he passed by. Francis bent down as one young girl knelt at his feet sobbing uncontrollably. A woman told the pope that her husband was in Germany, but that she was stuck with her two sons in Lesbos. 'Refugees are not numbers, they are people who have faces, names stories and need to be treated as such,' Francis tweeted. He urged the European Union to change its policy towards the migrants. He said: 'We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity.' The pope's visit to the island, which has seen the majority of the arrivals of migrants heading into Europe, is highly symbolic. It comes shortly after the European Union began deporting new arrivals back to Turkey under a controversial deal meant to stem the refugee flow. The pope then met men and women who have fled their homelands seeking refuge in Europe. Some wept as they met the pope. Refugees from Pakistan who are being held in the camp and facing deportation to Turkey created a banner pleading for help from Europe Pope Francis addressed the refugees at the Moria reception centre in Lesbos where he told them that they were not alone Pope Francis used his brief trip to highlight the humanitarian crisis on Lesbos resulting from the Sryian conflict Pope Francis urged the international community to deal with the ongoing crisis and treat people in a way worthy of 'common humanity' A migrant handed Pope Francis a note as she shook hands with the pontiff during his visit to the Moria refugee camp this morning Members of the Yazdi Christian community, who have been purged by ISIS pleaded with Pope Francis today for help Pope Francis, pictured today urged the European Union to treat refugees 'in a way that is worthy of our common humanity' A small child clutched by his mother, who appeared to be tearful at sight of the Pope, kissed the Pontiff's hand during his visit to Lesbos Dozens of teenage migrants also turned out to shake hands with the Pope, who looked delighted to meet them as he made his way through the camp The Pope smiles as he greets two young migrants, who look delighted to meet him, during a visit to the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island The Pontiff shakes hand with another man as he is escorted by Patriarch Bartholomew into the camp early on Saturday morning 'GOOD MANNERS' MEETING BETWEEN POPE AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Saturday's meeting with refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos came as the Pope insisted an earlier meeting with U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was just 'good manners'. The pair had met at the Pope's residence before he departed for Greece, sparking claims of political interference. But the Pope said: 'Mr Sanders knew that I was leaving and he was kind enough to greet me. 'I greeted him and his wife and another couple who were with them and staying at Santa Marta. Nothing more. 'It was a matter of politeness and if anybody thinks that greeting somebody amounts to meddling in politics, they should go find a psychiatrist.' Mr Sanders agreed and said: 'I just conveyed to him my admiration for the extraordinary work he is doing raising some of the most important issues facing our planet and the billions of people on the planet and injecting the need for morality in the global economy.' Advertisement One man wept uncontrollably and wailed as he knelt down before Francis on Saturday and said: 'Thank you, God. Thank you. Please Father, bless me.' Children offered Francis drawings and the pope praised one little girl for her artwork, saying 'Bravo. Bravo.' Then as he handed it off to his staff he stressed: 'Don't fold it. I want it on my desk.' As he walked by them, shaking hands with the men and bowing to the women, the refugees shouted out their homelands: 'Afghanistan.' 'Syria.' One little boy ducked his head through a fence to kiss Francis' ring. Pope Francis said: 'This is a voyage marked by sadness, a sad voyage,' the pope told reporters during the flight from Rome. We will witness the worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War. We will see so many people who are suffering, who are fleeing and do not know where to go. 'And we are also going to a cemetery, the sea. So many people never arrived.' Greek Prime Minister Alex Tspiras greeted Pope Francis upon his arrival on Lesbos. During a brief formal meeting, he spoke about the efforts made by the Greek people in dealing with the refugee crisis. He said: 'I am proud of this, particularly at a time when some of our partners - even in the name of Christian Europe - were erecting walls and fences to prevent defenceless people from seeking a better life. 'That is why I consider that your visit is historic and important.' He said the pope's visit 'is a very important opportunity to show the need to stop the war, the taking advantage of people and to give the possibility of a legal route for these people who leave their homes and search for a better future in Europe'. A group of about 200 people held a brief protest near the scene where Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew I and Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos II held a prayer ceremony and tossed floral wreaths into the sea in memory of the refugees and migrants who died trying to reach Europe. The protesters were chanting 'No Borders, No Nation. Stop Deportation'. Pope Francis, pictured, used his lightening visit to criticise those who are exploiting the humanitarian crisis such as people smugglers The Vatican confirmed a dozen refugees accompanied Pope Francis back to Rome at the end of his brief visit to Lesbos Pope Francis, pictured earlier today on Lesbos, held a child during his brief visit to Lesbos where he highlighted the refugee crisis A migrant fell to his knees as he greeted Pope Francis during today's five-hour visit to the Greek island of Lesbos Moments earlier, police detained a woman attempting to display a banner inside the enclosure of the crowd gathered to watch the ceremony. As she was being led away, the woman said she was a volunteer working in Lesbos on the refugee issue. The Vatican official in charge of migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio attacked the EU-Turkey plan, claiming it essentially treats migrants as merchandise that can be traded back and forth and doesn't recognise their inherent dignity as human beings. The visit is meant to highlight the plight of refugees, thank the Greek people who have welcomed them in, and to show a united Christian response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding. Hours before Francis arrived, the European border patrol agency Frontex intercepted a dinghy carrying 41 Syrians and Iraqis off the coast of Lesbos. The refugees were detained and brought to shore in the main port of Mytilene. Pope Francis and the Orthodox leaders threw wreathes into the sea to commemorate the migrants lost at sea Pope Francis, pictured with Patriarch Bartholomew, right, threw wreaths into the sea to commemorate those migrants lost at sea Pope Francis made the gesture, along with the representatives of the Orthodox church, during his lightening visit to Lesbos Pope Francis attacked the European Union's handling of the refugee crisis and the plan to deport people to Turkey from the camp: 'We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity' Refugees held banners calling for freedom during Pope Francis' trip to Lesbos this morning to highlight the humanitarian crisis The migrants are held in a camp on Lesbos behind a razor wire fence with locked and bolted gates to prevent them escaping One migrant child painted a Syrian flag and pushed it through a gap in the fence of the migrant camp on Lesbos Also ahead of the visit, municipal crews scrubbed the walls of the capital and port after graffiti reading 'Papa Don't Preach' was sprayed in black at several points on the seafront in Mytilene. A handful of senior Orthodox clergy in Greece have been highly critical of Francis' trip, though the protests are nothing compared to the protests that greeted St. John Paul II's visit in 2001. The wreath-tossing ceremony scheduled for later Saturday is a gesture Francis first made when he visited the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2013, his first trip outside Rome as pope, after a dozen migrants died trying to reach the southern tip of Europe. He made a similar gesture more recently at the U.S.-Mexican border, laying a bouquet of flowers next to a large crucifix at the Ciudad Juarez border crossing in memory of migrants who died trying to reach the U.S. 'He is slightly provocative,' said George Demacopoulos, chair of Orthodox Christian studies at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York. Citing Francis' Mexico border visit in February, in the heat of a U.S. presidential campaign where illegal immigration took center stage, he added: 'He is within his purview to do so, but that was a provocative move.' Before heading to the Moria refugee camp, Pope Francis held a brief formal meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, right A large group of local people welcomed Pope Francis on his flying visit to Lesbos this morning to highlight the refugee crisis A young Yazdi child appeals for help this morning inside the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, pictured Pope Francis tweeted his support for the refugees before flying out from Rome this morning on his flying visit to Lesbos The Vatican insists Saturday's visit is purely humanitarian and religious in nature, not political or a 'direct' criticism of the EU plan. The Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos II spoke Saturday during a visit to a migrant detention center on the Greek island of Lesbos along with Pope Francis and the spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. 'Unfortunately it is not the first time we denounce the politics that have brought these people to this impasse,' Ieronymos said. 'We will act however, until the aberration and depreciation of the human person has stopped.' Ieronymos was clear in his criticism of the European response to the refugee crisis, which has resulted in a deal with Turkey whereby new arrivals to Greek islands are sent back to Turkey. 'Only those who see the eyes of those small children that we met at the refugee camps will be able to immediately recognize, in its entirety, the `bankruptcy' of humanity and solidarity that Europe has shown these last few years to these, and not only these, people,' he said. He closed his speech by calling on the United Nations to address 'this tragic situation that we are living. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I raises a baby during the visit of Pope Francis to Lesbos earlier today Many of the migrants who greeted Pope Francis at the Moira refugee camp today are facing deportation to Turkey It is believed Pope Francis will take 10 asylum seekers from the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos back to Rome with him this afternoon Pope Francis was greeted on the tarmac upon his arrival in Lesbos by the leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church, pictured An armed guard stood talking on the phone while standing on a wall overlooking the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos But spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters that Francis' position on Europe's 'moral obligation' to welcome refugees is well-known, and that the EU-Turkey deportation deal certainly has 'consequences on the situation of the people involved.' The Vatican official in charge of migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, was even more explicit, saying the EU-Turkey plan essentially treats migrants as merchandise that can be traded back and forth and doesn't recognize their inherent dignity as human beings. The March 18 EU-Turkey deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands on or after March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe. In return, Turkey was granted concessions including billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there, and a speeding up of its stalled accession talks with the EU. Pope Francis spent approximately five hours on Lesbos before returning to Rome with three Sryian Muslim migrant families Protesters outside the camp condemned the deal between the European Union and Turkey over the deportation of migrants Ankara has agreed to accept refugees deported from the EU if Europe resettles Syrian migrants already based in Turkey Pope Francis was greeted on the tarmac at Lesbos by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the start of the pontiff's five-hour visit Pope Francis, pictured arriving in Lesbos this morning, where he has announced he will take home a dozen refugees from the camp Human rights groups have denounced the deal as an abdication of Europe's obligations to grant protection to asylum-seekers. The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope, denouncing the 'globalization of indifference' that the world shows the less fortunate. Aside from the inherently political nature of the trip, it also has a significant religious dimension. Francis will be visiting alongside the spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Athens Archbishop Ieronymos II. Lombardi said the ecumenical significance of such a meeting was 'obvious' - and he credited Greece's politicians with their willingness to let the religious leaders take center stage as an 'appreciated' gesture of discretion. Meanwhile, refugees tried to break down a barbed wire border fence between Greece and Macedonia on Saturday afternoon The seven-strong group of male refugees grabbed hold of the wire in the lower part of the fence and also pulled at the metal bars Despite the chance of injury being highly likely, the men pulled at the fence with their bare hands as they desperately tried to get through By the time the group had successfully managed to pull the border fence down enough, police had arrived to make sure they did not get through The man, dressed in a grey long-sleeved top and jeans with a pink towel around his face, gave up after a couple of minutes and jumped down from the structure England's top Catholic cleric blasts David Cameron's Syrian refugee programme branding it a 'great disappointment' The Syrian refugee resettlement programme set up by David Cameron is a 'great disappointment', the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said. Cardinal Vincent Nichols said Britain's response to the crisis was 'going very slowly' and called for a major increase in the number of people being taken in. Asked if he believed governments needed to show more humanity, the archbishop of Westminster replied: 'I do.' Cardinal Vincent Nichols, centre, attacked David Cameron's response to the Syrian refugee crisis branding it a 'great disappointment' He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think we have the resources as a very rich country. Think of a country like the Lebanon and some of the other Middle Eastern countries where they have a proportion of refugees present which represents 30-40 per cent of the population and they cope. 'We are a very rich country and I think with a greater cohesiveness between a spirit of willingness that is there among many and mechanisms which governments can put into place, we could be doing more.' He added: 'There are aspects of the government policy that are commendable but I've said surely that can be speeded up. Surely in the first year we can see really how many could be taken and then multiply that by five. 'At the moment it's going very slowly and it's a great disappointment.' The Prime Minister announced plans to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in Britain at the height of the crisis. The scheme will cost more than half a billion pounds, the Government revealed earlier this week. Cardinal Nichols dismissed suggestions that the UK should not be taking in refugees because some Britons are struggling to make ends meet. He told the programme: 'I don't think the struggle of people in the destroyed villages in and around Mosul and other parts of Syria, those struggles are not the same as our struggles.' Boris Johnson has warned about the prospect of 77million Turks being allowed access to Britain if their country was to join the EU. The London Mayor and leading Brexit campaigner also launched a direct attack on David Cameron, George Osborne and Theresa May for saying they would restrict access to the UK to EU migrants who had already secured a job only to drop the idea after opposition from Brussels. Mr Johnsons grandfather, Wilfred Johnny Johnson, was born Osman Kemal to Turkish journalist and later government minister Ali Kemal Bey, who was lynched by a mob in the 1920s for his anti-Nationalist sympathies during the Turkish War of Independence. Mr Johnson told the Sunday Times: I am very pro-Turkish but what I certainly cant imagine is a situation in which 77million of my fellow Turks and those of Turkish origin can come here without any checks at all. That is really mad that wont work. Scroll down for video London Mayor Boris Johnson has bluntly dismissed warnings about the impact of Brexit on trade On EU migration, he pointed to comments from the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Home Secretary vowing to ensure that only EU migrants with a job could automatically come to the UK. But it was rejected by Brussels as not in line with EU law. We were told repeatedly in the run-up to this negotiation that we would be able to decide that only people who had jobs lined up could come here and we were just told to bog off and we got nowhere on that, he said. Im a believer in the power of immigration to transform economies. It can be a very beneficial thing but people should be able to control it; 69,000 people per year come in search of work. On free movement he said the world had changed since it was devised. We not only have huge movements now of workers within the EU and typically from countries at a much or substantially lower level of economic development, but also uncontrolled migration into the EU and then within the EU from outside. When the ideologues set up Schengen back in the late 1980s they didnt think that would happen. It didnt cross their minds. It comes as Mr Johnson has accused David Cameron of talking 'b******s' about the European Union - as he warned there is still no way of restraining immigration. He dismissed suggestions that UK trade would be hit by Brexit as tensions over the looming referendum ramped up. Mr Johnson also claimed the Prime Minister was told to 'bog off' by fellow EU leaders after after asking permission to refuse access to would-be migrants without jobs. The blunt comments came as a Cabinet minister warned that Brexit is an act of 'self harm' that would cause an 'economic rupture' on the scale of the 2008 credit crunch. Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb said business would depart the country, factories would close and jobs would be lost with 'disastrous' consequences for families. David Cameron and US President Barack Obama played table tennis during his 2011 visit to the UK The Treasury is set to publish its official assessment of Brexit tomorrow, outlining the threats. It will be the first time the Government spells out its view of the costs and benefits of EU membership, and is expected to warn of recession, a slump in exports, and rising prices. As the remain campaign mobilises heavyweight backers, Barack Obama is also due to urge Britons to vote to stay during a visit this week. But Commons leader Chris Grayling insisted that the US president did not 'understand' the situation the UK was in. Mr Johnson has also lashed out at American 'hypocrisy' for recommending a sharing of sovereignty that it would find unacceptable. In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Mr Johnson said Mr Cameron had been wrong to claim he could stop foreign job-hunters flocking to the UK. 'We were told repeatedly in the run-up to this negotiation we'd be able to decide only people who had jobs lined up could come here,' he said. 'I can give you the quotes. It was Theresa, Dave and George who kept saying it. But it could never be delivered because of a European Court judgment in 1991. 'It ruled that anybody can go anywhere in search of work, that's why we were just told to bog off.' Mr Johnson said 69,000 people a year were currently coming here for work 'and if this rate continues, that's nearly 700,000 people added to our population over the next decade'. The MP is to hit the campaign trail in a specially hired Boris Bus - a red double-decker London Routemaster. This weekend he has appeared at events in Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne. 'What recent experience has shown is we are not going to get change without voting to leave,' he said. 'The remain side took a big gamble, which was that people's natural inertia and fear would keep them in and, therefore, that reform could be pretty fictitious. It could be a rigmarole. Commons Leader Chris Grayling 'They thought that by June 23, everybody would have forgotten about the so-called reform agenda and people would be too nervous of getting out. 'But the whole endless cacophony of warnings is losing credibility. People are losing patience with it. 'The PM was very clear before the whole campaign began that Britain could have a great future outside the EU. He said we would have absolutely no difficulty trading around the world. 'Now there is this idea that trade is entirely controlled by governments, that no trade takes place unless governments agree with each other. 'Well, b******s. It's nothing to do with governments. It's to do with businesses, people and enterprises deciding they have something to buy or sell. 'This will accelerate as a result of getting rid of so much bureaucracy and political interference.' But Mr Johnson rejected suggestions that a vote for Brexit would mean Mr Cameron being immediately resigning as Prime Minister. Former chancellor Ken Clarke has suggested Mr Cameron would not last '30 seconds' if the country votes to leave. 'No, no, no,' Mr Johnson said. 'We want continuity and stability. Dave has massive support among the Tory parliamentary party. 'He commands respect around the world. There's been no leader of an EUgovernment that has stepped down as a result of an adverse referendum result for 20 years whether on the EU or any other subject.' Asked about Mr Obama's expected intervention this week, Mr Johnson said: 'It's hypocritical of the Americans to exalt us to further loss of control when America would never dream in a millions years of surrendering sovereignty. 'The Americans don't accept foreign jurisdiction over any aspect of American life, and quite right, too.' President Obama is expected to spell out America's support for Britain remaining within the EU during his visit this week When the cubs are fully grown they will be able to run up to 70mph, which will make hunting prey far more simple While she firmly holds the creature her three cubs practice their hunting skills and attempt to kill it Advertisement These stunning - and graphic - images show a mother cheetah teaching her cubs the art of the kill in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. She chased down a reedbuck, also known as an African antelope, and held it from behind, allowing her cubs to practice the skills needed for them to survive alone in the wild. Safari tour guide Thomas Nkwazi, 32, who took the photos said: 'The mother began by stalking the prey and catching it before allowing her cubs to rush in and help her. 'She was holding the common reedbuck from the rear to give her young ones a chance to practice their killing skills. They practiced for a long time, since they are not experienced to kill.' When the cubs are fully grown they will be able to run up to 70mph, which should make hunting prey far more simple. Thomas said: 'Looking at the pictures you can tell they had no idea what to do to kill the reedbuck, as they were just biting anywhere.' Cheetah mothers typically give birth to a litter of three cubs, all of which will stay with her for one-and-a-half to two years before venturing off on their own. Thomas said: 'Female cheetahs are solitary unless mating or accompanied by their cubs. Once she gives birth to her cubs then this means a lot of responsibilities - making sure they are safe, feeding them and teaching them survival skills.' There are fewer than 10,000 cheetahs left in the wild, making the cheetah Africa's most endangered big cat. These stunning - and graphic - images show a mother cheetah teaching her cubs the art of the kill in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana The cheetah mother chased down a reedbuck, also known as an African antelope, and held it from behind, allowing her cubs to practice the skills needed for them to survive alone in the wild She kept a firm grip on the creature, to give the young ones a chance to practice their essential killing skills When the cubs are fully grown they will be able to run up to 70mph, which should make hunting prey far more simple Cheetah mothers typically give birth to a litter of three cubs, all of which will stay with her for one-and-a-half to two years before venturing off on their own Safari tour guide Thomas Nkwazi, 32, who took the photos said: 'The mother began by stalking the prey and catching it before allowing her cubs to rush in and help her' A couple have spoken about the horrifying moment they saw their friend's head blown off during the Port Arthur massacre - 20 years on from the mass-murder that shook Australia to its core. John and Gaye Fidler escaped with their lives after playing dead while gunman Martin Bryant stood over them in the Broad Arrow Cafe in Tasmania. But three of their close friends, Wally Bennett and brothers Kevin and Ray Sharp, were killed right in front of them in the attack on 28 April 1996 which claimed 35 lives. Mrs Fidler has now opened up about the distressing moment she turned around and saw Ray's lifeless body. Port Arthur survivors John and Gaye Fidler (pictured) have spoken about the terrible day their friends were killed in front of them They escaped with their lives after playing dead while gunman Martin Bryant (pictured) stood over them in the Broad Arrow Cafe in Tasmania 'I can remember saying 'the man behind me hasn't got a head'. And with that, I sat up again, and I said, 'Oh. It's Ray',' she told Seven's Sunday Night program. 'And then of course, the others under the table told me to shut up, which I did, and just lay down very quietly.' She revealed that she thought her husband might have died after she saw a cut around his neck. 'John had a cut across his neck like a rope cut which turned out to be a shot, a bullet that had gone through Kevin's arm and grazed John's head. The attack on 28 April 1996 claimed the lives of 35 people, pictured is footage from the attack Former Prime Minister John Howard introduced tighter gun laws to help prevent another tragedy 'And instead of saying to him, 'Are you alive?' I said, 'Are you dead?' Which was a silly thing to say, but you're just not even thinking.' Mr Fidler pushed his wife down on the ground and under a table as soon as he heard the first shot. 'I can't remember breathing. We were covered in body matter,' he said. 'He was standing over us. We closed our eyes. I know I closed mine. We didn't move. He must have just thought I was dead and he turned around and walked away.' They both campaigned for tighter gun laws along with Walter Mikac who lost his wife Nanette, and daughters Alannah, six, and Madeline, three, in the mass killing. Mr Mikac told the program that he felt 'cheated by the world', but he decided to turn his grief into positive change, He wrote to the then-Prime Minister John Howard, pleading him to do something about the gun laws to avoid another tragedy. Mrs Fidler (pictured) has now opened up about the distressing moment she turned around and saw Ray's lifeless body Mr and Mrs Fidler have campaigned tirelessly for tighter gun laws to prevent another tragedy Mr Howard introduced much stricter laws including the 1996 'National Firearms Buyback Scheme' which took 660,959 firearms out of private homes. All rifles and semi-automatics surrendered by the public were destroyed. 'Often it takes a terrible tragedy to bring a nation to a point where it changes direction,' Mr Howard told Sunday Night. Paramedic Peter James, who had to attend each and every body at the mass killing, has also opened up about the horrific scene. 'I've seen one old lady, she's looked up and he's got her right through the forehead, you know. Just, people in mid-stride with burgers still in their hand.' In footage recently revealed by the program, Bryant was seen confessing to his horrific crimes when he mistakenly thought the camera had stopped rolling during a police interview. 'I'm sure you'll find the person who caused all of this,' a young Bryant tells police shortly before he raises his hand and motions towards himself as he mouths the word 'me'. 'You should've put that on recording,' he adds. Walter Mikac (pictured) lost his wife Nanette, and daughters Alannah, six, and Madeline, three, in the mass killing Mr Mikac (pictured with his family) said he felt 'cheated by the world', but he decided to turn his grief into positive change Britain may be facing a schooling crisis over the next few years after claims that there is a 10,000 shortfall in the number of primary places available. The news comes as thousands of parents await letters tomorrow to find out if their children have got a place at their first-choice school, or whether they will have to settle for another. The shortfall is likely to make it even harder to get into any parent's first choice, with hundreds of outstanding schools massively oversubscribed. Britain is facing a schooling crisis over the next few years as it emerged that there is a 10,000 shortfall in the number of primary places available. File image Last year, one in five students missed out on their chosen school, and new figures show that by 2019-2020, there will be more pupils than places in the south east, the north and the midlands. The Department for Education claims that free schools - independent institutions that were introduced under the Coalition - will make up the numbers, and denies there is any shortfall. But demand is set to rise over the next four years, and many schools have already been extended to to create new places added since 2010 - and more are needed by 2019. The figures, seen by the Observer newspaper, allegedly show that there have been 300,000 places created since 2010 and 336,000 more are needed by 2019. But a source close to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan claims that the figures are a Labour smear, adding: 'They either made a fundamental miscalculation or they're being deliberately misleading'. The source said that Labour originally claimed the number was 100,000, then downgraded it to 85,000, which was also proven to be untrue. The Department for Education said that data shows that nearly 600,000 additional pupil places were created between May 2010 and May 2015, with many more delivered since then and in the pipeline. Of those, 400,000 were in primary schools, and the rise follows a decrease of 200,000 primary places between 2004 and 2010. A spokesman added: 'These figures are utter nonsense and based on historic data, meaning thousands of more places have been delivered and planned since, giving families the choice of a good local school. 'Since February weve allocated 2.7 billion of funding to provide the places needed by the 2019/20 academic year. 'The places are reflected in the calculations as they are based on a snapshot at May 2015 - given the lead in time for planning and approving new places, councils will not have been able to factor this investment into their plans.' However, the news comes at a time when the Conservatives' controversial education policy is already under intense scrutiny, being called into question by their own MPs. The Conservative-led Local Government Association is even expected to directly challenge ministers on how to meet the demand in the face of massive funding cuts, The Guardian reports. Local authorities have a duty to provide school places, but the Government's plan to force all schools to become academies - independent from council control - makes the job all the more challenging. The news comes as thousands of parents await letters tomorrow to find out if their children have got a place at their first-choice school, or whether they will have to settle for another. File image The data shows that Bexley, Greenwich, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton and Slough in the south east, Bolton, Manchester, Oldham and Leeds in the north, and Leicester, Birmingham and Walsall in the Midlands, face the biggest shortfalls. Lucinda Yeadon, executive board member for children and families at Leeds city council, compared the situation to 'having both hands tied behind our back', calling it 'totally illogical'. She added: 'We will have to provide yet more places because we are under a legal obligation to do so, but at the same time we will be stripped of the power to do so,' reports The Guardian. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is currently coming under pressure from her own fellow Conservative MPs over academies proposals The official number of places needed was confirmed by the Department for Education, but Labour accused the Governement of covering up the true extent of the crisis, suggesting they shortfall may be as high as 85,000. And critics claim that many of the free schools planned are not in the areas of most need. Tomorrow, an unprecedented numbers of children up to 80,000 are expected to miss out on their preferred primary schools this year as the national places crisis intensifies. A baby boom fuelled by migration has left many local authorities at breaking point and the most over-populated won't be able to offer some families a single place. Experts said the problem could get worse as councils lose powers to create new places because more schools are becoming academies, which are free from local authority control. They also warned of over-crowding in classes and poor facilities as schools struggle to keep pace with the rising birth rate ahead of the allocation letters, which will place 600,000 pupils tomorrow. The news comes as the Conservative government faces serious questions from its own MPs over its academy conversion plan, who expressed major concerns during a Labour-led debate on the issue. Tory backbenchers repeatedly ask Education Secretary Nicky Morgan why the proposals are needed when schools which want to convert already have the power to do so. Tory Steve Brine (Winchester) said he had 'many questions' about the plans. He said: 'If I were to sum up the concerns expressed to me by teachers locally it would be confusion, I think, as to why something that is so obviously not broken needs fixing.' London Mayoral hopeful Sadiq Khan has hit out at 'desperate' smears after it emerged he shared a platform with extremists. Mr Khan spoke at a 2003 conference alongside a man convicted of terrorism and a militant who helped to train the ringleader of the July 7 London bomb attacks. Yasser al-Sirri had been sentenced to death in Egypt over a political assassination attempt, while another speaker was Sajeel Abu Ibrahim, better known as Sajeel Shahid. Labour's London Mayoral candidateSadiq Khan has denied any wrongdoing over allegations that he shared a platform with extremists Shahid called for violence against British troops and ran a training camp in Pakistan where known terrorists learned how to make bombs and fire rocket- propelled grenades. One of his graduates was Mohammed Siddique Khan, who led the gang of four suicide bombers on the deadliest terrorist attack ever committed in Britain, killing 52 people on the London Underground and a bus on July 7, 2005. At the conference, Mr Khan - who is a strong favourite to win the mayoral race - gave a speech about representing a 9/11 conspirator and criticised two anti-terrorism bills for targeting Muslim groups. The 'First Captives Conference' was set up to support terror suspects in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. It was organised by the Islamic Observation Centre, which was run by al-Sirri. A spokesman for Sadiq Khan said he had done nothing wrong. 'This is desperate stuff. Sadiq has always been totally honest about his time as a leading human rights lawyer. 'At the time of this conference Sadiq was chair of Liberty, the pre-eminent human rights organisation, and spoke out because it was quite literally his job. 'Sadiq has always condemned all extremism and has suffered death threats and protests as a result. Mr Khan speaking in front of an image of Tory rival Zac Goldsmith 'As mayor of London, Sadiq has pledged to be the British muslim who takes the fight to the extremists.' Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth accused Mr Khan's Tory rival Zac Goldsmith of running a 'despicable' campaign. 'I think Zac Goldsmith is running one of the shoddiest, most despicable campaigns I have ever seen,' he told Pienaar's Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live. 'If there is a candidate who deserves to lose it is Zac Goldsmith.' But current London Mayor Boris Johnson told the Sunday Times: "It's plain that Sadiq Khan has serious questions about some of the people he has endorsed and some of the people he has shared platforms with. "For me this goes to his judgment and his ability to unite the city. 'What reasonable Muslims want to see, like all Londoners, is somebody who is willing to stand up against really dangerous extremists. Thieves have stolen a large box of letters sent to Britain's Got Talent judge David Walliams by young fans of his children's books, he has revealed. The comedian told his 1.6 million Twitter followers this morning that 'a large box of letters from children' was among post that had been taken. The Little Britain star, 44, said Scotland Yard had informed him of the crime and he apologised to fans who had not received a reply to letters they had sent. Thieves have stolen a large box of letters sent to Britain's Got Talent judge David Walliams (shown) by young fans of his children's books, he has revealed (File photo) Walliams said: 'The @metpoliceuk just told me my post was stolen, including a large box of letters from children that had been sent via @HarperCollins. 'So I apologise if you sent a letter & have not received a reply as I do endeavour to reply to everyone. If in doubt please write again.' A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: 'Police in Camden were called on 8 April by a member of public who had found a number of discarded items of post. 'Officers are in the process of contacting the intended recipients and enquiries are underway to establish whether an offence has been committed. Enquiries continue.' The Little Britain star, 44, said Scotland Yard had informed him of the crime and he apologised to fans who had not received a reply to letters they had sent (above) The spokesman could not confirm any individual victims related to the crime. Walliams has written six books for HarperCollins, with Demon Dentist, Ratburger and Gangsta Granny all becoming children's best-sellers. According to the publisher's website his seventh book is due to be released in November. On last night's episode of the ITV programme the singing group 100 Voices of Gospel received the golden buzzer, sending them straight through to the live semi-finals. Everyone needs to be loved and this is the message this choir is trying to give to the world, said the group's leader. The judges can expect a lot of energy, a lot of power, a lot of love she said before their rendition of This Little Light of Mine. Prosecco's soaring popularity means global supply could soon run out, experts have warned. Britons consumed more than 40million litres of the Italian sparkling wine last year - eight times as much as in 2012, according to figures published in The Grocer. The UK Prosecco market was valued last year to be worth more than 330 million, up 72 per cent on the previous year and growing. Popping bottles: Britons consumed more than 40million litres of the Italian sparkling wine last year. File image According to a survey released last year some 59 per cent of people said Prosecco was their preferred glass of fizz. But rising costs means retailers are looking for cheaper alternatives, raising questions over whether the Prosecco bubble could be about to burst. Toby Magill, of market research firm IRI, told the Sunday People: 'Supply is finite. Demand is growing everywhere in the world so there's a limit on what retailers can get their hands on. 'Like champagne, Prosecco is geographically limited and can only be produced in a small region of Italy.' Richard Thorburn, commercial manager at wine merchant Lanchester Wines, told The Grocer that Spanish, French and German offerings are looking more attractive as retailers try to meet demands. Proseccos growing popularity is not just because its cheaper than champagne. Many people think it is also easier to drink being lighter, more citrusy and less dry than its French rival. In its native Italy, Prosecco is known as a springtime drink and it is meant to be drunk young, rather than left to age. Favourite fizz: Some 59 per cent of people said Prosecco was their preferred sparkling wine. File image Meanwhile Marks and Spencer revealed this week it has seen a 62 per cent rise in sales of frizzante, a Prosecco which is not as effervescent as other leading brands or champagne. According to the company, its most popular brand Vino de Tavola Frizzante Rose is up nearly 80 per cent from last year. Tesco revealed that it had added a Prosecco frizzante to their wine offering last October and that 'initial sales prove it is being enjoyed by customers'. Frizzante wines have small bubbles which help mask the wine's sweetness and are considered slightly less effervescent than champagne. Prosecco takes its name from the grape that is used to make it. The home of this wine is the Veneto region of Northeast Italy. Frizzante indicates that this wine is only lightly sparkling. A man will be jailed for 45 days after he tied an extension cord around his pit bull's neck and left it there for so long it cut into the animal's skin, causing a serious infection. Daniel Loredo, 30, of Ennis, Texas, was convicted of animal cruelty last April and placed on community supervision after his two-year sentence was suspended. He will be serving 45 days instead, along with a $2,000 fine. The months-old pit bull puppy suffered a severe wound from the cord, which was left for so long it became embedded in its neck. The animal was eventually euthanized. Daniel Loredo, 30, of Ennis, Texas, (left) will be jailed for 45 days after his pit bull puppy was found with an extension cord tied around its neck (right, with cord removed) Three children saw the injured pit bull puppy and called the Ennis animal control officers, who then traced the animal back to Loredo and his wife, the Ellis County Press reported. He was convicted of a felony, and agreed to a 730 day sentence in April 2015. But the sentence was suspended, and Loredo was placed on community supervision for five years instead. In addition to paying a $2,000 fine, the 30-year-old will serve 45 days in jail. He is also banned from owning any animals. The dog had an infection and had to be put down at the local SPCA The puppy, which was found with the cord cutting into its neck, was suffering from an infection and taken to the county's SPCA where it was euthanized. In January of this year, a video was released showing a dog with a massively swollen head because the abused pitbull's nylon collar had been wound extremely tightly around its neck. The animal, which was rescued in Sardinia, Italy, made a recovery despite the alarming injuries. Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski didn't completely shut the door on the saga with journalist Michelle Fields telling Chris Wallace that it was a 'little unrealistic' for him to apologize for touching her and calling her 'delusional' because they've 'never spoken.' 'I'd be happy to have a conversation with her, but to apologize to someone I've never spoken to and candidly don't ever remember having any interaction with, I think is something that is a little unrealistic right now,' Lewandowski said this morning on Fox News Sunday. Prosecutors in Palm Beach County, Florida announced Thursday that a potential criminal battery case against Lewandowski was dead in the water because there likely wasn't enough evidence to convict. Scroll down for video Donald Trump's campaign manager Corew Lewandowski went on Fox News Sunday this morning and said he wouldn't be apologizing to journalist Michelle Fields just yet The controversy stems from a March 8 incident in which Fields accused Lewandowski of grabbing her hard enough to leave a bruise as she walked alongside the candidate trying to ask a question. At first, Lewandowski denied the encounter took place, calling Fields 'delusional' on Twitter. On Fox News Sunday Lewandowski said he had tried to call Fields that night after seeing on Twitter posts from her boyfriend, the Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein. 'Trump always surrounds himself [with] thugs,' Weinstein had written. 'Tonight thug Corew Lewandowski tried to pull my [girlfriend] to ground when she asked tough [question.]' Lewandowski noted that he turned his phone records over to the Palm Beach district attorney's office, which 'clearly shows I called her phone number that evening when I got back and read about this on the Twitter feed.' Fields has said publicly that Lewandowski never got in touch. 'I tried contacting Ms. Fields after reading on her boyfriend's Twitter feed that something took place that evening, but to this day I've never heard from Mrs. Fields, or Ms. Fields,' he said, slightly screwing up her name, 'So I am happy that the Palm Beach County district attorney has decided not to move forward with any charges,' the campaign manager added. He called the altercation 'the sum total' of his relationship with the journalist, noting the 'whole incident lasted less than three seconds.' 'It was me moving from one location into another location,' he said. 'And I would have remembered if I had tried to violently throw someone to the ground,' he added. 'Or if there was an incident which would have been more memorable.' 'But there wasn't.' A father has spoken of his 'heartbreak' after he witnessed horrifying footage of his 12-year-old daughter allegedly being 'beaten up by three adults'. Ellie Hussey was believed to have been on her way home from school in Bransholme, Hull, when she was set upon by the gang of women. This shocking footage of the alleged attack on Thursday has now gone viral, having amassed tens of thousands of views and hundreds of shares on Facebook. Ellie Hussey was believed to have been on her way home from school in Bransholme, Hull, when she was allegedly set upon by the women This shocking footage of the alleged attack on Thursday has now gone viral, having amassed tens of thousands of views and hundreds of shares on Facebook The video, recorded by one of Ellie's friends, shows her appearing to be restrained by one woman while being repeatedly kicked and punched. Ellie's father Mike Hussey, 48, said he was 'sickened' by the video but wants it to be shared to shame the alleged attackers. He told Mirror Online: 'It makes you feel sick to see that as a dad. Kids get into scraps but when it's three adults against a child that's a different league. 'It's not right and my heart just broke seeing what had happened.' The video, recorded by one of Ellie's friends, shows her appearing to be restrained by one woman while being repeatedly kicked and punched Ellie claims she knew the women and believes they are aged between 18 and 21. Humberside Police are now investigating after the footage was put online, however no arrests have yet been made. A Humberside Police spokesman added: 'Humberside Police are investigating reports that a 12 year old girl was assaulted by three women in the Soffham Close area of Bransholme at around 3.45pm on Thursday 14th of April. 'Our inquiries are ongoing and initial reports indicate that although shaken by the incident, the 12 year old girl had no visible injuries.' UK-bound migrants were among hundreds involved in a ferocious battle with far-right vigilantes in Paris, it emerged today. All were caught on video using iron bars, planks of wood and bottles during the disturbances outside Stalingrad Metro station, in the north of the French capital. It was the latest in a long list of hugely violent incidents caused by Europe's growing migrant crisis, and also comes as France's Socialist government tries to cope with increasingly unrest among workers and students opposing new employment laws. Terrifying scenes: A video shows a ferocious battle involving hundreds of rioters erupting at a migrant camp War on the streets: Under the Stalingrad metro in Paris residents filmed the shocking scenes from up high Many of those caught up in the latest trouble in Paris suffered serious injuries and 'four migrants were taken to hospital,' said an investigating source, who claimed many wanted to get to Britain as soon as possible. Violence erupted last Thursday night after police arrested a man for being drunk and disorderly close to the Metro station. He was among a group of 'anti-crime' vigilantes who were baiting and throwing stones at the migrants. Fighting started at around 9pm, as the two groups clashed in a residential street. Windows were smashed, as locals barricaded themselves inside their flats. Police arrived soon afterwards, using baton charges and tear gas to briefly restore order, as officers were also attacked. The police are said to have been pelted with bottles and debris when they arrived at the scene of the fight between the homeless migrants and a so called 'anti crime brigade' from Stalingrad, which lies in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. The video was filmed from the relative safety of a nearby apartment on the Boulevard de la Vilette. There were reports of more fighting later in the evening, with the far-right attackers 'pledging revenge,' said the source. Tensions are extremely high in Paris as thousands of refugees fleeing wars in countries such as Afghanistan and Syria use the city as a hub to get to other parts of Europe. The city is a staging point for many trying to get to camps in Calais, where they hope to complete the last leg of their journey to the UK, where many want to claim asylum. Armed and dangerous: Scores of people armed themselves with planks of wood, metal bars and debris Growing camp: nearly 1000 migrants have arrived in the area in just over a month, many travelling from Calais Stricter controls in the northern Channel ports, and the razing of illegal camps, mean that many migrants now stay in Paris for far longer. The makeshift camp in Stalingrad was until the end of last month the temporary home for nearly 1,000 migrants, mostly Afghans and Eritreans. Police and immigration officials cleared the site on 30th March, but hundreds returned a few weeks later. Parisians who object to foreigners sleeping rough on their streets are increasingly taking the law into their own hands, as they become more frustrated with the inability of the authorities to cope. Police in Paris are particularly overstretched at the moment, because of almost daily rioting by students and trade unionists protesting new employment reform being introduced by President Francois Hollande's Socialist government. Demonstrates congregate in the Place de la Republique almost every night, with some breaking off late at night to go on the rampage. Successful dispersal: Riot police fire tear gas into the camp successful managing to disperse the riot The masses sleeping rough have also been swelled by an increasing number of Roma gypsies arriving. 'Spring is always the time when more people chose to set up their camps on the street,' said a local council spokesman. 'Everything is being done to try and control the situation.' Belgium is among those countries where people have also turned on immigrants, with increasingly popular far-right skinhead groups promising 'drastic action' against newcomers they associate with a range of social problems, including terrorism. Voorpost, a Belgian White Power organisation that is being closely monitored by security services, says its membership has rocketed in recent weeks. There has also been serious unrest between local people and migrants in countries such as Germany, Finland and other parts of France. Attacks on Germany's refugee shelters are increasingly common. Government statistics reveal that last year there were about 1,000 such crimes, five times the number reported in 2014. Mr Lenton became overwhelmed, left the counter and hid in a cupboard The customer demanded the Mr Lenton enter a non-existent tunnel to get it He claims a man became angry when he had to wait to pick up his parcel Mr Lenton posted the entire story in a series of bizarre tweets on Twitter Man was working at Nuance, a former duty free provider at the airport A former duty free employee at Sydney International Airport has shared a bizarre story on social media, claiming he once 'faked his own death' to avoid dealing with a difficult customer. Patrick Lenton, who was reportedly working for duty free provider Nuance at the time, was stationed at the collections desk where passengers pick up pre-purchased duty free goods. In a series of tweets on Twitter, Mr Lenton relayed the story of an incident he once faced with an angry customer. The 30-year-old took to Twitter to share the bizarre incident where he was forced to fake his own death to escape from a difficult customer Patrick Lenton claims he had to fake his own death by hiding in a cupboard out the back of the duty free collections desk, to avoid dealing with a customer He claims 'an angry British man' strode up to the collections desk counter to pick up a package and 'thrust his boarding pass' at Mr Lenton without saying a word. Now, my hackles are already raised basically, because who doesnt even say "hello" or "Im here to pick up my c**p?" Mr Lenton posted on Twitter. So I stare back at him, holding it loosely in my hands and he taps his watch. Mr Lenton said he went to retrieve the man's package but it was nowhere to be found. The incident took place while Mr Lenton was working for duty free provider Nuance, who no longer have a contract with Sydney International Airport. Nuance has since been replaced by another provider, Heinemann Tax & Duty Free. The customer apparently walked up to counter and thrust his passport at Mr Lenton without greeting him He then informed the customer that his products would arrive at the collections desk in approximately ten minutes time, via a runner. The man was apparently infuriated, even though Mr Lenton claims 'his flight was six hours away and he only had to wait for 10 minutes'. 'This isn't good enough, I expect better service, I want a full refund, I have a plane to catch', the man allegedly yelled at Mr Lenton. Mr Lenton attempted to explain to the customer that the tunnel for a conveyor belt did not exist The situation became even more confusing when the man assumed the parcel was arriving via a conveyer belt, instead of being delivered in person. What Im not seeing is you making my parcel arrive any quicker, can you make the conveyer belt go faster,' the man allegedly yelled at Mr Lenton. Mr Lenton claims he tried to explain to the customer that the products were being delivered by hand, and there was no such thing as a conveyer belt. The customer reportedly did not listen, and demanded Mr Lenton get into the tunnel and retrieve his package from the conveyer belt. 'At some point, I decide to stop protesting the existence of the tunnel, and start saying Im not getting in the tunnel,' tweeted Mr Lenton. The customer apparently refused to believe the tunnel did not exist, and repeatedly demanded that Mr Lenton get into the non-existent tunnel to get his package. Giving up on providing any sort of response, Mr Lenton decided to go out the back and hide behind a cupboard. After half an hour an employee working for a different company attempted to look for Mr Lenton on behalf of the angry customer. The customer apparently refused to listen to Mr Lenton and demanded he enter the non-existent tunnel and make the conveyer belt move faster 'A random perfume seller, not even from my company comes into the back room and shes calling out 'hello, hello, theres a man who is worried that someone is stuck in a tunnel,'' said Mr Lenton. The 'perfume seller' explained to the customer that she was unable to find the person he was looking for. Not long after the customer had received his package, he left. 'He stayed around for about 20 minutes looking concerned, before I visibly aw him shrug, resign himself to my hypothetical death and leave,' tweeted Mr Lenton. 'Next day, we received a memo from HR that we are 'not to go into the tunnel and leave the desk unattended due to customer complaints''. Daily Mail Australia confirmed with Sydney International Airport that Mr Lenton was a former employee of Nuance. The duty free provider no longer operates at the airport and has since been replaced by another provider, Heinemann Tax & Duty Free. Mr Lenton walked away from the counter and hid behind a cupboard in hopes the customer would stop making impossible demands Mr Lenton claims he saw the customer waiting for approximately 20 minutes after he could not be located, before the customer shrugged his shoulders and walked away The Labour leadership has been accused of 'snobbery' after turning down tens of thousands of pounds in sponsorship from McDonald's. The fast food giant wanted to display a stand at the party's conference in Liverpool this autumn backing British farm produce. But the ruling National Executive Committee - which is dominated by allies of leader Jeremy Corbyn - rejected the offer. Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, dominated by allies of Jeremy Corbyn, refused the offer from McDonald's to provide a stand at party conference Labour backbencher Wes Streeting, who once had a part-time job at McDonald's, criticised the decision. "I'm exasperated that we should throw away 30,000 worth of sponsorship like this,' he told the Sun on Sunday. "It smacks of a snobby attitude towards fast-food restaurants and people who work or eat at them." In a pointed dig at Mr Corbyn, who has been a vegetarian for decades, he added: "McDonald's may not be the trendy falafel bar that some people in politics like to hang out at but it's enjoyed by families across the country." The Conservative Party and SNP have reportedly accepted offers from McDonald's to put on an "interactive experience" display in support of British farm produce at their conferences. Asked why the bid for Labour's Liverpool conference was turned down, a party spokeswoman said: 'We do not comment on commercial decisions.' Mr Corbyn ruffled feathers last year when he appointed vegan MP Kerry McCarthy as Labour's farming spokeswoman. The famous 'Golden Arches' of McDonald's She has suggested that meat should be slapped with tobacco-style health warnings. In a post on her personal blog, Ms McCarthy also revealed her dread of Christmas because meat is everywhere in huge quantities. Her friends, who are normally nice and interesting and funny, suddenly start sharing pictures online of stuffing turkeys, smothering potatoes in beef fat and boiling ham in Coke, she wrote. Miss McCarthy, who as shadow environment secretary is supposed to represent the food and farming industries, wrote the blog after spending a previous Christmas Day as usual with a bunch of meat-eaters. She described the ordeal of fussing over them to make sure theyre not using the same serving utensils for the vegetables and the meat, and that the vegetarian gravy hasnt got muddled up with the ordinary gravy, and trying to help with the serving up and clearing away without having to get too up close and personal with bits of dead animals. To be honest I got rather sick of it, she wrote in 2010, five years after becoming MP for Bristol East in a blog entitled A Vegan at Christmas. And for the first time I felt, I dont really want to do this again. Yes, Christmas should be about spending time with family, but perhaps next year Ill just turn up in time to see them vegging out in front of Dr Who and EastEnders. behind her and has now married with one daughter Miriam Stuart was just five years old when her entire family were slaughtered in front of her. On one April evening in the year 1982, Louis Giambi, then 47, had been hired as a hit-man to assassinate someone who was about to testify in a court case. Tragically, he got the wrong house and ending up shooting William Stuart, 33, his wife Catherine, 34, and their adopted daughter, three-year-old Sandra, in the face. All three were killed. During the brutal murders, Miriam was hiding in her bedroom and her life was spared, but the events that followed changed her life forever. A mother's love: Miriam and her mother Catherine Stuart. For a year after the April 17, 1982, killings of William and Catherine and their two-year-old daughter, Sandra the crime went unsolved Convicted: Louis Giambi was 47 when he was found guilty of the tripple murder. Now 79, he will die in jail It was two years before the crime was finally solved and Miriam had her day in court, but at the age of seven, she was unable to identify the gunman who wiped out her family. Miriam explained what happened that led her to be the only once in her family to survive. Giambi apparently smashed his way into the Stuarts' house through a rear door, herding the adults into an upstairs bathroom, before shooting each of them in the face with a silenced .22-caliber handgun. She described how she and her sister were in their bedroom when they heard the man tell her parents to 'get in the closet' in an upstairs hallway outside their door. In court, she told how the man came into the bedroom telling the sisters, 'Turn around. You'll not want to see this.' 'I peeked and saw Sandra in the doorway', she said. 'After Mommy, Poppy got shot. Sandra started to cry,' she said. The man told Sandra, 'If you don't stop crying, I'm going to shoot you,' she added. Her sister ran back to her bed, trailing blood on the carpet. Running back into the bathroom she crawled under her fathers body and began to cry. Cruel and calculating, Giambi shot her, and the little girl died instantly. Troubled life: Miriam was sent to her aunt and uncle's house in South Carolina after the murders, but they couldn't handle her. After bouncing around various relatives, she become involved in drugs and prostituion Incredibly, the gunman did not return to shoot Miriam. To this day, she is not even sure that he knew of her presence. She fled the house and ran across the street in the pouring rain to a neighbor's home where she said, 'My folks are dead.' Despite Miriam being unable to identify Giambi in court at his trial, it was a former cellmate, Patrick Bohror, in the federal prison at Raybrook, New York, to whom Giambi confessed. He told Bohror how he killed the Stuart's claiming, 'when you go in on a job, you don't leave any witnesses, big or small.' The defense claimed that Bohror was motivated by his own self interest in trying to secure a deal for a shorter sentence by co-operating with authorities, but in the end it was Giambi who was sent to jail and handed three life sentences. Now 79, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars, but that doesn't stop Miriam who is now 39, from scouring the Internet to see if anything new has been written about the convicted murderer. 'I hope he rots in there,' she says. Only the death penalty would have been sweeter.' Speaking to Philly.com she tells how the murders threw her into life of drugs and prostitution, tearing apart family ties. Yet she also insists the murders made her stronger and more caring. 'It took me many, many years being lost in my addiction, countless lonely and cold nights, to finally realize I wanted something different,' she said. 'I want people to know it is never too late to change and turn your life around into something positive.' Changed for good: In 2013, Miriam met Eric Smith, a former pastor. He helped turn her life around Before the horrific murders, Miriam lived a comfortable life surrounded by a large family. Adopted from Peru along with her younger sister, she felt extremely loved. After the tragedy, she was whisked to South Carolina to be with her uncle, William's brother, John and his wife Pam. The upheaval caused a tremendous shift in her feelings and she felt unsettled and unloved. 'I was very angry that my parents died,' she told Philly.com. 'I blamed everybody; I even blamed myself, especially for my sister.' So traumatic had the murders been, Miriam would constantly have nightmares. It was more than her uncle John and auntie Pam could handle and so they sent her back to the northeast to live with her paternal grandparents in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It even proved too much for them also, and Miriam was taken to her maternal grandparents. The stress of dealing with her, tore their marriage apart. Miriam says in her teenage years, she became addicted to drugs and would regularly smoke pot and snort cocaine, but it was the start of a downward spiral that saw her have a broken marriage and then jail time, followed by years of living on the streets of Philadelphia. Without the guidance of grandparents or other family members, $500,000 in insurance money that was given to her after the triple homicides was simply frittered away. Working the streets very nearly killed Miriam after a client ran her over her with his car, fracturing her pelvis, collarbone, and nose, and puncturing her lung. She could not walk for almost two months. 28 years after the murders, she reached out to her uncle in South Carolina once again. She had become estranged from the Stuart family, but she decided to reach out to them and build bridges. 'Not only did I always want a relationship, but I would like to know more about my dad and any stories that you remember,' she wrote in an email . 'I know I was a very rebellious child and always acting out, but I was lonely, scared, and very confused,' she added. Bundles of joy: Now married to Eric, they couple have a two-year-old daughter, along with other children from previous relationships John Stuart wrote back: 'Yes, you were young, but you were out of control and there was nothing we could do about it. Please be assured there was never any blame or resentment toward you about what happened in Pine Hill. NONE!!' 'I am afraid things will never be what they could have been under different circumstances.' Miriam tells Philly.com that there was a tone of finality in his last message to her in 2010. Six years on, and things have greatly improved for the once innocent little girl who had to endure the slaughter of those she loved the most. At a Philadelphia Dunkin' Donuts in March 2009 she ran into a former pastor, Eric Smith, 47.. The pair got off to a warm start and began dating - but the pair knew of one another from earlier times. In the midst of Miriam's turmoil when she had been arrested for drug possession and dealing, Eric would be the one she turned to in his religious and healing capacity. After her arrest, Miriam was given rehab instead of jail time. The arrest changed her and she has began to change her life for the better. Having graduated from Community College of Philadelphia, she now works at two addiction-treatment agencies helping others that have faced similar demons to her own. In 2013, she and Eric married and the couple now have a two-year-old daughter. Eric tells Philly.com that she has incredible survival skills and generous nature. A Royal Marines-led taskforce comprising 150 elite soldiers has been set up to patrol the Mediterranean and form an instant response to terrorist atrocities. Led by the Marines but likely to involve SAS members in the event of an attack, it will be used to respond to massacres at tourist resorts such as that seen in Tunisia last year. Almost all countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, including those in southern Europe and North Africa, are considered at risk of terrorist attack. The taskforce, comprising Royal Marines and SAS (pictured) troops, will respond to terrorist attacks in countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea According to the Daily Star Sunday, the unit is based on the RFA ship Fort Victoria in Cyprus and is supported by two Merlin helicopters. Utilising SAS commandos, it is ready to fly into countries under attack where British citizens are at risk. A source told the paper: 'We are aware of potential targets Islamic State could attacks and we need to make sure that we have a contingency in place.' A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence told MailOnline: 'The Special Purpose Task Group is designed to organise an agile force of Royal Marine commandos and equipment into one ship for a range of military operations in support of UK interests.' It is understood the unit has so far been involved in training operations in the region, including ship boarding exercises. On June 26 last year thirty Brits were killed when an ISIS-inspired gunman opened fire on tourists at a resort just north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia. Seifiddine Rezgui Yacoubi, armed with an assault rifle, opened fire on tourists relaxing on the beach before storming a hotel. He was eventually killed after exchanging fire with police. Tourists have increasingly become targets in ISIS's self-declared war against the West, with resorts in Egypt also having been targeted in the past 12 months. However, Tunisia is battling growing insurgency due to its porous borders with Libya, where ISIS and Al-Qaeda are believed to run training camps. ISIS also controls the country's coastal city of Sirte, where it is battling government forces for control of the local oil industry. It is believed the attack will help in attacks similar to that seen in Tunisia last year, when ISIS-inspired gunman Seifiddine Rezgui Yacoubi (pictured) massacred dozens of tourists on a beach investigating said yesterday the girl was shot by her brother, 5 A father has admitted shooting his four-year-old daughter in the face - after her death was blamed on her brother, 5. Maurice 'Stephon' Phillips fled after his young daughter was shot dead at his Philadelphia home. The girl, whose name has not been released, was shot once in the face when the gun went off around 2.25pm on Saturday. Maurice 'Stephon' Phillips has admitted shooting dead his 4-year-old daughter (left), whose name has not been released, at the home he shared with her mother Tera Riddick (right) She was pronounced dead at the scene five minutes later. Police investigating the shooting originally said that the youngster had been shot by her five-year-old brother. But after Phillips was arrested, he told officers that he had been playing with the gun and it had gone off accidentally, WNCN reports. Some reports state she was shot in the face, while others say she was shot in her chest. Police say a semiautomatic pistol was recovered inside the home. Phillips posted a photo on his Facebook of a semiautomatic pistol with a box of hollow-point bullets on February 14. Homicide Capt James Clark said police 'desperately' needed to find the girl's father, he told Philly.com. Police are still searching for the father, who has been identified as 30-year-old Maurice 'Stephon' Phillips. Last month Phillips posted this photo of a semiautomatic pistol, the same kind of gun recovered from the scene Phillips also posted this image of an assault rifle on his Facebook Police arrived at the home (pictured) around 2.30pm on Saturday. The girl was pronounced dead at the scene The girl lived in the home with Phillips and her mother Tera Riddick. Neighbors said she had five siblings, three sisters and two brothers. Riddick was known for being a protective mother who never let her children play outside the home, which is in Philadelphia's violent Kensington neighborhood. Neighbor Louise Sawyer said she once asked Riddick why she never brought her kids out. The mother responded: 'I'm not bringing these kids out here with all this trouble'. Sawyer said the neighborhood, where drug needles can be seen on the street, had been plagued with shootings and drugs. Sixty violent crimes have been reported in the neighborhood in the last month, according to data collected by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The family's home is in an area that police refer to as the 'gun grid'. Family friend Crystal Dougherty said the girl had been outgoing and loved Barbie dolls. A same-sex Canton couple won't let anything stand in the way of their wedding - even a warning from a supposed 'guest' that their day 'will be ruined' by anti-gay-marriage protesters. Chad and Keith thought that they were spreading joy when they sent out invitations to their May wedding to friends and family. But then they received a very nasty R.S.V.P. that threatened to turn their nuptials into an 'anti-gay show', Fox 8 Live reported Friday. Scroll down for video Engaged: Chad (left) and Keith (right) are getting married in May, but one of their 'guests' doesn't like the idea. That person, who did not identify themself, has threatened to 'ruin' their day with an anti-gay-marriage protest Courtesy of WOIO The typed, unsigned letter read: 'Just wanted to let you both know, you have sent an invitation to the wrong people. 'You thought we supported you as a couple, well boys you were so wrong! 'Your invitations were forwarded to an anti-gay group in Canton-Akron area, they will be attending your wedding. Protesters will be there.' The letter goes on to call gay marriage 'not normal' and 'a sin' and promised that some of their friends would only attend the wedding to protest. 'Like it or not, this is going to happen,' the letter continued. 'This day is going to be ruined for you. 'This is going to be a fun show to watch. You both are going to get what you deserve. See you at the anti-gay show!' But despite the threats, the men aren't backing down - they're not changing the date or venue of the wedding. 'Never even crossed my mind,' Keith told Fox. 'I never even thought about canceling and quite frankly, other than our initial shock of the letter this made us both want to do it more.' Long-time partners: Chad and Keith have been a couple for nine years, and have put a lot of love into their wedding - which is why they're refusing to change the location or date of the event The pair met nine years ago, and have been planning their marriage in detail. 'It's something we waited a long time for, we honestly never thought we'd be able to do it,' Chad said. The couple have built their own cake stand, picked out colors and hand-made gifts for their guests - even their mystery hate-mailer, whose identity they haven't yet worked out. Thankfully, they've received much support from friends, family and even strangers since their story broke. And now a church in Canton is inviting people to send the men letters and cards of congratulations. Good wishes can be sent for the attention of Chad and Keith to New Vision United Church of Christ, 3129 Market Ave North, Canton, Ohio 44714. This, Chad says, is why the haters aren't putting a stop to the wedding. 'Love will win in the end, that's what it comes down to,' he said Supporters of presidential candidate Donald Trump stormed out of a GOP convention in Georgia carrying the hall's American flag after Ted Cruz backers were chosen as delegates despite the front runner's primary win. Fourteen GOP conventions across the state were tasked with electing 42 of the state's 76 delegates who will go to Cleveland in July for the national convention. Each district chose three delegates and three alternatives. In most of the meetings, supporters of Cruz swept most of the spots, while John Kasich and Trump, who won Georgia's primary on March 1, were left with few. At the Seventh District gathering, Debbie Dooley, a tea party organizer and Trump ally, was defeated in delegate bid. Donald Trump supporters stormed out of a GOP convention in Georgia on Saturday after the Republican presidential candidate lost delegates Trump supporters in Ga 7th District walk out -with flag- after losing delegate fight. https://t.co/ly9knGKntZ #gapol pic.twitter.com/HSlRL3QYnk Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) April 16, 2016 Following the results, a Trump supporter grabbed the room's American flag and several others stormed out of the convention hall. In a video of the incident, what appears to be a security official, tries to stop them as several others in attendance watched, baffled at the event taking place. One person can be heard clapping while several others head straight for the door at the back of the room. In some areas of the state, however, Trump fared fairly well. He earned two delegates in the Second district, one in the Fourth and one in the 14th. 'This is a very insider-driven process, so it's naturally difficult for outsiders to affect the outcome,' Brian Jack, Trump's national delegate director, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 'We are investigating concerns of delegate suppression in a few Congressional district conventions, as we want to ensure everyone was treated fairly.' He said that Trump 'did better than most expected in Georgia, earning a majority of supporters within our delegate slots'. Republican operatives estimated that Trump received 12 or 14 delegates in Saturday's conventions, which is about one-third of the delegates that were up for grabs. Cruz's campaign, however, grabbed at least 31 delegates on Saturday. Thirty-one of Georgia's of the 76-delegate total will be chosen at the GOP convention in Augusta on June 3 and 4. Trump won the Georgia primary, but if the national convention goes into several rounds of voting, the delegates of Georgia can vote for another candidate. Pictured above is a Trump rally in Hartford, Connecticut This group often includes well-known officials and activists. In 2012, the list included Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Attorney General Sam Olens, House Speaker David Ralston, prominent tea party leader Julianne Thompson and Gov. Nathan Deals wife, Sandra Deal. The only three delegates already determined are Republican National Committee members Randy Evans and Linda Herren and state GOP chairman John Padgett. Delegates will have to vote in relation to the results of the March 1 primary in the first round of voting at the national convention. But the state party only binds delegates to support Trump for the first ballot at the convention. Any delegate may shift his or her support to any other GOP contender who might emerge if Trump cant lock up the nomination before a second round of voting. Preparing for that scenario, Ted Cruz supporters in Georgia are trying to secure want to secure as many of those spots as possible. The Georgia results come as Trump prepares for Tuesday's primary in New York. There are 95 delegates at stake in the Empire State, and it's important for Trump to win a big majority of them. There are 14 statewide delegates and three delegates in each congressional district. If a candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the statewide vote, he gets all 14 delegates. Otherwise, he has to share them with other candidates. If a candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote in a congressional district, he gets all three delegates. Otherwise, again, he has to share. Trump leads statewide in the most recent preference polls, with right around 50 per cent. New York is a large and diverse state, so he probably won't win all the congressional districts. Let's say Trump does make it to 50 percent, but Kasich or Cruz wins five congressional districts; Trump will take 77 delegates on the night. The chief planner of the botched kidnapping attempt of two children in Lebanon earlier this month claims he can prove Channel Nine paid him more than $115,000 to plan and carry out the snatch. Child Abduction Recovery International founder Adam Whittington, who is being detained in jail in Beirut with a 60 Minutes crew, is expected to show evidence of two payments from Channel Nine's accounts department at a hearing on Monday, according to The Daily Telegraph. Mr Whittington claims he received the large sum in two separate internet wire transfers months ago. Scroll down for video Adam Whittington, (pictured) the chief planner of the 60 Minutes botched 'child abduction' in Lebanon, said on Sunday that he can prove Channel Nine paid him more than $115,000 for the snatch Reporter Tara Brown (pictured) has been detained on kidnapping charges with a 60 Minutes crew that filmed the 'child abduction' of Sally Faulkner's two children in Lebanon on April 7 Ms Faulkner (pictured) travelled to Lebanon to retrieve her children, Noah, four, and Lahela, six 'It was direct from Channel Nine, it was from their accounts department and they paid it in two instalments,' he told News Corp from the Baabda detention centre on Sunday. 'I have the receipts and internet payments, for them (Channel Nine) to claim they weren't involved is a joke.' Mr Whittington's allegations come one day after he complained to News Corp about the appalling jail conditions and accused Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner of 'throwing everyone under the bus.' On April 7, the TV crew filmed Ms Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. On Wednesday, Ms Faulkner was charged with kidnapping. The 60 Minutes crew, including journalist Tara Brown, is accused of: hiding information, forming an association with two or more people to commit a crime against a person, kidnapping or holding a minor even with their approval, and physical assault. A total of seven people are facing charges as a result of the operation. Ms Faulkner's claims her children Noah and Lahela were taken to Lebanon by her estranged husband Ali Elamine (pictured with Noah and Lahela) in 2015 and he refused to bring them back It was reported that Mr Elamine said he would drop the charges against Ms Faulker is she agreed he could have sole custody Mr Whittington said on Saturday that the operation to bring Ms Faulkner's children back to Australia was doomed and now she is weaving a different tale so she can be released at the expense of the seven other people in jail. In the jail, Mr Whittington said 'the rats are as big as cats, it is so small [they] can't move, and the toilet in the ground is blocked.' Although there were talks that Ms Faulkner's estranged husband might agree to drop the kidnapping charges against her if she agrees to give him sole custody, herher Lebanese lawyer Ghassan Moghabghab said on Saturday night that negotiations had broken down. Ali Elamine - who allegedly took their children to Lebanon in 2015 and never returned - said he would grant her access rights if she agreed to never take the children to Australia, out of fear that she wouldn't bring them back. She must also agree to a full religious divorce - a list of demands Ms Faulkner's lawyer Ghassan Moghabghab says he will be able to secure because he has legal rights to the children in Lebanon. 'Legally he is the one with custody,' her Lebanese lawyer Ghassan Moghabghab told the News Corp. Ghassan Mughaghab (pictured), the lawyer for Brisbane woman Sally Faulkner, said negotiations between Mr Elamine and Ms Faulkner had broken down Ali Elamine (pictured) has to decide whether to pursue child kidnap charges again his estranged wife Sally Faulkner which may get her 20 years in prison Mr Moghabghab warned that because Mr Elamine had been granted sole care of the children from religious authorities, he would likely be calling all the shots in the international custody battle. If an agreement is reached between the estranged pair over the weekend, it could be registered in the next court appearance on Monday and Ms Faulkner could be on a flight back to Brisbane within the week, without her children. Speaking to ABC's 7.30, Mr Moghabghab revealed that there would be a very favourable flow-on effect for the 60 Minutes Crew if Ms Faulkner and Mr Elamine reached a private agreement. 'When there is not (kidnapping charges) - when he withdraws his charges, there will be only the public charges here, and everything will - they will not go out there indefinitely, but they will take this into consideration,' he said. 'When there is not charges from Mr Elamine, it will be a much more better for her.' 'It will help everybody, I think. It will help everybody.' 'It will help everybody, I think. It will help everybody': Ms Faulkner's lawyer says that if Mr Elamine drops the personal kidnapping charges against her, it will have a favourable flow-on effect for the whole team Sally Faulkner's lawyer has reportedly said she was paid for by the Nine Network and had used money given to her by 60 Minutes to the child recovery agency, Child Abduction Recovery International Meanwhile, Mr Elamine has remained tight-lipped about the entire ordeal, instead focusing on the wellbeing of his two children and mother - who was allegedly hit with a pistol on the head during the dramatic kidnapping that was captured on security cameras. 'We're keeping to ourselves about the whole situation, there is a personal side, a family side and a judicial side to all of this and all I can say at the moment is everyone is doing okay and we are getting through this process,' he told The Daily Telegraph. 'I took her to the doctors for a check up on head scan today, she is okay. 'On that (pistol) I can't really tell you what happened I wasn't there but she was and I have read reports that that is what she said. Veteran journalist Stephen Rice (left), David Ballment (centre) and Benjamin Williamson (right) are also in custody in Lebanon In her only interview on the matter so far, Ms Faulkner told The Australian on Friday she was doing well behind bars at Baabda Central Women's Prison in south-eastern Beirut. 'Please tell my mum and dad how well I am and also (husband) Brendan and my in-laws,' she said. Ms Brown is also behind bars at the prison. 'I am fine but my loved ones need to know that.' The Channel Nine TV crew was planning to film Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, three, and Lahela, five, from her ex-husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. Prosecutors had earlier claimed they had a signed statement from a member of the recovery team saying Nine had paid $115,000 for the operation. CCTV footage supplied by Lebanese authorities appeared to show the bungled kidnapping earlier this week Ms Faulkner and the Channel Nine TV crew members appeared handcuffed in a Lebanese court on Wednesday, where they were remanded in custody to face court again on Monday. Lebanese Investigative Judge Rami Abdullah said there was 'no way' the charges against the crew will be dropped. The offences carry penalties of up to 20 years in jail. Nine Network spokeswoman Victoria Buchan said: 'I hope you understand that we never comment on money but also we are not making any comments in this matter as it is currently a matter before the Lebanese judicial system which we respect. It is not appropriate at this time.' A conviction could mean the male 60 Minutes crew risk ending up in Beirut's infamous Roumieh prison, one of the largest jails in the Middle East with 5,500 inmates. LEBANON KIDNAP CASE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR THE MUM, THE TV CREW AND THE KIDNAPPING CASE Brisbane mum Sally Faulkner and a Nine Network TV crew made up of reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment, are facing kidnapping and assault charges in Lebanon following a bungled abduction of Ms Faulkner's two children in Beirut. WHAT HAPPENED? The Australians have spent a week behind bars in Beirut after being arrested for the alleged abduction on April 7. The TV crew was filming Faulkner's attempt to retrieve her children Noah, four, and Lahela, six, from her ex-husband Ali Elamine, who she claims kept them in Lebanon without her permission. A professional agency, Child Abduction Recovery International, is believed to have been hired to snatch the children. Two of its members, named in media reports as Britons Adam Whittington and Craig Michael, have also been detained and charged. THE ABDUCTION Security camera footage shows masked men jumping out of a car and snatching the kids from their grandmother and another woman on a Beirut street. The grandmother claims she was attacked and hit on the head with a pistol. The TV crew and recovery agency members were arrested shortly afterwards, while Faulkner hid with her two children in a safe house. Authorities later found the family, arrested Faulkner and returned the children to their father. THE CHARGES Faulkner is facing kidnapping charges. The 60 minutes crew is accused of: - hiding information - forming an association with two or more people to commit a crime against a person - kidnapping or holding a minor even with their approval - physical assault. The offences carry penalties of up to 20 years in jail. LEGAL CASE SO FAR Judge Rami Abdullah told the Australians during a second round of interviews on Wednesday that there was no chance their charges would be dropped. However, he indicated that if Mr Elamine was willing to drop legal action and come to an agreement with his estranged wife, that would help the case against all of the accused. The accused will remain in detention until facing the Baabda Palace of Justice again on Monday. Nine has refused to comment on speculation it organised and funded the recovery operation. Advertisement A man arrested for the deaths of his 87-year-old grandfather and a homeless man in California confessed to the crimes, saying he felt 'euphoric' after the stabbings. Richard Robinson, 25, is accused of beating and stabbing his grandfather Kirby Robinson on Thursday, before driving a truck to a Denny's in Sacramento and stabbing another homeless man in the parking lot, police said. Robinson said he committed the crimes simply because he 'wanted to' in a disturbing interview with FOX40. Richard Robinson, 25, (pictured) is accused of beating and stabbing his grandfather Kirby Robinson, before driving a truck to a Denny's in Sacramento and stabbing another homeless man in the parking lot, police said Kirby Robinson (left and right) was found in the front yard of his home on Thursday morning and died from blunt force trauma and stab wounds. His truck was missing from the house and found at a Denny's in Sacramento Robinson said he went to his 87-year-old grandfather's house in Stockton, where the two lived together for several years, with the intent of stealing from him, FOX40 reported. In a disturbing interview from behind bars, the 25-year-old admitted he 'beat' and 'stabbed' his grandfather and said: 'The day before I had thought about stabbing someone.' Kirby Robinson was found in the front yard of his home on Thursday morning and died from blunt force trauma and stab wounds, police said. His truck was also reported missing. Around 9am on Thursday, authorities found a 44-year-old homeless man in the parking lot of a Denny's in Sacramento, 50 miles north of Kirby's home. Richard Robinson was suspected of both killings after the Sacramento police ran record checks on the vehicle and notified officials in Stockton The man, whose name has not been released as police are still trying to notify his kin, died on the scene from multiple stab wounds, police said. Kirby's truck was in the parking lot, and Richard Robinson was suspected of both killings after the Sacramento police ran record checks on the vehicle and notified officials in Stockton. Robinson was arrested nearby after authorities found him in blood-stained clothes, FOX40 reported. When a reporter asked Robinson how he felt after he stabbed his grandfather and the 44-year-old man, he looked sheepish and smiled as he said: 'Euphoric'. Robinson is also suspected of stabbing a 44-year-old to death in the parking lot of Denny's in Sacramento (pictured). He told a FOX40 reported he felt 'euphoric' after both killings He said he 'kinda got the idea to stab [the 44-year-old]', and explained that he committed both crimes, 'Just cause I wanted to, I guess.' He also told the news station he had a history of mental illness and a 'troubled upbringing'. He admitted to using methampetamine and cannabis, but was not high at the time of the murders. The 25-year-old was arrested and jailed in Sacramento County Jail and faces murder charges in the 44-year-old's death. Charges regarding Kirby Robinson's death in Stockton are still pending. Former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has given her first TV interview about her claim that Donald Trump's campaign manager assaulted her. Fields became headline news last month filing a police report against Corey Lewandowski, who she says left bruises on her arm as he 'yanked' her away from Trump in a Florida hotel. On Sunday, Fields appeared on CNN, branding Trump a liar and slamming Lewandowski for 'defaming' her. 'Corey said that he hadn't met me, he never touched me, we know that that's a lie,' she said. She said Trump first told the media that the Secret Service told him that nothing had happened, then weeks later mocked Fields for 'grabbing at him'. Scroll down for video Michelle Fields spoke on CNN on Sunday, calling Trump a liar and slamming Lewandowski for 'defaming' her Ex-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields sat down with CNN's Brian Stelter to talk about the March 8 grabbing incident, which Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski won't be prosecuted for 'I didn't grab him. The reason why he's lifting his arm is that he's getting a pen out of his jacket,' she said. The Trump campaign has tentatively suggested Lewandowski is going to apologize to Fields but she said she doesn't believe he will or that she would ever be welcome at a Trump White House. Her words came the same morning as Lewandowski's sit-down with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. Wallace asked the top Trump aide if he planned to apologize to Fields for touching her and calling her 'delusional.' Lewandowski said that was a 'little unrealistic' as he and Fields have 'never spoken.' Talking to the network's Brian Stelter, Fields suggested that the story shouldn't have been blown up the way it had. 'The reason why it was such a huge story is because Corey lied, Donald Trump lied, they defamed me and they went on this huge smear campaign against me and I think it shed light on the character of the campaign and I think a lot of people were surprised by their blatant lies about me,' Fields explained. 'That's why it became such a huge story,' she continued. 'It's the defamation not so much the grabbing of the arm,' she noted of the March 8 incident. During the interview, Fields backed up her account, which some in the media including Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski hinted was over-dramatized. 'I walked up to him with a cell phone, a pen and a notebook in my hand and was going up to him and I felt someone pull me back,' she said of her encounter with Trump and then with Lewandowski. 'I'm in high heels, I'm not expecting anyone to yank me, that is how I felt.' One eyewitness, a local tech executive who talked to police, said he thought her response was 'disproportionate.' 'At first I thought she was drunk,' said Michael Spellman, the president of a glass technology company based in Jupiter, Florida, where the incident occurred. Fields slammed Lewandowski's claim that he had reached out to her directly after hearing about the incident. On Fox News Sunday Lewandowski said he had tried to call Fields that night after seeing on Twitter posts from her boyfriend, the Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein. 'Trump always surrounds himself [with] thugs,' Weinstein had written. 'Tonight thug Corew Lewandowski tried to pull my [girlfriend] to ground when she asked tough [question.]' Lewandowski noted that he turned his phone records over to the Palm Beach district attorney's office, which 'clearly shows I called her phone number that evening when I got back and read about this on the Twitter feed.' 'I did not hear from him no,' Fields said on CNN. 'I did not get a call from my knowledge. There was no voicemail. There was no text. There was no email following up. Of course, that's why I stayed quiet in the beginning, because I was told from my editor that I was going to receive an apology,' she said. She added that she was forced to move out of her apartment during the saga after Fox News mistakenly published her address on air. And she insisted the only reason she took the case to the police was to defend herself against Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson who challenged Fields to contact authorities if 'it really happened,' Fields explained, noting that Trump was also 'questioning my bruises.' 'I felt they forced me to. I had no choice. I had to go get my bruises documented,' Fields said. '[Lewandowski] grabbed me, he denied it, he defamed me. I don't think I'm getting an apology, but it would be nice,' she said. Fields quit her job at Breitbart days after the incident claiming her employer didn't do enough to support her. Prosecutors in Palm Beach County, Florida, announced on Thursday that a potential criminal battery case against Lewandowski was dead in the water because there likely wasn't enough evidence to convict. 'I just don't agree with, obviously, their decision,' Fields said. Donald Trump's campaign manager Corew Lewandowski went on Fox News Sunday this morning and said he wouldn't be apologizing to journalist Michelle Fields just yet Fields noted that State Attorney for Palm Beach County David Aronberg's wife Lynn has a public relations company that advertises her relationship with Trump. She also accused Aronberg, who's a Hillary Clinton supporter, of spending a lot of time at Trump's private Mar-a-lago resort. 'I can't speak for anybody else, but if I was a prosecutor and my wife was trying to monetize her relationship with Donald Trump and it's right there on her website and I'm partying all the time at Mar-a-lago, I would recuse myself from the situation and the case,' Fields said. Over on Fox, Lewandowski suggested that Fields wouldn't be getting an apology quite yet . 'I'd be happy to have a conversation with her, but to apologize to someone I've never spoken to and candidly don't ever remember having any interaction with, I think is something that is a little unrealistic right now,' the Trump aide said. 'I tried contacting Ms. Fields after reading on her boyfriend's Twitter feed that something took place that evening, but to this day I've never heard from Mrs. Fields, or Ms. Fields,' he said, slightly screwing up her name, 'So I am happy that the Palm Beach County district attorney has decided not to move forward with any charges,' the campaign manager added. He called the altercation 'the sum total' of his relationship with the journalist, noting the 'whole incident lasted less than three seconds.' 'It was me moving from one location into another location,' he said. 'And I would have remembered if I had tried to violently throw someone to the ground,' he added. 'Or if there was an incident which would have been more memorable.' Friends and family spoke about Duke's tireless advocacy for mental health awareness after her own diagnosis with bipolar disorder in 1982 Hundreds attended the service in Idaho, where Duke lived with her fourth husband Michael Pearce on March 29 at the age of 69 Beloved actress Patty Duke was remembered in a public memorial service in Idaho on Saturday. Duke, whose real name was Anna Pearce, died March 29 from sepsis from a ruptured intestine at age 69. Saturday's service was held at Lake City Church in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where she lived with her fourth husband Michael Pearce. Scroll down for video Patty Duke (pictured) was remembered in a public memorial service held Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Hundreds attended the service to celebrate the life of the Oscar-winning actress and mental health advocate Mackenzie Astin (pictured), Duke's middle child, spoke about how his mother was a gifted communicator and said she 'put a beautiful face' to bipolar disorder, which Duke was diagnosed with in 1982 The event fittingly featured a sign-language interpreter, which was a nod to Duke's Oscar-winning role as Helen Keller in the Miracle Worker. Hundreds came out to the service, where her friends and family spoke and celebrated the actress' life. Mackenzie Astin, Duke's middle child, encouraged those at the service to greet each other and say, 'Anna be with you', in honor of his mother, King 5 News reported. Astin spoke about his mother's advocacy for mental health awareness since her own diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 1982. Duke's close friend Melissa Gilbert told the crowd she was sad to be at Duke's memorial service but happy she was able to celebrate the life of a 'mighty' woman Local channels in Idaho broadcast and streamed the service live. It was held in Coeur d'Alene, where Duke lived with her fourth husband 'She put a beautiful face to the illness,' he said at the service, according to KREM. Actress Melissa Gilbert talked about working in films like the Miracle Worker with Duke, who she considered one of her best friends. 'I hate that I'm here, and yet I love that I'm here to celebrate my dear teacher friend, Anna, 'Anna loved to laugh. How could God make something so small, but so mighty? 'She had courage like no one I've ever known,' she said. The ceremony was streamed on local news stations in Idaho, according to USA Today. Duke won an Academy Award at the age of 16 for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. A year after her Oscar win Duke took the role for which she would become best known, as wildly different cousins Patty and Cathy Lane on The Patty Duke Show. Duke, who was married four times, had three sons - actors Sean and Mackenzie Aston and Kevin Pearce. Duke, whose real name was Anna Pearce, died on March 29 from sepsis from a ruptured intestine at age 69 Front-running Filipino presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte has made a joke about the rape and murder of an Australian woman in the country in 1989. Dutere, 71, made a joke in reference to the brutal gang rape and murder of missionary Jacqueline Hamill at a Davao City jail according to a translation by Rappler. 'When the bodies were brought out, they were wrapped. I looked at her face, son of a b***h, she looks like a beautiful American actress. Son of a b***h, what a waste,' Duterte said. Front-running Filipino presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte has made a joke about the rape and murder of an Australian woman in the country in 1989 The joke was filmed and later released online where it gained both support and criticism 'What came to mind was, they raped her, they lined up. I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first.' 'All the women were raped so during the first assault.' The speech was caught on video and has copped widespread criticism and support in the country and around the world. The crowd can be heard laughing at the joke made in reference to the rape and murder of the Australian woman in 1989 The politician, who was mayor at the time of the attack in the city, claims to have stopped the siege. His whole political campaign has been based around his call to end violence in the country. The politician's rivals have said the joke shows Duterte's 'lack of fitness for the presidency' and his 'utter lack of respect for women' the ABC reports. Vice President Jejomar Binay said Duterte is a crazy maniac who doesn't respect women and doesn't deserve to be president. His whole political campaign has been based around his call to end violence in the country A female missionary who worked alongside Ms Hamill in the Philippines has spoken out against the joke on social media. Jacqueline's death affected me deeply personally, as I had been visiting just about every jail in Manila with the ACTION/CGM teams from 1986-89, Robin Haines Merrill said in her post. 'I couldn't yet speak the language but I could play the flute and just show love to people in horrible situations. The joke caused Robin Haines Merril, a missionary who was working in the country at the time of the rape and murder to take to Facebook 'LOVE TRUMPS HATE. DON'T STOP LOVING. DON'T VOTE FOR PEOPLE who speak vile things against WOMEN!!' Duterte's words did have supporters. 'We won't apologise for he has done nothing wrong, it was a clear joke for God's sake,' one Filipina supporter said on social media. A police sniper asked for permission to take a 'kill shot' at Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis seven hours before the two hostages were killed, according to reports. NSW Police is fighting to keep this and other revelations about police involvement and tactics under wraps during the inquest in an attempt to protect their 'methodology'. The force is expected to make an application to the State Coroner on Tuesday for all evidence from senior officers and those who stormed the Lindt cafe to be heard in secret. The Daily Telegraph has revealed that one of the three snipers believed he could fatally shoot Monis at 7.30pm on 15 December 2014 and asked if he could take the shot. A police sniper asked for permission to take a 'kill shot' at Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis seven hours before the two hostages were killed Man Haron Monis held 18 people hostage during the during the terrifying 16-hour standoff in 2014 Jieun Bae was pictured running towards waiting police as she fled the scene of the Sydney cafe siege But senior officers refused the request and instead decided to continue with a policy to negotiate with the extremist who held 18 hostages during the terrifying 16-hour standoff. Police only initiated the Emergency Action Plan and stormed the cafe after Tori Johnson was shot dead in the back of the head at 2.13am on December 16. Barrister Katrina Dawson, 38, was then fatally struck by six fragments of police bullets when the siege reached its bloody end. It has previously emerged during the inquest that the snipers had taken up vantage points in the Channel 7 building, the Westpac building and the Reserve Bank. Terrified hostages were seen sprinting from the cafe at the end of the terrifying siege in 2014 The force is expected to make an application to the State Coroner on Tuesday for all evidence from senior officers and those who stormed the Lindt cafe to be heard in secret Police only initiated the Emergency Action Plan and stormed the cafe after Tori Johnson (left) was shot dead in the back of the head at 2.13am on December 16. Barrister Katrina Dawson (right) was hit by a police bullet But evidence detailing why police refused the sniper's request for the 'kill shot' may never be heard in full by the public if the application is granted. A recreation of the snipers view into the cafe, the type of glass in place at the time and whether or not such a shot would have been successful may also be kept behind closed doors. Police are planning to release 'censored, redacted transcripts' of the evidence if the application is granted, Seven News reported. In a recent hearing, Marcia Mikhael voiced her frustration that police negotiators failed to get the Prime Minister on the phone and an Islamic State flag requested by the gunman. Speaking at the inquest on Tuesday, Ms Mikhael believed police negotiators had 'done nothing' and 'left us here to die' after failing to meet the demands of Monis. In a recent hearing, Marcia Mikhael (pictured) voiced her frustration that police negotiators failed to get the Prime Minister on the phone and an Islamic State flag requested by the gunman Monis took control of the Lindt Cafe shortly before 10am on December 15, prompting a siege that lasted more than 16 hours During the deadly siege, Ms Mikhael spoke to police negotiators and was asked by Monis to get the Prime Minister on the phone. 'I didn't understand why it was so difficult for the prime minister to get on the phone,' she said. She described her anger and concern when she was told that Tony Abbott was too busy to speak. 'You don't tell someone who had a gun pointed at their head that,' she said. She criticised the police response, saying there was no negotiations with Monis. 'It was just me on the phone,' she said. 'Monis wasn't on the phone with (the police negotiator). There was no negotiation.' NSW Police has been approached for a comment. Sydney siege survivor Marcia Mikhael (pictured) departs the Lindt Cafe siege inquest in Sydney Hillary Clinton was not too impressed with Donald Trump's new nickname for her 'crooked Hillary' 'He can say whatever he wants to say about me, I really could care less,' the former secretary of state told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week when he asked for her reaction. The Republican frontrunner dinged the Democratic frontrunner with the new nickname during a campaign rally in Watertown, New York on Saturday his latest concoction that's along the lines of 'lyin' Ted' Cruz, 'little Marco' Rubio and 'low energy' Jeb Bush. Scroll down for video Hillary Clinton answered 'I really could care less,' when George Stephanopoulos informed her that Donald Trump had nicknamed her 'crooked Hillary' Trump implied that Clinton was 'crooked' because she took money from donors. 'So I'm self funding. All of this is mine. When I fly in, it's on my dime, right? It's on mine. And what does that mean?' Trump told his crowd. 'that means I'm not controlled by the special interests, by the lobbyists.' 'They can control crooked Hillary and they can control lyin' Ted Cruz right?' Trump said. When Clinton was asked about it, she wouldn't completely bite. 'I don't respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults about me,' she said. 'I can take care of myself.' 'I look forward to running against him if he turns out to be the Republican nominee if I am the Democratic nominee,' Clinton continued. Clinton said she disapproved of 'how he goes after everybody else.' 'He goes after women. He goes after Muslims. He goes after immigrants. He goes after people with disabilities,' she noted. 'He is hurting our unity at home. Uh, he is undermining the values that we stand for in New York and across America. And he's hurting us around the world,' she said. Both Clinton and Trump are fighting for votes in New York in advance of the state's Tuesday primary. At last polling, Clinton was still 10 points ahead in the new CBS/YouGov poll that came out today in the state she was twice elected by to serve in the U.S. Senate. Clinton is at 53 percent to Sen. Bernie Sanders' 43 percent. Trump, a creature of the Manhattan real estate world, was up 33 points in the same poll against rivals Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Trump receives 54 percent support from Republicans, versus 21 percent for Cruz and 19 percent for Kasich. During her interview with Stephanopoulos, Clinton again said she would only release her Wall Street speech transcripts only if other candidates did too. Sanders has repeatedly hit his rival on delivering these speeches and for taking money from Wall Street suggesting that she's beholden to these interests. In turn, she's called his assumption an 'artful smear.' Sanders is barred from delivering paid speeches as a member of the U.S. Senate. Stephanopoulos asked Clinton if releasing the speeches would reveal her praising Wall Street. 'No, I don't have any concerns like that,' she replied. I'm just concerned about a constantly changing set of standards for everybody else but me,' she said. 'You know, we have certain expectations when you run for president, one of which is release all of your tax returns, ever since you've been in public life,' she said. Clinton acknowledged that 33 years of her taxes are in the public domain. Sanders just released his first year's worth of tax returns this weekend. 'Now, all of a sudden, there is a new standard,' Clinton said of the calls to release the speeches. 'And I've said when it applies to everybody, you bet I will meet that standard as well.' Stephanopoulos reminded Clinton that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Clinton supporter, had said she would release the speeches 'at the appropriate time.' 'Well, in accordance with the standard that I've set, I absolutely will do,' Clinton said, meaning that all the candidates, from both parties, would have to release the transcripts of any paid speeches they've given. 'I absolutely will do, i will do that,' she said. 'I've said that repeatedly.' Clinton was also asked about a piece of legislation that would pit her either against President Obama or New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who will become the Democratic leader in the Senate next year after Sen. Harry Reid retires. The bill would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue foreign sponsors of terror in federal court. Schumer supports it, while Obama opposes it. Clinton pleaded ignorance. 'I don't really know about that, George, I'd have to look into it,' Clinton answered. 'Obviously, we've got to make anyone who participates in or supports terrorism pay a price, and we also have to be aware of any consequences that might affect Americans, either military or civilian or our nation.' Stephanopoulos seemed surprised by her answer. 'You don't know about this issue? It's been around for several years,' he said. 'Well I know there's been an issue about it for quite some time, I don't know about the specific legislation that you're referring to. But obviously, I'll look into it,' she replied. When Stephanopoulos again followed up, asking the former secretary of state if she supported or opposed the legislation, she said she didn't know. 'I can't, I haven't studied it,' she said. A gun-toting Donald Trump supporter is planning an armed rally outside the Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta on Monday to bring together people 'against Islamic Immigration'. Far-right activist Jim Stachowiak hopes to 'raise public awareness to what we perceive as a threat to our nation from Islamic immigration and refugees', as well as 'the dangerous agenda of the current administration'. He plans to publicly shred the Quran and pictures of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and the Prophet Muhammad. Stachowiak believes that Trump should be the United States' next president. Far-right activist Jim Stachowiak is hosting an anti-Muslim rally in Atlanta, Georgia. He hopes to 'raise public awareness to what we perceive as a threat to our nation from Islamic immigration and refugees', as well as 'the dangerous agenda of the current administration' While at the rally he plans to publicly shred the Quran and photos of Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and the Prophet Muhammad 'I support Donald Trump because I like his agenda on dealing with the threats to this country - his ban on Islamic immigration,' Stachowiak told Huffington Post on Tuesday. He added that Muslim immigrants and refugees to the United States are 'no more than an invading horde or army'. Stachowiak told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he expects 200 people to attend his rally, but later told Huffington Post that 'few' people will probably show up. State Capitol police issued an advisory to state employees following Stachowiak's announcement of the rally. 'The Georgia Department of Public Safety and the Georgia Building Authority anticipate a non-permitted, anti-Islamic protest on the sidewalks of the Georgia State Capitol,' Capitol Police Director Lewis G. Young said in a statement. 'You are hereby notified that protest organizers have encouraged their participants to carry loaded long guns. 'DPS is currently monitoring the threat risk and, together with GBA, is taking precautions to make Capitol Hill a safe environment.' Stachowiak announced his anti-Muslim rally in a video while wearing a 'DEATH TO ISIS' sweatshirt and holding a rifle. In the clip, he claims that the Quran is 'nothing more than toilet paper writings spurted from hell and it should be treated with the respect that you give a piece of dirty toilet paper'. State Capitol police issued an advisory to state employees following Stachowiak's announcement of the rally, which he said would happen rain or shine Stachowiak posts many anti-Muslim memes on his Facebook page and can been seen wearing a Trump T-shirt and carrying a large gun (pictured) Stachowiak has several anti-Muslim signs, including one that says 'Stop the Islamic immigration refugee invasion now!' In an interview with Huffington Post, Stachowiak boasted of being affiliated with Terry Jones, a Florida pastor who has notoriously burned copies of the Quran and provoked deadly riots in Afghanistan. Stachowiak posts many anti-Muslim memes on his Facebook page and can been seen wearing a Trump T-shirt and carrying a large gun. In one video he is seen burning a Mexican flag in what appears to be his backyard. 'It's important to know everyone coming [to Monday's rally] we're all Trump supporters,' Stachowiak said. 'We totally stand behind Trump.' The Georgia Capitol Police told The Daily Beast that they are ready for disruptions brought on by Stachowiak's rally on Monday. 'We do not have any expectations of the crowd [size], however, DPS is always prepared to protect the Capitol and all citizens on the grounds, both civilian and protestors,' Captain Mark Perry wrote in an email to the Daily Beast. Perry added that 'no one at the Capitol has directly expressed any concerns' about the rally. Stachowiak said that he will be at the Capitol building rain or shine, permit or no permit, and he will stay even if he's the only person in attendance. In several videos on his Facebook, Stachowiak discusses the upcoming rally and the upcoming election In one video, Stachowiak is seen burning a Mexican flag in what appears to be his backyard in Georgia 'This will be an open carry event with the use of long arms as Georgia law allow,' he told the Journal-Constitution. He said that those attending the rally will march from the Capitol building to the front of the CNN Center. He said there they would 'speak again against the threat of Islamic immigration and refugees and the dangerous agenda of the Obama administration'. A Quran will be desecrated on the sidewalks on the public right of away (sic) at the front entrance of CNN,' he added. Muslim-American activists have said that they would sit down with Stachowiak if he was willing. 'Hatred of Muslims and Islam stems from ignorance,' Edward Ahmed Mitchell, executive director of Georgia's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement. 'We encourage these protesters to put down their guns, cancel their unsanctioned rally, and meet with representatives of our state's Muslim community for an open and frank discussion of their concerns.' 'The Holy Quran instructs Muslims to respond to evil with something better, so that friendship can arise between us and those who hate us,' he added. 'I call on all Georgia mosques, Islamic organizations and residents to redouble outreach efforts as a positive response to this hate rally' Meanwhile, Trump has earned endorsements from other hate groups, like white nationalist Jared Taylor and former KKK grand wizard David Duke. Additionally, there was a rise in anti-Muslim hate groups and anti-government militias in the United States in 2015, according to a SPLC report. Stachowiak, pictured above burning the Mexican flag, said that the rally on Monday will go on even if he's the only one in attendance Advertisement Libyan authorities have arrested 203 African migrants and in an alleged people smuggler after busting a illegally migrant safehouse in Tripoli just hours before the group were preparing to make a perilous sea crossing to Europe. An early morning raid by forces battling clandestine migration targeted a house in eastern Tripoli's Al-Hashan district and netted several dozen people, an AFP journalist said. Armed and masked members of the authorities in bullet-proof vests rounded up the migrants and put them on vehicles to be driven to a detention centre. Libyan authorities have arrested 203 African migrants and in an alleged people smuggler after busting a illegally migrant safehouse in Tripoli just hours before the group were preparing to make a perilous sea crossing to Europe Armed and masked members of the authorities in bullet-proof vests rounded up the migrants and put them on vehicles to be driven to a detention centre Dozens more were detained in another raid on a house in the same neighbourhood. However no force was used in either operation and there was no resistance from any of the frightened migrants. 'After a tip-off about a people smuggler preparing a crossing to Europe by clandestine migrants the raids were carried out in a Tripoli suburb,' a security official said. 'We arrested 203 illegal migrants from different nationalities. They were with there with their smuggler,' he said. Libya has long been a stepping stone for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, with Italy some 300 kilometres (185 miles) away across the Mediterranean. Smugglers have stepped up their lucrative business in the chaos that has followed the 2011 ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi. Libya has long been a stepping stone for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, with Italy some 185 miles away across the Mediterranean Dozens more migrants were detained in another raid on a house in the same neighbourhood. However no force was used in either operation and there was no resistance from any of the frightened migrants A Libyan soldier keeps watch during a police operation against would-be migrants in the Libyan city of Tripoli The interior ministry in Rome put migrant arrivals in Italy at 23,739 since the start of the year as of Thursday morning, compared with 19,589 by April 14 last year. On Friday, the International Organization of Migration said nearly 6,000 migrants had reached Italy by sea in the space of four days. Migrant children clamour to grab toys handed out by volunteers and enjoy a civilised haircut as refugees attempt some semblance of normality amid squalor of Idomeni This is the heartwarming moment a group of young children crowd around a car at the makeshift camp, begging for help at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni. The children appeared delighted when they were given soft toys and other items from one friendly local in their car near the busy migrant camp. More than 152,000 people have arrived in Greece by sea from Turkey since January 1, nearly three-quarters of whom were Syrians, according to statistics released by the International Organization of Migrants (IOM). This is the heart-rending moment a group of young children crowd around a car at the makeshift camp, begging for help at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni A man gives an hair cut to child at the makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border The news comes as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused neighbouring Macedonia of 'shaming' Europe last week by firing tear gas and rubber bullets at migrants desperately trying to break through a border fence. Tensions are still running high after an outburst of violence, which saw 250 refugees and migrants hurt at the flashpoint Idomeni crossing as they tried to force their way into Macedonia. Greek authorities, worried about the spread of diseases in makeshift refugee camps, are also urging migrants to relocate to organized camps with better living conditions. A flyer is circulating at the Idomeni migrant camp on Greece's border with Macedonia, saying that gastroenteritis, lice and scabies are spreading among the almost 10,400 people there. Written in four languages, including Arab and Farsi, it urges the migrants to relocate to one of several organized camps across Greece. But the migrants and refugees who have been stranded at Idomeni ever since Austria and several Balkan countries shut down their borders to them in mid-March are reluctant to leave. On Saturday, departing migrants filled just one bus. In addition to Idomeni, another 10,000 migrants are staying in makeshift camps in mainland Greece. An Afghan boy lies on a beach near the old international airport which is used as a temporary camp in Athens, Greece The news comes as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused neighbouring Macedonia of 'shaming' Europe last week by firing tear gas and rubber bullets at migrants desperately trying to break through a border fence Greek authorities, worried about the spread of diseases in makeshift refugee camps, are urging migrants to relocate to organized camps with better living conditions Migrant boy washes dishes while others enjoy a swing chair at the makeshift camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece A passenger jet was hit by a drone above London yesterday, sparking major concerns over air safety. The front of a British Airways jet, carrying 132 passengers and five crew, was struck in what is believed to be the first time a drone has hit a commercial plane in British airspace. The Airbus A320 from Geneva was minutes away from landing at Heathrow when it was hit. The aircraft landed safely. Metropolitan Police detectives are investigating the strike, which follows a string of near misses in recent months. Pilots warn that drones which are too small to appear on air traffic control radar screens could destroy an airliner's engine or smash a cockpit windscreen. Engineers also say a drone's lithium battery could catch fire if it hit the nose or other softer parts of an aircraft and became embedded. Scroll down for video An investigation has been launched after an object hit the front of British Airways' G-EUYP, pictured, as it approached Heathrow's Terminal 5 A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the pilot of the flight reported to police that he believed a drone, pictured, had struck the aircraft (stock image) An image shows the route taken by the flight over London this afternoon, during which time it was struck by an object shortly before landing An anti-terror expert, who served in Afghanistan, said the incident illustrated the danger drones pose, as terrorist groups have been planning to use them to carry out attacks. Richard Kemp said: 'Whether this turns out to be related to terrorism or not it is just one more Illustration of the enormous challenges facing out anti terror agencies daily,' reports The Sun. He added: 'We know terrorists have for a long time sought to use drones to visit violence on innocent people and it a very real threat.' Tens of thousands of drones, which cost as little as 25, have been bought in Britain in the past few years and can be operated without a licence or registration with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), as long as they are not used for commercial purposes. The British Airline Pilots Association has called for the Department for Transport and the CAA to back research into the potential risks of collisions with a passenger jet. THEY CAN FLY 50MPH AT 6,000FT High-end drones can fly up to and beyond 6,000ft, travel up to 50mph and stay in the air for 25 minutes. They cost between 25 and 20,000, with electrical store Maplin alone reporting sales of more than 15,000 drones in the UK last year. Last year Domino's Pizza posted a video of a drone delivering a pizza, and online store Amazon has looked into using the technology to speed up deliveries. They are also used by broadcasters such as the BBC for filming. The US Air Force collected so much data from drones during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it employed 65,000 people just to process the information, while police in Texas use drones than can carry small weapons, including tasers. Advertisement Association flight safety specialist Steve Landells, a former RAF and BA pilot, said: 'Frankly it was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don't understand the risks and the rules. Much more education of drone users and enforcement of the rules is needed to ensure our skies remain safe from this threat.' The BA jet was between five and ten minutes away from landing at Heathrow's Terminal 5 when it was struck at 12.50pm. A CAA spokesman said: 'It is totally unacceptable to fly drones close to airports and anyone flouting the rules can face severe penalties including imprisonment. 'Drone users have to understand that when taking to the skies they are potentially flying close to one of the busiest areas of airspace in the world a complex system that brings together all manner of aircraft, including passenger aeroplanes, military jets, helicopters, gliders and light aircraft. Anyone operating a drone must do so responsibly and observe all relevant rules and regulations.' The strike is the latest in a string of incidents involving drones in British airspace. A report last month by the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) found there were 23 near misses between drones and aircraft between April and October last year. They included one on September 22, when a Boeing 777 that had just taken off reported that a drone narrowly passed down its righthand side. THE 'DRONECODE': RULES SET OUT BY AVIATION AUTHORITY ON DRONES The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sets the rules on the flying of drones under what is called an 'air navigation order'. The authority states a drone should never be flown near an airport or close to an aircraft, adding that it is a criminal offence 'to endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight'. Flying a drone near an airport could lead to a five-year prison sentence under current laws. The rules set out by the CAA's air navigation order state: An unmanned aircraft must never be flown beyond the normal unaided 'line of sight' of the person operating it - this is generally measured as 1,640ft horizontally or 400ft vertically An unmanned aircraft fitted with a camera must always be flown at least 164ft distance away from a person, vehicle, building or structure An unmanned aircraft fitted with a camera must not be flown within 492ft of a congested area or large group of people, such as a sporting event or concert For commercial purposes, operators must have permission to fly a drone from the CAA Advertisement Investigators concluded that the drone was at the same height and within 80ft of the jet. A report was made to police but the drone operator was not traced. Days later, a drone was flown within yards of an Airbus A319 landing at Heathrow. The jet was flying at 500ft and was on its final approach when the drone was spotted. WHERE YOU ON THE PLANE? Were you on the plane? Contact James Dunn on 0203 615 1524 or email james.r.dunn@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement Commercial airline pilot Mike Wood said drones were becoming a growing problem. 'A drone could cause an engine failure if flown into it,' he said. 'That's obviously a concern, though airlines are able to fly on one engine. There is a real danger if one hit a light aircraft which could cause a crash.' Philippa Oldham, from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, told the BBC last month that the risk would depend on several factors, such as the size and speed of the drone and the location of the collision. 'The impact potentially could be anything from nothing to a destruction of an engine,' she said. The route of the flight, which took off from Geneva at 10.50am and landed in London at 12.31pm, is shown British Airways said the aircraft was examined by engineers and cleared for its next flight following the incident (stock image) Tony Tyler, of the International Air Transport Association, said: 'We cannot allow [drones] to be a hindrance or safety threat to commercial aviation. There is no denying that there is a real and growing threat to the safety of civilian aircraft.' A Heathrow spokesman said last night: 'BA flight 727 from Geneva reported being struck by an unknown object as it entered its final approach towards Heathrow. The aircraft landed safely at Terminal 5. 'The safety and security of our operation is our absolute priority and we are working with British Airways and the Met police who are carrying out a full investigation.' A BA spokesman added: 'Our aircraft landed safely, was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight. 'Safety and security are always our first priority and we will give the police every assistance with their investigation.' EYES IN THE SKY: HOW DRONES HAVE CAUSED A SERIES OF NEAR MISSES The UK Airprox Board has recorded several cases of drones almost causing mid-air crashes with aircraft in the past year. Many passenger jets have avoided collisions by a matter of feet either by chance or by the pilot spotting the unmanned crafts and taking evasive action. Here are some of the most notable incidents: August 12, 2015 - An Airbus 310 approaching landing at Heathrow reported seeing a drone below his aircraft. October 4, 2015 - The pilot of Boeing 777 reported seeing an unidentified object, likely to be a drone, pass very close to the left-hand side of the aircraft while landing at Heathrow. The object was only visible for a matter of seconds and no risk assessment was made. October 13, 2015 - The crew of an Airbus 380 reported a 2m-large drone taking evasive action after it was seen around 70m away while climbing to 2000ft upon departure from Heathrow. November 28, 2015 - An Airbus 319 flying above Richmond Park while coming in to land at Heathrow noticed a drone flying 'rapidly' from west to east between 400 and 900ft below the plane. It was decided the drone's flight path was of 'no risk' and the landing continued. The same day a drone was mistaken for a bird by the crew of an Airbus 321 landing at Gatwick, with the pilot noticing it at 100ft from touchdown but only realising what it was at 30ft from the ground. There was no collision but the pilot reported there would not have been time to take evasive action. December 6, 2015 - A drone passed overhead of an Embraer ERJ170 passenger plane by around 100ft while on final approach at London City Airport. Another aircraft following the same landing pattern changed its approach when the incident was flagged up. Advertisement An 18-year-old waitress just over a month away from high school graduation received a $1,000 tip from a customer who wanted to help her with college expenses. Alesha Palmer of Kemp, Texas, was working at Vetoni's Italian restaurant in Gun Barrel City on April 9 when she received the generous tip. The Kemp High School senior, who works at the restaurant approximately 30 hours a week, is trying to save up to attend Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas to study business. She then wants to work toward a culinary arts degree and open a pastry shop. Alesha Palmer of Kemp, Texas, was working at Vetoni's Italian restaurant in Gun Barrel City on April 9 when she received the generous tip. The high school senior said she was telling a table of regulars about her college plans and an anonymous guest overheard and tipped her the $1,000 Palmer, who has worked at the restaurant for a little over a month, was serving two tables when she received the tip - a table of restaurant regulars and the soon-to-be generous tipper. While speaking to the regulars, she told them about her college plans. 'They were asking about my college plans and told them my parents were helping,' Palmer told KLTV. The other man was sitting alone and chatted with the restaurant owner for a while when he went to pay his bill. Worrying she had done something wrong, when the man left she asked the owner if she had done something wrong. 'He turned over the receipt and I kind of just stood there wide eyed and I just started crying and I'm in the middle of the restaurant,' Palmer told KLTV. Palmer has worked at the restaurant for just over a month. The high school senior is just weeks away from graduation Palmer is saving up to attend Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas to study business. She then wants to get a culinary arts degree and open a pastry shop Days after she received the huge tip, Palmer said she was still in shock. 'I mean, this can't be happening, this has to be a dream, not in little Cedar Creek area,' Palmer said. 'I would like to thank him deeply and utterly. It's not every day that you come across someone that's as sweet and generous.' Vetoni's manager Jennifer Brown said it's the largest tip a waitress has ever received at the restaurant. The closest to Palmer's tip is $100. 'It restores your faith; there is just so much bad going on and you always hear of all the bad. You don't hear the good,' Brown told KLTV. Palmer said she plans on keeping the receipt as a reminder for when she's stressed or having a bad day. 'It's definitely going to help me when I have a hard day and I'm stressed out I'm just going to think that in the back of my mind,' Palmer said. All mums and dads worry about their children banging their heads in case it causes a serious injury. But such an accident can also harm the bond between parent and child, scientists warn. Around one in 50 under-fives a year suffer concussion, but there has been little research into its effects. Now a study has found it can damage the youngsters social interactions including with their parents. Head trauma in children can alter their relationships with parents, a new study has found (file picture) As good parent-child relationships are linked to better social skills later in life, the scientists warn this could have a lasting impact on the child. The Canadian team therefore warn parents to watch closely for behavioural changes in their child if they suffer a minor brain injury. Researcher Miriam Beauchamp, a psychiatrist at Montreal University, said: The young brain is particularly vulnerable to injury because the skull is still thin and malleable. In the months following the injury one of the first visible signs of social difficulties in young children is a decline in their relationship with their parents. The study said the rate of concussion is particularly high in under-fives around 2 per cent of them a year. It is thought that concussion at this age could slow the development of new abilities, such as communication skills. The study, published in the Journal of Neuropsychology, looked at 130 children aged 18 months to five years some who had concussion, others with an orthopaedic injury such as a fracture and a control group of healthy youngsters. The scientists assessed parent-child interactions for six months by filming families doing typical activities such as playing and snack time. They also asked parents to evaluate their relationship with their child in questionnaires. They found the quality of these interactions for youngsters who had had concussion were significantly reduced compared to the other children. The studys lead author Gabrielle Lalonde, a doctoral student, said: Given parent-child interactions are influenced by behavioural dispositions of both the parent and the child, more research is required to identify the factors underlying this decline. It may be due to specific neurological mechanisms, to changes in parenting or to stress caused by the injury. Identifying these factors will allow them to develop more targeted ways to help families, she added. A lifetime of strenuous outdoor exercise may be the secret to preventing hip injuries later in life. Research conducted on Swedish farmers found that those who worked the land had a 40 per cent lower risk of suffering from a broken hip as they got older. Scientists believe this may be due to their lifestyle of manual labour. A lifetime of strenuous outdoor exercise may be the secret to preventing hip injuries later in life (file image) And the impact of bailing hay and carrying feed could also have implications for public health. Due to the ever aging population, up to 75,000 hip fractures happen in the UK each year - creating an annual cost of around 2 billion. The injury is also more common in women as they have a higher incidence of osteoporosis. Hip fractures from falls are one of the most common reasons for elderly people to end up in hospital, and they can lead to serious complications, as well as compromising victims' independence. Dr Helena Johansson, of the University of Sheffield, said: 'We need to be concerned about hip fractures as they are the most serious and disabling osteoporosis related fractures. 'Given the many, complex factors that affect fracture risk, it is not possible to pinpoint a single variable that is associated with lower hip fracture risk. 'However, these findings are interesting in they suggest a lifetime of outdoor, physical activity may be a positive factor when it comes to hip fracture risk.' Hip fractures from falls are one of the most common reasons for elderly people to end up in hospital (file image) Her study of male Swedish farmers published in Osteoporosis International found they have a much lower risk of hip fracture, possibly due to their high levels of physical activity. Sweden is one of the few countries which tracks hip fractures through a national registry so it is possible to see how rates vary according to occupation, economic status, level of education and where patients live, such as in an urban or rural area. Concentrating on farming, an occupation which is characterised by regular, long term outdoor physical activity, Dr Johansson and colleagues analysed all cases of men and women aged 40 years or between 1987 2002. They found there were 100,083 individuals, 4,175 of whom were farmers. For both men and women, the hip fracture risk rose with age, low income, low education, higher latitude and urban location. Research conducted on Swedish farmers found that those who worked the land had a 40 per cent lower risk of suffering from a broken hip as they got older (file image) The study of male Swedish farmers published in Osteoporosis International found they have a much lower risk of hip fracture, possibly due to their high levels of physical activity (file image) The further north people live is linked with weaker bones because of a lack of Vitamin D from sunshine. For male farmers the risk of a hip fracture was 14 per cent lower compared to other occupations, adjusted for age. When also adjusted for rural status of residence, the risk reduction was still 15 per cent lower. But when income, education and latitude were all taken into account the effect was even more marked, with a 39 percent lower risk. For women, being a farmer was not associated with a significant difference in the risk of a broken hip. Sweden is one of the few countries which tracks hip fractures through a national registry so it is possible to see how rates vary according to different factors such as occupation and level of education Killer's lawyer said youngest member of the Manson family, who is 66, is no longer a threat to the public The grandson of a married couple murdered by the Manson family has spoken out to describe his horror after hearing that one of the gang is being tipped for parole. Leslie Van Houten held a pillow over Rosemary La Bianca's face as the Manson murderers stabbed her and her husband, Leno, to death before carving the word 'WAR' in his stomach. The woman, who was 19 at the time of the killings, admitted stabbing Mrs La Bianca after she died and was sentenced to death for murder. On Thursday Van Houten, now 66, was recommended for parole due to her 'good behaviour' inside. Relatives of the victims are hitting out at the verdict, including Tony LaMontagne, grandson of Tony LaBianca. 'It's kind of surreal, to be honest with you, the whole thing,' LaMontagne, 42, told CBS2 on Friday. Scroll down for video Relatives of the victims are hitting out at the verdict, including Tony LaMontagne, grandson of Tony LaBianca Manson family member Leslie Van Houten, 66 (pictured Thursday), has been approved for parole in California, but the daughter of her victims has pleaded for her to be kept in prison Van Houten in her most recent mugshot taken on March 3, 2015 by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 'I get off of the phone from the parole hearing, and the first thing I do is lay down on my couch and start bawling. It's just a flood of emotions.' 'My grandfather was 44 years old. His wife was 38. I'm 44. So, I grew up with these stories about how my grandfather was an old man. He had lived a long life. That would be like if I were to die right now,' he said. He added: 'What type of decision has the parole board actually made? They're making a decision to allow a murderer to come back into your neighborhood, my neighborhood. Last time they were in my neighborhood, they killed my family.' His words come as his mother, Cory La Bianca, plans to meet with California Governor Jerry Brown to appeal for his hand in keeping Van Houten behind bars. Last week Cory spoke to the Los Angeles Times, issuing an appeal to the authorities to keep the killer in jail. 'I very much disagree with the ruling,' Ms La Bianca said. 'We all need to be held responsible for our behavior. The least we can do, for someone who commits a crime against another human being, is to keep them in jail.' She said her 41-year-old son burst into tears while listening to the parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Chino, which deemed Van Houten 'suitable for parole' after years in prison. Van Houten, the youngest member of the Manson cult, has taken 'self-help programs, classes and counselling' and provided an 'insight why she committed the crimes', a spokesman for the Department of Corrections said. The killer denounced Manson and his teachings soon after she was first convicted of murder. Van Houten, who was denied parole in 2013, was not due to be heard by the parole board again until 2018. Van Houten admitted holding a pillow over the head of Rosemary La Bianca (left) while other cult members stabbed her and husband Leno (right) to death as part of a race war Manson believed was about to start However, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Van Houten addressed many of the failings reported by the parole board in 2013 and was granted an early hearing. The case will now be reviewed, which can take up to four months, while the final decision on Van Houten's release will be down to Governor Jerry Brown. A spokesman for the governor said Thursday that it would be premature for his office to comment. 'Maybe Leslie Van Houten has been a model prisoner,' Cory La Bianca said. 'But you know what, we still suffer our loss.' Van Houten in her freshman year of high school in 1964 Speaking about her father, she said: 'He didn't get to live his, and I'll live it for him.' She added that her grandson had recently asked her about her father, leaving her speechless. 'How do you answer that to a six-year-old?' Ms La Bianca said. 'It doesn't end. This doesn't end.' She now intends to appeal to Gov. Brown to demand he intervene and keep Van Houten in jail. Richard Pfeiffer, attorney for Van Houten, told Daily Mail Online: 'The governor deserves a lot of credit for taking a broken parole system and making it work. 'The court system was impossible, so he appointed a board who know what they're doing and only I hope he follows through all the way in this case.' He also said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: 'A lot of people who oppose parole don't know anything about Leslie's conduct. 'Her role was bad. Everyone's was. But they don't know what she's done since then and all of the good she's done.' Van Houten, who launched her first parole attempt in 1979 and has applied for parole 20 times in total, recounted her part in the killing of La Bianca and his wife during her hearing. The former homecoming princess, who described herself as a hippy at the time of the murders, told of how she looked off into the distance until another Manson follower told her to do something before she joined in the stabbing. She described herself as a young woman who was angry at her parents' divorce. During her five-hour testimony, Van Houten described Manson as a 'Christ-like man that had all the answers'. She then went into graphic detail how she held down Rosemary La Bianca and secured a pillow with a lamp cord while another member of the Manson family stabbed her repeatedly. Van Houten (right) has applied for parole a total of 20 times, the first in January 1979. Attorney Richard Pfeiffer (left) said he hoped governor Brown 'follows through all the way in this case' She said: 'I don't let myself off the hook. I don't find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself.' Van Houten has so far spent more than four decades in prison for participating in the killings of wealthy grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife. Parole Commissioner Ali Zarrinnam told Van Houten at the end of the hearing: 'Your behavior in prison speaks for itself. Forty-six years and not a single serious rule violation.' The La Biancas were stabbed numerous times and the word 'WAR' was carved on the stomach of Leno La Bianca. Charles Manson appears in Los Angeles, California court on March 29, 1971 Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to take part in one of the nation's most notorious killings after she descended into a life of drugs and joined Manson's cult in the 1960s. Behind bars, 66-year-old Van Houten has completed college degrees and demonstrated exemplary behavior. The La Biancas were killed a day after other so-called 'Manson family' members murdered actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, and four others. Tate's sister, Debra, has started an online petition opposing parole for Van Houten, saying she failed to show remorse for years after the crimes and can't be trusted. The killings were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war. He dubbed it 'Helter Skelter' after a Beatles song. Lawyer Mr Pfeiffer said in an earlier interview that she presents no danger to the public and should be freed. 'The only violent thing she has ever done in her entire life was this crime and that was under the control of Charles Manson,' he said. 'She is just not a public safety risk, and when you are not a public safety risk, the law says you shall be released.' At her last hearing in 2013, a parole commissioner told Van Houten she had failed to explain how someone as intelligent and well-bred as she could have committed such cruel and atrocious crimes. Van Houten told the panel she had been traumatized by her parents' divorce when she was 14, her pregnancy soon after and her mother's insistence she have an abortion. During the hearing, she apologized to everyone she had harmed. Van Houten did not participate in the Tate killings but went along the next night when the La Biancas were slain. She was 19 at the time. Her defense lawyers portrayed her as a young woman from a good family who had been a homecoming princess and showed promise until she got involved with drugs and was recruited into Manson's cult. Van Houten (pictured right along with fellow Charles Manson cult members Susan Atkins, left, and Patricia Krenwinkel, center) arrives in court in August 1970 for assisting in the murders of Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary Van Houten (pictured left along with fellow Charles Manson cult members Atkins, center, and Krenwinkel, right) arrives in court in November 1970 to tell the judge they want to testify despite the advice of their lawyers Van Houten (pictured right along with fellow Charles Manson cult members Susan Atkins, center, and Patricia Krenwinkel, right) leaves court after being convicted of first degree murder Van Houten (pictured right along with fellow Charles Manson cult members Atkins, left, and Krenwinkel, center) laughs after being sentenced to death for her role in the murders Van Houten (pictured left along with fellow Charles Manson cult members Atkins, right and Krenwinkel, center) arrives in court to hear the formal pronouncement of her death sentence During the penalty phase of her trial, she confessed to joining in stabbing Rosemary La Bianca after she was dead. Van Houten's conviction was overturned on appeal after her lawyer was found dead during the trial. Members of the Manson family took credit for the killing, but it is believed he died in a flash flood. She was retried twice and ultimately convicted in 1978 of two counts of murder and conspiracy. Her first retrial ended in a hung jury, and prior to her conviction in 1978 she was out on $200,000 bond - and even attended the Oscars with a friend. In an interview with filmmaker John Waters, Van Houten was asked what she said to people that night when they asked her if she had seen any of the films. 'If someone brought up one of the nominees, I'd just say, "No, I missed that one" or "I was away when that was playing",' Van Houten said. Manson, 81, and other followers involved in the killings are still jailed. Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles 'Tex' Watson have each been denied parole multiple times, while fellow defendant Susan Atkins died in prison in 2009. Former Manson follower Bruce Davis was approved for parole but Gov. Brown blocked his release in 2014, citing the gravity of his offenses and his refusal to fully accept responsibility for his role in the murders of a stunt man and a musician. It comes as officials draw up plans to send troops to help fight ISIS His visit is designed to shore up Libya's new national unity government British troops may be deployed to war-torn Libya without parliamentary approval, Philip Hammond said yesterday. The Foreign Secretary said 1,000 troops could be sent to Libya as part of an Italian led 6,000 strong deployment. There was no need for a vote by MPs as the troops would be in a non-combat role, he insisted during an unannounced visit to capital Tripoli. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (left) meets Fayez-al-Sarraj (right), the new prime minister of the new national unity government of Libya The news comes after Philip Hammond made an unannounced visit to Libya yesterday as officials drew up plans to send up to 1,000 troops to help fight ISIS in the war-ravaged country. His visit - designed to shore up support for Libya's new UN-backed national unity government - paves the way for fresh British military intervention just five years after UK air strikes helped oust Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi. The north African country has been reigned by chaos since the 'Arab Spring' in 2011, opening up a vacuum for militias to exploit, with ISIS seizing a long stretch of coastline along the Mediterranean. As UK defence chiefs step up plans to support Libya's under-threat unity government, Air Vice Marshal Edward Stringer will fly to Rome to tell commanders the UK could deploy up to 1,000 troops to support a 6,000 strong, Italian-led force in the country. They could be deployed on the ground to protect key buildings, such as hospitals, banks and even the port, although officials insisted they would not be in a combat role. THE PRIME MINISTER WILL KEEP THE RIGHT TO SEND TROOPS TO WAR WITHOUT A COMMONS VOTE The Government will reserve the right to send troops or planes into battle without a Commons vote, Michael Fallon announced today. Ministers studied whether to formalise a 'convention' that MPs should be given a veto on military action in most circumstances. Most MPs accept already that in an emergency, the Prime Minister should keep the right to launch military action and tell MPs later. But many wanted a new law to formalise the current arrangement, which has become standard practice since the 2003 Iraq War but is not underpinned by any official rules. The current debate over Libya and ISIS has thrown focus on the right of the PM to use military force. Mr Fallon said today: 'After careful consideration, the Government has decided that it will not be codifying the Convention in law or by resolution of the House in order to retain the ability of this and future Governments and the Armed Forces to protect the security and interests of the UK in circumstances that we cannot predict, and to avoid such decisions becoming subject to legal action.' Advertisement A defence source said: 'It is not clear yet whether this would be behind the wire or not'. This means they could be deployed to hostile areas. He said they had 'not ruled out' the option of putting troops in the cities in a security-protection role. Today Mr Hammond met Fayez al Sarraj, the prime minister of the new nine-strong Government of National Accord (GNA) administration that is seeking to unite Libya after years of civil war. Mr Hammond's visit was not made public until he arrived for security reasons. He met Mr al Sarraj in the heavily protected naval base in Tripoli, Libya's capital. His visit follows similar visits by Italian, French and German foreign ministers, while the British ambassador returned to the city for the first time since most foreign embassies pulled out in 2014 as it was considered too dangerous to remain. Mr Hammond today committed 10million in further assistance to the struggling GNA, which was only established last month. The additional money includes 1.8million for counter-terrorism and 1.5million for combating the people traffickers smuggling migrants across the Mediterranean into Europe via Libya. Speaking during his visit this morning, Mr Hammond said: 'Britain and its allies fully support Prime Minister Fayez Serraj and his government as they restore peace and stability to the whole of Libya. We stand ready to provide further assistance to Libya and its people,' he said. 'Britain is at the forefront of the international community's efforts to stabilise Libya and is committing an extra 10 million to help the government of national accord strengthen political institutions, the economy, security, and justice. 'This fund builds on our existing support to Libya of 12 million last year for development and humanitarian assistance. 'I welcome the continued efforts of Prime Minister Fayez Serraj and members of the presidency council to make progress on security, rebuilding the economy and restoring public services for the benefit of all Libyans.' Philip Hammond (pictured) today committed 10million in further assistance to the struggling GNA, which was only established last month Air Vice Marshal Edward Stringer will fly to Rome to tell commanders the UK could deploy up to 1,000 troops to the war-ravaged country to help defeat Islamic State (IS) Around 100 British special forces troops are already in Libya helping to protect its current leadership and advising local forces on fighting the increasing IS presence in the country. But there have been growing signs in recent weeks that Nato is gearing up for a much larger intervention in Libya. British and American intelligence offivers are reportedly giving tribal leaders 'suitcases of cash' to stop them opposing an international ground force. The upcoming meeting in Rome comes as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Mr Hammond travel to Luxembourg today today to discuss 'beefing up' Europe's military response to the migrant crisis. Speaking ahead of tonight's meeting, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said this afternoon that it was 'too early' to say what form the military assistance would take. The meeting of foreign and defence ministers will include a video conference with Mr Sarraj. But there have been growing signs in recent weeks that Nato is gearing up for a much larger intervention in Libya. British and American intelligence offivers are reportedly giving tribal leaders 'suitcases of cash' to stop them opposing an international ground force. The upcoming meeting in Rome comes as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond travel to Luxembourg today today to discuss 'beefing up' Europe's military response to the migrant crisis. They will discuss increasing Europe's naval presence off the Libyan coast as part of Operation Sophia - against people smugglers - and are also expected to discuss sending security units to Tripoli. Rescuers help people in the sea after a boat carrying some dozens migrants crashed into rocks as they tried to enter the Italian port of Pantelleria Other missions in the works include bombing Islamic State fighters, training Libyan troops, combating people smugglers and disarming militias - all of which could include British forces. Last night Crispin Blunt, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said the deployment of UK troops without any clear plan would 'almost certainly make things worse'. He said: 'The idea that you could put a training force of that size in the country and it would not be seen as Western intervention is the view of someone living on cloud cuckoo land. 'We would find ourselves a target for those who wish the West ill. 'Unless there is a clear policy objective explaining how troops would deliver the desired outcome, it will almost certainly make things worse.' Under current plans, they would be part of an Italian-led force of 6,000 soldiers that would help to restore peace in Libya, which has descended into chaos since the European-led overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi. A UN-brokered ceasefire has allowed the formation of a 'unity' government intended to replace the two warring administrations - one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk - that have arisen in the last few years. Fresh intervention would be highly controversial given the criticism that has been made of European leaders, including David Cameron, for failing to plan for post-war reconstruction in Libya after 2011. Around 100 British special forces troops are already in Libya helping to protect its current leadership and advising local forces on fighting the increasing IS presence in the country Air Vice Marshal Stringer was due to meet with his Italian and French counterparts this coming Thursday at a so-called 'force sensing conference' where they will cover topics such as Libya and ISIS President Barack Obama described the European action as a 's*** show', and said his own failure to get more involved has been the biggest regret of his term in office. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said there are no immediate plans underway to send UK forces to the country, but MP Crispin Blunt said this is 'nonsense'. He added that the government is being 'less than candid' about its plans. Air Vice Marshal Stringer was due to meet with his Italian and French counterparts this coming Thursday at a so-called 'force sensing conference' where they will cover topics such as Libya. Last night the meeting had to be cancelled due to a diary clash, but will be rescheduled. The official offer of assistance - likely to be around 1,000 British troops - will not be made until a later meeting. EU countries are waiting for Libya's unity government to make a request for help before any western troops are sent to help stem the flow of migrants and bolster security in the region. Currently Britain has one ship, HMS Richmond, in the Mediterranean Sea trying to stop the smuggling gangs profiting from the migrant crisis in Libya. But EU countries are under pressure to do more to stop the flow of migrants to Europe amid warnings another 800,000 people are waiting to catch a boat to Italy. Currently Britain has one ship, HMS Richmond, in the Mediterranean Sea trying to stop the smuggling gangs profiting from the migrant crisis in Libya EU countries are under pressure to do more to stop the flow of migrants to Europe amid warnings another 800,000 people are waiting to catch a boat to Italy An MOD spokesperson said: 'The UK continues to work with international partners on how best to support the new Libyan government. 'All planning has been focussed on training Libyan Security Forces to provide their own security to the Government and Libyan people. 'No decisions have been made about the future deployment of any British military forces.' They could be deployed on the ground to protect key buildings, such as hospitals, banks and even the port, although officials insisted they would not be in a combat role. A defence source said: 'It is not clear yet whether this would be behind the wire or not'. This means they could be deployed to hostile areas. He said they had 'not ruled out' the option of putting troops in the cities in a security-protection role. He said: 'I am not at all happy about what I believe were the real reasons I was the one asked to leave' The president of North Carolina's NAACP chapter was removed from an American Airlines flight after he responded to a passenger who made remarks referring to him as 'those people'. Reverend William Barber said he was removed from a flight from Reagan National Airport in Washington DC headed to Raleigh-Durham on Friday. The passenger criticized Barber's need for two airline seats, even though the minister purchased the two to accommodate his physical disability, the Bradenton Herald reported. No charges were filed according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Scroll down for video Reverend William Barber said he was removed from a flight from Reagan National Airport in Washington DC headed to Raleigh-Durham on Friday after another passenger made disparaging remarks about him The passenger referred to him as 'those people' and criticized Barber's need for two airline seats, even though the minister purchased the two to accommodate his physical disability In a statement, Barber claimed the other passenger said 'he had problems with "those people"' and criticized his need for two seats. The minister, who leads Moral Mondays, a series of civil disobedience protests, said: 'I became more and more uncomfortable, especially since he was behind me. 'The attitude with which he spoke, and my experiences with others who have directed similar harsh, sometimes threatening words, emails, and calls at me, came to my mind.' Barber suffers from a bone-fusion arthritis, and could not turn around to address the other passenger. He stood up to speak 'as one human being to another', but was later told he had to leave the plane after a crew member called the police. 'The American Airlines team at the desk was very gracious,' Barber said. 'Many said they were concerned and some said they did not agree with the decision.' American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller said Sunday that a passenger who didn't follow crew instructions was removed from a flight. Barber said he had traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak at a national interfaith event that launched the 2016 Ecumenical Advocacy Days. He said: 'I am not at all happy about what I believe were the real reasons I was the one asked to leave. Barber stood up to speak 'as one human being to another', but was later told he had to leave the plane. He said: 'I am not at all happy about what I believe were the real reasons I was the one asked to leave' 'My training and experiences with non-violent civil disobedience, and my deep faith, however, made my decision to peacefully comply with the order to get off the plane an easy one.' Barber said he turned the matter over to attorneys. The flight arrived at RDU shortly before midnight, about 40 minutes late, Miller said. According to the Hearld, the North Carolina Republican Party jumped on the opportunity to criticize Barber. Vice Chair Michele Nix said: 'I guess Rev. Barber thinks it's moral to inconvenience other passengers wanting to get home to see their families. After being critical of George Clooney for hosting a pair of fundraisers for Hillary Clinton, today Bernie Sanders struck a more Sen. Bernie Sanders appreciated remarks actor George Clooney made on Meet the Press saying that the level of money in politics is 'obscene.' 'Well, I have a lot of respect for George Clooney's honesty and integrity on this issue,' Sanders told CNN's Dana Bash. Bash pointed out the obvious, that Clooney was raising dollars for Sanders' rival Hillary Clinton, and asked the Vermont senator if he thought the Hollywood actor was backing the wrong horse. 'Well, I think he is,' the senator responded. Scroll down for video Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont complimented actor George Clooney - who hosted a pair of fundraisers for Hillary Clinton's rival Hillary Clinton - for calling the amount of money in politics 'obscene' CNN's Dana Bash asked Sen. Bernie Sanders if he thought actor George Clooney was supporting the wrong Democrat. 'Well, I think he is,' Sanders responded Clooney and his wife Amal hosted a duo of high-dollar fundraisers for Clinton this weekend in California. On Friday night, they dined with the candidate at the San Francisco home of Shervin Pishevar, a Silicon Valley 'super angel' investor. Couples had to fork over and raise $353,400 to sit at the head table, with the minimum ticket going for $33,400. On Saturday, the ticket price was again $33,400 to attend a Clinton fundraiser at the Clooneys Studio City, Los Angeles home. Co-hosts for this event included director Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, longtime Clinton super donor Haim Saban and actress Kate Capshaw, who is married to Spielberg. Sanders was critical of the fundraisers as soon as they were announced, but had nothing but nice things to say about Clooney today. Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared on several Sunday shows, having returned to the states from the Vatican, and spoke at the First Corinthians Baptist Church in Harlem, New York On a warm April day, Sen. Bernie Sanders and his son Levi Sanders (left) traipsed through Brooklyn Bridge Park meeting potential supporters Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped in on picnicking New Yorkers as he walked through Brooklyn Bridge Park. Later he would hold a rally at Prospect Park Sen Bernie Sanders returned to New York City today to campaign in advance of the state's primary, which will be held on Tuesday 'He is right,' Sanders said. 'One of the great tragedies of American life today is the degree to which big money is buying elections, in which elected officials become responsive to the needs of Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributors, rather than the need of ordinary people.' Noting that perhaps Clooney should be backing him instead of the Democratic fronrunner, Sanders complimented the actor for being 'honest enough to say that there is something wrong when few people, in this case wealthy individuals, but in other instances for the secretary, it is Wall Street and powerful special interests, who are able to contribute unbelievably large sums of money.' 'That's not what democracy is about,' Sanders continued. 'That is a movement toward oligarchy.' Sanders used his oft-repeated line, that his campaign contributions average $27, before smacking Clinton once again. 'And you're not going to have a government that represents all of us so long as you have candidates like Secretary Clinton being dependent on big money interests,' Sanders noted. Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke to supporters Sunday afternoon in his home borough of Brooklyn in Prospect Park Beyond complimenting Clooney, Sanders went on a number of the Sunday shows today and then campaigned in New York City with the state's pivotal primary just two days away. He was just returning from a trip to the Vatican, where he briefly met Pope Francis. Sanders needs to win the Empire State, where he grew up before moving to Vermont, by a handful of points to eat away Clinton's current pledged delegate lead. That could be a difficult feat as new numbers out today, coming from a CBS/Yougov poll, show Sanders 10 points behind, with 43 percent of New York Democrats supporting the Vermont senator and another 53 percent supporting the former of secretary of state. Today, Sanders attended a church service in Harlem before traipsing through Brooklyn Bridge Park on an unseasonably warm April day. The candidate ended up at a large rally in Prospect Park in his home borough of Brooklyn. At the rally Sanders reminded his supporters like he does at every rally that he decided against having a super PAC. Severe weather is threatening more than 16million people across the Plains and Colorado as heavy rainfall and snow continues to hit. A snowstorm parked over central Colorado that brought heavy snow to parts of the state and Wyoming and rain to Oklahoma and Texas is dumping more snow in the Rocky Mountains. The wet snow, paired with heavy winds, could cause power outages and downed trees across the area. Forecasters say the ongoing storm will linger on Sunday as the center moves slowly toward the Colorado-Wyoming border. Scroll down for video Maintenance workers guide tractors to clear snow off the pitch before the Colorado Rapids host the New York Red Bulls in an MLS soccer match on Saturday as severe weather continues to hit Colorado and the Plains David Bartholdi clears his driveway after a overnight spring storm in Woodland Park, Colorado, on Saturday Maintenance man Joseph Dominguez uses a shovel to clear snow between the main terminal of Denver International Airport and the adjoining hotel as a severe spring storm hits Colorado on Saturday Higher elevations in Colorado accumulated up to three feet of snow by Sunday morning, and Denver faced between eight inches and a foot, Michael Palmer, a lead meteorologist with the Weather Channel, told NBC News. More than 800 flights out of Denver International Airport were canceled on Sunday due to bad weather, the National Weather Service reported. More than 3million people were still under storm warning in the area on Sunday. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center is warning of possible danger from avalanches as new snow continues to pile up. Just earlier this week, Colorado was seeing balmy temperatures of 70 degrees. The National Weather Service said four feet of snow has fallen between Denver and the Continental Divide, and a winter storm warning remains in effect for southeastern Wyoming, where up to 20 inches of snow was expected along the southern Laramie Range. The National Weather Service said that a 'copious' amount of rain is expected to fall in the Plains, with up to eight inches falling in Texas and western Nebraska. The weather should let up by Sunday afternoon On Monday the temperatures appear to be milder than this weekend, though Montana and South Dakota are still facing snow Freezing temperatures return to Colorado and the Plains on Monday night as Denver sees a low of 29 degrees The storm system has already dropped more than seven inches of rain in Frederick in far southwestern Oklahoma. Palmer said a 'copious' amount of rain is expected to fall in the Plains, with up to eight inches falling in Texas and western Nebraska. About 12million people in the Plains are under flash flood warnings and watches or other severe weather warnings tied to storms. Regions in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska have picked up double the amount of rainfall expected to fall in all of April in just two days. More rain in the area could bring flash flooding, and Texas and Oklahoma could also face tornadoes and large hail, according to Weather. com. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that the Texas State Operations Center was on high alert. By Saturday morning, Accuweather reported nearly a foot had already settled over the mountains of Colorado. Another two feet are on the way, although forecasters have raised the possibility for rain and thunderstorms Corey Christiansen posted this photo to Facebook, writing: 'This was like shoveling a thousand slurpees off my driveway #springsnow #wherestheadvil' 'It is crucial that Texans stay clear of rising waters and heed warnings from state and local officials, who stand ready to assist and support communities impacted as this weather system passes through Texas,' he said. Conditions will taper off by Sunday afternoon, although snow can continue into Tuesday in the mountains of Colorado. Temperatures will remain in the mid-30s on Sunday, gradually increasing each day until Wednesday, which will see a high of 60F in Denver. The 4/20 Denver rally to celebrate the legalization of marijuana in Colorado this weekend was postponed in part due to the weather, KDVR reported. Rappers Lil Wayne and Wiz Khalifa were scheduled to perform at the event, and one attendee left an angry Facebook message on the event page, writing: 'Thanks for the notice 20min late.. The weather isn't even bad. 'Spent $300 on tickets and $30 on Uber and now I'm standing here with my d--k in my hand because you gave no notice.' Maintenance workers use tractors to plow the pitch before the Colorado Rapids host the New York Red Bulls in an MLS soccer match on Saturday Advertisement More than 7,000 people marched through Brussels in a peaceful protest 'against terror and hatred' almost a month after coordinated suicide attacks in the Belgian capital killed 32 and wounded hundreds more. The march, organised by civil society groups, was aimed at displaying a show of unity after the bloodshed. The 6,000 people who set off from the Gare du Nord railway station were joined in the city centre by 1,000 others who started in Molenbeek, a rundown district that has gained an unwelcome reputation as a jihadi haven. Many of the thousands to march through the streets were clutching Belgian flags, flowers and emblems and banners of peace. More than 7,000 people marched through Brussels in a peaceful protest 'against terror and hatred' The peaceful march took place almost a month after coordinated suicide attacks in the Belgian capital killed 32 and wounded hundreds more A woman lays flowers on a memorial to victims of the Brussels attacks - in which 32 were killed - during a march against hate in the Belgian capital 'When our fellow citizens, defenceless civilians, are cut down in a cowardly attack, all citizens should stand up to express their disgust and solidarity,' said Hassan Bousetta, a local councillor from the city of Liege, who helped organise the march. 'It is a moment of reflection, a message of compassion for the victims and a moment when citizens come together,' he said. Carrying a banner in French and Flemish reading '#alltogether against hatred and terror', the main group of marchers was led by families of the victims, followed by representatives from various religious communities. A dozen members of an association for inter-religious dialogue carried a banner with drawings of doves emblazoned with the words, 'Together in peace', while a Muslim group carried a placard reading: 'Love is my religion and my faith.' In the group that set off from Molenbeek, children chanted: 'Daesh [ISIS], off you go, Brussels isn't for you!' Thirty two people were killed in the March 22 bomb attacks which targeted Zaventem airport and a subway train at Maalbeek station, near the European Union (EU) institutions in central Brussels. At the ceremony, the names of the dead were read out before relatives of the dead and witnesses took turns to speak. The 6,000 people who set off from the Gare du Nord railway station were joined in the city centre by 1,000 others who started in Molenbeek The main group of marchers was led by families of the 32 victims killed in coordinated terror attacks in Brussels a month ago, as well as representatives of religious organisations Almost a month before today's march, 32 people were killed in the March 22 bomb attacks which targeted Zaventem airport and a subway train at Maalbeek station Many of the thousands to march through the streets were clutching Belgian flags, flowers and emblems and banners of peace In the group of marchers that set off from Molenbeek, children chanted: 'Daesh [ISIS], off you go, Brussels isn't for you!' Marchers gather at a memorial to victims of the Brussels attacks in the centre of the Belgian capital today 'Our Islam is based on the love of God and love for each other, regardless of one's culture, origin, religion,' said a message from the widower of Loubna Lafquiri, a Belgian-Moroccan mother of three who was killed in the metro blast. Our Islam is based on the love of God and love for each other, regardless of one's culture, origin, religion Loubna Lafquiri, widow of Brussels attack victim In a poignant address to his wife, he wrote: 'My princess, my treasure, my eternal love, I say to you that we will meet again soon.' The bloodshed tore at Belgium's social fabric and stirred anguished debate about the emergence of jihadists among the country's Muslim underclass. On Saturday, Interior Minister Jan Jambon - a Flemish nationalist who has been criticised for his handling of security - said a 'significant section of the Muslim population danced' when the attacks took place. He also accused Muslim residents of Molenbeek of throwing stones and bottles at police during an operation last month to arrest a suspect in connection with November's attacks in Paris. 'This is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil. Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it won't be overnight,' he said. His comments drew fire on Sunday. A woman prepares to lay a flower at a memorial to the victims of the Brussels attacks at the Bourse in Brussels Those in the main group carried a banner in French and Flemish reading '#alltogether against hatred and terror' The names of those killed in the Brussels attacks were read out in Brussels before their relatives and witnesses took turns to speak 'It is abysmal to exploit events in order to sow division,' said Pieter Bouchery, a union official with telephone operator Mobistar. 'To say that Molenbeek is a jihadists' paradise is stupid and not right for the people who live there.' Several Socialist MPs have called on Prime Minister Charles Michel to condemn Jambon's remarks, media reports said. Advertisement Not many people can say theyve seen a terrifying zombie, the Mad Hatter and Albert Einstein all in the same room but pudding lovers from across the country did just that when they attended the Worlds Largest Cake Decorating Show. The event was held at Alexandra Palace in north London and attracted swathes of international cake makers, with hotly contested competitions and a wide range of taster sessions for enthusiasts of all things sponge to enjoy. People could also feast their eyes on over 100 exhibitions and browse stands with ornately crafted treats on display. However, why for many the event was a chance to peruse the stalls and no doubt, sample some of the many tasty treats on offer for others it was a time to test their baking and decorating prowess. Entrants competed for a long list of coveted awards from professional judges, led by Cake Internationals Chairman of Judges, Brian Taylor. A number of themes were represented, including literature, with nods to Romeo and Juliet and Alice in Wonderland, religion, culture, cult figures and fantasy. One of the most eye-catching cakes was a treat resembling the head of a White Walker the terrifying zombie-like creatures that cause death and destruction in the novels and TV series, Game of Thrones. While all bakers and decorators deserved plaudits for their incredible attention to detail, commitment, and creativity the winner of the illustrious Best in Show award was Dawn Butler for her excellent Albert Einstein cake. This cake resembling a White Walker from the fantasy series Game of Thrones was one of the most eye-catching efforts at the show Genius: The winner of the Best in Show award was Dawn Butler for this excellent cake showing Albert Einstein pulling his iconic pose Varied: There were a number of cultural themes represented at the exhibition and with this cake, an Asian market scene is depicted Traditional: While it is not clear who this detailed cake is supposed to depict, clearly a lot of effort has been put in to recreating the Elizabethan ruff the man is wearing On the run: The baker of this creative effort has clearly been touched by the cult-crime story of 1930s bank robbers, Bonnie and Clyde As well as carefully creating two decorative figurines of the outlaw lovers, the baker has even mocked up a victim lying at the cake's base Gruesome: While this cake is no doubt tasty, it looks less than appetising - perhaps the teeth showing through flesh could put people off Whoever decorated this cake clearly has an eye for detail, with the ornate nature of the beautiful butterfly wings and matching skirt Youth: As well as fantasy and nature, children was another popular theme at the expo and this cake shows a little girl in her bedroom Souvenir: Some cake fans couldn't resist a quick snap at the mammoth exhibition and captured shots of an incredible dwarf creation Childhood memories were represented with this fantastic effort as Beatrix Potter favourite, Jemima Puddle-Duck stands pride of place Under the sea: Judges spent hours pouring over the entries including this interesting nautically themed cake, resembling a mermaid Novels: Other classics from the world of children's literature made appearances including Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Crazy creations: The eccentric Mad Hatter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was beautifully recreated with this extravagant cake Star-crossed: Homage to the works of William Shakespeare also featured among the plethora of tasty treats, including a tribute to his tragedy Romeo and Juliet Popular: The Worlds Largest Cake Decorating Show attracts swathes of visitors every year, who enjoy perusing the stalls and tucking into the taster sessions While there were plenty of unconventional creations on offer, there was also a selection of traditional cakes for people to enjoy As well as entering competitions and trying out tasty treats, visitors could also enjoy a number of decorating workshops at the event Fiery: A terrifying dragon protects its haul of golden goblets and coins on this colourful fantasy-themed cake A man who allegedly robbed a Genoa Township bank while dressed as a woman has been arrested and charged with armed robbery, Michigan State Police announced Friday. Brian Dewayne Ali Jr is alleged to have entered the PNC Bank on April 4 wearing a wig, a red jacket and a dowdy scarf before brandishing a handgun and what appeared to be a bomb and fleeing with an undisclosed amount of money. But if police are right, the cunning disguise proved useless when they arrested him Thursday, Detroit Free Press reported Suspect: Brian Dewayne Ali Jr (left) is suspected of being the man (right) who robbed a bank in Genoa Township, Michigan, while dressed in a woman's clothing and wig on April 4 Bombshell: The robber is alleged to have used a handgun and something that appeared to be a bomb when he took an undisclosed sum of money from the bank Police told the paper that Ali was tracked down over the course of two weeks as police conducted search warrants at multiple occasions to gather evidence, including cash believed to have been taken during the robbery. Additional details could not be released as the investigation is ongoing. The robbery occurred at about 9:20am on April 4, after which the robber drove off in a blue Ford Mustang. Following the incident, the bank had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Ali was arrested without incident Thursday and arraigned Friday on five counts of armed robbery and four counts each of bank robbery and unlawful imprisonment. He is currently being held on a $1.5 million bond. Hillary Clinton's senate campaign finance director Gabrielle Fialkoff was named in the papers, too Seng was involved in a fundraising scandal during the Clinton administration and Giustra has donated millions to the Clinton Foundation Billionaires Ng Lap Seng and Frank Giustra were both named on the list The Clintons have been linked to numerous people named in the Bill and Hillary Clinton have been linked to numerous people named in the Panama Papers, it has been revealed. The former president and the Democratic presidential front-runner denounced thousands of off-shore bank accounts as 'outrageous tax havens' for the ultra-wealthy when the data first came to light. However, it is now clear the Clintons are connected to many of the people named from finance directors of campaigns to friends. 'Now some of this behavior is clearly against the law, and everyone who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable. Bill and Hillary Clinton have been linked to numerous people named in the Panama Papers, even though the couple denounced the off-shore 'tax havens' 'But its also scandalous how much is actually legal,' Hillary said about the scandal. Gabrielle Fialkoff, who served as Clintons finance director during her first campaign for the Senate in New York, is one of the people who is believed to have used law firm Mossack Fonseca to set up an off-shore account. Fialkoff also has connections to New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and is director of New York City's Office of Strategic Partnership. The Chagoury Group, an international developer based in West Africa pledged $1 billion in projects to the Clinton Foundation, the New York Post reported. The group appeared to named, too. Also named was Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, Canadian billionaire Frank Giustra and Marc Rich. Seng was involved with a fundraising scandal during the Clinton administration, Giustra donated $100 million to the Clinton Foundation and Rich was pardoned by Clinton when he was president. While the Clintons themselves are not named in the Panama Papers, donors to the Clinton Foundation, former campaign advisers and a man who was pardoned when Bill Clinton was president Nearly 40 years' worth of archives from Mossack Fonseca have been pored over by hundreds of journalists around the world since being given to a German reporter a year ago. They have resulted in the so-called Panama Papers: a series of reports exposing politicians, celebrities and some criminals who used Mossack Fonseca's services to stash assets in offshore companies. Mossack Fonseca's founders, lawyers Ramon Fonseca and Juergen Mossack, insist they did nothing illegal. They stress that offshore companies in themselves are not illicit - and they were not responsible for any activities their clients did with the entities. Tens of thousands of California voters, including Demi Moore and Emma Stone, mistakenly registered as members of a conservative minor political party that opposes gay marriage and abortion. A survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times found that nearly 73 percent of those enrolled in the American Independent Party, which has 472,000 members, may have chosen it by mistake. Of the 500 members who were surveyed, fewer than 4 percent could correctly identify their own registration with the conservative party, believing they had merely registered as an independent. Those included the likes of Moore and Stone, as well as Big Bang Theory actress Kaley Cuoco, Sugar Ray Leonard and Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick. Demi Moore and Patrick Schwarzenegger are just two of a number of celebrities who mistakenly registered with the conservative minor political party The American Independent Party A survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times found that nearly 73 percent of those enrolled in the American Independent Party, which has 472,000 members, may have chosen it by mistake during voter registration Moore was among Hollywood celebrities with known Democratic leanings listed as members. She has contributed money to and campaigned for President Barack Obama. Her registration as an AIP member is wrong, a representative said. 'Demi Moore is not, nor has ever been, a member of the American Independent Party,' the representative told the Times. Patrick Schwarzenegger selected the American Independent Party when he registered to vote in 2013. A family spokesman said the 22-year-old plans to change his registration. Cuoco said she was taking immediate steps to remove her name as a member of the party. The American Independent Party was founded in 1967 by segregationist George Wallace. It is against gay marriage and abortion 'The views of this party do not accurately reflect my personal beliefs and I am not affiliated with any political party,' she said. Stone and Leonard plan to re-register before the June election, representatives told the paper. Six political parties are listed in alphabetical order on Californias voter registration card. The American Independent Party is at the top, followed by Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, Republican and Other. There is also the option not to 'disclose' a political party preference and register with one of the six parties. It is only this option that allows a voter to be considered an independent. The American Independent Party's roots date to 1967 when segregationist George Wallace launched his second run for the White House. Wallace famously tried to stop the University of Alabama from being racially integrated on the orders of President John F Kennedy when he was governor of the state in 1963. During his inaugural speech after being sworn into office, Wallace said: 'I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.' Wallace, who had run as a Democrat in 1964, helped create the party and ran on its ticket. Today, that party exists only in California. The American Independent Party said it is no longer segregationist. 'What we are now is a conservative, constitutionalist party,' said Markham Robinson, the party's executive committee chairman. Big Bang Theory actress Kaley Cuoco and Emma Stone are also among the celebrities with mistakenly enrolled in the party, along with tens of thousands of other Californians Along with supporting a 'pro-life Constitution' and believing that marriage between a man and woman is a 'God-ordained contract', the party also supports building a fence along the entire US border. More than 50 percent of those surveyed in the Times poll said they wanted to leave the party after they heard excerpts of it's platform. But the mistaken registration could prevent people from casting votes in the state's June 7 presidential primary, considered to be California's most competitive in recent years. Republicans have a closed primary this year, but Democrats will allow voters who registered with 'no party preference' - true independents - to cast a ballot. But if a voter is registered with the American Independent Party, they will only be allowed to vote for candidates on that party's ballot. On a hot day in Agra, when the temperature hit 106f and the sun beat down mercilessly from a cloudless Indian sky, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did the unthinkable. They chose to pose at the Taj Mahal on what has become known as Dianas bench the spot where Williams mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, famously and purposely set out to show the world that she felt abandoned and alone in a loveless marriage. What were they thinking? For nearly 25 years that image has been seared in the public consciousness as a symbol of Dianas deep unhappiness, caused according to her own narrative by her husband Prince Charless enduring infidelity with Camilla Parker Bowles. This carefully arranged photo-opportunity in 1992 was her tacit signal to the world that her heart was broken by forces beyond her control. Scroll down for video Pictured: Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge recreate his mother's famous pose at the Taj Mahal And although she did not know it herself, it was also the beginning of the end. A few months later the royal couple separated, four years later they were divorced, the following summer Diana was dead. If there is one photograph that reflects the sadness which went before and the heartache that was to follow, it is this celebrated image, so freighted with meaning: Diana the queen of hearts alone and smiling bravely amid the marbled grandeur of the worlds most famous monument to love. It seems to have been a very deliberate decision by Prince William to open these terrible old wounds and pose with his wife in exactly the same spot. As the Mails Richard Kay revealed on Saturday, the idea was to lay to rest the ghosts of his mothers unhappiness. Yet what purpose could it serve, except to remind everyone what a miserable time Diana had when she was a wife of Windsor? Furthermore, it would and did encourage further comparisons between the Duchess of Cambridge and the woman whose shadow falls across every facet of her life. In the end, the couple went ahead with the bench shot because they wanted, said the Duke, to create some memories of our own. One can see that he meant well, that his instincts were admirable. He hoped the newer, happier photographs of the loved-up Cambridges would secure their own place in history. However, that is not what happened. Not at all. For the second Kates shapely bottom hit the Taj Mahal bench, she was once more in the unenviable position of being judged and assessed in terms of her late mother-in-law. A hellish enough prospect for any woman, but a nightmare if your mother-in-law just happens to be Princess Diana, one of the most adored royals of all time. Contrasted to the brilliance of Dianas sheer star power, Kate will always come off second best. That is not necessarily a criticism of Kate for what woman would not? Thats why I think it is unfair for courtiers to concoct such contrived royal scenarios, which whip up interest and invite the comparison. See more of the latest news updates from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's India tour Princess Diana was pictured on a bench in front of the Indian landmark in 1992 as her marriage to Prince Charles unravelled Far from setting a happier new agenda, the photo-opportunity gave newspapers and TV stations across the globe a perfectly valid reason to run the old and new Taj Mahal photographs together. Like the flick of a monsters tail in a swamp, it dredged up a lot of old hurts, each of them bubbling to the surface in a most unhelpful way. For a start, it seems hard to imagine that Prince Charles or indeed Camilla was entirely thrilled that the world was reminded yet again of his infidelity all those years ago. Everyone was also reminded how Charles had promised to take his bride to the great Indian monument to love then miserably abandoned her while he went to address businessmen in Delhi. Yet while Prince Charles may have cause to feel aggrieved, it was all so much worse for Kate. Some might think it would be more obliging to the Duchess of Cambridge if William and his team of courtiers and advisers thought twice before throwing the poor girl into the abyss of always, always, always being compared to Diana. Particularly in this gilded world of royal protocols and traditions, there is no escape. There are times when it must be suffocating in the extreme. When in London, the Cambridges live in Kensington Palace, to which Diana is so inextricably linked, not least because of the sea of flowers laid outside its gates after her death. The Duchess is ferried to and from formal events in carriages and limousines that once transported Diana, and is encouraged to wear tiaras in which Diana once dazzled. Most overwhelmingly of all, on her ring finger she wears the sapphire and diamond engagement ring that once belonged to her mother-in-law, given to her by William when she accepted his proposal. Kate will do well to escape the shadow of her late mother-in-law, writes JAN MOIR This was my way of keeping her close to it all, he once explained. One wonders what his wife really thinks about there being three of them in this marriage, too. The rigours and constraints of royal life are bad enough, but under the weight of such history, the Duchess of Cambridge is never allowed to forge her own identity. S he is instead sentenced to forever being a shadow of someone who went before, someone whose allure and magnetism she can never match. Diana is the ghost in Kates royal life who is never quite laid to rest. Perhaps that is exactly what William wants but is it entirely fair on his young wife? In the past, Ive criticised the Cambridges for being boring. In my opinion, they trundle around the world as bland as a pair of country mice, terrified of doing or saying anything interesting. Even at the Taj Mahal, William could only mumble: Its a beautiful place, stunning designs in there. He didnt even put his arm around Kate for the photograph. Meanwhile, Kate opined it was the perfect way to celebrate their forthcoming wedding anniversary. Honestly. Youd think they had just toured a bingo hall in Cheam instead of one of the wonders of the world. Yet while no one could match Dianas ability to capture the moment, Kate does have a charm of her own. This tour to India and Bhutan has garnered widespread positive coverage, and in many ways proved she is a terrific duchess. She never looks shy, grumpy or fed up in the way her husband often does. And while the Royal Family was scared of Dianas capriciousness and influence, Kate is entirely different. She is steady and serene and has the rare gift in royal circles of looking genuinely thrilled to meet everyone who crosses her path. Thats why stunts such as the one at the Taj Mahal ultimately do her no favours; a duchess sent to do the job of a princess, an unwilling lamb to the slaughter. They had washed the bench, put a white cloth on top, made it all as regal as possible. Kate sat there, her knees touching her husbands, her pose an echo of one a quarter of a century earlier, the sun glinting off the sapphire on her hand. Collingwood AFL chief executive Gary Pert has defended Grant Hackett's behaviour after the Olympic gold medallist was accused of assaulting another passenger before he was pictured slumped in a wheelchair when he was escorted off the plane. Gary Pert, CEO of the AFL club, said he was sitting next to the swimming legend on Sunday when Hackett was accused of tweaking a passenger's nipple 'quite forcefully' on a Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Melbourne. He said the accusation Hackett, 35, assaulted a fellow plane passenger when the man reclined his chair had been 'completely blown out of proportion', Pert told Triple M's Hot Breakfast radio on Monday morning. Scroll down for video Gary Pert, CEO of Collingwood AFL club, has defended Grant Hackett after the swimmer allegedly tweaked a passenger's nipple 'quite forcefully' before he was allegedly escorted from the plane slumped in a wheelchair Hackett, 35, was detained and questioned by Federal Police over the incident on the Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Melbourne on Sunday morning 'Clearly Grant was having some issues on the flight. I'm sure he might have had a drink before he got on the flight.' 'He wasn't aggressive. In fact, the majority of the flight he was pretty well passed out.' Pert confirmed a passenger had put his seat back, but said although Hackett 'wasn't happy' about it, he had merely 'appeared to reach forward and touch him on the back'. 'I can't talk on behalf of how the other passenger felt about that, but certainly there was no assault or major altercation. 'To be quite honest, Grant was quite incapacitated at the time to do much more than be able to tap him.' Collingwood CEO Gary Pert (pictured) confirmed a passenger had put his seat back, but said although Hackett 'wasn't happy' about it, he had merely 'appeared to reach forward and touch him on the back' Pert said he had helped Hackett off the plane when it became apparent he was in 'quite a bit of trouble', apparently due to alcohol. A photo broadcast by Seven News is believed to show the three-time Olympic gold medallist slumped over a wheelchair after he was escorted out of the plane at Melbourne Airport. Hackett has been questioned by Federal Police over the incident. The business class passenger, who was sitting in front of Hackett, has spoken about how he felt 'violated' when the swimmer 'groped his chest' during the row. 'There was no altercation I was sexually assaulted by that man,' the passenger told the Herald Sun. 'As I reclined my chair he grabbed it and yanked it back. Then he put his hand through and groped my chest and tweaked my nipple quite forcefully.' The young executive from Sydney, who was travelling on the flight with his partner, said that they both turned around and asked the swimmer what he was doing. 'Mr Hackett then stroked my arm and said: "It's OK, it's all right".' Hackett, who recently missed out on qualification for the Rio Games, allegedly yelled abuse at the passenger and grabbed the man by the chest Hackett, who recently missed out on qualification for the Rio Games, was then allegedly restrained by flight crew and escorted off the flight at Melbourne Airport. Witnesses on board said the former Olympic champion 'smelt of alcohol' on the flight. Australian Federal Police told Daily Mail Australia that officers were requested to attend an arrival gate at Melbourne Airport on Sunday morning, and that a 35-year-old man had been detained. No charges have been laid, but an investigation into the incident is ongoing. Virgin Australia confirmed an incident took place, however the statement added it would not comment further to 'respect the privacy of passengers and cabin crew'. The alleged assault comes days after the father-of-two fell short in a comeback attempt when he failed to qualify for the Australian Olympic team. Hackett was one of the guest speakers at the Crows' Chairman's Function on Saturday night, which was hosted by TV presenter Troy Gray. The swimmer has been approached for a comment by Daily Mail Australia. GRANT HACKETT'S POST-SWIMMING WOES PENTHOUSE TRASHING: A drunken domestic meltdown after Derby Day celebrations in 2011 was the first example of a dark side. His wife Candice Alley called police after Hackett reportedly went on a rampage through their apartment, smashing furniture and photo frames and upending a grand piano. Westpac dumped him as a brand ambassador after the incident, while a children's charity also cut ties. BITTER DIVORCE: Hackett was kicked out of the marital home in 2012 following a drunken night out after the Logies. His high-profile marriage to pop star Alley ended in flames with both sides battling over prenuptial agreements and custody of their twins, Charlize and Jagger. LOST IN THE CASINO: Disoriented and drugged up on sleeping pills, Hackett was photographed in 2014 wandering the foyer of Crown Casino barefoot and barely dressed, while searching for his four-year-old son who had gone missing. REHAB: Hackett checked into rehab-for-the-stars facility, The Meadows in Arizona, for five weeks in 2014 to kick his addiction to the powerful Stilnox medication, a hangover from his competition days. Upon his return to Australia, Hackett told media he was ready to get back on track with his life. INFLIGHT INCIDENT: Anger issues erupted again in April 2016 on an interstate flight, where the swimmer reportedly groped and tweaked the nipple of another passenger and yelled abuse. Police met Hackett at the terminal where he was questioned. The incident throws into jeopardy Hackett's role as mentor to the Rio Olympics swimming team. Advertisement Hackett has reportedly been detained at Melbourne Airport by Australian Federal Police officials Hackett is one of the most successful swimmers in Australian history, and has held world records in the 200m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle Hackett was spotted wandering round Melbourne's Crown casino half-naked in February 2014 after taking the sleeping pill Stilnox Hackett said the 2012 breakdown of his marriage to Candice Alley (pictured together) took a 'physical, mental and emotional' toll on him Hackett (pictured) has also been in negotiations to join Channel 7's Olympics broadcast team Hackett, 35, was flying in first-class with Virgin Australia when he allegedly got into an altercation with a passenger Johnny Depp's wife Amber Heard was handed a one-month good behaviour bond and fined $1,000 after she pleaded guilty to falsifying border protection documents. Two other charges of illegal importation brought against Heard, 29, were dropped in a Gold Coast court on Monday due to lack of evidence after she failed to declare the couple's two dogs on her arrival into Australia last year. A conviction was not recorded against Heard after her lawyers argued it would impact on her work as an actress and the bond included a $1,000 recognisance. Before Heard was sentenced, Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan was told that the actress failing to declare Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo had been 'a tired, terrible mistake'. And it seems jet lag got the better of the couple again when Heard had to elbow her snoozing husband Depp, 52, during her defence team's statements on Monday afternoon. Scroll down for video Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard leaving court on the Gold Coast where she pleaded guilty to falsifying border protection documents. She was given a one-month good behaviour bond and fined $1,000 Heard was given a one-month good behaviour bond and fined $1,000 (pictured with Depp arriving at court) Depp and his wife who pleaded guilty after she brought her pet dogs on their private jet into Australia last year A large media contingent swarmed as the couple arrived at Southport Magistrates Court at 8.50am on Monday. Two charges of illegal importation against Heard were dropped Previously a spokeswoman for Sydney law firm Ashurst, which is representing Heard, refused to confirm on Sunday whether the celebrity couple would actually appear 'Heard's defence still on his feet... Johnny Depp keeps closing his eyes.. Amber has elbowed him,' 7News journalist Bianca Stone tweeted from the Gold Coast courthouse. 'Pretty certain Amber Heard just had to elbow husband Johnny Depp to wake him up during lawyer's submissions,' AAP journalist Ed Jackson said. The court reopened at 11am after the case was adjourned following Heard's guilty plea so Ms Callaghan could look over the evidence. A video made by Heard expressing her remorse for her actions and her respect for Australia's strict quarantine laws was shown to the court. The 40-second video also featured Depp and appeared to have been shot in their Gold Coast hotel room. 'If you disrespect Australian law, they will tell you firmly,' Depp said in the video in apparent reference to Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce. Heard, 29, was accused of sneaking Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo into the country last May while Depp was on the Gold Coast filming the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie The incident sparked global headlines when Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said the dogs had better 'bugger off' back to the US or he'd arrange to have them put down Heard and Depp had their security team at hand to keep media at bay Heard was facing charged for allegedly breaching Australia's quarantine laws Heard's lawyer Jeremy Kirk told Southport Magistrates Court the Hollywood actress was jet lagged and anxious about her husband's injured hand when she flew into Australia in April last year. AMBER HEARD AND JOHNNY DEPP'S APOLOGY VIDEO Amber Heard: Australia is a wonderful island with a treasure trove of unique plants, animals and people. Johnny Depp: It has to be protected. Amber Heard: Australia is free of many pests that are commonplace around the world. That is why Australia has to have such strong biosecurity laws. Johnny Depp: Australians are just as unique - both warm and direct. When you disrespect Australian law, they will tell you firmly. Amber Heard: I am truly sorry Pistol and Boo were not declared. Protecting Australia is important. Johnny Depp: Declare everything when you come to Australia. Thanks. Advertisement The lawyer also said his client usually left travel arrangements and documents to the couple's staff. He said she believed everything had been taken care of in regards to the dogs when she arrived in the country and she honestly didn't need to declare the animals. 'My client never had any intention to conceal the fact the dogs were in Australia,' Mr Kirk said. 'She has made a tired, terrible mistake,' commonwealth prosecutor Peter Callaghan SC earlier told the court. Mr Callaghan said regardless of Heard's state of mind, or arrangements, she was ultimately responsible for what was put on her arrival card. 'The laws apply to everyone... no one is entitled to put their legal entitlements to one side,' he said. The court also heard the actress had offered to plead guilty to one charge of falsifying border protection documents five months ago but this was rejected by prosecutors,The Courier Mail reported. By pleading guilty to falsifying border protection documents, Heard faced a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $10,200 fine, according to The Guardian. But a Gulfstream V private jet, which had been used by the couple, touched down on the Gold Coast on Sunday The pair pictured leaving the Gold Coast Courthouse on Monday afternoon following Heard's sentencing Police line up outside the court in anticipation of Heard and Depp's arrive at Southport Magistrates Court Jennie Sherman brought her dog, Tia, to Southport Magistrates Court in a show of support for Depp and Heard Ms Sherman speaking with media outside the court with her pup in tow Earlier, the Hollywood pair arrived at court where the actress was scheduled to face court at 9am. A large media contingent swarmed as the glamorous couple arrived Southport Magistrates Court at 8.50am. Depp's only comment was 'Fine, thank you' when questioned by reporters as he made his way into the courthouse. It seems his wife's impending appearance before Australian court did not phase him as he signed autographs for fans who were waiting among the media. Meanwhile Heard flashed a few smiles as she made her way through the crowd towards the doors of the courthouse. Heard was accused of sneaking Pistol and Boo into the country last May while Depp was on the Gold Coast filming the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. On Sunday, while avoiding awaiting cameras and fans outside his hotel, Depp cut a casual look while he hid behind his bodyguards Depp dressed in a white collared shirt and a pair of dark denim jeans as he took a moment to enjoy the sunshine outside of his luxury location He covered his hair locks with a black beanie which dropped at the back of his head The court appearance did not deter Depp from signing autographs. A fan looks pleased with the actor's signature The incident sparked global headlines when Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the dogs had better 'bugger off' back to the US or he'd arrange to have them put down. It was alleged the pooches were not declared to customs officials on arrival. The presence of the A-list canines was only discovered when their visit to a Gold Coast dog grooming salon was made public. In May last year, Amber was charged with taking their pet Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia via a private jet Here Depp is pictured with one of his dogs that are at the centre of the incident Heard last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident but said she will be attending the hearing in a statement. 'My decision to defend [these] charges, as will become apparent in the appropriate forum of the Court, is not intended to in any way diminish the importance of Australia's laws,' she said in December. 'I look forward to attending the hearing of these matters. However, as the matters are to be determined by the court, I will not be making any further statements.' The dogs were quickly whisked out of the country before a 72-hour deadline lapsed when the canines would have to be seized Heard last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident Last year, Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce said the dogs might be put down unless they 'buggered off back to the United States' The dogs were quickly whisked out of the country before a 72-hour deadline lapsed when the canines would have to be seized. Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine. Penalties for contravening the Quarantine Act range from fines to a maximum of 10 years in prison for the worst cases. In September last year, Depp laughed off the smuggling accusations and spoke about the saga on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He joked authorities missed the illegal items he had really smuggled in and called Mr Joyce a 'weird, sweaty-pated gut man'. Depp spoke about the threats made of Heard possibly going to jail because of the incident. Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine Depp and Heard are seen here in Australia last year having arrived in Brisbane on their private jet 'If they did that I'd just fly to Australia and assault that man,' Depp said. 'So that I could go to jail. 'We were under the impression that we had all the paperwork done for the dogs. We were there with the dogs in front of everybody,' he insisted. He joked: 'There might have been other things smuggled. But they seemed to miss that bit. But couple have now been married for six years and have two daughters A few months before my wedding, I went travelling around Argentina for three weeks with my brother Phillip. This would probably be the last trip for a while, as I was hoping to have a baby soon, and I had no desire to take a small screaming thing on a 17 hour flight. My fiance Hugo, who Id been with for three years, drove us to the airport and waved us off. From itchy feet to cold feet: Sarah Fletcher and her brother Phillip took a three-week adventure around Argentina. Pictured in Perito Moreno glacier, Patagonia Sarah and Phillip went white water rafting (right), walking in Chile and climbing mountains in Mendoza during their journey Phillip and I had an adrenaline-infused time glacier trekking in Patagonia, walking in Chile and climbing ridiculously high mountains in Mendoza. To balance this out, we spent three days in a hotel in Buenos Aires, watching American TV and gorging on yoghurt. During our adventure we met lots of people, in bars, on treks and in 4x4s travelling over bumpy roads at terrifying speeds. Many were women, travelling alone or with others they had met along the way. A surprising number had recently broken up with their partners and decided to get on a plane and have fun by themselves. They seemed to be having a great time this was ultimate freedom from their jobs and from any responsibility to anyone else. I thought about my fiance. I really missed him, but was I missing out? In our final week in Argentina, we met a woman called Carmen at a winery in Mendoza, in the northern-central part of the country. She had recently divorced her husband a few months after their wedding because he had sat reading a newspaper at a childrens birthday party instead of engaging with the kids. Carmen had watched him ignoring the children nearby and realised that this is what he would be like as a father. She divorced him because she wanted a partner who would be more hands-on with their children. I thought about my fiance, sitting at home in London. This is what hell be like, I thought. Hell opt for read a newspaper over playing with the kids. It may have all ended there, had we not been on a wine tasting tour at the time. I was very good at wine tasting. I tasted a lot. By about 4pm it seemed like a wise decision to call off the wedding. Sarah left her fiance Hugo (pictured) who she had been with for three years behind and listened to the advice of other travellers on the road When I finally stumbled back to my room at 10pm, I emailed Hugo and told him the news. There was no reply so I sent him a few more emails, just to make sure. Still no reply, which was strange. I was too drunk to work out the time difference, but I figured he would eventually read my revelation and get back to me with some sad-faced emoticons. The next day, I woke up feeling queasy and uneasy. Had I made the right decision? I mean, I really loved him, but maybe Carmen was right. Maybe he would read newspapers instead of playing with the kids. Without a bottle of wine in my hand, reading a newspaper didnt seem so bad. Certainly not wedding-cancelling bad. There was also the fact that we didnt even have any children yet, so he hadnt technically done anything wrong. I had dumped him based on the possibility he might read a newspaper instead of playing with our kids at some point in the future. If you wonder how I was so easily swayed, I guess I was already set for panic: my parents divorced when I was a child and I couldnt help but think all marriages end in divorce or misery. Although I loved him passionately and deeply, I had had doubts before and he had always calmed me down and reassured me that it wouldn't happen to us. But when I was away from him, my mind ran wild without anyone to stave off the crazy! Cold feet: After a day spent tasting wine in Mendoza, Sarah decided to call off her wedding to Hugo I felt unsettled for the next few days and on the flight home. Hugo still hadnt replied to those drunken emails, and I was beginning to wonder if all of those women I had met were really having such a great time. Hugo came to meet me at the airport, which was very nice considering I had dumped him. As soon as I saw him, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. I apologised profusely and the wedding was back on. My husband had thought I was being melodramatic and it would be fine when I got home. He also thought it was weird to have such a massive conversation by email. On returning home, Sarah realised she had made a mistake and the couple married We have now been married for almost six years and we have two daughters, Alice, who is almost four, and Charlotte who is one. I blame my wedding jitters on two things: alcohol and illusions. Dont make major life decisions when youre on a wine tasting tour. The trouble is when youre travelling, you can get a false idea of other peoples lives and how much fun they are having. Maybe those women were having a great time, maybe they were lonely. Its impossible to say because I only saw a snapshot of their lives. I saw what they wanted to show me. I saw the highlights. Most people are having a good time when theyre in the sunshine drinking wine. But its difficult to keep this up unless you plan on being a sunburned alcoholic. Eventually, most of us return home, where its usually raining. Its not as much fun lying in a deckchair drinking cocktails in the rain. If I go travelling again without my husband, Ill try not to divorce him based on what a complete stranger tells me when Im drunk. As a keen diver, Winram feels that conservation has helped the fish population in the area grow The 50-year-old took these amazing pictures in natural light, all while holding his breath under water Advertisement Life underwater is a fascinating world as this set of stunning images from ocean explorer William Winram shows. The keen diver was navigating the waters of the Cabo Pulmo Marine Protected area in Baja California, Mexico, when a school of fish formed a vortex in the waters around him. Winram, 50, had been in the region tagging tiger and bull sharks as part of a conservation project. But due to a band of warm water known as 'El Nino', the sharks were staying in the deeper water. He managed to capture these amazing images while waiting for the sharks to emerge - all while holding his breath. The Canadian conservationist said: 'We saw some extraordinary sights and had some amazing encounters while diving on a breath-hold. The images, all taken with natural light, show just what can happen when you create a protected area and manage it effectively.' Winram explained that he witnessed an increased in biomass, size and numbers of marine creatures since he last visited 25 years ago but conceded that some of the bigger specimens had been fished out of the waters. He added: 'All in all, it was impressive to see the changes in the area for the better and to also see that it is the local population that is managing, protecting and enforcing within the marine protected area. William Winrame captured the incredible moment a school of fish swarmed around him and other divers and formed a vortex (above) The divers had been holding their breath while kneeling on the sand (left and right) under the water while waiting for the fish to pass them All of the images in this set were taken during a single breath-hold and the fish were happy to hang around for the photo opportunity The Canadian conservationist said: 'We saw some extraordinary sights and had some amazing encounters while diving on a breath-hold. The images, all taken with natural light, show just what can happen when you create a protected area and manage it effectively' Winram explained that he witnessed an increased in biomass, size and numbers of marine creatures since he last visited 25 years ago but conceded that some of the bigger specimens had been fished out of the waters They've been spending some quality time together in the Bahamas after their marriage was rocked by another sexting scandal. And their make-or-break Caribbean getaway appeared to be helping Vernon Kay and Tess Daly reconnect as they enjoyed a day by the pool on Saturday. Whilst previous snaps had seen the pair looking distant, the couple - who have been married for 13 years - seemed to be working through the recent revelations that Vernon was allegedly sending lewd texts to Page 3 model Rhian Sugden, as they chatted by the poolside. Scroll down for video Reconnecting: Vernon Kay and Tess Daly's make-or-break Caribbean getaway appeared to be helping the couple reconnect as they enjoyed a day by the pool in the Bahamas on Saturday Donning a pair of blue swimming shorts, Vernon, 41, showed off his fuller figure as he frolicked in the water, concealing his eyes beneath a pair of black wayfarer sunglasses. Meanwhile, Tess, 46, opted for a white halter bikini that she covered up with a semi-sheer beach dress. Sweeping her golden tresses back into a bun, she finished off the laid-back look with a white trilby hat and oversized sunglasses. Tan-tastic: Donning a pair of blue swimming shorts, Vernon, 41, showed off his fuller figure as he frolicked in the water following the revelations he allegedly sending lewd texts to Page 3 model Rhian Sugden Beach babe: Tess, 46, opted for a white halter bikini that she covered up with a semi-sheer beach dress. Sweeping her golden tresses back into a bun, she finished off the laid-back look with a white trilby hat Beaming broadly, the Strictly Come Dancing host seemed in good spirits despite the solemn nature of their holiday, which had been dubbed a 'make-or-break' getaway in a bid to save their marriage. A source close to the couple told The Sun: 'The last few weeks have been a nightmare for Tess and Vern and they just want to get away from it all. 'They're hoping a break with the girls thousands of miles away from Britain will give them time to work through their problems.' Crunch time: Whilst the pair - who have have two children - seemed in better spirits, Tess' expression turned more serious as she huddled up to Vernon and they chatted briefly by the pool edge And whilst the pair - who have have two children - seemed in better spirits, Tess' expression turned more serious as she huddled up to Vernon and they chatted briefly by the pool edge. The couple headed for the sunny climes of the Bahamas after it was revealed Vernon was still in contact with glamour model Rhian Sugden, who he sent a string of lewd texts to in 2010. He was forced to make a public apology to his wife on Radio 1 and promised he would no longer contact Rhian or four other women he had been caught messaging at the time. Sexting scandal: The couple headed for the sunny climes of the Bahamas after it was revealed Vernon was still in contact with glamour model Rhian Sugden (pictured) who he sent a string of lewd texts to in 2010 But the busty blonde, 29, recently revealed she was still speaking with the star, and claimed he had asked her to meet up. Vernon claimed at the time of the allegations that the Whatsapp messages he sent to Rhian asking to meet had been taken out of context, that he had done 'nothing wrong' and that his wife was completely aware of all contact. Speaking about their relationship, Rhian claimed the pair had got back in touch in December, after a break of six years, which felt like an 'old friendship coming back'. She said the messages were not like the explicit texts they had exchanged in 2010, until it emerged that Vernon had 'stalked' her Instagram and labelled one of her photographs a '10/10'. The BBC has been accused of gross insensitivity for putting child abuser Jimmy Savile in a photo alongside fictional characters in its hit drama Line Of Duty. The episode of the BBC2 series will also feature references to real-life police investigations into child abuse fuelling condemnation of the Corporation for exploiting the scandal. The third series of the drama, which stars Keeley Hawes as Detective Inspector Lindsay Denton, centres on a cover-up of historic child abuse, and in Thursdays penultimate episode, two characters are shown in a photograph greeting Savile. 'Insensitive': Jimmy Savile in the mocked-up photograph used in the BBC2 drama The BBC last night confirmed that a real photograph of Savile had been used. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: This smacks of gross insensitivity. It is offensive for the BBC to be exploiting Saviles crimes for dramatic effect when they failed to stop him carrying out abuse on BBC premises. 'The BBC is blurring fact and fiction but that doesnt change the fact that it let down Saviles victims. In the episode, a retired police officer called Patrick Fairbank is suspected of covering up allegations of abuse and is quizzed by investigating officers about his links to a paedophile councillor called Dale Roach. He is reluctant to co-operate until officers produce a photograph which shows him and Roach greeting Savile. Fairbank is asked if he recognises the man in the picture, which police tell him was taken on August 7, 1995. He replies: I think we all do. A reference to Operation Midland in the same episode will also be controversial because the real-life Metropolitan Police operation resulted in one of the countrys most decorated war heroes, Lord Bramall, 92, being falsely accused of historic child abuse claims. Drama: Line of Duty star Keeley Hawes. The third series of the drama, which stars Keeley Hawes as Detective Inspector Lindsay Denton, centres on a cover-up of historic child abuse, and in Thursdays penultimate episode, two characters are shown in a photograph greeting Savile Liz Dux, from legal firm Slater and Gordon which is representing 168 Savile victims, said: My clients have had enough of Saviles image invading their lives. It shows a total lack of sensitivity. One victim, Dee Coles, said: No one can understand how distressing it is to see images of him time and time again. A BBC spokesman said last night: Line Of Duty is an established fictional drama series set in a recognisable and authentic world. 'One brief picture has been included to highlight the real-life context of the fictional story. Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky are well known in Hollywood but despite their A-list status the pair have reportedly been left to wait like other parents for childcare. According to The Daily Telegraph, the couple have applied and are on a waiting list to place their children India Rose, three, and two-year-old twin sons Tristan and Sasha, at a centre in Australia's Northern NSW. The publication reports the pair have no problem waiting for their children's place and have not offered any money-incentive to help their children jump the queue. Scroll down for video Patient! Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky have reportedly applied for their children to go to childcare in Northern NSW and are on a waiting list. They also have refused to offer money to push their place up the list A spokesperson for the unnamed Catholic day care told the newspaper the pair are indeed on the waiting list and have applied. The spokesperson said Chris and Elsa didn't offer the dosh - like most rich families do - in a bid to fast track children, despite the centre being adamant that they don't take money bribes. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Chris' manager for comment. Proud parents Chris, 32, and Elsa, 39, are now based in Byron Bay in Northern NSW, having relocated back to Chris's native Australia from the US. Family: The couple are proud parents to children India Rose, three, (L) and two-year-old twin sons Tristan and Sasha (seen here in December last year) On Saturday, Chris and Elsa and India Rose were spotted touching down at Brisbane Airport, having returned from a short trip to Los Angeles. While there, the Thor star and India Rose enjoyed a visit to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Chris and Elsa - who have been married for over five years - also attended the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, The Huntsman: Winter's War. Sweet: Chris is seen here hugging his two boys on their birthdays Chris recently revealed that his children came to visit him on set while filming The Huntsman: Winter's War, and that his children and co-star Charlize Theron's children got along swimmingly. There was a whole difference of energy on this because we all had our kids there on set a lot of the time, he explained, reports US Weekly. That was just thrown out the window when the kids came. They were chasing each other around with the weapons and yelling, Get him! Kill her! Do that! Were raising them really well, added Charlize. Charlize is mother to four-year-old son Jackson and daughter August - who she adopted last summer. She's been a familiar face on some of Australia's favourite dramas including Packed To The Rafters and Love Child. And now Jessica Marais is set to hit television screens once again, joining an all-star Australian cast in the Network Ten small-screen adaption of The Wrong Girl. Based on Zoe Foster Blake's book by the same title, the 31-year-old is set to play lead character Lily, a TV producer whose love life turns complicated when her heart is torn between two men. Scroll down for video New role: Jessica Marais is set to join an all-Australian cast in the Channel Ten adaption of Zoe Foster Blake's novel The Wrong Girl Jessica will be joined on-screen with Zoe's radio star husband Hamish Blake, as well as Craig McLachlan, Kerry Armstrong Ian Meadows, Rob Collins and Madeleine West. Speaking to the Herald Sun, the blonde beauty, who will also co-produced the series, said she's excited to showcase the talent the show has to offer. 'Given the talent involved on both sides of the camera we're going to create something incredibly special that I truly hope audiences embrace,' she told the publication. The Wrong Girl will begin filming in Melbourne later this month. All-Australian cast: Zoe (centre) released the book in 2014. She is pictured with Jessica (second left), stage star Rob Collins (far left), Hayley Magnus (second right) and Underbelly actor Ian Meadows (far right) Stage star Rob and Underbelly actor Ian will play the two love interests. Ian will star as Lily's best friend Pete, with the pair engaging in a regrettable one night stand, while Rob will play a charming TV chef. The love triangle turns tricky when Rob's character starts dating Lily's flatmate Simone despite the women making a pact to swear off men. Love triangle: The series will follow the blonde beauty's character Lily, whose love life turns complicated when she is torn between two men, played by Ian and Rob meanwhile Hayley will portray Lily's flatmate Simone Hayley Magnus, who recently appeared in The Dressmaker alongside Kate Winslet, will portray Simone and said she's looking forward to sharing the screen with her co-stars. 'I couldn't believe I was the right girl for The Wrong Girl,' she told News Corp, before adding: 'I'm so excited to be working on what will no doubt be a terrific show. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cringe.' Adding to the already stellar line-up are comedians Steve Vizar and Ryan Shelton, as well as Seachange actor Kevin Harrington, Christie Whelan Brown, Doris Younane, Leah Vandenberg and Hugo Johnstone-Burt. The drama will air on Channel 10 later this year. Roman Polanskis movie of Shakespeares Macbeth was almost given an X rating by film censors, who feared its bloody scenes reflected the brutal killing of the directors wife Sharon Tate. Newly discovered files show that Britains official censors were shocked by the violence and nudity in the 1971 film, which they thought echoed the notorious murder by followers of the American cult leader Charles Manson two years earlier. One member of the British Board of Film Cens ors (BBFC), as the body was then known, went so far as to say the film, which starred Jon Finch and Francesca Annis, reeked of Tates death. Classic horror: Francesca Annis played Lady Macbeth in the 1971 film directed by Roman Polanski A British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) examiner criticised the decision to show Lady Macbeth naked during the sleep-walking scene The unidentified examiner criticised scenes featuring a disgustingly savage and horrid murder, an attempted rape and infants murdered and ground into blood, and was particularly scornful of the decision to show Lady Macbeth naked during the sleep-walking scene. The examiner wrote: This is classic horror comic stuff and reeks of the Sharon Tate shambles. Polanski married Tate, a successful actress and model, in 1968 and they became one of Hollywoods most celebrated couples. But their happiness was short-lived Mansons gang of serial killers burst into their Hollywood home in August 1969 and stabbed to death the heavily pregnant Tate and four of her friends. Macbeth was Polanskis first film after the deaths. Polanski married Sharon Tate in 1968 and they became one of Hollywoods most celebrated couples, but she was stabbed to death by Mansons gang of serial killers in August 1969 alongside four of her friends The files in the BBFC archive show that staff were so worried about the possible impact of the murders on the film that they raised the issue directly with the director himself. One memo, believed to have been written by John Trevelyan, the BBFCs then secretary, stated: To Roman Polanski I made the point that there would probably be people who would say he was recreating the terrible Hollywood murder case and would criticise him for this. Inky the octopus managed to pull off a daring escape from a New Zealand aquarium by squeezing through a gap at the top of his tank and slithering eight feet across the floor to a drain pipe that led to the ocean. Gangsta! New Mexican's Steve Terrell tells us how the state's Republicans are embracing the idea of legal pot. I have to go knock wood real quick and throw a salt shaker over my shoulder with my fingers and toes crossed. Excuse me. NASA has publicly stated that so-called Planet 9 is not affecting the orbit of the Cassini space probe. Nevertheless, everyone in the tin-foil hat community already knows it's the long-awaited return of Niburu, the rogue planet. And aliens. Holly Holm threw out the first pitch at yesterday's Isotopes game as part of a fund-raising event for the Boys and Girls club. No one is blaming the loss of the team's winning streak on her outside pitch. No one. Check out these Canadian cops meditating. That's right. Peel Regional Police are trying out some new training methods. Somebody needs to pass this on to APD. A dark matter dwarf galaxy was discovered hiding inside a space time distortion. If you understood that sentence, you might be a character from a bad sci-fi novel. Still reeling from two violent earthquakes, some Japanese residents were surprised to find their streets filling up with a mysterious foam. Check out these two assholes claiming to be APD and kicking in a person's door before robbing them. Both men were armed and brazen as hell. There's some pretty good shots of the creeps, so take a look and see if you know them. It is one of Shakespeares best-loved plays a bawdy and hilarious look at the battle of the sexes set in 16th Century Italy. But a controversial new production of The Taming Of The Shrew will highlight a conflict of a very different kind the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. Emma Rice, the newly appointed director of Shakespeares Globe theatre on Londons South Bank, believes the insurrection against British rule, which ended in almost 500 deaths, is the perfect backdrop for the comedy about the battling lovers Petruchio and Katherina. Bloody: British soldiers search for bodies under piles of rubble in Dublin during the Easter Rising Top job: Director Shakespeares Globe theatre Emma Rice (pictured) hopes the production will commemorate the 100th anniversary Rice hopes the controversial, sexy and very Irish production will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the revolt and remember the role of women in the fight for independence. But critics have hit out at Rices new staging of The Shrew and cast doubt on her role at the Globe. Sir Jonathan Bate, professor of English Literature at Oxford and an internationally recognised expert on Shakespeare, said: Emma Rice is going to have to work very hard to make this [staging of The Shrew] seem convincing. Nothing is impossible in good theatre, but it does seem quite a stretch. A lot of us in the Shakespeare world have some apprehension about the direction in which Rice will take the Globe because it has been at its best when exploring original staging practices, getting a full understanding of how Shakespeare was staged. He added: Women did play a very powerful role in the Easter Rising but The Taming Of The Shrew is a play about women submitting to male power. Rice, who had only directed one Shakespeare production before she landed the top job at the Globe, sparked uproar in January by saying she would not think twice about editing the plays to remove language she no longer considered relevant to modern audiences. She also said she had tried to read the plays, but admitted: I get very sleepy and then suddenly I want to listen to The Archers. In recent weeks, there has been a bid to hold the Logies in Dubbo, on NSW's Central West. And the idea has gained momentum with some stars including Stephen Peacocke, rockers Thirsty Merc, Melissa Doyle and Samantha Jade getting behind it. According to 2DayFM Hit 104.1's Rove and Sam, Home and Away's Stephen, 34, supports the idea, saying: The old Dubbo RSL is a classy place...I'd put my considerable weight behind that.' Scroll down for video He's a fan: Home and Away's Stephen Peacocke has backed the idea of the 2017 Logies being held in Dubbo, country NSW from where he hails Stephen - who is known for his role as bad boy Darryl 'Brax' Braxton on the soap - is originally from the country town. In a Tweet recently shared by Rove and Sam recently, they said the star and Logie winner supports the idea. Thirsty Merc - whose band members are from Dubbo - also back the move according to The Daily Telegraph. The local radio station in Dubbo, 93.5 Star FM, continued the movement for the Logies to be held in the area after a hashtag #BringTheLogiesToDubbo took off on Twitter. Stephen appeared on the radio show saying 'It's a cracker of an idea and I'd totally be behind that.' He'll be there! In a Tweet recently shared by Rove and Sam recently, they said the star and Logie winner supports the idea 'I think Dubbo is a perfect venue,' he said. Meanwhile, TV personality Melissa Doyle has also commented on the campaign, telling the radio station: 'Oh my gosh, yes, great idea, I love Dubbo,' before later adding: 'I'd be there!' She also turned down the opportunity to host the Logies in Dubbo, saying: 'I'm not funny enough.' The Block's Scott Cam also told the station that he supports the idea and would attend the ceremony if held there. Full support: Stephen appeared on radio saying 'It's a cracker of an idea and I'd totally be behind that' She's in! Meanwhile, TV personality Melissa Doyle has also commented on the campaign, telling the radio station: 'Oh my gosh, yes, great idea, I love Dubbo,' before later adding: 'I'd be there!' 'Of course I would. I love Dubbo...I'm only an hour away,' he told the station, referring to a property he has nearby. He said he likes to visit the Taronga Western Plains Zoo while there and Wellington Caves. The Channel Nine star joked the radio station should throw in for Logie winners a 'visit to the Dubbo jail.' Meanwhile, this year's Logies ambassador Samantha Jade also told the radio: 'I would love to come to Dubbo. As a Logies ambassador I have to come and feel the space,' she said with a laugh. She's keen! Meanwhile this year's Logies ambassador Samantha Jade also told the radio: 'I would love to come to Dubbo. As a Logies ambassador I have to come and feel the space,' she said with a laugh TV presenter Andrew O'Keefe even agreed to host the ceremony. 'We're so over that Crown Palladium. What do they have that Dubbo doesn't have?' he said. 'I would be absolutely honoured and I think it would be a perfect opportunity to wear the leopard print tuxedo, given you are the home of the...zoo. Either the leopard print or Zebra print.' Earlier this month, Deputy Premier of New South Wales Troy Grant wrote to the organisers of the event, TV Week, to urge them to have the event in Dubbo. Up for it: TV presenter Andrew O'Keefe even agreed to host the ceremony In the letter, he said he wrote to them 'as the local Member of Parliament for the Dubbo electorate.' 'I know that the Dubbo RSL has put its hand up to host the event and I am very familiar with their outstanding facilities and exceptional service,' he wrote in part of the letter. He also said the Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre is another ideal location. 'Dubbo is home to many stars of the small screen and the sporting arena,' he said, before naming stars including Stephen, Thirsty Merc and Glenn McGrath. Come on: Earlier this month, Deputy Premier of New South Wales Troy Grant wrote to the organisers of the event, TV Week, to urge them to have the event in Dubbo Rock on! Seen here is the band, Thirsty Merc Mr Grant also said he offers Samantha Jade to go and visit Dubbo. He added: 'I encourage you to seriously consider this proposal. It would be of great benefit for Dubbo, the Central West and in turn be certainly something new and different for the TV Week Logies.' The Logies are typically held at the 58th annual ceremony at Melbourne's Crown Entertainment Complex but next year reportedly will be in a new location. It was recently reported she has been rejecting offers to get back to work in a bid to spend as much time as possible with her boyfriend. And making for the perfect Saturday night, Stephanie Davis looked over the moon as beau Jeremy McConnell literally swept her off her feet. Posting the sweet moment on her Instagram account, the 23-year-old looked like the cat that got the cream as she wrapped her arm around the Irish hunk. Scroll Down For Video 'With my baby': Stephanie Davis was literally swept off her feet by beau Jeremy McConnell on Saturday night The loved up actress captioned one of the stills: 'With my baby @jeremymcconnellcooke #bestfriend #love #happy'. In another frame, Stephanie clutches Jeremy's hand as they both smile for the camera. Keeping it casual for their outing, the former Hollyoaks actress rocked a leather jacket paired with a plunging bodysuit alongside distressed jeans and pointed heels. McConnell donned a white T-shirt, grey skinnies and lace-up boots. Keeping close: The 23-year-old clutched Jeremy's hand in another loved-up shot uploaded to Instagram Work-shy: Stephanie has reportedly been inundated with offers since leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, yet has been turning them down to spend time with her CBB beau Meanwhile some may remember that Davis was famously told she would 'never work again' in a furious argument with Daniella Westbrook. But it seems Stephanie has been inundated with offers since leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, yet has been turning them down. The former Hollyoaks star has reportedly been rejecting lucrative deals in order to be with her boyfriend Jeremy McConnell, with a source telling The Mirror she is 'so besotted that she won't let him out of her sight.' Loved-up: Stephanie has been giving fans a glimpse into her relationship with the tattooed Irish star by sharing snaps of them cosied up together on a daily basis United front: The couple have faced several controversies during their tumultuous relationship, breaking up then making up four times during their short term-romance but have defied the odds by staying together The insider claimed Stephanie's friends are concerned she could lose her own identity and only be known as one half of the showbiz couple if she continues following the star like a 'lapdog.' They added: 'Concerned mates say she has rubbished her post CBB opportunities, all for a cheating scumbag who makes her look stupid.' A representative for Stephanie declined to comment when approached by MailOnline. Controversial: Their latest break-up came last month when the Irish model was accused on cheating with Stephanie with five women, but the pair later insisted the claims were false The couple have faced several controversies during their tumultuous relationship, breaking up then making up four times in their short term-romance. Their latest break-up came last month when the Irish model was accused on cheating with Stephanie with five women. But the blonde beauty later took to Twitter to clear up the confusion as she said 'I can confirm the messages supposedly sent from Jeremy aren't true.' The actress was then believed to be still in contact with her ex-boyfriend Sam Reece, with the Sun reporting she still had 'lingering feelings' for the star. Pregnant Megan Fox cheered on estranged husband Brian Austin Green at Long Beach's 40th and final Toyota Grand Prix/Celebrity Race on Saturday. The expecting actress - who turns 30 next month - covered her bump in a black top beneath double-denim and gladiator platforms. 'She seemed to be in a great mood, happy and laughing at commentary during the race,' a source told Us Weekly. Scroll down for video United front: Pregnant Megan Fox cheered on estranged husband Brian Austin Green at Long Beach's 40th and final Toyota Grand Prix/Celebrity Race on Saturday 'She was very into the race. She seemed like any wife watching, interested with a touch of concern.' The New Girl starlet and her 42-year-old on/off beau - who also broke up in 2009 - technically filed for divorce from each other last August. 'At my age, to be having three babies, is crazy,' Green admitted to People at the event. 'You know, nothing is planned. None of them are ever planned. You kind of just go with it.' 'She was very into the race. She seemed like any wife watching': The expecting actress - who turns 30 next month - covered her bump in a black top beneath double-denim and gladiator platforms 'At my age, to be having three babies, is crazy!' The New Girl starlet and her 42-year-old on/off beau - who also broke up in 2009 - technically filed for divorce from each other last August Making their marriage work: The acting couple - who met on the 2004 set of Hope & Faith - are reportedly renting a house together in Bel Air While Megan was in the VIP green room, the Anger Management funnyman posed with a model before hopping in his racecar. Brian - wearing a white jumpsuit - also made sure to greet his fans waiting just beyond a chain-link fence. The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum - who won the race in 2010 - placed 16th among the celebs, including Ricky Schroder, Frankie Muniz, Adam Carolla, and Alfonso Ribeiro. In the end, it was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum who placed first, having also won in 1994-1995 and 2015. 'None of them are ever planned. You kind of just go with it': While Megan was in the VIP green room, the Anger Management funnyman posed with a model before hopping in his racecar Autographs and handshakes: Brian - wearing a white jumpsuit - also made sure to greet his fans waiting just beyond a chain-link fence Not so fast: The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum - who won the race in 2010 - placed 16th among the celebs, including Ricky Schroder, Frankie Muniz, Adam Carolla, and Alfonso Ribeiro Beaten by Carlton! In the end, it was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum who placed first, having also won in 1994-1995 and 2015 Hours later, Fox was spotted treating their sons Noah, 3, and Bodhi, 2, to the Yogurt Shoppe in Brentwood. Both boys sported cute curly locks and Crocs, and little Noah attempted cosplay in his green Peter Pan shirt. 'Family is great!' the Tennessee-born brunette told Us on Saturday. Brian also has a 14-year-old son Kassius with former Beverly Hills, 90210 castmate Vanessa Marcil. Fro-yo time! Hours later, Fox was spotted treating their sons Noah, 3, and Bodhi, 2, to the Yogurt Shoppe in Brentwood 'Family is great!' Both boys sported cute curly locks and Crocs, and little Noah attempted cosplay in his green Peter Pan shirt Soon-to-be father-of-four: Brian also has a 14-year-old son Kassius with former Beverly Hills, 90210 castmate Vanessa Marcil The acting couple - who met on the 2004 set of Hope & Faith - are reportedly renting a house together in Bel Air. Megan next reprises her role as April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, which finally hits US theaters June 3. And last Tuesday, the Fox network announced that the This Is 40 stunner will be returning as Reagan for the sixth season of New Girl. Meanwhile, Green will next reprise his role as Callan in the action comedy Cross 2 - hitting US theaters August 5 - alongside Danny Trejo and Tom Sizemore. Already in UK theaters! Megan next reprises her role as April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, which finally hits US theaters June 3 Back for more! And last Tuesday, the Fox network announced that the This Is 40 stunner will be returning as Reagan for the sixth season of New Girl Hollywood heavyweight Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard have reportedly jetted into Australia ahead of the actress facing court over illegally smuggling their dogs into the country last year. According to The Courier Mail, the couple arrived Down Under on Sunday in a private plane, ahead of the four-day trial that begins on Monday. It's reported Johnny will be a witness in the case held at Southport Magistrates Court, with the saga making international headlines. Scroll down for video Courtroom action: Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard have reportedly jetted into Australia ahead of the actress facing court over illegally smuggling their dogs into the country last year In May last year, Amber was charged with taking their pet Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia via a private jet, when she came to visit the actor who was filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on the Gold Coast. She was charged with breaching Australia's quarantine laws and will face two counts of knowingly importing a prohibited product into the country. The AAP reports that a private jet with the same model that the couple used last year was seen on the Gold Coast at the weekend, having touched down from Hawaii. The pair's Australian-based lawyers Ashurst are not commenting on whether they will appear in court. Her pooch: In May last year, Amber was charged with taking their pet Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia via a private jet Details: Amber was charged with breaching Australia's quarantine laws and will face two counts of knowingly importing a prohibited product into the country There has been mounting speculation that Amber would not attend court in person, with The Courier Mail reporting there were provisions for the blonde to be excused if her team made the appropriate applications. Amber last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident but said she will be attending the hearing in a statement. 'My decision to defend [these] charges, as will become apparent in the appropriate forum of the Court, is not intended to in any way diminish the importance of Australia's laws,' she said in December. Drama: It's reported Johnny will be a witness in the case held at Southport Magistrates Court, with the saga making international headlines Coming to Oz? Amber last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident but said she will be attending the hearing in a statement 'I look forward to attending the hearing of these matters. However, as the matters are to be determined by the Court, I will not be making any further statements.' A court official previously told AFP she was required to be at the hearing. Meanwhile, there are a total of twelve witnesses at the case. Last year, then Agriculture Minister and now Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the dogs might be put down unless they 'buggered off back to the United States'. They were quickly whisked out of the country before a 72-hour deadline lapsed and the dogs were seized. He wasn't happy! Last year, then Agriculture Minister and now Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the dogs might be put down unless they 'buggered off back to the United States' Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine. Penalties for contravening the Quarantine Act range from fines to a maximum of 10 years in prison for the worst cases. In September last year, Johnny laughed off the smuggling accusations and spoke about the saga on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He joked authorities missed the illegal items he had really smuggled in and called Barnaby a 'weird, sweaty-pated gut man'. Johnny spoke about the threats made of Amber possibly going to jail because of the incident. Regulations: Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine Opening up: In September last year, Johnny laughed off the smuggling accusations and spoke about the saga on Jimmy Kimmel Live! 'If they did that I'd just fly to Australia and assault that man,' Johnny said. 'So that I could go to jail. 'We were under the impression that we had all the paperwork done for the dogs. We were there with the dogs in front of everybody,' he insisted. He joked: 'There might have been other things smuggled. But they seemed to miss that bit. 'Might have been. Could have been,' he added. Ashurst have been contacted for comment by Daily Mail Australia. Amber and Johnny's publicists have also been contacted for comment in relation to this story. Liam Hemsworth recently claimed he and Miley Cyrus weren't engaged again before being spotted leaving the singer's Los Angeles home last week. And adding fuel to the fire that he and Miley are indeed back on is Liam's sister-in-law, Elsa Pataky. The 39-year-old wife of Chris Hemsworth took to Instagram on Sunday to share a picture of herself with a group of pals including Miley, as she gushed about the meaning of true friendship. Scroll down for video True friends: Elsa Pataky (L) took to Instagram on Sunday to share a picture of herself with a group of pals including Miley Cyrus (R), as she gushed about the meaning of true friendship 'True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart,' actress Elsa captioned the post, before adding hashtags 'girls lunch,' 'LA,' 'best moments,' 'love you girls' and 'miss you.' In the snap, Elsa wears a pair of light-washed jeans with a floral shirt and brown belt. She has her blonde hair out and over her shoulders neatly straightened. Miley meanwhile stands on the end of the group sticking out her tongue and wears a striped crop top and high-waisted jeans with Mickey Mouse embroidery and white sneakers. The singer has her blonde locks out and poses with her tongue out, in her signature pose. Fuel to the fire: Elsa's post comes after Liam Hemsworth recently claimed he and Miley Cyrus weren't engaged, before being spotted leaving the singer's Los Angeles home last week (seen here in 2013) Family: Elsa is married to Chris Hemsworth and the pair are parents to three children Earlier this year, Miley enjoyed time in Australia and caught up with Elsa, posing for a snap with her and female pals at the annual Falls Festival. The girls, meanwhile, also posed for a snap outside local boutique Spell and The Gypsy Collective in Byron Bay. At the time, Miley and Liam were rumoured to be back on after she spent New Years in the actor's native Australia with his brother's Luke and Chris and their wives. Last week, Liam and Miley stepped out for the first time together after rumours they had re-sparked their relationship. Indeed Liam was seen leaving Miley's home in LA after he claimed to TV Week that despite the rumours and her wearing her engagement ring, they weren't engaged. Hanging out: Earlier this year, Miley enjoyed time in Australia and caught up with Elsa, posing for a snap with her and female pals at the annual Falls Festival Shopping: The girls meanwhile also posed for a snap outside local boutique Spell and The Gypsy Collective in Byron Bay 'I am not engaged, no,' he told the magazine. The comments from Liam came after he and Miley were seen arm-in-arm during a night out in California after attending the premiere for The Huntsman: Winter's War in secret. Following the function the Last Song stars were spotted in Brentwood where they dinned at the Baltaire Restaurant with Liam's older brother Luke and his wife Sam as well as some other friends. A source told Hollywood Life: 'They were whispering all through the movie. Liam was rubbing Mileys leg and they were holding hands the whole time. Its no question these two are still head over heels for each other.' He is due to front the Australian court system on Monday after his wife, Amber Heard, allegedly smuggled their dogs into the country illegally last year. And on Sunday Johnny Depp stayed out of sight following his flight to the Gold Coast in Queensland. Heard, 29, is facing two counts of breaching Australia's quarantine laws after allegedly bringing the couple's dogs Pistol and Boo into the country on a private jet in May last year. Scroll down for video Out of sight: While avoiding awaiting cameras and fans outside his hotel, Johnny Depp cut a casual look while he hid behind his bodyguards Heard is the one facing the four-day trial, which starts on Monday, and Depp is expected to be one of 12 witness called by Commonwealth prosecutors to give evidence. A spokeswoman for Sydney law firm Ashurst, which is representing Heard, refused to confirm on Sunday whether the celebrity couple would actually appear. But a Gulfstream V private jet, which has previously been used by the couple, touched down on the Gold Coast on Sunday morning. With Heard's court date looming, Johnny, 52, avoided awaiting cameras outside his hotel, cutting a casual figure while he hid behind his bodyguards. He was dressed in a white collared shirt and a pair of dark denim jeans as he took a moment to enjoy the sunshine outside of his luxury location. The actor covered his hair locks with a black beanie which dropped at the back of his head. Taking a moment: Johnny dressed in a white collared shirt and a pair of dark denim jeans as he took a moment to enjoy the sunshine outside of his luxury location Seasonal: He covered his hair locks with a black beanie which dropped at the back of his head Her pooch: In May last year, Amber was charged with taking their pet Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia via a private jet During his short trip outside of the hotel's four walls, his wife Amber Heard was nowhere to be seen. The pair touched down at the holidaying destination moments earlier as they prepare for their upcoming court case. It's reported Johnny will be a witness in the case held at Southport Magistrates Court, with the saga making international headlines. In May last year, Amber was charged with taking their pet Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia via a private jet, when she came to visit the actor who was filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on the Gold Coast. She was charged with breaching Australia's quarantine laws and will face two counts of knowingly importing a prohibited product into the country. Details: Amber was charged with breaching Australia's quarantine laws and will face two counts of knowingly importing a prohibited product into the country There has been mounting speculation that Amber would not attend court in person, with The Courier Mail reporting there were provisions for the blonde to be excused if her team made the appropriate applications. Amber last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident but said she will be attending the hearing in a statement. 'My decision to defend [these] charges, as will become apparent in the appropriate forum of the Court, is not intended to in any way diminish the importance of Australia's laws,' she said in December. Drama: It's reported Johnny will be a witness in the case held at Southport Magistrates Court, with the saga making international headlines Coming to Oz? Amber last year said she would never return to Australia after the incident but said she will be attending the hearing in a statement 'I look forward to attending the hearing of these matters. However, as the matters are to be determined by the Court, I will not be making any further statements.' A court official previously told the AFP she was required to be at the hearing. Meanwhile, there are a total of twelve witnesses at the case. Last year, then-Agriculture Minister and now-Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce said the dogs might be put down unless they 'buggered off back to the United States'. They were quickly whisked out of the country before a 72-hour deadline lapsed and the dogs were seized. He wasn't happy! Last year, then Agriculture Minister and now Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce said the dogs might be put down unless they 'buggered off back to the United States' Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine. Penalties for contravening the Quarantine Act range from fines to a maximum of 10 years in prison for the worst cases. In September last year, Johnny laughed off the smuggling accusations and spoke about the saga on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He joked authorities missed the illegal items he had really smuggled in and called Barnaby a 'weird, sweaty-pated gut man'. Johnny spoke about the threats made of Amber possibly going to jail because of the incident. Regulations: Under strict Australian laws designed to keep disease at bay, dogs entering from the United States must be declared and have to spend 10 days in quarantine Opening up: In September last year, Johnny laughed off the smuggling accusations and spoke about the saga on Jimmy Kimmel Live! 'If they did that I'd just fly to Australia and assault that man,' Johnny said. 'So that I could go to jail. 'We were under the impression that we had all the paperwork done for the dogs. We were there with the dogs in front of everybody,' he insisted. He joked: 'There might have been other things smuggled. But they seemed to miss that bit. 'Might have been. Could have been,' he added. Ashurst have been contacted for comment by Daily Mail Australia. Amber and Johnny's publicists have also been contacted for comment in relation to this story. She became a mother for the first time late last year after giving birth to a beautiful baby boy. And Michelle Bridges partner, Steve 'Commando' Willis opened up about her journey into motherhood with their son Axel in a television interview with Australian Story that will air on Monday. In a clip from the program uploaded to Facebook, the 39-year-old personal trainer gushed: 'Axel coming into this world has definitely brought out another side of Michelle.' A new side: Michelle Bridges partner, Steve 'Commando' Willis opened up about her journey into motherhood with their son Axel in a television interview with Australian Story that will air on Sunday The Biggest Loser star went on to add: 'I don't know if at this point she's changing her priorities, but she's definitely asking more questions of herself.' Michelle then went on to explain that her thriving career is the result of a passion to succeed in what she has always wanted to do. 'I love what I do it's been what I've dreamed of doing since I was a child so why wouldn't I be driven?' she explained. Driven: Michelle went on to explain that her thriving career is the result of a passion to succeed in what she has always wanted to do Peaceful: She was greeted by her partner Steve, and the couple's angelic son Axel was blissfully asleep which appeared to please her as she tip-toed out of the room The interview follows Michelle as she does rounds of media interviews prior to the release of her latest book Make It Happen. At one point during the video an exhausted Michelle said that she had started the day at 4:45am and had just arrived home after getting through 'about 12 or 13 interviews'. She was greeted by her partner Steve, and the couple's angelic son was blissfully asleep which appeared to please her as she tip-toed out of the room. The interview is set to explore how Michelle has adjusted to life as a mother at 45, juggling her thriving career and ambitions to take on the junk food industry. Busy: At one point during the video an exhausted Michelle said that she had started the day at 4:45am and had just arrived home after getting through 'about 12 or 13 interviews' Taking it all on: The interview is set to explore how Michelle has adjusted to life as a mother at 45, juggling her thriving career and ambitions to take on the junk food industry Michelle and Steve appear to be completely besotted with their their baby boy who was born in December and the spitting image of his handsome father. Upon his arrival the new-parents took to social media to announce the news, writing: 'We are thrilled to welcome out little boy into the world, Axel Bridges Willis, born 19/12/15. Healthy and happy'. This is the fourth child for Commando as he shares Ella, seven and Jack, four with ex-partner Froso and Brianna, 18, with another former partner. He and Michelle have been dating for three years after meeting on the set of Network 10's Biggest Loser Australia. Australian Story airs on Monday night at 8pm on ABC 1. There is no doubt he is a handsome Hollywood star. But Gerard Butler wasn't trading on his looks when he attended a red carpet event in Los Angeles on Saturday evening. The 46 year-old pulled some funny faces as he attended a Gala to honor Avi Lerner and Millennium Films in Beverly Hills, California. Scroll down for video Funnyman: Gerard Butler was pulling funny faces when he attended a red carpet event in LA on Saturday The 46 year-old hunk cut a dapper figure in a three-piece grey suit which he teamed with a crisp white shirt and a matching tie. Posing up a storm at The Beverly Hills Hotel, he was clearly enjoying himself as he split his time by looking suave and jokey. At one point the Scottish-born was deliberately gurning as he made onlookers laugh. Looking good: The 46 year-old hunk cut a dapper figure in a three-piece grey suit which he teamed with a crisp white shirt and a matching tie Joining film-maker Avi Lerner, the two men laughed and joked as they recreated silly poses for the cameras Joining the veteran film-maker on stage, the two men laughed and joked as they recreated silly poses for the cameras. This included pointing directly into the lens and performing their best Zoolander 'blue steel' impression. Amazingly, despite all this, he still managed to look impossibly sexy and dapper. Handsome: Posing up a storm at The Beverly Hills Hotel, he was clearly enjoying himself as he split his time by looking suave and jokey Hit and miss: While Gerard has certainly enjoyed his own successes, his latest outing comes just weeks after his fantasy flick Gods Of Egypt flopped with a flaccid $14 million opening weekend Lerner is one of Hollywood's most prolific film-makers, having been at the helm of Olympus Has Fallen and The Expendables. And, while Gerard has certainly enjoyed his own successes, his latest outing comes just weeks after his fantasy flick Gods Of Egypt flopped with a flaccid $14 million opening weekend. According to Variety, studio Lionsgate had hoped to replace its departing mega hit Divergent and Hunger Games franchises, with a number of sequels in mind. But after barely making one-tenth of its $140million budget back, that now looks unlikely. Despite being in its third week, Deadpool still managed to make more than twice as much as Gods Of Egypt, raking in $31.5million in the opening weekend alone. Always hot stuff! Amazingly, despite all the larking, he still managed to look impossibly sexy and dapper Men about town: Lerner is one of Hollywood's most prolific film-makers, having been at the helm of Olympus Has Fallen and The Expendables Channel Nine journalist Peter Stefanovic has sent his well wishes and thoughts to his fellow employee Ben Williamson who remains in a Lebanese prison after a botched 'child abduction'. The 32-year-old posted a photo of himself and the cameraman to social media on Sunday and described the detainee as a 'bloody decent bloke'. 'Thinking of my good mate Ben Williamson @bwillo and his family,' the television personality began to publish. Scroll down for video Sending his love: Channel Nine journalist Peter Stefanovic (L) has sent his well wishes and thoughts to his fellow employee Ben Williamson (R) who remains in a Lebanese prison after botched 'child abduction' 'Have known him for ten years and have worked with him all over the world. 'A devoted and loving family man and bloody decent bloke. Love to you pal,' Stefanovic concluded. Williamson, 37, was arrested along with other members of a 60 Minutes team - Tara Brown, 48, David Ballment, 55 and Stephen Rice - following an attempted kidnap of Sally Faulkner's children from their father, Ali Elamine, in Beirut earlier this month. Stefanovic's comments in regards to the matter came just hours after his older brother and Today Show host Karl Stefanovic released a formal statement about the arrest. Emotional: The 32-year-old posted a photo of himself and the cameraman to social media on Sunday and described the detainee as a 'bloody decent bloke' Trouble: Williamson (pictured) was arrested along with other members of a 60 Minutes team following an attempted kidnap of Sally Faulkner's children from their father, Ali Elamine, in Beirut earlier in the month In the statement, published by the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he believes Brown was trying to get to the bottom of the truth of a complex story and that asking the right questions is what makes a journalist. 'Tara is a friend. She is a colleague. She is a mother. She is a brilliant journalist. She has asked those questions over and over again. She has consistently broken stories, and forensically exposed wrong doing in society all around the world. She has religiously and without favour fought for the truth,' he said in the statement. 'Journalism - by definition is the work of collecting writing and publishing news stories and articles. Who, what, when, where, why are the cornerstones of journalism,' he continued. 'It's brilliant in its simplicity and it's so easy to remember. Armed with those tools we go out into the wide world and ask away. At its most basic, we inform. At its best, it's powerful. We can expose the wrongs. We can make a difference. It all though starts with a question.' In the mix: Reporter Tara Brown, 48, (pictured), David Ballment, 55 and Stephen Rice have also been detained in the foreign country Speaking out: Stefanovic's comments in regards to the matter came just hours after his older brother and Today Show host Karl released a formal statement about the arrest claiming Brown and her team were trying to get to the bottom of a complex story The 60 Minutes crew was in Beirut to film Ms Faulkner's attempt to kidnap her children from her former partner Ali Elamine. Mr Elamine proposed last week that he would drop the kidnapping charge against his wife if she agreed to give up sole custody of the children - Lahela, six, and Noah, four. The requirements also included a full religious divorce and agreement that Ms Faulker would never take their children to Australia, as Mr Elamine fears she may never bring them back. On Sunday it was reported talks between Ms Faulker, 29, and her estranged husband had broken down. Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab, and Mr Elamine's attorney have reportedly failed to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their two children despite being urged by Lebanese officials, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. It has also since been claimed that a member of the recovery team has said Channel Nine paid $115,000 for the operation. Hot water: Prosecutors have claimed a member of the recovery team said Channel Nine paid $115,000 for the operation to 'rescue' Ms Faulkner's children (pictured) He is known for being a serious sportsman. But Gary Lineker displayed his comedic skills when he was spotted in London on Sunday morning, where he filmed a TV advert for BBC Sport. The former England star, who now hosts Match of the Day, donned period costume alongside Alan Shearer, Gabby Logan and Rio Ferdinand - despite having a cold. Scroll down for video Lights, camera, action! Gary Lineker displayed his comedic skills when he was spotted in London on Sunday morning, where he filmed a TV advert for BBC Sport The 55 year-old hunk sniffled his way through the on-location shoot in Greenwich, which saw him wear a black Elizabethan costume. This consisted of a doublet and a pair of breeches, which he teamed with a pair of black shoes and a gold sceptre. Although he was dressed for fun, he still managed to look handsome in the get-up. The former England star, who now hosts Match of the Day, donned period costume alongside Alan Shearer, Gabby Logan and Rio Ferdinand - despite having a cold The 55 year-old hunk sniffled his way through the on-location shoot in Greenwich, which saw him wear a black Elizabethan costume Sadly, he needed to take regular filming breaks to blow his nose while on the external shoot. At one point he even seemed to be holding his neck, suggesting he was also suffering from a sore throat as well as congested sinuses. Fortunately, he managed to laugh it all off - and found himself in good company thanks to his co-stars. Poorly? At one point he even seemed to be holding his neck, suggesting he was also suffering from a sore throat as well as congested sinuses Don't be nosey! Sadly, he needed to take regular filming breaks to blow his nose while on the external shoot Fortunately, he managed to laugh it all off - and found himself in good company thanks to his co-stars Gaby Logan was also dressed in typical period dress from the same era, which saw her wear a puff-sleeve gown with a black velvet top and cream skirt panel. She accessorised with pearls and hair netting for a regal look which certainly offered an interesting aesthetic. Not least because she was also sporting a rather dramatic curly wig. Gaby Logan was also dressed in typical period dress from the same era, which saw her wear a puff-sleeve gown with a black velvet top and cream skirt panel She accessorised with pearls and hair netting for a regal look which certainly offered an interesting aesthetic Old-school dapper: Gary wore a doublet, a pair of breeches and carried a gold sceptre for the shoot Meanwhile, Rio and Alan also stepped out in variations of Gary's old-school look. Clearly left feeling empathetic for the plight faced by professional actors, he later shared a blog post by ex-wife Danielle Bux, who recently detailed the struggles of the industry. 'The toughest thing about being an actor is dealing with failure, she wrote for the Huffington Post blog. 'Audition after audition where you lay yourself bare in front of a couple of strangers and a camera, only to walk out the door without ever hearing a thing. It's difficult to dispel the nagging self doubt that comes with rejection.' The BBC Sport presenters were surrounded by crew-members as they headed back to their trailers Who's that girl? Gaby was almost unrecognisable thanks to the fact she was sporting a dramatic curly wig Miley Cyrus, 23, and Liam Hemsworth, 26, shocked the world when they rekindled their romance. Despite the Wrecking Ball singer sporting a huge engagement ring, Liam has claimed to Australia media that the couple aren't engaged. However, his revelation didn't seem to affect Miley as she was seen driving through Malibu with a mystery male friend. Scroll down for video Sushi time: Miley and her friend were spotted leaving the famous Nobu restaurant in Malibu The duo were spotted leaving Nobu restaurant together in Malibu. Miley looked laid back and casual as she tied her newly platinum locks away from her face whilst her friend drove them around Malibu. The pop star was probably in need of a relaxing lunch given all the media attention and engagement speculation in recent weeks. See more of the latest on Miley Cyrus as Liam Hemsworth says they are 'not engaged' Intense discussion: Miley looked like she was in a serious need for a talk as her friend listened in Where's Liam? Despite their on again status, her new beau Liam Hemsworth was no-where to be seen The pair finally reunited after they were seen in a cozy embrace at the premiere of Chris Hemsworth's movie, The Huntsman: Winter's War. They were apart for two years but it seems as if true love conquers all as the pair have been putting on an amorous display since reuniting. The couple were rumoured to be back together after she spent a cozy New Years in the actor's native Australia. They first began dating in early 2010 after meeting on the set of the Last Song and continued to date on again off again for the next three years before announcing their engagement in June 2012. Road trip: Miley and the mystery man were seen riding around in her car for a while BFFs: Elsa captioned the photo 'True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart!' However, it was a very brief affair as they called off the wedding in September 2013. However, this time around Miley has been welcomed into the family fold with open arms as Liam's sister-in-law, Elsa Paskey, gushes about true friends in a snap with Miley Cyrus. The Spanish model and actress posted a picture of her, Miley and a group of friends to Instagram. She captioned the sweet snap: 'True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart!' Stand up with PP: Miley has joined forces with Marilyn Minter to sell artwork and T-shirts to raise money for the non-profit organisation Planned Parenthood Meanwhile, Miley has been deeply involved in a project which she shared on Instagram yesterday. The We Can't Stop hit-maker has teamed up with artist Marilyn Minter to sell artwork and T-shirts to raise money for the non-profit organisation Planned Parenthood. The platinum blonde was clearly over the moon about her new venture as she shared a screenshot of an article with the caption: 'Thank u @elleusa #mileyxmarilynsupportPP #standwithPP @marilynminter @marcjacobs' Oil producers mull output freeze in Doha, Iran stays home Major oil producers began talks in Qatar on Sunday to try to reach a deal on capping production to boost prices, despite Iran's absence. Talks were delayed by several hours after some countries demanded changes to a draft agreement that calls for freezing production until October, a delegate told AFP. The delegate said a "small team of experts" was assigned to make the changes before the ministers went into the official meeting in the afternoon. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak (C) arrives for the organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, on April 17, 2016 Karim Jaafar (AFP) Top energy officials from some 15 countries, including the world's top crude producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, were at the Doha talks. Nations inside and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are anxious to stem a market nosedive that has cost exporters billions in lost revenue. From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40. Ecuadoran Hydrocarbons Minister Carlos Pareja told reporters that his country would support a plan to freeze output until at least October. He said proposals under discussion also call for "setting up a committee to monitor the freeze," but provided no further details. Pareja warned that if no action were taken "there will be huge damage to the oil industry". Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev as saying the draft included the output freeze at January levels until October. The meeting in Doha is a follow-up to talks in February between OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela plus Russia in which they first mooted the output freeze. - Iran won't 'give up' production - Saudi Arabia has insisted that all major producers must be on board for the freeze to work, including fellow OPEC member and regional rival Iran. But Tehran, which has boosted production following the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal with world powers, has rejected any talk of a freeze. Iran had initially said its OPEC representative would participate in the talks but on Sunday Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh announced Tehran would send no delegation at all. "The Doha meeting is for people who want to participate in the production freeze plan... but since Iran isn't expected to sign up to the plan the presence of an Iranian representative isn't necessary," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Shana news agency. "Iran will in no way give up its historic production quota," Zanganeh said. Influential Saudi deputy crown prince Mohamed bin Salman reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg published on Saturday that the kingdom would not accept a freeze without Tehran's cooperation. But Kuwaiti oil expert Kamel al-Harami said a freeze agreement was still possible even without Iran. "Iran is unable to add more than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to its production by the end of the year," Harami told AFP in Doha. "I believe this will not greatly impact the meeting," he said. - 'Atmosphere of optimism' - OPEC said on Wednesday that Iranian oil production in March was 3.3 million bpd, up from 2.9 million in January, but still short of its pre-embargo level of around 4.0 million. OPEC said its members pumped 32.25 million bpd in March -- with Saudi Arabia accounting for nearly a third -- up from an average of 31.85 million bpd in 2015. Saudi Arabia has refused to cut production despite the price fall, as it seeks to drive less-competitive players, especially US shale producers, out of the market. But pressure has been building as falling oil revenues hit state coffers, with Riyadh posting a record budget deficit last year. Host country Qatar said "an atmosphere of optimism" spread on the eve of the meeting. Kuwait's acting oil minister Anas al-Saleh told reporters on arrival in Doha that "he was optimistic" about the success of the conference, which took place as thousands of oil workers in his country began an open-ended strike Sunday to protest against a government proposal to cut their wages. Oil prices had tumbled on Friday as traders bet that the meeting in Doha will yield no effective measures to curb the global oversupply. On Thursday the International Energy Agency had warned against expecting too much from the Doha talks, saying that the meeting would have only a "limited" impact on supplies. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said a key oil summit in Doha was for those who supported a production freeze, but as Tehran wasn't expected "to sign up to the plan the presence of an Iranian representative isn't necessary" Atta Kenare (AFP/File) Double murder suspect extradited from Hong Kong to US: police A Chinese national arrested in Hong Kong for allegedly murdering his two teenage nephews in the United States has been extradited back to the US, city police said on Sunday. Shi Deyun, 44, was detained at Hong Kong's international airport in January after arriving on a flight from Los Angeles. He is accused of murdering his nephews, aged 15 and 16. Shi Deyun, accused of murdering his two teenage nephews in the US, is escorted by police to Hong Kong's Eastern hospital on February 1, 2016 Anthony Wallace (AFP) "Wanted for two cases of murder...(he) was extradited to the United States of America from Hong Kong on April 15," a police spokesman told AFP in an emailed statement. Media reports said Shi was heading to mainland China when he was arrested on January 24, but he has denied fleeing, saying that he was heading to the southern city of Shenzhen via Hong Kong to deal with business. Unlike Hong Kong, mainland China does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. While in custody in Hong Kong, he was sent to a hospital for a check-up after complaining of being "muddle-headed", but was denied bail. He is accused of killing his nephews after his wife filed for divorce, the Los Angeles Times reported. Their bodies were discovered by their mother at their home in the Californian city. South Sudanese gunmen have slaughtered 208 people and kidnapped more than 100 children in a brutal cross-border cattle raid into Ethiopia. The attack took place on Friday in Ethiopia's Gambela region which, alongside a neighbouring province, hosts more than 284,000 South Sudanese refugees who fled war in their country. One government official claimed to be 'closing in' on the attackers, while another boasted they had 'decimated scores' of the gunmen who carried out the raid. Internally displaced people of the Murle tribe wait to receive World Food Programme food rations in the Sudanese town of Pibor in Jonglei State in 2009 The cross-border raid occurred when ethnic gunmen crossed into Gambela, Ethiopia (illustrated), from neighbouring South Sudan and killed 200 people, kidnapped 100 children and stole 2,000 head of livestock By yesterday afternoon, the toll from their deadly raid had risen to '208 dead and 75 people wounded' from 140 a day earlier. Some 2,000 head of cattle were also taken. The Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region, often stage raids to steal cattle. They attacked the Nuer tribe, one of the two main ethnic groups in South Sudan, but who also live across the border in Ethiopia. 'Our forces have been in pursuit of the attackers and they decimated scores of them,' Tewolde Muluteg, an Ethiopian government spokesperson said, without indicating whether the Ethiopian forces entered South Sudan territory. 'In border areas cattle feuds and raids are not uncommon. Of course, something of this magnitude is different,' he added. 'We don't think [the armed men] have any links to the South Sudan government or the rebels.' Ethiopia has been heavily involved in the South Sudan peace process, partly because of the risk that the conflict could destabilise Gambella. South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar is due to return to South Sudan's capital Juba on Monday from his rebel base at Pagak in the far east of the country, close to the Ethiopian border, rebel spokesman Colonel Nyarji Roman said. Machar, who has not set foot in Juba for two years, is to form a transitional government with his rival, President Salva Kiir, as part of a peace deal signed in August. Machar, who was Kiir's deputy before the war, has been living in exile in Kenya and Ethiopia, but was re-appointed vice president in February. The Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the western state of Jonglei, often stage raids to steal cattle He is expected to be swiftly sworn into office as vice president at the presidential palace alongside Kiir on Monday but a welcome rally by his supporters may be cancelled amid government security fears. After winning independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into war two years later, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken country along ethnic lines. Tens of thousands have been killed and over two million people forced to flee their homes during the war. France's Hollande visits Syrian refugee children in Lebanon French President Francois Hollande met with Syrian refugee children in eastern Lebanon on Sunday before he was to head to Egypt as part of a four-day regional tour. The French leader travelled to an informal settlement in Lebanon's Bekaa valley that is home to some 600 Syrian refugees, mostly women and children. "I just visited a camp the likes of which are all over Lebanon," Hollande told reporters after spending nearly an hour in the Al-Dalhamiyah camp. French President Francois Hollande (L) meets with a Syrian family at Dalhamiyeh refugee camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on April 17, 2016 Stephane De Sakutin (AFP) "They (Syrian children) don't want violence. They want to learn and go home, join their families, their country," he said. About 15 Syrian schoolchildren greeted the French president as he entered the large communal tent used as their makeshift school. They recited a poem in Arabic and gave Hollande pictures they had drawn. "You will be the messengers of peace... France's children are thinking of you a lot," Hollande told them. He met with the UN refugee agency's Lebanon representative Mireille Girard, who said difficult living conditions were forcing young Syrian children into child labour. Lebanon, home to four million people, hosts more than one million Syrian refugees. France hosts more than 10,000. Hollande landed in Beirut on Saturday for meetings with Lebanese officials and announced 100 million euros ($113 million) in assistance to the small Mediterranean country over the next three years. He was to leave Lebanon on Sunday afternoon for Egypt and to eventually travel on to Jordan. In Cairo, Hollande is expected to discuss with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi both the political crisis in Egypt's western neighbour Libya and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His visit to Jordan on Tuesday will take him to the Prince Hassan air base, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Amman. Syria opposition threatens to quit talks as Aleppo fighting flares The Syrian opposition delegation threatened to quit the Geneva peace talks, due to resume Monday, as a renewed flare-up in violence in Aleppo killed another 22 civilians. The opposition High Negotiations Committee said indirect negotiations could collapse if Syria's regime refuses to compromise on political and humanitarian issues. "We might suspend (our participation in) the talks if things carry on this way, and then there will be no prospect for any political solution," HNC member Abdulhakim Bashar told AFP. Delegation members of the main Syrian opposition body, the High Negotiations Committee (HCN), attend a press conference following Syria peace talks at the United Nations Office on April 13, 2016 in Geneva Fabrice Coffrini (AFP/File) The opposition's chief negotiator also said there could be "no compromise" on Bashar al-Assad's ouster, and called for renewed attacks on regime forces despite a fragile ceasefire. The truce has seen violence drop across parts of Syria, including the northern city. Areas controlled by the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, and other jihadists are exempt from the ceasefire, but renewed clashes around Aleppo are straining the truce as other rebel groups are being dragged into the fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the number of civilians killed in Aleppo city was one of the highest single tolls since the truce began on February 27. At least six civilians were killed and eight wounded in regime air strikes on rebel-held eastern parts of the city on Saturday. And a barrage of rockets and sniper fire by opposition groups onto government-controlled western districts killed 16 civilians, including 10 children and two women. Rebel groups fired more rockets at western areas of Aleppo city late Sunday, but there was no immediate information on new casualties. - 'Direct threat to truce' - "There's a clear escalation. This was the bloodiest incident in Aleppo and its province" since the ceasefire began, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. "This escalation directly threatens the truce." The HNC has questioned the regime's commitment to a political solution to Syria's five-year war, particularly in the wake of the renewed violence in Aleppo. "The humanitarian situation is continually deteriorating, the issue of the detainees has not seen any progress, the ceasefire has almost collapsed, and now there is an attack on Aleppo from three sides," Bashar said in Switzerland. "Given these factors, we are reviewing everything, and we will continue our meetings today (Sunday) so that tomorrow we can decide what to do." A second member of the HNC delegation, speaking anonymously, said the talks were nearly at "an impasse". The fate of Assad has remained the main sticking point in peace talks, with Syria's opposition clinging onto its call for his ouster since the conflict began in 2011. But the regime has ruled out his departure, calling it "a red line". "There can be no compromise on the issue of Bashar al-Assad... For us, it's a closed book -- you cannot trade an entire people for one man," opposition chief negotiator Mohammed Alloush told AFP in Geneva. UN mediator Staffan de Mistura is expected to sit down with the Damascus government Monday morning and meet the opposition delegation in the afternoon. - 'Strike them everywhere' - Earlier, Alloush called for renewed attacks on regime forces, despite the shaky truce. "Don't trust the regime and don't wait for their pity," tweeted Alloush, a leading political figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group. "Strike them at their necks (kill them). Strike them everywhere." A fellow opposition figure said Alloush's hawkish statement did not represent the HNC's position. Alloush himself later told AFP that he had been calling on rebel groups to defend themselves against regime truce violations. The peace plan outlined by De Mistura and backed by world powers envisions a political transition, a new constitution, and presidential and parliamentary elections by September 2017. But Syria's government hosted its own parliamentary elections last week only in government-held areas, which Assad's ruling Baath party easily won. The opposition denounced the election as a "farce". Brokered by Russia and the United States, the ceasefire has largely held across parts of Syria, despite frequent accusations of violations by both sides. IS has seized fresh territory from rebel groups in the north, threatening the key opposition town of Azaz, just eight kilometres (five miles) south of the Turkish border. The jihadist onslaught has forced 30,000 Syrians to flee, and tens of thousands more are at risk of displacement. Since the conflict erupted in 2011, half of Syria's population has been displaced -- including five million who have fled to neighbouring states. More than 270,000 people have been killed. Syrian rescue workers and residents help an injured woman following a reported air strike by government forces on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Haydariya in the northern city of Aleppo on April 10, 2016 Thaer Mohammed (AFP/File) Founder of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, poses for photographs ahead of an interview with AFP in central London on October 17, 2013 Leon Neal (AFP/File) High Negotiations Committee (HNC) delegation head Asaad al-Zoabi (L) next to Chief negotiator for HNC, Mohammed Alloush, during a press conference following Syria peace talks at the United Nations Office on April 13, 2016 in Geneva Fabrice Coffrini (AFP/File) War in Syria: the control of territory Kun TIAN, Thomas SAINT-CRICQ (AFP/File) Turkey denies claims it fired on fleeing Syrians Turkey on Sunday denied claims that its military opened fire on Syrian refugees fleeing clashes between Islamic State group jihadists and rebels in northern Syria. Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Turkish border guards of shooting at the refugees as they approached the border in Syria's Aleppo province. "As civilians flee ISIS fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion," HRW researcher Gerry Simpson said, using an acronym for the jihadists. A boy arrives with women as Syrians fleeing Aleppo wait on February 6, 2016 in Bab al-Salama, near the city of Azaz, northern Syria, near the Turkish border Bulent Kilic (AFP/File) The Turkish foreign ministry, however, said the allegations had "nothing to do with the reality", adding that Turkey was hosting nearly three million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country. At least 30,000 civilians have fled fighting between jihadists and rebels in northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, calling on Turkey to open its border to them. The Turkish foreign ministry added that thousands of Syrians had been displaced as a result of "Daesh attacks", an Arabic acronym for IS group. France's Hollande in Egypt visit dogged by rights criticism French President Francois Hollande said Sunday human rights should be respected in the fight against "terrorism" after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was overshadowed by claims of rights abuses. Hollande had arrived in Cairo earlier for a two-day visit to oversee the signing of several economic agreements, but a press conference with Sisi was dominated by the Egyptian leader's human rights record. Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting. French President Francois Hollande (R) waves next to Egyptian counterpart Abdelfattah al-Sisi (C) after reviewing the honour guard during a welcome ceremony at the al-Quba presidential palace in Cairo on April 17, 2016 Khaled Desouki (AFP) "The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi, turning to the visiting French leader. When it was his turn to speak, Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have carried out large scale attacks in both France and Egypt. "Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said. Hollande said he had raised the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found covered in torture marks in February in Cairo, more than a week after his disappearance. He said he also brought up the case of Eric Lang, a French teacher who was murdered in an Egyptian jail in 2013. On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt. When a reporter brought up the case of Regeni, Sisi said there was a plot against the country by an "evil force". "Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said. Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo in protest at the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death. Egypt denies he was killed by the police. - Deals signed - "I want to say what is happening in Egypt is an attempt to destroy state institutions. Today accusations are made against the police to bring down the police, then against judges to bring down the judiciary," Sisi said. On the economic front, the two leaders oversaw the signing of 18 memorandums of understanding between Egypt and France, and a 1.2 billion euro agreement to expand the metro line in Cairo. The deals included financing for a wind farm and a solar power plant. Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters. The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi. Meanwhile, jihadists have mounted an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen. The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against IS, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria. The jihadist group has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime. For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has become the main concern rather than pushing democracy. For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware. Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships. After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) and his French counterpart Francois Hollande hold a press conference at the al-Qubaa palace in Cairo on April 17, 2016 Khaled Desouki (AFP) Bayern Munich beats Schalke 3-0, Leverkusen jumps to 3rd FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Bayern Munich dominated Schalke 3-0 and increased its lead to 10 points as it closed in on a record fourth straight Bundesliga title on Saturday. Robert Lewandowski's pair raised his league-high total to 27 goals, and Arturo Vidal added Bayern's third. Second-place Borussia Dortmund can cut the gap back to seven points against Hamburger SV on Sunday. Bayern's Robert Lewandowski, right, celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between FC Bayern Munich and FC Schalke 04 at the Allianz Arena stadium in Munich, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) Earlier, substitute Kevin Kampl scored with his first touch of the ball as Bayer Leverkusen went on to beat Eintracht Frankfurt 3-0 to jump to third place. Bayern never looked like losing at home, but could not crack Schalke's defense until Lewandowski chested down a pass from Vidal, turned, and shot from close range in the 54th minute. He doubled the lead by rising to head in a cross from Rafinha. Vidal completed the victory after some good work by substitute Franck Ribery, who went in five minutes earlier. Schalke fell to seventh on goal difference behind Mainz, which plays Cologne on Sunday. Sixth place means a berth in the Europa League next season. Kampl's spectacular volley for Leverkusen broke the deadlock, as Frankfurt fell deeper into relegation trouble. Combined with Hertha Berlin's 2-1 loss at Hoffenheim, Leverkusen's win allowed the club to move past Berlin into third, which guarantees a Champions League slot next season. With four matches remaining, next-to-last Frankfurt was six points from safety and the biggest loser on the day, as most other relegation candidates won. Werder Bremen beat Wolfsburg 3-2, Darmstadt defeated Ingolstadt 2-0, and Augsburg edged Stuttgart 1-0. Kampl, coming back from a long injury, made an immediate impact when he replaced Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, who limped off with a left knee injury. Kampl was on the field just seconds before picking up a half-clearance from Frankfurt and driving home a superb first-touch, right-footed shot inside the post in the 70th. Kampl also helped to set up Leverkusen's second through Julian Brandt, and Karim Bellarabi added the final strike as Leverkusen notched its fifth straight win without conceding a goal. Frankfurt had the better chances until Kampl's opening goal, but sorely missed injured top striker Alexandar Meier. Leverkusen moved two points above Berlin, which was winless in three straight matches. Niklas Stark put Berlin ahead, but goals from Fabian Schaer and Mark Uth turned the match around. In Bremen, Claudio Pizarro returned from injury to convert a penalty and become Bremen's top all-time scorer with 102, one more than club chairman Marco Bode. Fin Bartels and Sambou Yatabare got the other goals for Bremen, while Josuha Guilavogui and Bas Dost scored for slumping Wolfsburg, which was eliminated by Real Madrid this week in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. It looks likely to miss out on a European competition next season. Hoffenheim, Darmstadt, and Augsburg also picked up big points. Bremen was four points ahead of Frankfurt, and in the relegation playoff spot. Stuttgart and Augsburg were two points ahead of Bremen, while Hoffenheim was three points clear of Bremen. ___ This story has been corrected to fix score in headline to 3-0. Leverkusen;s Kevin Kampl, left, celebrates after scoring the first goal beside Leverkusen head coach Roger Schmidt, right, during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt in Leverkusen, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Leverkusen's Kevin Kampl celebrates after scoring the first goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt in Leverkusen, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Leverkusen's Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez sits on the pitch injured and has to leave the match during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt in Leverkusen, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Leverkusen;s Kevin Kampl celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt in Leverkusen, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Bayern's Arturo Vidal celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between FC Bayern Munich and FC Schalke 04 at the Allianz Arena stadium in Munich, Germany, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) Ted Cruz takes anti-Trump campaign to Wyoming CHEYENNE, Wyoming (AP) Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took his delegate-by-delegate strategy aimed at thwarting a Donald Trump presidential nomination on Saturday to the least populous U.S. state on Saturday, while the billionaire front-runner focused on running up the vote in Tuesday's primary in his home state of New York. Cruz's well-organized campaign is trying to pick up pockets of delegates to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention in July. Cruz's hopes for the nomination rest on a contested convention where pledged delegates will be free to switch to other candidates starting with the second round of balloting. That's what brought Cruz out West on Saturday, where he swept all 14 delegates up for grabs at Wyoming's state Republican convention, handing Trump yet another loss in a string of defeats in Western states. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says remove protesters as he speaks at a campaign rally, Saturday, April 16, 2016, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mel Evans) Saturday's sweep for Cruz follows his victory last month in Wyoming, when he scored 9 of 12 available delegates at county conventions. Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who later quit the race, each won one delegate last month in Wyoming while one remained undecided. Trump still leads the overall delegate race with 747 to Cruz's 559. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 144. Cruz was the only candidate to address the convention in Casper on Saturday, promising to end what he called President Barack Obama's "war on coal" if he's elected. Wyoming is the nation's leading coal-producing state. Trump largely bypassed the state. In a telephone interview Saturday on "Fox and Friends," he said: "I don't want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming many months before to wine and dine and to essentially pay off these people, because a lot of it's a payoff, you understand that?" Trump's defeat in Wyoming follows his shutout earlier this month in Colorado, where he failed to pick up a single delegate of the 34 in play. He has urged his supporters to protest the results to state officials in that state. Campaigning in New York on Saturday, Trump said, "I guess I'm complaining 'cause it's not fair to the people." In Wyoming and Colorado, he said, "the people never got a chance to vote." Cruz, in an interview with The Associated Press after his speech in Casper, said Trump's decision not to campaign in Wyoming is telling. "The reason he decided not to show up is he recognized he couldn't win, he couldn't earn the support of conservatives in Wyoming," Cruz said. On the issue of coal, Wyoming has seen hundreds of coal industry layoffs in recent months as several of the nation's largest coal companies have filed for federal bankruptcy protections. Calling America, "the Saudi Arabia of coal," Cruz promised to roll back federal regulations he says hamper coal production. Cruz also told the crowd he was "pretty sure, here in Wyoming, y'all define gun control the same way we do in Texas and that is hitting what you're aiming at." Trump was focusing on New York where he was looking for a big victory to grab the lion's share of the 95 delegates at stake. He was holding campaign events across the state over the weekend. On the Democratic side, neither candidate had events planned in New York on Saturday. Polls show Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the state which she formerly represented as a U.S. senator. Sanders needs an upset win in New York to make inroads into Clinton's 200-plus lead in pledged delegates, Sanders met briefly with Pope Francis Saturday morning at the papal residence at the Vatican, saying it was a "real honor" to call on "one of the extraordinary figures" in the world. The pope said his brief encounter with the U.S. presidential candidate was a sign of good manners, "nothing more," and hardly evidence of interfering in American politics. The brief encounter came a day after Sanders addressed a Vatican conference dealing with his lifelong passions of economic and social justice. The trip gave Sanders a moment on the world stage, putting him alongside priests, bishops, academics and two South American presidents at the Vatican conference. Sanders has been at a disadvantage during his campaign against Clinton, the former secretary of state, on issues of foreign policy. Before returning to the United States and resuming his campaigning in New York, Sanders said he had the chance to tell the pope that "I was incredibly appreciative of the incredible role that he is playing in this planet in discussing issues about the need for an economy based on morality, not greed." Clinton was in California for a pair of big-dollar fundraisers hosted by George and Amal Clooney, with some donors agreeing to raise or donate six-figure sums. California doesn't hold its primary until June 7. She also told a cheering crowd at a Los Angeles rally on Saturday that if elected she would push Congress to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. She credited California for recently enacting the nation's highest statewide minimum wage $15 an hour by 2022. To date, Clinton has 1,289 delegates from primaries and caucuses to Sanders' 1,045. When including superdelegates, or party officials who can support any candidate, Clinton has 1,758 to Sanders' 1,076. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during the Wyoming GOP Convention on Saturday, April 16, 2016, at the Parkway Plaza Hotel and Convention Centre in Casper, Wyo. (Jenna VonHofe /The Casper Star-Tribune via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to people in the overflow area during a campaign event at the Los Angeles Southwest College on Saturday, April 16, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Farm board backs ruling that grower interfered with election FRESNO, Calif. (AP) The California farm labor board has upheld a court ruling that one of the nation's largest fruit growers interfered as employees were deciding whether to reject union representation. The decision Friday by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board marked the latest victory for organized labor in the decades-long fight. The board unanimously affirmed the ruling by Administrative Law Judge Mark Soble to set aside a 2013 election held by workers at Gerawan Farming Inc. FILE - In this April 29, 2014 file photo, Dan Gerawan, owner of Gerawan Farming, Inc., left, talks with crew boss Jose Cabello in a nectarine orchard near Sanger, Calif. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board late Friday, April 15, 2016 unanimously affirmed an administrative law judge's earlier decision in favor of the United Farm Workers in a decades-long fight with Gerawan Farming Inc., one of the nation's largest fruit growers. The board supported the judge's ruling that the company interfered with its employees' vote on whether to reject union representation. (AP Photo/Scott Smith, File) The board found Gerawan allowed employees who favored breaking from the United Farm Workers to gather signatures during work time to hold an election and unlawfully granted a wage increase during the decertification campaign to win the favor of workers. The company hires thousands of people annually to harvest nectarines, peaches and grapes in the Central Valley. It said it will appeal the farm board's decision. "Gerawan is confident that this undemocratic decision will not stand," the company said, adding that it would welcome a new election supervised by board chairman William Gould. "We truly want the workers to have a say since the last time they were asked their opinion was in 1990," the company said. The dispute between Gerawan and the union dates back to 1992, when the UFW began to represent the workers but didn't negotiate a labor contract. Union leaders have said they backed off at the time because they were overpowered by Gerawan. They recently returned to take on the company and represent its workers. The UFW's national vice president Armando Elenes said the farm board decision shows there was illegal behavior. "The decision speaks for itself," Elenes said. "Now we just want Gerawan to implement the workers' contract." The state Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether the contract can be implemented. China criticizes Taiwan for releasing fraud suspects BEIJING (AP) A Chinese spokesman criticized Taiwan after the self-ruled island released 20 fraud suspects just one day after they were deported from Malaysia, citing a lack of evidence. China and Taiwan have been tussling over which side would prosecute an international ring of Taiwanese and Chinese who allegedly targeted hundreds of mainland Chinese in telephone scams, the latest spat to inflame cross-Strait tensions. Malaysia authorities on Friday sent 20 Taiwanese suspects to Taiwan despite protests from China, which claims jurisdiction in the case because its citizens were targeted and it has been investigating the scams. FILE - In this April 13, 2016, file photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese and Taiwanese suspects involved in wire fraud, center, sit in a plane as they arrive at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China. Taiwan on Friday was trying to prevent Malaysia from deporting 52 Taiwanese criminal suspects to China amid an ongoing battle over jurisdiction involving the self-ruled island. (Yin Gang/Xinhua News Agency via AP, File) NO SALES An Fengshan, the spokesman for the Chinese State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said Saturday that Taiwan had "disregarded many victims' interests and harmed them a second time" after releasing the suspects, and urged Taiwan to "immediately rectify their mistakes," according to a statement on the office's website. An said releasing the suspects harmed the two sides' years-long cooperation on criminal investigations and called on Taiwan to "prevent greater damage to the development of cross-Strait relations." The fight over the deportees reflects a long history of diplomatic wrangling between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 amid civil war and have been trying to outmaneuver each other in the international arena ever since. Last week, Kenya sent 45 Taiwanese fraud suspects to China instead of Taiwan, infuriating Taipei officials, who accused Beijing of using its clout with the East African nation to "abduct" its citizens. Officials in Taiwan have viewed Beijing's demands for the fraud suspects as a sign that China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, is interfering with Taiwanese affairs and exerting its legal authority over Taiwanese citizens abroad. Beijing, meanwhile, has voiced frustration that it cannot deal with criminal suspects targeting its own citizens despite its law enforcement efforts. The international criminal gang, mostly based out of Southeast Asia, is accused of swindling Chinese through telephone calls by pretending to be police or insurance agents. Malaysia detained a total of 120 foreigners 68 from China and 52 from Taiwan during a bust last month. Two of the so-called masterminds were from China and were deported last Wednesday, after which China requested the remaining 118 be sent to the mainland. Malaysia is expected to send the remaining 32 Taiwanese suspects back to Taiwan, according to a Malaysian official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. The Latest: Ecuador leader says finding survivors a priority QUITO, Ecuador (AP) The Latest on the earthquake in Ecuador (all times local): 1:25 a.m. Ecuador's president says the earthquake death toll in country has risen to at least 272 and is sure to go much higher. A rescue worker looks as heavy machinery removes the debris of a collapsed building in Portoviejo, Ecuador, Sunday April 17, 2016. A magnitude-7.8 quake, the strongest since 1979, hit Ecuador flattening buildings, buckling highways along its Pacific coast and killing hundreds. (AP Photo/Carlos Sacoto) After visiting areas hard hit by the quake, Rafael Correa gave the new count to reporters early Monday and said it would "surely rise, and in a considerable way." Correa says Ecuador will overcome the tragedy. He said: "The Ecuadorean spirit knows how to move forward, and will know how to overcome these very difficult moments." ___ 10:50 p.m. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is back in his home country and is making his first public comments about the strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades. He says the priority remains finding survivors. Correa cut short a trip to the Vatican and flew directly to one of the hardest-hit area along Ecuador's Pacific coast to oversee relief operations. In an address from the tragedy-stricken city of Portoviejo, he says the death toll will probably rise considerably from the current 262 in the coming days. But he stresses that there's evidence some people remain alive underneath rubble. He says the powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake is the worst natural disaster to befall Ecuador since a 1949 earthquake in Ambato that killed thousands. In Correa's words: "The pain is very large, the tragedy is very large, but we'll find the way to move forward. If our pain is immense, still larger is the spirt of our people." ___ 9 p.m. The death toll from the powerful earthquake that shook coastal Ecuador has risen to 262. Vice Minister Diego Fuentes gave the latest number to reporters Sunday night as search teams continued to pick at rubble looking for survivors and victims. Earlier, Vice President Jorge Glas said more than 2,500 people were injured in Saturday night's earthquake. Glas says there is a long list of missing people that authorities are looking for but he has declined to disclose the number. He says only that the number of casualties is expected to go up more. ___ 6:55 p.m. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has rushed back from an overseas trip and is getting briefed on relief efforts after a powerful earthquake rocked a coastal area of the South American nation. Correa was in Rome when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck Saturday night, causing heavy damage and killing at least 246 people. He had attended a conference at the Vatican a day earlier. The presidential office released photos showing he flew in Ecuador's presidential plane directly to the city of Manta on the coast. He is being briefed at the airport and is expected to make his first statements on Ecuadorean soil soon. ___ 5:40 p.m. The death toll from Ecuador's powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake continues to rise, with 246 people now confirmed dead. Vice President Jorge Glas further says that more than 2,500 are injured. Glas says there is a long list of missing people that authorities are looking for but he has declined to disclose the number. He says only that the number of casualties is expected to go up more. ___ 4:25 p.m. The prospect of a second night on the streets without electricity has gotten more worrisome for people living near the epicenter of the earthquake that rocked parts of Ecuador's coast. Authorities in Manabi province have announced that 180 prisoners being held at El Rodeo jail near the city of Portoviejo escaped amid the tumult after the quake hit Saturday night. Twenty of the prisoners have been reported recaptured and others have returned voluntarily, but most of them remain on the loose. In addition, looting has been reported in several cities affected by the quake. In the absence of shelters, some men are taking turns watching over loved ones as they rest in the open. ___ 1:30 p.m. Ecuadorian officials say the death toll from a powerful earthquake has risen to 238. The government reported the new figures in a press release Sunday afternoon. Earlier, Vice President Jorge Glas reported 235 dead and more than 1,500 injured after an earthquake leveled parts of the South American country Saturday night. The government is also reporting hundreds of buildings destroyed. Major roads remain closed in the areas hardest hit by the quake ___ 12:40 p.m. The Canadian government says two of its citizens are among those who died in the massive Ecuador earthquake. Global Affairs Canada has issued a statement saying it's "deeply saddened by tragic loss of life" caused by the magnitude-7.8 quake that hit late Saturday. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion, says two Canadians are among those reported dead and he extended condolences to their families. The names of the Canadian victims were not released. ___ 12:00 p.m. Ecuador's Vice President Jorge Glas says the death toll from the magnitude-7.8 earthquake has risen slightly to 235. But he says another 1,557 people are injured. Glas tells a news conference that there's no risk of a tsunami an attempt to knock down rumors in the jittery nation that has been shaken by scores of aftershocks. ___ 11:40 a.m. The magnitude-7.8 earthquake has flattened much of the Ecuadoran provincial capital of Portoviejo, leaving rescuers scrambling through the ruins, digging with their hands to find survivors. President Rafael Correa says at least 233 people have died nationally as a result of the Saturday evening quake. El Diario newspaper editor Jaime Ugalde says it seems like nothing has been left standing. Among the collapsed structures are a hotel, the local social security headquarters and a telecommunications building. At a pharmacy, Andres Vera pleaded for help finding his younger brother, his brother's wife and the couple's 2 year-old son. The family had been trying to buy medicine when the shaking started, and the four-story building above the shop collapsed. ___ 10:10 a.m. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa says the death toll from a magnitude-7.8 earthquake has risen to 233. Correa sent the new figure on his official Twitter account while flying home from Rome to deal with the emergency. ___ 7:45 a.m. Authorities in Ecuador are mobilizing resources and help is getting to the ground after a long night of fear and uncertainty caused by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake that killed at least 77 people. Vice President Jorge Glas is overseeing efforts until President Rafael Correa makes an emergency return from a visit to Rome. Glas arrived Sunday morning in Manta along the coast along with dozens of rescuers. The city's airport is badly damaged, but is receiving relief flights. National airline TAME has already organized two humanitarian airlifts with members of the Red Cross and police reinforcements. More than a dozen roads have been closed due to damage from the earthquake, making it harder for rescuers to reach where they are needed most. The Transportation Ministry says that the hardest hit was Manabi province, near the epicenter. Eight major roads there were either closed or partially collapsed from landslides or strong movements of the earth. ___ 7:25 a.m. Ecuador's seismological institute is reporting more than 135 aftershocks following Saturday's magnitude-7.8 quake that ravaged the country's coastline. The strongest occurred overnight around 2 a.m. local time about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the main quake's epicenter and was felt in cities hundreds of miles kilometers away. The U.S. Geological Survey said that quake had a magnitude of 5.6. Authorities are warning that more aftershocks are in store in the coming hours and days. ___ 5:55 a.m. Pope Francis has offered prayers for the people of Ecuador affected by the violent earthquake overnight "that caused numerous victims and great damage." Francis asked the faithful in St. Peter's Square on Sunday to pray for those suffering in the aftermath of the magnitude-7.8 earthquake, as well as those hit by a separate magnitude-7.0 tremor in Japan early Saturday. He says "may the help of God and of neighbors give them strength and support." Authorities say the magnitude-7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador's sparsely populated coast Saturday night has killed 77 people and injured over 570 others. Two powerful earthquakes in Japan last week killed 41 people. (This item corrects earlier reference to Japan quake magnitude 7.0 instead of 7.3 and local time Saturday, not Friday). ___ 5:20 a.m. Ecuador's earthquake is about six times stronger and has released more energy than the one in Japan a day before. David Rothery, a professor of planetary geosciences at The Open University, northeast of London, says the total energy released by the magnitude-7.8 quake Saturday in Ecuador was "probably about 20 times greater" than the magnitude-7.0 quake in Japan early Saturday. Rothery told The Associated Press on Sunday that bigger quakes last longer, so both the strength of the shaking and the duration contribute to the total energy. Rothery says the quake in Ecuador began deeper underground than the recent Japan quakes, which would have lessened the shaking on the ground. But the greater loss of life and greater damage in Ecuador can be attributed to the country's less stringent construction codes. The scientist also says "there is no causal relationship between the earthquakes in Ecuador and Japan." (This item corrects earlier report and headline to show the 2nd Japan quake hit early Saturday local time, not Friday). ___ 4:35 a.m. Authorities in Ecuador say landslides are making it difficult for emergency workers to reach the towns hardest hit by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake. The quake was centered on a sparsely populated coastal area 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Quito, the capital. Ecuador's Public Works and Transport Ministry says 12 main roads have been closed. A landslide has shut down one road in Cotopaxi and a landslide warning has been issued for a road in Zamora Chinchipe. The Home Ministry says five helicopters and over 80 buses are ferrying 4,000 police to the quake zone. Vice President Jorge Glas also says electricity has been restored to four towns in the Manabi province and to parts of the cities of Portoviejo and Montecristi. He says the quake has killed 77 people and injured over 570. ___ 4:05 a.m. The strong earthquake in Ecuador also was a topic at a major meeting of oil-producing countries in Qatar. Kabalan Abisaab, Ecuador's ambassador to Qatar, spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the meeting in Doha He says "it's a big disaster. We are very worried about the situation." The ambassador stressed his country was prepared for such disasters, though they still can cause massive destruction. He said Ecuadorean officials are working to help those affected. The Foreign Affairs ministry has opened a hotline for people living abroad seeking information on family members in the country. Officials say the magnitude-7.8 quake, which struck Saturday night, has killed at least 77 people and injured over 570. ___ 3:40 a.m. Ecuador's Risk Management agency says residents who evacuated coastal towns because of the risk of a tsunami after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake can return home now. The quake was centered on a sparsely populated area of fishing ports and tourist beaches, 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Quito, the capital. The country's vice president says at least 77 people have been reported killed by the quake, and over 570 injured. Some 10,000 armed forces and hundreds of emergency workers and firefighters have been sent to the region after the quake flattened buildings and buckled highways. Several major highways have been closed. ___ 3:25 a.m. Ecuador's Risk Management agency says 10,000 armed forces have now been deployed to help people in the coastal area stuck by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake. The quake was centered on a sparsely populated area of fishing ports and tourist beaches, 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Quito, the capital. In addition, the agency says Sunday that 3,500 national police have been sent to the towns of Manabi, Esmeraldas and Guayas y Santa Elena, and 500 firefighters have been sent to Manabi and Pedernales. Five shelters have been set up for those evacuated from their homes. Officials say the quake, which struck Saturday night, has killed at least 77 people and injured over 570. ___ 2:45 a.m. Top officials say Ecuador is in a state of emergency and hundreds of rescue workers are rushing in after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck near its Pacific coast. The Security Ministry says on its Twitter account that "every emergency protocol has been activated" and President Rafael Correa says special quake rescue teams are coming in from Colombia and Mexico. The Red Cross Ecuador says more than 1,200 volunteers are already working in rescue, evacuation and first aid operations. Vice President Jorge Glas says mobile phone operators are allowing free text services in the hard-hit Manabi and Esmeraldas provinces, allowing people to better reach their loved ones or report emergency situations. He says the Saturday quake has already killed 77 people and injured at least 578. ___ 2:20 a.m. Ecuador's vice president says the toll in the country's devastating earthquake has risen to 77 dead and 578 injured. Vice President Jorge Glas made the announcement early Sunday on the Security Ministry's Twitter account. Glas and emergency rescue workers are pressing to reach the sparsely populated area of fishing ports and tourist beaches along the country's Pacific coast where the magnitude-7.8 quake struck after nightfall on Saturday. President Rafael Correa has signed a decree declaring a national emergency and is rushing home from Rome. ___ 1:30 a.m. The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades has flattened buildings and buckled highways along the country's Pacific coast, killing at least 41 people and causing damage in the capital and other major cities that were hundreds of miles (kilometers) away from the epicenter. The death toll is expected to rise Sunday as rescuers reached the sparsely populated area of fishing ports and tourist beaches where the magnitude-7.8 quake was centered. "We're trying to do the most we can but there's almost nothing we can do," said Gabriel Alcivar, mayor of Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the quake's epicenter. He pleaded for authorities to send earth-moving machines and emergency rescue workers as dozens of buildings in the town were flattened, trapping residents among the rubble. "This wasn't just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town," he said. Vice President Jorge Glas said in a televised address late Saturday there were initial reports of 41 dead in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil all several hundred kilometers (miles) from where the quake struck shortly after nightfall Saturday. President Rafael Correa signed a decree declaring a national emergency and was rushing home from Rome. The quake was the strongest to hit Ecuador since 1979, Glas said. Volunteers rescue a body from a destroyed building after an earthquake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Sunday, April 17, 2016. The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) A man holds a child next to a collapsed building caused by a 7.8 earthquake in Portoviejo, Ecuador, Sunday April 17, 2016. A magnitude-7.8 quake, the strongest since 1979, hit Ecuador flattening buildings, buckling highways along its Pacific coast and killing hundreds. (AP Photo/Carlos Sacoto) A girl is rescued from the rubble in Pedernales, Ecuador, Sunday, April 17, 2016. Rescuers pulled survivors from rubble Sunday after the strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Rubble from a collapsed building lays on the ground in Tarqui, the business district of Manta, Ecuador, Sunday, April 17, 2016. A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador's central coast on Saturday, killing hundreds. (AP Photo/Patricio Ramos) A destroyed home is seen in Pedernales, Ecuador, Sunday, April 17, 2016. The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Men cry at as they sit amid the debris of their earthquake demolished house in Pedernales, Ecuador, Sunday, April 17, 2016. The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Finance leaders pledge effort to boost global growth WASHINGTON (AP) Global finance officials are vowing to try to reinvigorate a lackluster global economy and urging governments to embrace free trade and do more to fight tax evasion. Concluding biannual meetings by the world finance leaders, the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said in a statement that it would work toward "strong, sustainable, inclusive, job-rich and more balanced global growth." "The global recovery is continuing, but the expansion is modest," Agustin Carstens, the head of Mexico's central bank and chair of the IMF policy panel, told reporters Saturday. "We must implement mutually reinforcing policies to boost global growth and strengthen financial stability." German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schauble, right, speaks with French Finance Minister Michel Sapin at the IMF headquarters in Washington, Friday, April 15, 2016, during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings G-20 photo opportunity. (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz) Markets have stabilized after a chaotic start to the year, when fears were growing about a possible new global recession. But the IMF cited a long list of threats, from extremist attacks and the Syrian refugee crisis to the shock to global confidence from a potential exit by Britain from the European Union. The IMF foresees global growth of 3.2 percent this year, down from the 3.4 percent it predicted in January. New threats may imperil efforts to promote greater trade and capital flows between countries. Many nations buffeted by the forces of globalization have lost jobs and workers' wages have stagnated. In the United States, this anger has propelled the presidential candidacy of Republican front-runner Donald Trump. In Britain, voters will decide in June whether to leave the European Union. Carstens urged nations "to refrain from all forms of protectionism" as it hampers global growth. The IMF policy group and the G-20 leaders also worked on a stronger response to international tax evasion, stepping up efforts to penalize countries that do not share tax information. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde called tax evasion and the use of shell companies a crucial new challenge that must be addressed collectively. "All of us are going to have to think outside the box," she told reporters. This issue came under renewed scrutiny after the leak this month of 11.5 million confidential documents from a Panamanian law firm. The Panama Papers show how some of the world's richest people hide assets in shell companies to avoid paying taxes. Iceland's prime minister resigned after it was revealed that he and his wife set up a company in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to release his tax returns for the first time after the papers raised questions about his family's affairs. "The Panama revelations show that the G-20 must carry on its action against tax evasion and promote larger transparency," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said in a statement. "It is a matter of justice and economic efficiency and it is very important for our societies' cohesion." ___ Associated Press writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report. From left, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, and China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, talk at the G-20 Finance Minister and Central Bank Governors group photo, during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings at IMF headquarters in Washington, Friday, April 15, 2016. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) German police keeping open mind in Sikh temple blast probe BERLIN (AP) Police in the western city of Essen say they are keeping an open mind about the reasons for an apparently deliberate explosion at a Sikh temple that injured three people late Saturday. Essen police spokesman Lars Lindemann said Sunday that a masked man reported to have fled the scene hadn't yet been apprehended. Three people detained late Saturday were released after no link to the explosion was found. Lindemann said police were investigating "in all directions" but there were no indications of a terrorist motive. A police officers stand passes by a Sikh temple after three people have been injured in an apparently deliberate explosion Saturday evening, April 16, 2016 in the western German city of Essen. A spokesman for Essen police told The Associated Press that a masked person is reported to have fled the scene shortly after the blast. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP) He said a 60-year-old man suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries in the blast and remains hospitalized. Two men aged 47 and 56 suffered slight injuries. The victims were members of a wedding party that had held a ceremony at the temple earlier Saturday. The Latest: 60 migrants rescued at sea by Spain VATICAN CITY (AP) The Latest on Europe's migration crisis (all times local): 7:25 p.m. Spain's maritime rescue service says it has rescued 60 people who had been crammed into two small boats at the southwestern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Migrant boy washes dishes while others enjoy a swing chair at the makeshift camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Sunday, April 17, 2016. Some thousands of people have been stuck her for more than a month amid hopes that the border would reopen.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) One boat containing 21 occupants was located Sunday morning and another with 39 on board was found in the evening, the service said on its official Twitter account. A Spanish navy ship had joined in the search Saturday for one of the vessels that was transporting migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa. Sunday's two operations bring the total of migrants rescued off Spain's southern coastline over the weekend to 136. Thousands of migrants try to reach Spain each year either by attempting to enter the country's north African enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta or by making perilous sea crossings to the mainland. ___ 4:10 p.m. Turkey has denied reports Turkish border guards have shot at Syrian civilians fleeing the Islamic State group. Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said Sunday that such claims "are irrelevant to reality." Human Rights Watch has urged Turkey to allow in thousands of Syrians fleeing clashes between rebels and IS in northern Syria. The advocacy group quoted a Syrian refugee who said Turkish border guards shot at hundreds of people approaching a border wall. Turkey, which borders Syria and hosts roughly 2.7 million Syrian refugees, has tightened border restrictions in the past year. Aid agencies, Bilgic said, are taking "necessary precautions on both sides" of the border to help Syrians displaced in the latest fighting. Turkey is reportedly building three container cities with the capacity to house about 40,000 Syrians. ___ 2:15 p.m. Greek authorities, worried about the spread of diseases in makeshift refugee camps, are urging migrants to relocate to organized camps with better living conditions. A flyer is circulating at the Idomeni migrant camp on Greece's border with Macedonia, saying that gastroenteritis, lice and scabies are spreading among the almost 10,400 people there. Written in four languages, including Arab and Farsi, it urges the migrants to relocate to one of several organized camps across Greece. But the migrants and refugees who have been stranded at Idomeni ever since Austria and several Balkan countries shut down their borders to them in mid-March are reluctant to leave. On Saturday, departing migrants filled just one bus. In addition to Idomeni, another 10,000 migrants are staying in makeshift camps in mainland Greece. ___ 1:25 p.m. Pope Francis says one of the refugees he met on the Greek island of Lesbos was the Muslim widower of a Syrian Christian woman killed by extremists for refusing to renounce her faith. Francis told the faithful in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that "she is a martyr." Departing from his prepared remarks, Francis shared his experiences of the day earlier with thousands of people gathered for his blessing. He says among the 300 refugees he greeted Saturday on Lesbos was a Syrian widower with two children. The pope said: "He is Muslim, and he told me that he married a Christian girl. They loved each other and respected each other. But unfortunately the young woman's throat was slashed by terrorists because she didn't want to deny Christ and abandon her faith." A migrant uses his mobile phone as he sits by the sea near the old international airport which is used as a temporary camp in Athens, on Sunday, April 17, 2016. Greek authorities, worried about the spread of diseases in makeshift camps, are urging migrants to relocate to organized camps with better living conditions. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis) Clinton, Sanders dash about New York days before primary NEW YORK (AP) Bernie Sanders revved up what he said was a record crowd of nearly 29,000 in his boyhood borough, insisting that Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton cannot "tell the American people with a straight face that you're going to stand up to big-money interests" when those same interests are giving millions of dollars to her supportive super PAC. The Vermont senator also said during the rally at Prospect Park that the former secretary of state must have given a "pretty damned good speech" to the bank Goldman Sachs since it paid her more than $200,000 as a speaking fee. Sanders has seized on the months-old arguments with increasing agitation in recent weeks. Sunday's speeches came 48 hours before the New York primary and on the heels of one of Clinton's most high-profile campaign fundraisers yet. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign rally in Prospect Park, Sunday, April 17, 2016, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Both Sanders and Clinton claim ties to New York. Brooklyn-native Sanders could use a win Tuesday to jar the front-runner, while Clinton wants to halt his momentum with a victory in the state that sent her to the U.S. Senate. Clinton has led the polls, and in a tacit acknowledgement that the election is likely to be tough, Sanders plans to be in soon-to-vote Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. Clinton and Sanders aggressively campaigned across the city Sunday. Both courted black voters; Clinton needs a large African-American turnout to win Tuesday and Sanders would like to erode some of that support. Clinton brought mothers who lost children to gun violence to a church in Mount Vernon, where she stressed her record on gun control. Clinton then hit get-out-the-vote events in Brooklyn and predominantly Hispanic Washington Heights. She concluded her day on the Republican stronghold of Staten Island, where she touted bipartisanship and rallied a crowd of 500, questioning Sanders' role in the effort to revamp health care in the 1990s. "Well, where were you?" Clinton asked. "I mean, really." Sanders began his day at a church in Harlem, where he emphasized that the Black Lives Matter movement had shown him how black communities feel targeted by the police. He later greeted well-wishers at a park shadowed by the Brooklyn Bridge and toured public housing in Brooklyn. Over the weekend, both candidates briefly left New York. Sanders paid a visit to the Vatican. And Clinton made her way to California, where actor George Clooney hosted two weekend fundraisers for her. Donations for attendees at an event in San Francisco topped out at $353,000 per couple, which even Clooney said is an "obscene amount of money." The fundraiser even drew pro-Sanders demonstrators, Clooney recounted in an interview airing Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." When he went to talk with them, he said, they called him a corporate shill. "That's one of the funnier things you could say about me," the Oscar-winner said, though he conceded that some of the protesters had a valid point regarding a different matter. "Their T-shirts said, you know, 'You sucked as Batman,'" said Clooney, the star of 1997's "Batman & Robin," one of the least memorable films in the superhero franchise. "And I was like, 'Well, you kind of got me on that one.'" Asked on CNN Sunday whether Clooney was siding with the wrong candidate, Sanders replied, "I think he is." But he complimented Clooney for talking about money in politics, which has been the cornerstone of his campaign. Sanders then used Clooney in his own fundraiser. In an email seeking $2.70 contributions, Sanders highlighted the size of Clinton's fundraising checks and the actor's comments about them. Sanders has been able to finance his underdog bid through low-dollar online fundraisers. In each of the past three months he has out-raised Clinton. Clooney said he likes many of Sanders' ideas and would gladly raise money for him if he became the Democratic nominee. But the actor said he is supporting Clinton because of his admiration of her work as secretary of state, and he praised her for her efforts to avert a humanitarian crisis ahead of South Sudan's independence. Clooney faulted Clinton for not better explaining where the money she is raising goes. Most of it, he said, would end up being spent on down-ballot races including those for the Senate, which will confirm the next president's picks for the Supreme Court. If the right justice is confirmed for the spot now open on the court, Clooney said, political campaigns could "get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again." ___ AP writer Jeff Horwitz in Washington contributed to this report. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a block party in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally in the Staten Island borough of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to members of the media after touring the Howard Houses in the Brownsville neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, takes a picture with supporters at a block party in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets residents as he tours the Howard Houses in the Brownsville neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Supporters cheer for democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while she speaks at a block party in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign rally at Prospect Park, Sunday, April 17, 2016, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Supporters of democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton watch as she speaks at a rally in the Staten Island borough of New York, Sunday, April 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his son Levi Sanders, left, take a walk in the Brooklyn Bridge park, Sunday, April 17, 2016, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Trial begins for ex-reserve who fatally shot unarmed man TULSA, Okla. (AP) Lawyers for an Oklahoma reserve sheriff's deputy who killed an unarmed suspect lying face-down on the ground and being restrained are expected to argue that the victim's drug use and health could have contributed to his death. Robert Bates, a 74-year-old insurance executive who moonlighted as a reserve Tulsa County sheriff's deputy in his spare time, is due to stand trial Monday on a second-degree manslaughter charge in the shooting death of Eric Harris, who was killed after running from deputies during an illegal gun sales sting last April. Video of the killing was captured on deputies' body cameras and can be viewed online. After deputies caught up to Harris and were restraining him on the ground, Bates can be heard yelling "Taser!" before firing a single gunshot that struck Harris near his armpit, killing him. Bates later said he thought he was drawing his stun gun instead of his handgun. FILE - In this July 13, 2015, file photo, Robert Bates arrives for his arraignment in Tulsa, Okla. The ex-Oklahoma sheriffs reserve deputy who was recorded on body cameras fatally shooting an unarmed man after a foot pursuit goes to trial Monday, April 18, 2016, for second-degree manslaughter. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File) If convicted of second-degree manslaughter, Bates could be sentenced to up to four years in prison. Bates' attorneys plan to call expert witnesses who will suggest that other factors could have contributed to Harris' death, such as the methamphetamine that was found in his system or his cardiac health. Another expert for the defense intends to tell jurors how stress could have affected Bates' cognitive decision-making and performance, among other theories. One of Bates' attorneys, Clark Brewster, defended the decision to call these experts, saying jurors deserve to consider all possible evidence. Prosecutors declined to comment. Dan Smolen, an attorney for the Harris family, disputed any theory suggesting that anything other than being shot contributed to Harris' death. "This is a patently absurd defense," Smolen said in a statement Friday. "Anyone who has seen the video of the incident knows that Mr. Harris would not have died on April 2, 2015, were it not for the gunshot." Harris' death led to big changes involving the sheriff's office, including a grand jury investigation of alleged wrongdoing at the agency, the indictment and resignation of the longtime sheriff, Stanley Glanz, and the suspension of the 120-member reserve deputy corps. An outside consultant hired to review the sheriff's office determined that it suffered from a "system-wide failure of leadership and supervision" and had been in a "perceptible decline" for more than a decade. Equally disturbing to thousands of residents who petitioned to empanel the grand jury was the perceived close ties between some reserve deputies, including Bates, and the sheriff. Weeks after Harris was killed, an internal memo from 2009 was released by the attorney of Harris' family questioning Bates' qualifications. Bates was a close friend of Glanz who donated thousands of dollars in cash, vehicles and equipment to the agency. The agency memo alleged that superiors knew Bates didn't have enough training but pressured others to look the other way because of his relationship with the sheriff and the agency. Changes at Texas jail where Bland died difficult to attain DALLAS (AP) Several recommendations issued by a panel investigating the small-town Texas jail where Sandra Bland died could be difficult to implement, including a call to separate sheriff and jail operations, which may run afoul of state law. Waller County would also face financial challenges to implementing other panel recommendations, such as constructing a jail better equipped for suicide prevention and hiring medically trained experts to evaluate the mental health of inmates. County officials have faced criticism for not properly monitoring Bland in jail after she acknowledged last summer that she had once tried to kill herself. Problems at the jail highlighted in the report released this week are common to many jails across the country, but few have been scrutinized as closely as Waller County's was after Bland was found hanging from a cell partition, provoking national outrage and drawing the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement. File - In this July 22, 2015, file photo, news media work outside the Waller County Jail, in Hempstead, Texas. Several recommendations issued by a panel investigating the small-town Texas jail where Sandra Bland died could be difficult to implement, including a call to separate sheriff and jail operations that may run afoul of state law. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File) The county sheriff endorsed the report's findings and said he has already started making changes the beginning of an overhaul that the attorney for Bland's family hopes could be her legacy. But some recommendations are far-reaching and more difficult to attain for Waller County, a historically rural area that's become one of the fastest developing in the state as the Houston metro region pushes northward. Among the report's recommendations is one that would separate the sheriff's policing duties from the administration of the jail. JoAnne Musick, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and a member of the five-person panel, said officers responsible for law enforcement should not also be responsible for overseeing inmates. "In the arrest they've already formed opinions about that person, which generally is going to be negative if that's a person you've already arrested," she said. However, state law assigns sheriffs the responsibility of overseeing county incarceration efforts, and modifying that oversight through legislation could be difficult. State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate criminal justice committee, said he doesn't support a change in law. Instead, he said Bland and many other nonviolent offenders in county jails should be released on personal-recognizance bonds. This essentially would let them leave jail on the condition they appear later for a court hearing and would help reduce jail overcrowding and avoid mental health crises. "The state has to take more responsibility in terms of overseeing jail operations, and we haven't even discussed city jails or private jails," Whitmire said. The Waller County committee is also pushing for a new jail, describing the current one as obsolete and inadequate for several reasons, including its lack of adequate suicide-prevention cells. The report acknowledges that a new one is planned, but says the construction schedule "should be accelerated." County Judge Trey Duhon, the top administrator in the county, said Waller owns 60 acres on which it's planning to build a new jail. But he said the county must first secure $15 million to $20 million to build one, which will take time. And he said even the most modern of jails don't address a core problem. "Dealing with mental health issues in our criminal justice system continues to be a huge problem, not only for Texas, but also for the country," Duhon said. "The jails are never going to be the right place to treat somebody with a mental health condition." Bland, who was in the process of moving to Texas from the Chicago area, was jailed after a white state trooper pulled her over in July for a minor traffic violation and their exchange turned combative. She was found dead in her cell three days after her arrest. A medical examiner ruled it a suicide and a grand jury declined to indict any sheriff's officials or jailers. Authorities have said Bland indicated on an intake questionnaire that she once tried to kill herself and was taking medication for epilepsy. After she died, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards cited the jail for not observing inmates in person at least once an hour and not documenting that jailers had undergone training for handling potentially suicidal inmates. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other lawmakers last August formed a legislative jail commission that's holding hearings on jail safety, including mental health reviews of inmates and suicides. But the commission has yet to suggest reforms. Musick's committee recommends emergency medical technicians conduct mental health assessments for people being booked into the jail, rather than jail staff. But contracting with an EMT service could be an added cost that's difficult for a small county to absorb. "Deputies do not possess the training or expertise to evaluate the medical and mental health needs of inmates," the report says. FILE - This July 22, 2015, file photo, shows the inside of the Waller County jail in Hempstead, Texas. Several recommendations issued by a panel investigating the small-town Texas jail where Sandra Bland died could be difficult to implement, including a call to separate sheriff and jail operations that may run afoul of state law. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File) FILE - This undated file handout photo provided by the Waller County Sheriffs Office shows Sandra Bland. Several recommendations issued by a panel investigating the small-town Texas jail where Bland died could be difficult to implement, including a call to separate sheriff and jail operations that may run afoul of state law. (Waller County Sheriffs Office via AP, File) Florida zoo to reopen after deadly tiger attack MIAMI (AP) The South Florida zoo where a veteran keeper was attacked and killed by a Malayan tiger is reopening Monday as authorities from several local, state and federal agencies continue investigating what led to Friday's deadly attack. Speaking in front of the Palm Beach Zoo and Conservation Society, Naki Carter, a zoo spokeswoman, told reporters late Sunday that they will open its doors to the public, beginning at 9 a.m., and that a fund has been created to support tiger conservation in honor of Stacey Konwiser. Konwiser was killed Friday by a 13-year-old male tiger in an enclosure known as the night house, where tigers sleep and are fed. The tiger was tranquilized and has since recovered, and remains at the zoo. The zoo was closed over the weekend. FILE- In this April 15, 2016, file photo, police officers enter the administration building at the Palm Beach Zoo after zookeeper Stacey Konwiser died while being attacked by a tiger in West Palm Beach, Fla. The zoo is reopening Monday, April 18, as authorities from several local, state and federal agencies continue investigating what led to Fridays deadly attack. (Damon Higgins/Palm Beach Post via AP, File) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Konwiser, the zoo's lead keeper, had worked at the zoo for three years and had "extensive experience" in managing large cats, said Carter. "She loved big cats," she said. Konwiser's husband, Jeremy, who worked at the same zoo as a keeper, said in a statement that "human beings and animals lost a wonderful friend." Carter declined to comment on the investigation, but said she wanted to "dispel misinformation" that the tiger had been mistreated. She also said that zoo officials did not fault the animal for the attack. "The tiger is healthy," she said. "There has never been blame assigned to the wild Malayan tiger involved in this deadly incident." The tiger is one of less than 250 such tigers known to exist in the world. The zoo has four similar tigers, three males and one female, and serves as a "breeding ground to make sure they don't become extinct." Carter declined to say whether the public would be able to see the tigers on exhibit Monday and would not identify the nickname of the tiger that attacked Konwiser. She said zoo officials are cooperating with several agencies investigating the attack, including the West Palm Beach police, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Carter said Konwiser was "like a sister to many" and that she will be long remembered for her dedication to the zoo's animals. "Will it be business as usual for us? No it will not," she said. "We've lost a member of our family." 'Eyesore' road signs will be axed to save money, Government says Councils are to be given new powers to strip away "eyesore" road signs in a bid to save cash and make Britain's streets more pleasing on the eye, the Government has announced. Signs warning of permit-parking zones and cycle lanes could be among those removed under measures to be introduced on Friday by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin. Repeater speed limit signs could also be axed under changes Mr McLoughlin said could save local authorities 30 million over the next four years and stop drivers being "distracted". Road signs on a stretch of the A419 in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire The Department for Transport says the number of road signs in England has almost doubled from 2.45 million in 1993 to an estimated 4.57 million in 2013. Mr McLoughlin said: "Road signs should only be installed on our roads when they are essential. Our common-sense reforms will help get rid of pointless signs that are an eyesore and distract drivers. "These new rules will also save 30 million in taxpayers' cash by 2020, leaving drivers with just the signs they need to travel safely." Sir Alan Duncan, the former international development minister, will lead a taskforce "looking at removing pointless signs", the DfT said. While motorways and major trunk roads are the responsibility of the DfT, local authorities control all smaller roads. The changes will apply to local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The Government argues that local authorities will save money through a reduction in the number of signs they have to keep lit - although danger signs will still have to be illuminated. Among the rule changes being introduced is a "use by" date for signs warning of a new road layout or new roundabout, to prevent them being forgotten about and left in place "for years" instead of the regulation three months. Other changes planned by the DfT allowing cycle lanes and permit parking areas to be shown just using a road marking, instead of the current need for a marking and a sign. Traffic restrictions like no-entry or no left turn would also only require a sign at their start "if it's safe", the department said. Councils will also be allowed to decide themselves how many speed limit repeater signs are needed on a given road. Sebastian Vettel: Daniil Kvyat opening-lap attack 'suicidal' at Chinese GP A furious Sebastian Vettel accused Daniil Kvyat of "suicidal" driving and blamed the Russian for his opening-lap collision with Kimi Raikkonen in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix. Kvyat, who started from sixth on the grid, attempted to overtake Vettel at turn one, but in allowing space for the Red Bull, Vettel inadvertently ran into his Ferrari team-mate. Vettel and Raikkonen lost significant time in the incident - which was not investigated by the stewards - and both were forced to stop for new front wings, dropping to 15th and 19th respectively. Sebastian Vettel, pictured, took aim at Daniil Kvyat's "suicidal" driving in China Vettel, the four-time champion, commendably fought his way back through the field to pass Kvyat and finish second behind race-winner Nico Rosberg. But the German made his feelings clear over the incident, first on the radio, and subsequently to Kvyat in the green room ahead of the podium celebrations. "The attack was suicidal," Vettel said to his team. "There was always going to be a crash." He also described the Russian, an employee of his former team Red Bull, as a "mad man". After the race finished, Vettel then vented his angst in person to Kvyat in a toe-curling exchange. Vettel began: "You, asking what happened at the start? If I don't go to the left you crash into us and we all three go out. You came like a torpedo." Kvyat, laughing nervously, replied: "I was racing." Vettel interrupted: "Yeah, but if I keep going the same line, we crash. There was a car on the left also. That's why I hit the other car." Kvyat said: "Oh yeah I can see all the three cars, man, come on. I have only two eyes, two cars." The to-and-fro continued before Vettel said: "I know it's racing but you need to expect when you attack like a crazy you damage the car. You were lucky this time. There was damage to Kimi." A stern Kvyat answered: "I am on the podium, so it's okay. You are on the podium, fine." Vettel turned in a fine recovery display to finish second, but, following his retirement in Bahrain, he is already 42 points behind Rosberg. U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea's failed missile test UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Friday condemned North Korea's failed ballistic missile launch, warning that it was a "clear violation" of U.N. resolutions and the council could take further punitive measures against Pyongyang. Experts believe North Korea attempted to launch an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Friday in defiance of U.N. sanctions. "The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the firing of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on April 15," the council said in a statement, using North Korea's official name. "Although the DPRK's ballistic missile launch was a failure, this attempt constituted a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions," it said. The launch, on North Korea's so-called Day of the Sun which marks the birthday of the country's founder Kim Il-sung, followed its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which led to new U.N. sanctions. The council said it "would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures in line with (its) previously expressed determination." In slow dance with capitalism, Cuba's Communists turn to future By Frank Jack Daniel and Nelson Acosta HAVANA, April 16 (Reuters) - Cuba's Communist Party meets on Saturday under pressure for the slow pace of promised market reforms as it prepares for a future without the octogenarian leaders who guided the country from a 1959 revolution to a cautious embrace of the United States. The meeting is the Communist Party's first congress in five years and the first since President Raul Castro and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama announced they were to end decades of enmity and seek normal relations. The party has been secretive about the agenda of the meeting, even by Cuba's opaque standards, triggering grumbling among younger members who have grown accustomed to a freer flow of information and contact with the world. As well as the lack of discussion, party foot soldiers said they were worried that the country had not implemented quickly enough the sweeping market reforms adopted at the last party congress in 2011 to avoid economic collapse. "The economic plan is still getting on track but it needs to accelerate," said Wilson Batista, who has been a party member for twenty years. "The world's policies, the world's economy changes daily and we need to adjust ourselves exactly. We need to get on the world economic train." Cuba has improved its financial credibility over the last five years, running trade and current account surpluses and restructuring $50 billion in mainly old debt, although harsh U.S. sanctions remain in place. A nascent middle-class has emerged, making money from small businesses such as construction and hospitality. But in what one Cuban blogger called "paralysis at the cliff edge," the party has not relinquished control of trade or larger businesses. ANOINTING A SUCCESSOR The party has implemented about a fifth of the measures it adopted in 2011, and Cubans are eager for more, especially a unification of the country's two currencies and an end to the government's monopoly on imports and exports. Many Cubans are tired of waiting, especially young professionals who are rarely allowed to set up private practices. With news from the outside world closer thanks to more Internet access and booming tourism, ever greater numbers are taking advantage of new freedoms to travel and emigrate. The congress takes place three weeks after Obama made history as the first U.S. president to visit the island in 88 years and eloquently called for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state. His words are unlikely to be heeded, because the party sees itself as the greatest defence against Washington's past attempts to dominate Cuba. Cuba's top leaders started their careers as young guerrilla fighters who overthrew a U.S. backed government in 1959, and a few years later repelled the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion - which the party congress is timed to commemorate. Now, party chief Raul Castro is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is 85. Castro is due to retire as president in 2018 and by the end of the four-day congress it will be clear whether he remains as party leader until 2021, or whether somebody younger takes over the leadership. New Zealand 'Pastafarians' tie knot in first recognised wedding By Jarni Blakkarly April 17 (Reuters) - Donned in eye-patches and a spaghetti bridal headdress, two New Zealanders have celebrated the first legally recognised 'Pastafarian' marriage on board a pirate ship, in a milestone of recognition for the bizarre global 'religion'. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose stated beliefs are in a god made of spaghetti, have amassed followers around the world. The group initially formed as a sarcastic criticism of Christian creationist teachings at schools in the United States. Followers who wear colinders on their heads and revere pirates insist that they are not a spoof church and that their beliefs are genuine. The group also celebrates holidays such as 'Talk like a pirate day'. New Zealand's government earlier this month agreed to an application from member Karen Martyn to become a legal marriage celebrant after the group was deemed to comply with the country's regulations. "Does ye take this feisty wench to be yah lawfully wedded best mate? Does yea promise to stay at the helm even when seas are rough?" Karen Martyn, and self-declared 'Ministeroni' asked the couple. Martyn told reporters that many more Pastafarian weddings were being planned. Castro, 84, says Cuba's leaders are too old, proposes limits HAVANA, April 16 (Reuters) - Future top leaders of Cuba's Communist party should retire at 70 to let in younger blood, President Raul Castro said on Saturday, suggesting older members of the party hoping for promotion to the top table could play with their grandchildren instead. Cuba's current leaders include several septagenarian or octogenarian veterans of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. There is a growing urgency for them to make succession plans to keep the party alive once they are gone. Raul Castro himself is 84 and after his planned retirement from government in two years time the country is likely to be led by somebody with a different surname for the first time since his brother overthrew a pro-U.S. government nearly 60 years ago. His comments during a two hour speech at the inauguration of the Communist Party's twice-per-decade congress were met with silence, perhaps because some members were disappointed with the idea. "So serious! What silence is caused by this subject. Don't think that just because you can't be in the leadership of the country you can't do anything," Castro said, suggesting the elderly continue as party activists and spend more time with their grandchildren. Before the congress, the current party leadership faced some discontent among younger members critical of the slow delivery on promised economic reforms in the past five years and a lack of transparency. Fidel Castro, whose 90th birthday is in August, retired in 2008 after a serious illness and his younger brother took over, introducing a limit of two five-year terms for leaders. That limit has yet to be tested. The proposed new rules would affect new entrants into the leadership and must be approved by the party over the course of the four-day congress. Castro said there should then be a constitutional amendment and a referendum to codify this and other reforms. Castro proposed that 60 years be fixed as the age limit for entering the party's central committee and up to 70 years as the maximum age to perform duties in the party leadership, saying the new rules would have a knock-on effect of bringing younger leaders up through the ranks more quickly. "Somebody who is 65 or 70 is useful for important activities, but not the activities of an important leader," he said. On Monday, the party is due to vote for a new leadership, and is expected to re-elect Castro and the party number two Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 85. Presumably the new rules would not apply to them because they are already within the leadership. Congress to vote on impeaching Rousseff in divided Brazil By Anthony Boadle and Marcela Ayres BRASILIA, April 17 (Reuters) - Brazil's lower house of Congress will decide on Sunday whether to recommend impeaching President Dilma Rousseff on charges of manipulating budgetary accounts, in a vote that could hasten the end of 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule. The political crisis, which comes amid Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, has deeply divided the South American country and sparked an acrimonious fight between Rousseff and her Vice President Michel Temer, who would take over if she is dismissed. In a frenzied round of last minute deal-making on Saturday, Rousseff appeared to have clawed back the votes of some wavering lawmakers but still appeared to lack the one-third of votes needed in the 513-seat lower house to avoid being sent for trial in the Senate. Rousseff's charismatic predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, led the deal-making to keep her in office and drafted in governors from several states to pressure legislators on Saturday, swinging the momentum back in Rousseff's favour. "The governors' participation is proving decisive," said Paulo Teixeira, one of the Workers' Party's leaders in the lower house. Thousands of police were due to deploy in the capital Brasilia on Sunday, and in the mega-cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where hundreds of thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment demonstrators were expected to take to the streets. A 2-metre (6.5-foot) high wall outside Congress, stretching for more than 1 km (0.6 of a mile) on the grassy esplanade between rows of ministries, showed the stark political divide in what remains one of the world's most unequal societies. Polls suggest that more than 60 percent of Brazil's 200 million people support impeaching Rousseff, whose inner circle has been tainted by a vast corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras. The Workers Party, however, can still rely on strong support among millions of working class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programmes with pulling their families out of poverty during the last decade. PARALYSED GOVERNMENT The impeachment crisis has paralysed activity in Brasilia, just four months before the country is due to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and as it seeks to battle an epidemic of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in newborns. While Rousseff herself has not been personally charged with corruption, many of the lawmakers who will decide her fate on Sunday have. Congresso em Foco, a prominent watchdog group in Brasilia, says more than 300 of the legislators who will vote on Sunday - well over half the chamber - are under investigation for corruption, fraud or electoral crimes. If Rousseff loses Sunday's vote, the Senate must decide whether there are legal grounds to hear the case against her, a decision expected in early May. Should it agree to do so, Rousseff would be suspended from office and Temer would automatically take over. Financial markets in Brazil have rallied strongly in recent weeks on hopes that Rousseff's dismissal would usher in a more business-friendly Temer administration. Sources close to the vice president told Reuters on Friday he was considering a senior executive at Goldman Sachs in Brazil for a top economic post. Whoever governs the country in the coming months, however, will inherit a toxic political environment, a deeply divided Congress, rising unemployment and an expected contraction of four percent this year in the world's ninth largest economy. Yemen police say foil two bomb attacks day before peace talks ADEN, April 17 (Reuters) - Police in Yemen said they foiled two car bomb attacks in the southern port city of Aden early on Sunday, a day before peace talks to end a year of war were due to start. Police at a checkpoint opened fire at a car travelling at high speed which then exploded, wounding at least five officers, they said. One of the policemen later died in hospital, a medical source said. Officers also safely disarmed a booby-trapped car parked on a beach road near the airport in the northeastern part of the city, police added. Security forces closed off the area and were investigating. No one has claimed responsibility for the planned attacks near Aden airport in Khor Maksar district, which took place before U.N.-sponsored peace talks between President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government and the Houthis movement were scheduled to open in Kuwait on Monday. Fighting involving the forces of the Saudi-backed government and the Iranian-allied Houthis, a militia group which controls much of northern Yemen, has killed more than 6,200 people. Islamist militant groups including al Qaeda and Islamic State have exploited Yemen's conflict to strengthen their grip on parts of the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula. Militants have repeatedly carried out attacks in Aden, temporary seat of Hadi's government. On Friday, a car bomb was detonated outside the foreign ministry building in Aden but caused no casualties. 0-Saudi-Iran tensions scupper deal to freeze oil output By Rania El Gamal and Reem Shamseddine DOHA, April 17 (Reuters) - A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell apart on Sunday after Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join in despite calls on Riyadh to save the agreement and help prop up crude prices. The development will revive oil industry fears that major producers are embarking again on a battle for market share, especially after Riyadh threatened to raise output steeply if no freeze deal were reached. Iran is also pledging to ramp up production following the lifting of Western sanctions in January, making a compromise with Riyadh almost impossible as the two fight proxy wars in Yemen and Syria. Some 18 oil nations, including non-OPEC Russia, gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha for what was expected to be the rubber-stamping of a deal - in the making since February - to stabilise output at January levels until October 2016. But OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia told participants it wanted all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to take part in the freeze, including Iran, which was absent from the talks. Tehran had refused to stabilise production, seeking to regain market share post-sanctions. After five hours of fierce debate about the wording of a communique - including between Saudi Arabia and Russia - delegates and ministers announced no deal had been reached. "We concluded we all need time to consult further," Qatar's energy minister Mohammed al-Sada told reporters. Several OPEC sources said if Iran agreed to join the freeze at the next OPEC meeting on June 2, talks with non-OPEC producers could resume. Russian oil minister Alexander Novak called the Saudi demand "unreasonable" and said he was disappointed as he had come to Doha under the impression that all sides would sign the deal instead of debating it. Novak said Russia was not shutting the door on a deal but the government would not restrain output for now. Russia is a key ally of Iran and has been defending Tehran's right to raise output post-sanctions while also supporting the Islamic Republic in many of its conflicts with Riyadh. TOUGH SAUDI STANCE The failure to reach a global deal could halt a recent recovery in oil prices. "With no deal today, markets' confidence in OPEC's ability to achieve any sensible supply balancing act is likely to diminish and this is surely bearish for the oil markets, where prices had rallied partly on expectations of a deal," said Natixis oil analyst Abhishek Deshpande. In December, OPEC failed to agree on output policy for the first time in years after Iran disagreed over a production ceiling proposed by Saudi Arabia, arguing again that it wanted to boost output post-sanctions. "Without a deal, the likelihood of markets balancing is now pushed back to mid-2017. We will see a lot of speculators getting out next week," said Deshpande, who added that prices could fall close to $30 per barrel. Brent oil has risen to nearly $45 a barrel, up 60 percent from January lows, on optimism that a deal would help ease the supply glut that has seen prices sink from levels as high as $115 hit in mid-2014. Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects said oil prices could fall below $40 on Monday in a knee-jerk reaction. "While today's lack of a freeze deal has no negative impact on balances - since Iran is really the only country likely to raise output substantially - it has a huge negative impact on sentiment especially as the deal had been hyped up so much," she said. Gary Ross, the founder and executive chairman of New York-based consultancy PIRA, said the failure to reach a deal was negative but would not have a long-lasting impact. "The market has recently moved up due to tightening balances. We see geopolitical risks to supply rising, we see U.S. production declining. In many respects, the rebalancing has already started," he said. Saudi Arabia has taken a tough stance on Iran, the only major OPEC producer to refuse to participate in the freeze. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg that the kingdom could quickly raise production and would restrain its output only if Iran agreed to a freeze. Ultra-nationalist resurgence could complicate Serbia's EU path By Ivana Sekularac JAGODINA, Serbia, April 17 (Reuters) - Ultra-nationalists are set to return to Serbia's parliament in an April 24 election after an absence of several years, boosted by growing discontent with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's pro-European Union stance and austerity policies. They include firebrand Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, whose popularity in Serbia was boosted by his acquittal last month of crimes against humanity by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Polls indicate Seselj's Radicals and the right-wing Dveri grouping, which hold pro-Russian and anti-NATO views and demand an end to integration with the EU, will both get over the threshold needed to get into parliament and together could win about 25-30 seats in the 250-seat assembly. While the ultra-nationalists are unlikely to challenge the prime minister's strong hold on power, they will use the platform to attack his pro-EU course and fight any concessions he is forced to make during Serbia's negotiations to join the bloc, which began in December. Opinion polls suggest Vucic's Progressive Party is on track to retain its parliamentary majority, but Seselj's Radicals -- who failed to win any seats in elections in 2012 and 2014 -- could become the third-largest group in parliament. Seselj, whose war crimes acquittal is being appealed by prosecutors, gives voice to the grievances many Serbs feel over NATO's 1999 bombing of Serbia over the Kosovo conflict. Seselj was deputy prime minister at the time. "The EU is made up of NATO countries. They bombed us, they took Kosovo away from us," he told cheering supporters last week in Jagodina, a central town where unemployment runs at 30 percent. Seselj, 61, was a mentor to Vucic until 2008 when his protege broke with the Radicals. Seselj, who has been battling colon cancer for several years, remains a fierce advocate of the "Greater Serbia" ideology that fuelled bloodshed in the 1990s Yugoslav wars. His goal is to secure enough members of parliament -- one third or 84 legislators -- to block any attempt to change Serbia's constitution if Belgrade comes under pressure during the EU negotiations to remove a constitutional reference to Kosovo being part of Serbia. AUSTERITY FATIGUE A sharp 2014 recession sent Serbia's budget deficit soaring, forcing the government to seek a 1.2 billion euro ($1.35 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, which demanded public spending and subsidy cuts, tax hikes and the privatisation of inefficient state firms as a condition. EU membership will also require painful economic restructuring. Analysts say austerity measures and an unemployment rate of 18 percent have pushed voters towards the rightist parties. Until two years ago, Suzana Arsic, a 52-year-old kindergarten teacher from Jagodina, voted for the pro-EU Democratic Party, but now she is changing sides. "I'm going to vote for the Radicals this time. I didn't like what I saw -- plants were shut down, people lost their jobs and were pushed to expensive borrowing they couldn't manage," she told Reuters. Serbia's economy is set to grow 1.8 percent this year, slower than its neighbours, the World Bank says. The average monthly wage of 357 euros is among the lowest in the region. Many Serbs see little benefit from the country's talks on joining the EU. A recent opinion poll found nearly 72 percent of Serbs oppose joining the EU and NATO. Vucic says joining the EU, Serbia's biggest trading partner and investor, remains Belgrade's No. 1 policy goal. The conservative leader is going to the polls two years early to seek a mandate for economic reforms needed to qualify for EU membership. Vucic, who says Serbia will not seek to join NATO, warns of the dangers of rising nationalism. "There can be no compromise with those who are pushing Serbia back in the past," he said. The ultra-nationalist resurgence is not causing great alarm in the EU for now because Vucic has ruled out a coalition with the right-wingers, diplomats say. Hrvoje Stojic, a Zagreb-based analyst with Hypo Group Alpe Adria bank, said the strengthening of rightist parties was a regional trend, noting eurosceptic parties are in power in Poland and Hungary. Both the Radicals and Dveri, running in coalition with the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), pledge to halt privatisations, subsidise farmers and impose import duties to protect domestic producers. "If people look in their wallets, if they open their eyes and switch off their TV sets they'll realise that they're being fooled (by the current government)," Sanda Raskovic Ivic, head of the DSS party, told Reuters, referring to Vucic's promises of improving living standards. Many nationalist voters are not elderly Serbs nostalgic for the old Yugoslavia, but young people who remember little of the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia's break-up. "Vucic has lost his credibility ... He made us slaves to capitalists and that's why I will vote for Dveri," said Dejana Simic, a 23-year-old waitress from Belgrade. Many Serbs, however, accept that Serbia has no option but to seek close ties with the EU. "There's really no alternative to the EU," said Djordje Trifunovic, 22, a Belgrade law student. Nail polish and mascara: beauty brands eye up Iran By Hadeel Al Sayegh and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin DUBAI, April 17 (Reuters) - When Dubai businesswoman Negin Fattahi-Dasmal opened the first branch of her luxurious nail salon chain in Iran this year, it was met with both excitement and scepticism among image-conscious young Iranians. Despite -- or perhaps partly because of -- strict Islamic dress codes, cosmetics sales in Iran are among the highest in the Middle East. Women are required to wear modest clothes and headscarves, but their faces and hands are not covered, and many express their individuality with lipstick, mascara and nail polish in styles that would seem elaborate by Western standards. With most international economic sanctions now lifted after a nuclear agreement with world powers that took effect this year, Fattahi-Dasmal thinks it is time to bring in a high-end international brand. Her chain of nail salons, N.Bar, already has a customer base among the thousands of well-off young Iranians who holiday in nearby Dubai, where they can sunbathe, shop and dress with relative freedom. "For Iranian women it's a sought-after brand," Fattahi-Dasmal, an Iranian-born Emirati, said in an interview. "There have been a lot of counterfeit products in Iran. They are extremely hungry for anything that is real, genuine and imported from the West." Nonetheless, she said some customers were sceptical that the new Tehran branch could replicate the quality and consistency customers are used to in Dubai, where branches offer dozens of standardised treatments and stringent hygiene procedures. HIGH FASHION Iran's fashion-forward twenty-somethings have kept up with global trends on social media and travels abroad, skirting diplomatic isolation and domestic repression. Fattahi-Dansal says they are discerning consumers. Even under sanctions, independent shops in the affluent northern districts of Tehran managed to obtain the latest seasonal collections of top global brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Roberto Cavalli. Some of those luxury fashion brands are now entering Iran directly, and there could be similar opportunities for beauty and cosmetics -- a market estimated by Iran's parliament's research centre to be worth more than $4 billion a year. But they could face resistance from conservative factions in the establishment, which enforce Islamic dress codes and are wary of allowing any perceived Western cultural influence into the country. "The way women dress and look is still one of the red lines in the Islamic Republic," said Afshin Sadeghizadeh, a brand management consultant in Tehran and former editor of Iran's Style magazine. "The brands going to Iran should be ready to face resistance from conservatives or even get shut down and expelled from Iran," he said. Some conservatives even see foreign luxury brands as part of a war against the Islamic Republic. The Tasnim news agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, last week reported that the CIA could spy on Iranians through fake eyelashes or skin care lotions. FRANCHISE IT Complex business and banking regulations are another potential obstacle that lead many, including Fattahi-Dansal, to opt for a franchise arrangement, licensing to a local partner rather than owning her Tehran shop herself. An expensive and badly-regulated rental market adds to the difficulties. "Because of the legalities and complications, Iran is not an easy place to do business but it is also very lucrative. That was the reason we franchised," Fattahi-Dasmal said. Some brands have been held up by the difficulty of finding a partner who is a good fit for their business and not linked to any entity designated under U.S. sanctions that remain in place. "Iran has potential but we are still at the stage of finding the right partner," said Jean Cassegrain, chief executive of handbag maker Longchamp, adding that the process could take considerable time. But Fattahi-Dasmal is not deterred, and is even considering exporting another of her brands to Iran. JetSet, an aviation-themed hair salon chain, could soon land in Tehran. Italian minister hopes Libya seals borders, offers help - TV MILAN, April 17 (Reuters) - Italy said on Sunday it hoped Libya's U.N.-backed unity government could restore control of the country's borders to limit migrant flows from north and south and was ready to help in any way it could. The French and German Foreign Ministers visited Tripoli on Saturday to show support for the government and said they were ready to offer training for the country's security forces and border guards if asked. "We hope Libya blocks both its northern border, from where (migrants) leave to reach us, and its southern border, through which people coming from places such as the Horn of Africa enter the country and use it as a hub to reach Europe," Italian Interior Minister Alfano told TV channel Sky TG24. Alfano said some 90 percent of migrants arriving on Italian shores came from Libya. Rome was proposing European Union financial aid to African countries in exchange for help in controlling migrant flows. Alfano said he would meet his Libyan colleague soon, adding he would offer the Italian government's support to Tripoli. "I will tell my Libyan colleague that Italy is ready to give any help and cooperation," Alfano said, adding that Italian police could offer support to Tripoli. Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has played a prominent role in rallying international support for the new government. Senior negotiator calls on rebels to escalate attacks in "self defence" AMMAN, April 17 (Reuters) - Senior Syrian opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush, representing Jaish al Islam, a major rebel group, said on Sunday rebels should retaliate against what he called Syrian army attacks on civilians. "I say this response should be retaliation so that the regime does not think of attacking civilians as it escalates its attacks," Alloush told Arabic TV al Hadath "I don't think this is a call to escalate violence, it is a call for self-defence no more," he said. The obsession with which the BJP government at the Centre keeps getting after the leadership of the Congress, including those members of the Nehru-Gandhi family who are not even in active politics, shows the dread with with the party views the Gandhis. From cheaply faked letters of Indian's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to former British prime minister Clement Attlee on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, to irrelevant plants on Nehru-Sardar Patel relationship, this government has made it its raison d'etre to demolish the Nehruvian edifice. The National Herald case, in itself a non-starter, was hyped up in an insane haste to taint the Nehru-Gandhi family. In the National Herald case, the most common business practice of converting debt into equity was followed by Associated Journals Limited (AJL) in favour of a Section 25 company, Young Indian. The law prohibits any profit to the directors or shareholders of a Section 25 company. No asset of AJL was transferred to Young Indian. The Election Commission of India found nothing illegal in the loan extended by the Congress to Young Indian. Incidentally, the saga of the BJP mouthpiece Tarun Bharat went unnoticed in the din of non-issues conveniently whipped up by this government. The BJP extended a loan to a "for profit company" called Shree Multimedia Vision Limited (SMVL), violating the IT and other laws. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was harassed over the rent of her government accomodation. A sitting minister in the Maharashtra cabinet, Vinod Tawde, is the director of SMVL - another violation of the guidelines of the ministry of home affairs on the requirement by ministers to "sever all connections with management and conduct of any business..." Union minister Nitin Gadkari forgets to mention in his election affidavit that he is a shareholder in SMVL. Both Tawde and Gadkari have got away despite violating multiple laws. If Tawde and Gadkari were Vinod Gandhi or Nitin Gandhi, an Arnab Goswami would have got a pay hike for his dutiful prime time attacks on them. The likes of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy not only get away with murder in broad daylight of truth and fair play, they get rewarded with a bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi for raking up the National Herald issue. And what are the grounds for this inxplicable allotment? Security. What is the rent of the accommodation he gets? No questions. No media. No RTI (right to information). Between 1984 and 1991, India lost both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (both former prime ministers). One at the hands of the security and the other despite the security. Subsequent governments began to take a serious relook at VVIP security. Internationally adopted models of security were studied and adopted. Security protocols have become understandably exacting, both for the protectees and those who interact with them. So much so that at times the Special Protection Group (SPG) often gets accused of insulating the leader from his or her followers. The sanitised zones at public meetings not only increase the visual distance between the two, they actually do not cut the leaders off from the people. The protectee has no say in the level of security detail. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi appeared in court in the National Herald case. In a cheap display of petty politics, stories got planted in newspapers on how Congress president Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had expressed her inability to pay the "market rent" for the government accommodation she occupies. In 1996, Priyanka had taken a rented accommodation in south Delhi. Having paid the advance rent, renovations were started. Before she could move into the house, the Director of SPG informed her of the decision taken by the security establishment of disallowing her from taking up a security non-compliant accommodation. The Cabinet secretariat, through the SPG, directed her to occupy a government accommodation for which she, along with other occupants of government accommodations on similar grounds, started paying the market rent/special licence fee. In 2002, Priyanka, KPS Gill (former Punjab Police DGP), MS Bitta (former Indian Youth Congress president) and Punjab Kesri's Ashwani Kumar Minna were surprised to see a 90 per cent increase in the rent under a new head - "Damages rate meant for unauthorised occupants of government accommodation". All of the above were living in houses allotted to them by the government based on the decision of the Cabinet secretariat on security grounds. Thus, the "damages rate" was not applicable on them, as they were not "unauthorised occupants". This anomaly was brought to the notice of the ministry of urban development by the occupants. The ever resourceful Minna did not stop at representations. He met then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and not only got the mistake rectified but also got the rent reduced from Rs 28,000 to Rs 8,000. Where, in this entire story, is the wrongdoing on the part of Priyanka? Or for that matter, on the part of any of the others living in government bungalows under the same category? A section of the media may choose to become "His Masters' Voice", but the masters get exposed every time they indulge in celebrity discrimination - being unfair to someone just because he or she is born into a particular family. Why were there no page one stories on BJP president Amit Shah's Rs 3,875 rent for a sprawling eight-bedroom house on Akbar Road in New Delhi? For a leader, like for everyone else, there are two ways of overcoming one's diminutive persona. The size of your contribution becomes so big that it becomes impossible to ignore you. Learn about the night sky with The Albuquerque Astronomical Society and use telescopes to view the Moon and Jupiter. PLACITAS PUBLIC STAR PARTY SATURDAY, APRIL 16th, DUSK TO LATE PLACITAS COMMUNITY LIBRARY Free and Open to the Public The Placitas Community Library and The Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) will co-host a star party on the grounds of the Library, located 4.5 miles east of I-25 from the Placitas exit at Bernalillo. This popular event has two big points to recommend it--the excellent dark-sky location, aided by the venue's use of red lights, and the hospitality of the Library staff and its volunteers in providing parking and cider and cookies! A large number of TAAS telescopes of all sizes and types will be on hand to show all the wonders of the New Mexico spring night sky, including the Moon and Jupiter and many deep-sky objects, with members to describe those sights and add astronomy lore. This is a fine family event and welcomes all. Please arrive before dark (sunset is at 7:30pm) to park and get oriented, use red headlamps or red flashlights in the observing area to preserve night vision, and remember to bring jackets for the evening chill. Contact taas@taas.org with questions or call 867-3355 (Library); see www.taas.org for more information Bengaluru: Tiger biologists, including Dr K. Ullas Karanth and conservationists from across three reputed institutions of Wildlife Conservation Society India, have taken objection to a report released on April 10 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Global Tiger Forum (GTF) that the worlds wild tiger population is on the rise and is on track for doubling in a decade. They have termed the report and its implications scientifically unconvincing. Estimates of tiger numbers for large landscapes, regions and countries are largely derived from weak methodologies. They are sometimes based on extrapolations from tiger spoor (tracks and droppings) surveys, or spoor surveys alone. While spoor surveys can be useful for knowing where tigers occur, they are not useful for reliably counting their numbers. Translating spoor counts to tiger numbers poses several statistical problems that remain unresolved, which can lead to fundamentally flawed claims of changes in tiger numbers, they commented. Dr K. Ullas Karanth, Director for Science Asia-Wildlife Conservation Society, along with Dale Miquelle, Director, Russia Program-Wildlife Conservation Society, John Goodrich, Senior Director, Tiger Program-Panthera, and Arjun Gopalaswamy, Research Associate, Zoology, University of Oxford, UK, stated, Having devoted years of our lives to trying to understand and save wild tigers, we believe their conservation should be guided by the best possible science. Using flawed survey methodologies can lead to incorrect conclusions, an illusion of success and slackening of conservation efforts, when in reality grave concern is called for. Glossing over serious methodological flaws, or weak and incomplete data to generate feel-good news is a disservice to conservation, because tigers now occupy only 7% of their historic range. A recent World Conservation Union (IUCN) assessment showed 40% habitat loss in the last decade, and a spike in poaching pressure in many regions. Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao PDR and China have virtually lost viable tiger populations in recent years. This is not a time for conservationists to take their eyes off the ball and pat each other on the back, they stated. There is no doubt that wildlife managers in parts of India and even in specific reserves in South East Asia and Russia have made commendable conservation efforts, leading to recoveries in specific tiger populations. India has invested massively in recovering several tiger populations over the last four decades, they stated. Such sporadic tiger recoveries should be monitored using statistically robust camera trap or DNA surveys. Rigorous scientific studies in India, Thailand and Russia demonstrate this can indeed be done. But these studies also indicate that tiger recovery rates are slow and not likely to attain levels necessary for the doubling of wild tiger numbers within a decade. Source populations of tigers that occur at high densities and which are likely to produce surplus animals that can disperse and expand populations now occupy less than 10% of the remaining 1.2 million sqkm of tiger habitat. Almost 70% of wild tigers survive within these source sites. They are recovering slowly, only in some reserves where protection has improved. Outside these source sites lie vast sink landscapes, which are continuing to lose tigers and habitat due to hunting as well as rural and developmental pressures, they said. Staunchly living by the adage that a picture speaks a thousand words, 16-year-old Aanya Suri is a youngster with an eye for detail and an urge to make a difference. Her maiden venture Clique India, is an initiative that brings young photography enthusiasts under one roof with an intent to help NGOs and charitable organisations in Bengaluru, by volunteering to capture their tales through the lens. Even the Ugly Indian have rendered support for this initiative. Ive always wanted to channel ise my passion for photography to raise awareness about important causes, with the focus on the underprivileged. Moreover, I observed that the photographs NGOs use are of low quality smart phone, due to budget constraints which dont necessarily bring out the essence of their story. So I wondered, why not help them create better impact by supporting them with imagery that can draw the right kind of attention? remarks the young photographer whos already amassed the support of 30 young volunteers since the ventures inception in March this year. Interestingly, a lot of established groups have extended help to this promising youngster. We have already connected with groups like The Robin Hood Army and The Ugly Indian as well as multiple student-run organisations. The overwhelming responses from potential volunteers, NGOs and people helping me raise awareness, a diverse group of photographers have been formed, and the focus is to give these NGOs the coverage and the footage they require to garner more support. On a personal level, it is really important to me, and shows how people are willing to bring about a change. Citing parental support as an integral factor behind the success of the idea, the student from Mallya Aditi International School says, I'm going to 12th grade now, and apart from exams and tuition, making Clique a success is my focus. Many people say that photography is something you cant pursue full-time and its not a proper major, but my only reply to that would be to see the difference that this small group has already made. I also believe support is integral to go about with anything, and Im glad that my parents are very encouraging and as kicked as I am about this! Quiz her about her other interests and pat comes the reply, Apart from photography, I love travelling and am quite a bookworm, I also enjoy deep sea diving. Speaking about her upcoming plans, the youngster reveals how the concept still has a long way to go. In mid-May we will start conducting our own events to influence the importance of art in children today and we will be having some summer workshops to encourage students to engage in creative and performing arts. More than funding, theres a need for proactiveness and participation, and I aim to bring about a difference through the same. New Delhi: The government is mulling a scheme, named after B R Ambedkar, to help out Dalit-majority villages facing water crisis due to lack of availability or improper conservation infrastructure, Union minister Uma Bharti said here today. The Water Resources Minister also said the Central Water Commission (CWC) has been asked to prepare a report on storage of water in various states and share it with state governments so as to enable them to fight water crisis. Bharti said that as part of Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary celebrations, CWC has organised a seminar on 'multi-purpose development of water resources and present challenges' on April 19 to highlight his vision and discuss the way forward to realise it. "His vision was to take water to every poor person in the country. This will be implemented by us. The meeting on 19th will also look into how Dalit-dominated villages, where there is less water or poor provision for storage, can be helped. "A project will also be discussed and it will be named after Babasaheb," she told reporters on the sidelines of the inaugural meet on the project on Centre for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies. She said the ministry has already selected two villages in each district as 'Jal Gram' under the 'Jal Kranti Abhiyan' aimed at consolidating water conservation and management in the country, and plans are afoot to pick a third village which will be dalit dominated and facing problems of water crisis. She said this will be done on a pilot basis and after its success, it would be implemented throughout the country. An integrated water security plan, water conservation, water management and allied activities are being planned for these villages by panchayat-level committee to ensure optimum and sustainable utilisation of water. Total of 1,348 villages has to be identified in 674 districts, of which 1,001 have been selected as 'Jal Grams' so far. There are no indications that the incident was a terrorist attack. (Photo: Facebook) Berlin: German police say three people have been injured in an apparently deliberate explosion at a Sikh Gurudwara in the western city of Essen. India on Sunday expressed concern over the development and asserted that they were in touch with the local authorities on the ground situation. "Distressed to hear of an explosion in a Gurudwara in Essen in Germany. Our Mission is following up w/ local authorities on ground situation," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted. Distressed to hear of an explosion in a Gurudwara in Essen in Germany. Our Mission is following up w/ local authorities on ground situation Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) April 17, 2016 A spokesman for Essen police told The Associated Press that a masked person is reported to have fled the scene shortly after the blast at 7 pm on Saturday (1700 GMT). Spokesman Lars Lindemann said the explosion was "quite violent," blowing out several windows. One of the injured was said to be in a serious condition. Lindemann says police are working on the assumption that the explosion was caused deliberately but that there are no indications it was a terrorist incident. He says the gurudwara had hosted a wedding earlier in the day and those injured are believed to have been among the guests. n 2010, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) had filed the case against Zia and four others. (Photo: AP) Dhaka: A court on Sunday rejected two petitions of Bangladesh's embattled former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia who appeared before it in a graft case which accuses her of embezzling over USD four lakh from a trust, saying there is "no ground" to re-examine the investigating officer. Dhaka's Third Special Judge's Court deferred 70-year-old opposition leader Zia's hearing and fixed April 25 to hear her statement over graft charges brought against her in the Zia Charitable Trust case which accuses her of embezzling 31.5 million Bangladeshi Taka (USD 4 lakh). The court was scheduled to record her deposition on Sunday, but the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Zia's lawyers petitioned for a fresh testimony of the investigating officer, which the court turned down. The BNP chairperson's counsel then appealed for a fresh cross-examination of the investigating officer, which was also dismissed. The court rejected the petition on re-examining the investigating officer as it found "no ground", The Daily Star reported. There was a heated argument between the prosecution and the defence when Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar deferred recording Zia's statement and fixed April 25 to hear it. In 2010, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) had filed the case against Zia and four others. In 2012, charges were pressed against four, including the two-time former Prime Minister Zia. In 2013, the trial began after the court indicted the four. On March 31, the court had then fixed April 7 to hear Zia's statement, but it was deferred as the BNP chief pleaded for more time. Two others accused in the case Ziaul Islam Munna and Monirul Islam Khan have pleaded not guilty while Haris Chowhdury is absconding. In February, Zia was ordered to appear before a court to face trial in a separate USD 1.85 million graft case over contracting out cargo handling work to a company in exchange of kickbacks. The case filed in 2007 during the military-installed caretaker regime accused her of contracting out an "unqualified" company called GATCO the task of handling containers at the country's main southeastern seaport of Chittagong and Inland Container Depot in Dhaka allegedly in exchange of kickbacks during the 2001-2006 tenure of her BNP-led four party coalition government. Zia and the co-accused were indicted in the case in September 2007 under a massive anti-graft campaign which was being spearheaded by the then interim government, installed with crucial military support on Jan 11, 2007 proclamation of the state of emergency. Pakistan claims the two arrested men were working for the R&AW in the guise of fishermen in the area. Karachi: Pakistan Saturday claimed to have arrested two alleged agents of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) from southern Sindh province. SSP, Counter Terrorism Department, Naveed Khawaja said the R&AW agents were arrested from Thatta city during a raid on a tip-off, the News International reported. Khawaja identified those arrested as Saddam Hussain and Bachal who, he said, were working for the R&AW in the guise of fishermen in the area. Addressing a press conference, the police officer claimed that India had provided codes to the duo. Police have seized photographs of sensitive installations from the possession of the spies, he said. Khawaja claimed that the alleged agents were planning to disrupt the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Five years ago, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress came to power riding the waves of Poribortan (change), sweeping away more than three decades of Left rule (or misrule). In the build up to the final assault on the red fortress, Mamatas assurances to the people of Bengal of Badla noi, Badol chai (We wont seek revenge, only change) raised hopes of Bengals civil society to blossom into a more democratic tradition of tolerance. A number of artists, intellectuals with Left leanings joined her campaign and lent her the moral authority to win over the majority of the population. But after she came to power, Mamata took the lead in crushing the voice of the Opposition and the civil society. The ruling party started taking control over the educational institutions, healthcare system and other spheres of life in the state. Emulating the examples set by its predecessors, Mamata started placing partymen in governing bodies of schools, colleges and hospitals, who would act as an extra-constitutional authority and eventually become the ultimate arbitrators in all aspects of the citizens lives. Mamata knew that her victory in 2011 elections was a byproduct of a negative vote, a vote against the Left. She felt the urgent need to create her own support base. For that, she focused on the Muslims and the Scheduled Castes (SCs). Muslims make up 27% of the total population in Bengal. Unlike their Urdu speaking brethren who are small in number and live in urban areas, the Bengali speaking Muslims are rural people who are engaged in farming. The SCs, who make up 23% of the states population, are also mostly engaged in agriculture. For long years, these communities were major planks of the Lefts popular support base. Singur and Nandigram, two major anti-Left peasant movements that catapulted Mamata to power, were led by these people. To win over the Muslims, she started giving monthly allowances to imams and muezzins. But little effort was made to create opportunities for the community to acquire education and jobs. To keep the Muslim and the SC farmers on her side, she crafted a land policy that ruled out acquisition of farm land by the government for the sake of industrialisation. Despite making regular public appearances with the Muslim religious leaders and pandering to their whims, Mamata did nothing substantial to make the life of the ordinary Muslim better. The Pratichi Trusts study on Muslim life in Bengal (2016) clearly showed that a decade after the publication of Sachar Commission Report, there was no significant improvement in the lives of ordinary Muslims in Bengal. As the first woman chief minister of the state, Mamata raised hopes of the government paying more attention to the womens cause. But the Park Street rape case, followed by the brutal rape and murder in Kamduni village near Kolkata, and several such incidents set a pattern where Mamata and her government would either question the character of the victim or try to project the incident as an attempt by the Opposition to malign her government. Mamatas ministers often tried to buy silence from the victims family by offering them cash as relief. Teachers in schools and colleges getting beaten up by the ruling party cadres became a regular phenomenon. The culmination was when the present vice-chancellor of Calcutta University (a self-declared ruling party man) was heckled by a group of girl students who were Trinamool activists. Poribortan has become a controversial word in the lexicon of Bengals political establishment. A lot of blood was shed in the ensuing turf war that engulfed the length and breadth of rural Bengal as the ruling party gradually established itself as the sole arbitrator between the government and the common people. Between 2011 and 2016, the state saw three elections, to panchayat, municipality and the Lok Sabha, which Mamata won with a massive mandate. But the victories were not free from blemish. In all these elections, the ruling party musclemen had a free run and they were actively helped by the state police and the administration. Syndicates to the fore One cannot overlook the phenomenon called syndicates. Initially, a section of unemployed youth formed themselves into some supply cooperatives (locally known as syndicates) that got involved in supplying material to builders in Rajarhat New Town (a satellite town of Kolkata) project. With political patronage, they started bullying the builders in extracting orders and started looting the project owners by supplying inferior quality materials at a higher than market price. After the collapse of the fly over last month, the investigation reveals that their tentacles spread into all major construction works, including construction of new routes for Metro Rail. In the absence of a boost to economic activities, extortion by anti-socials took the shape of a well-organised parallel economy. Mamatas carefully crafted image of honesty and integrity, too, suffered a serious dent in a series of incidents where she was found to be protecting her party men, ministers and legislators alike, who were involved in various criminal activities. Unlike the Saradha scam, where the complicated money trail made it difficult to pin the culpability of the ruling party people, the visuals of the flyover collapse and Trinamool ministers and legislators taking bribes has had more impact on the minds of the people. The suspicion that the state government was corrupt to the brim turned into firm conviction after Mamata refused to institute an inquiry into the Narada graft case. Now, armed with charges of visible corruption and lawlessness against the ruling party, the Opposition has been successful in setting the agenda for this election. Mamata and her party are now pushed into a defensive mode. With the Congress and the Left joining hands against the ruling Trinamool, the sagging morale of the grassroot workers got a massive boost. On the other hand, the perception of a secret deal between Modibhai & Didibhai damaged the BJPs poll prospects. In the absence of a Modi wave, there is a strong possibility of the Congress-Left combine gaining at the cost of the BJP. But the big question is: Will the Election Commission take pro-active measures to provide security to voters in the remaining phases? In the first two phases of the elections, its role or lack of it, came in for a lot of criticism. If the commission becomes proactive, the election would be a closely contested one. Even if Mamata scrapes through, her margin would be reduced substantially. Or else, Bengal might see a Poribortan of Poribortan. (The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata) Western districts (Bankura, Purulia, West Midnapore): A sweet spot for Trinamool Congress, Mamata is likely to retain the region. ungle Mahal: Mamata won hearts and minds after the encounter killing of Maoist leader Kishenji in 2012 and ushered in much-awaited end to bloodshed but the tribal-dominated region could go against and stand by Jharkhand Party (Naren), a Trinamool ally in 2011 Nadia: Despite being a Trinamool stronghold, dissident Trinamool MLA Arjun Singh could play spoilsport, helping Left-Congress combine to gain seats Asansol-Durgapur-Ranigunge: The traditional industrial belt with collieries, steel plants and sponge iron factories, the areas mixed bag of voters helped BJP win Asansol Parliamentary and could retain the trend Malda-Murshidabad: The last Congress stronghold in Bengal is likely to retain its flavour although influential Trinamool MP Subhendu Adhikari has made inroads in last one year North Bengal: The weakest link in Mamatas chain, from the plains of Siliguri, where CPM is strong, to the Darjeeling Hills, where GJM rules the roost, Trinamool is not likely to gain much Key Players Mamata Banerjee The firebrand Trinamool Congress chief who fought the Left Front for nearly three decades to wrest power in 2011, upsetting a 34-year-long regime. Her popularity has been on the wane after becoming the CM over various issues. Surjya Kanta Mishra The former Left minister was made CPM state secretary in 2014 and became the first party state chief to contest in polls. Mishra has been instrumental in bringing the Congress on board to form a coalition against Mamata. Dilip Ghosh An RSS pracharak of more than 25 years with extensive organisational experience across the North East, he was brought in as BJP state president to guide the party through troubled waters as the party seemingly lost gains made in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury: The ex-junior rail minister and state Congress chief is the partys strongman from Murshidabad and has been holding the last Congress stronghold in Bengal. He realised the need to join hands with the Left to fight Mamata. Asok Bhattacharya: A former minster and CPM heavyweight from North Bengal, he has shown the way to work with the Congress by jointly forming the Board at Siliguri Municipal Corporation in 2015; responsible for keeping Mamata at bay in the region. Bimal Gurung: The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) president, who fought the 2011 state polls as a Trinamool ally, switched sides to BJP and gave the saffron party a toehold in Bengal by helping win two subsequent MPs from Darjeeling. He is likely to remain a roadblock for Mamata. Delhi Daredevils opened their account in this edition of the Indian Premier League with a thumping eight-wicket victory over Kings XI Punjab in their first home contest at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium on Friday. Daredevils bowlers made the most of the turn offered by the pitch. Leg-spinner Amit Mishras lethal spell broke the back of the mighty batting line-up of Kings XI who could muster a meager 111/9 in their 20 overs. It, though, was a bit surprising that Mishra, who emerged with figures of 4/11 off three overs, wasnt bowled his quota of four overs. Mishra was backed well by captain Zaheer Khan and Chris Morris who impressed with their economical spells. In reply, Daredevils were unlucky to lose out Shreyas Iyer after he was adjudged caught behind, although there appeared to be no nick. But Quinton de Kock (59 n.o.) and Sanju Samson (33) batted at a blistering pace to set in an early momentum. De Kock was on 10 when he was dropped by Murali Vijay at deep square leg off Axar Patel. The South African rubbed it in when, a ball later, he whacked Patel over point. He only grew in strength from there on, bringing his half century by muscling a six off Mitchell Johnson. With Samson, he stitched 91 runs for the second wicket. And though Samson was bowled by Patel, Pawan Negi ensured that Delhi safely coasted home with 39 balls to spare. Daredevils, who brought in Jayant Yadav and JP Duminy in place of Nathan Coulter-Nile and Mayank Agarwal, were also excellent on the field and didnt allow partnerships to prosper. Their good work effected run outs of opener Murali Vijay and then Wriddhiman Saha later in the innings. Vijay was on his way back in the second over following an interesting unfolding of events. Manan Vohras lofted cover drive was dropped by a backward running Zaheer. But an instant mix-up between the two openers and a pin-point throw by Karun Nair ensured Vijay was short of his crease. Mishra, introduced in the seventh over, then did the rest. Shaun Marsh, replacing Marcus Stoinis, was lured by the leg-spinners tossed up delivery and danced down the track only to be beaten by flight and spin and De Kock swiftly wiped off the bails. Mishra, on his return, further piled misery on Kings XI by removing their two best batsmen- captain David Miller and Glenn Maxwell within a space of four deliveries. Miller bent down to sweep to counter Mishra but was hit on the front pad to be adjudged lbw. Maxwell looking to loft him was also beaten in air and couldnt pack enough power to give a simple catch at long-off. DH News Service A high-level team from France is expected to arrive here next month to firm up the order for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft by India as both countries have managed to narrow down their differences over pricing. The development comes nearly four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande signed a memorandum of agreement to purchase 36 Rafale combat jets. The Indian side has been negotiating hard to bring down the price with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar refusing to buckle under pressure even as questions were being raised about the delay in signing the contract. The deal comes with the clause of 50 per cent offsets, which will be a bonanza for the domestic industry as it will lead to business worth at least 3 billion Euros and creating new jobs in India. The tough part of the negotiations that began in July 2015 was to get the French side to agree to 50 per cent offsets in the deal. Initially, Dassault Aviation, makers of Rafale, was willing to agree to reinvest only 30 per cent of the value of its contract in Indian entities to meet the offset obligations. The French side finally agreed to invest 50 per cent of the value following a phone conversation between Modi and Hollande late last year. The commercial negotiations, as in the pricing of the planes, equipment and other issues, actually began only in mid-January this year. "It is correct to say that differences over pricing as more or less being settled. A final deal should take place next month if all matters go as scheduled," a defence source said. Government sources said the deal has not been concluded yet but it is in "final stages". The sources said the price for 36 Rafales, as per the UPA tender, keeping the cost escalation and dollar rate in mind, comes to a little over Rs 65,000 crore. This includes the cost involved in making changes India has sought in the aircraft, including Israeli helmet mounted display and some specific weaponry, among others. "The effort is to bring down the price to less than Euros 8 billion (Rs 59,000 crore)," the sources said. The expectation is that the final deal will be clinched by May-end. Under the proposed deal, French companies apart from Dassault Aviation, will provide several aeronautics, electronics and micro-electronics technologies to comply with the offset obligation. Companies like Safran and Thales will join Dassault in providing state-of-art technologies in stealth, radar, thrust vectoring for missiles and materials for electronics and micro-electronics. BJP today accused the ruling AIADMK government and DMK of doing "petty politics", saying both the Dravidian parties presented "corruption full bad governance" and were fooling people while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has presented "corruption free good governance." "Modiji has presented corruption free good governance but AIADMK and DMK has presented in Tamil Nadu, a corruption full bad governance. They are doing petty politics and fooling voters," Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters here. "AIADMK and DMK are playing smart politics, smart games here," he said. Flaying the AIADMK government for allegedly pasting 'amma' stickers on a centrally sponsored scheme, Javadekar, also BJP election in-charge for Tamil Nadu, said, "in giving free rice to poor, 90 per cent is central government subsidy. 10 per cent is what state government gives. But they are putting label and calling it as Amma Free Arisi (Rice) scheme. What we are saying at least call it as Pradhan Mantri Arisi." "Poor people get Amma Arisi free of cost that is 20 kilos under free rice scheme. What is the proof of Amma free Arisi? ...Central government gives Rs 32 where as Amma (Jayalalithaa) gives Rs three and that is labelled and stickers are pasted as Amma Arisi (rice)..This kind of politics they are playing." "It is not Amma Arisi. It is Modi Arisi. We can say it as Pradhan Mantri Arisi. We are not fond of names. But who is giving what and it must be named together...they are fooling people," Javadekar said. Claiming that coconut growers in Tamil Nadu were not given government subsidy, he said, "I met coconut growers here and they are suffering...They are not given any subsidy. They are not allowed to tap coconut for making herbal drink." "Government does not want poor to take healthy drink but only TASMAC (state run liquor outlets) liquor. That is what they are interested in because it is their business," he charged. For importing palmolein from Malaysia, Javadekar claimed the state government was giving subsidy to Malaysian farmers. "...You are not helping your own farmers. Why cannot you give subsidy on coconut oil. If you give subsidy on coconut oil, poor farmers growing coconut will survive and poor person will be happy to use coconut oil than palmolein for cooking." "So you get votes from Malaysia not from Tamil Nadu farmers," he said. Two self-driving cars produced by a Chinese firm completed a 2,000-km journey in China's first long-distance road test for autonomous vehicles in a bid to stay ahead of Google and others in developing driverless car technology. The vehicles, produced by Chang'an Automobile, left the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing on Tuesday and arrived at Beijing at about 5 pm yesterday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The cars successfully drove distance from other vehicles, changed lanes, overtook and performed other maneuvers including three-point turns automatically but still need the help of a driver in certain road sections and gas stations, the designers said. The maximum speed of the cars reached 120 km per hour. Tan Benhong, deputy director of the Chang'an Automobile Engineering and Research Institute, said they would improve the technologies based on the results of the test and then to prepare for mass production. Chang'an plans to put driverless cars into commercial use in 2018, Tan said. Worldwide, at least 18 companies are developing autonomous cars, including BMW, Audi and Toyota. China's contenders include auto makers BAIC group, GAC Group, SAIC Motor, Chang'an and BYD. A US Air Force reconnaissance plane was barrel-rolled by a Russian SU-27 fighter jet in an "unsafe and unprofessional" manner during a routine flight in international airspace, American officials said today, exacerbating tensions between the rival powers. The incident on Thursday occurred when a Russian jet "performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers" as it flew within 50 feet of the US aircraft's wing tip over the Baltic Sea, Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for European Command, said. The Russian SU-27 began the barrel roll from the left side of the US RC-135 and went over the top of it to end on the right side of the aircraft, European Command said. The US aircraft was "intercepted by a Russian SU-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner," Hernandez was quoted as saying by CNN. He said that the US plane never entered Russian territory. "The unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalated tensions between countries," said Hernandez, who added that the US is protesting the incident with the Russian government. This encounter comes just days after the US Embassy in Moscow issued formal concerns with the Russian government over an incident in which Russian fighter jets flew very close to the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea this week. One of the Russian jets flew within 30 feet of the Cook's ship superstructure, according to a US official. Close encounters between Russian military aircraft and US warships have become increasing common in recent months. In October, US Navy jets intercepted two Russian Tu-142 aircraft that were flying near the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Pacific Ocean. In an incident in June, a Russian Su-24 jet flew within 500 meters of a US guided-missile destroyer that was sailing in the Black Sea near Crimea. The Russian aerial maneuvers come amid rising tensions on NATO's eastern flank. In February, the Department of Defense announced it was spending USD 3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative in an effort to deter Russian aggression against NATO allies following Russia's 2014 intervention in Ukraine. In recent weeks, the US has deployed additional military assets throughout Europe as part of 'Operation Atlantic Resolve'. Earlier this month, the US Air Force deployed F-15s to Iceland and the Netherlands and F-22s to the United Kingdom. In February, the US announced that it would send six F- 15s to Finland for a training exercise and pre-position tanks and artillery in Norway, both countries share a border with Russia. Recurring incidents of incursions, implementation of an agreement to reduce tensions between border patrols and Sino-India strategic concerns were among the issues expected to figure in Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's talks with top Chinese military officials tomorrow. Parrikar, who arrived here from Shanghai by a special aircraft, will hold talks with Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) General Fan Changlong and others. CMC which is the supreme commanding body of the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) is headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Parrikar will call on Premier Li Keqiang. Later, he would visit China's recently integrated western command military headquarters which has jurisdiction over border with India. The minister is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry. While Indian officials said the talks were expected to review the whole gamut of bilateral ties which showed considerable improvements in the recent times, India's concerns over aggressive patrolling by Chinese troops especially in the Ladakh sector remained high. China denies any incursions, asserting that its troops patrolled areas of its territory in the 3,488-km long disputed border. The two countries may discuss further modalities of the 2013 Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) which has outlined various measures to address tensions arising out of the aggressive patrolling by both sides. India and China also conduct an annual dialogue of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination to deal with aggressive patrolling by troops. It helped to bring down tensions over Chinese incursions during the key visits of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2013 followed by President Xi Jinping a year later. Both sides opened several border points for troops and officers on the ground to interact with each other to build good relations. Recent reports from India spoke of the presence of Chinese troops in the forward positions of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) which People's Liberation Army (PLA) dismissed as "groundless". The two militaries also have strategic concerns over each other's military tie-ups with other countries and development of their militaries. Ahead of Parrikar's visit, China hinted that it may take up the recent decision by India to open up military bases to US for logistics and efforts to conclude a pact to share aircraft sharing technologies. China which is grappling with heavy US expansion under the Asia Pivot to counter Chinese military especially in the South China Sea is sensitive to any close military cooperation between New Delhi and Washington. Beijing is also concerned over the inclusion of Japan in the Malabar naval exercises along with US. On its part, India has its concerns over Chinese expansion in the Indian Ocean, regarded as India's backyard with billions dollar deals to build ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan under the Silk Road initiative. Both sides are also expected to discuss increasing military exchanges at senior levels and allow their officers into their top defence institutions in an effort to consolidate improvement in defence ties. Last year, China said it had taken positive note of Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha's comment that India do not look at China as an adversary anymore. Parrikar's five-day visit will be immediately followed by a visit by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who is scheduled to hold 19th Boundary Dialogue with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi later next week. Doval and Yang, who are designated Special Representatives for boundary talks, also have a mandate to discuss entire gamut of bilateral issues. The contentious issue of China blocking India's attempts in the UN to ban Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad's (JeM) chief Masood Azhar is expected to figure in their talks. Before leaving for Beijing, Parrikar, who arrived in Shanghai last night, visited Urban Planning Exhibition Centre where he was briefed by the Chinese officials on the urban planning achievements in China's biggest metropolis which has population of over 22 million. The briefing focussed on use of innovative technologies and smart city transportations, Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a statement. He also addressed members of the Indian community at a meeting held at the Shanghai Consulate where he spoke of his government's "steadfast commitment" at securing interests of Indians living abroad. The defence minister said there was a significant momentum in India's economy, which had been successful in attracting large investments under the 'Make in India' initiative. He also answered questions from the audience focussing on issues ranging from Indias self reliance in defence production, education to high end technologies and retaining skilled talented students, the press release said. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's call for an RSS-free India, today received support from Congress which said the saffron fountainhead was "posing a threat to the country's unity and democracy" as BJP jumped to the defence of its mentor, saying its critics should attend its 'shakha' for a day to clear their "misconceptions". The BJP said it was unfazed by Kumar's efforts to form a united front to counter it and that such attempts to stop the Modi government "from working for the development of the country and for the poor will not succeed". Maintaining that everyone was aware of the newly-elected JD(U) chief's national ambitions, BJP spokesman Shrikant Sharma took a dig at the Congress, asking party president Sonia Gandhi to make it clear if Rahul Gandhi will lead such a front or will he be just part of it. Congress backed Nitish Kumar's view that the country should be made 'Sangh-mukt' (RSS-free) as it is "posing a threat to democracy and unity" but did not appear inclined to be a part of a broad-based alliance of secular parties to take on BJP, saying for any national-level alliance ahead of 2019 polls, parties should have a "national existence". Asked if Nitish Kumar can be projected as the leader of a national-level alliance he has mooted, party general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said he is "a popular chief minister" who is doing good work in Bihar. "There is no talk of leadership (led by Nitish)...You are trying to create an imaginary alliance. I told you first, an alliance at the national level...all parties are state specific parties. The understanding is with such parties in states. "By the time 2019 elections come, the public themselves will oust the Modi government and there will be no need for any alliance," Ahmed said, replying to queries about the possibility of forging a Nitish-led national alliance. Congress is part of ruling alliance in Bihar. Addressing an event in Patna yesterday, Kumar had mounted a counteroffensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his 'Congress-mukt Bharat' slogan, saying, "Sangh-mukt Bharat banane ke liye sabhi gair BJP parties ko ek hona hoga (to usher in a Sangh-free India all non-BJP parties will have to come together)." "Uniting against BJP and its divisive ideology is the only way to save democracy," said Kumar, who has already talked about "largest possible unity" among secular parties. Lashing out at the JD(U) chief for his anti-RSS tirade, Sharma said,"Nitish Kumar has called for an RSS-free India. You (Nitish) have stayed with people from Sangh for long. You have had a long coalition with BJP. You have participated in BJP programmes also. But you have called for a Sangh-free India. It is better you learn and understand the Sangh a little bit. "And for that visiting the Shakha of the Sangh is the best. Those who oppose the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the country should first at least visit its 'shakha' (meeting). "Only then will they have a better understanding and their misconceptions cleared. Only then the technical glitches in their software will be fixed," Sharma said, stressing that the RSS has always worked in the interest of the country. Kumar's JD(U) had snapped its 17-year-old alliance with BJP in 2013 as it was opposed to naming Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general election. Sharma said from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, and from Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, all had opposed the RSS but the organisation has only grown. "The attempt is only to stop the Modi government from taking steps for development of the country, to stop job opportunities for the youth and to stop the government from helping the poor," Sharma said. "You (Nitish) are unable to digest the fact that we are working for poor, weaker sections of the society. And therefore, you are not opposing BJP but the efforts to uplift the weaker sections and to empower the poor. We have no objections to what he says. He won't succeed in his motive," Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said. RSS ideologue M G Vaidya said efforts to attack the Sangh will only backfire. "They can't defeat the BJP on their own. May be they will gain a bit by coming together. As far as Sangh is concerned... when there are increased protests against the Sangh, it grows. "Sangh does not grow at someone's mercy but because of the hard work and capability of its workers," he said. Sharma took on Nitish calling him a "kathputhli (puppet) Chief Minister" and said that the real "remote-control" of his government was in the hands of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad. Asked if Nitish Kumar was being pitted against Rahul Gandhi in leading an alternative coalition against BJP-led NDA, Congress spokesman Ahmed said, "There is no fight amongst us. We are all together. But before we get together (for a broader alliance), the people of the country will get together to oust Modiji. "Time and things keep changing. Lohiaji was against Congress, but Congress and Lohia's followers are today together in an alliance. There is paradigm shift," he said. Born and raised in New York, actor Devika Bhise says she is more of an Indian at heart. Among the many things that nursed the Indian in her is bharathanatyam which she began learning from the age of 3. Devika believes that it is probably her lessons in dance that got her the role of Srinivasa Ramanujans wife Janaki, in a biopic on the mathematical genius, The Man Who Knew Infinity, slated to release by the end of April. The film is written and directed by Matthew Brown is based on the book by Robert Kanigel. The story revolves around ace mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujans life and the struggles he had to face to prove his merit. It is a true story of friendship that forever changed mathematics, explains Devika. The young actor spent a lot of time researching and understanding the character of Janaki. This, she says, helped her get into the skin of her character. She also interacted with Robert Kanigel, who had met the real-life Janaki later in her life to understand the nuances of her character. Although, Janaki was illiterate, I found her character very compelling. She was a very progressive, intelligent and charming person. She had her own artistic inclinations, says Devika. Janaki understood Ramanujans passion for mathematics and was an active participant in helping him reach his goal, adds Devika. The film has a lot of similarities to Devikas life in real and one of them is her love for mathematics. Ive always loved Mathematics in school and college. My parents wanted me to pursue Mathematics and Science in college but somehow, I wanted to get into the arts, she recollects. She says that this movie has in some way rekindled her passion for Mathematics. The young lass considers herself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with some wonderful directors in some of her earlier projects which include The Accidental Husband and Anamika: Her Glorious Past. Directors play an important role in helping actors, understand the character and give it a proper shape. The films of directors who spend a lot of time discussing the character, with the actors tend to do well, she observes. Its not only acting, Devika has now forayed into producing films as well. When you are an actor, you are not always in control of things but as a producer you have the freedom to mould the project the way you want. Every actor aspires to create something of their own and I am no different, she says. Devika has some of her family members settled in Mumbai and she travels to India at least five times a year. I am lucky that I get to come down here so often. India is one of my favourite places to relax, she says. United Nations mediator Staffan de Mistura considers the ongoing round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva crucial and says delegations will focus on political transition, governance and constitutional principles. He also expresses hope that this, the third round this year, will be constructive and concrete. The first round in February ended without serious separate discussions either with the government or the Saudi-sponsored opposition Higher Negotiations Committee (HNC); the second round in March lasted 10 days but achieved nothing concrete. The HNC submitted proposals on all three topics to de Mistura while the government put forward principles to serve as the basis for a deal.A Syrian source who has access to both sides as well as Washington and Moscow told Deccan Herald that the HNC has no lack of plans for ending the reign of president Bashar al-Assad but has no strategy to secure their adoption. The government, he stated, has a strategy and able negotiators but no plans for a post-Assad regime. Having survived 5 years of warfare, the government remains committed to Assads rule. He is ready to form a national unity cabinet including figures from the opposition, independents, and civil society, amend the constitution, and hold fresh elections with the proviso that Assad can run. Syrians argue that the proxy talks are pointless. Geneva wont decide, Russia and America will decide, they say. The source concurred, They have agreed that Assad will go but not when (creating instability). And they have agreed that 70% of the regime will remain. The fate of Assad and his entourage is yet to be decided. Unlike the principal negotiators, the Womens Advisory Board, formed in January, has both a plan and a strategy, stated Sawsan Zakzak over tall glasses of fruit juice at the Gemini cafe in Damascuss diplomatic quarter. A researcher and civil society activist, Zakzak is one of 12 board members, all independent of the government and HNC delegations. There have been no negotiations so far, she said. The peace talks stage has not yet been reached. We have only the ceasefire. The ceasefire is not perfect but it sends a good message to the people that we can stop the war... I am optimistic we can reach an agreement on a new government. If we dont World War III will start. People need more than a ceasefire. We have to finish with sieges, detentions and kidnappings. We need to (deal with) high prices (due to the fall in the value of the Syrian pound). We need to start a political transition process, not a (transition) period. The choice of words is very important, she explained. Six board members still live in Syria, 5 left since the war began, and 1 is a permanent resident of Britain. The board has presented proposals to de Mistura and called for the creation of committees to deal with different aspects of the transition in order to avoid deadlock. Finding middle ground Zakzak said, for example, the board can suggest a type of government between transitional and unity that could satisfy the government and HNC. She said the boards current role is to advise de Mistura and discover points of agreement between the sides. We are more than mediators because we are Syrians and we know the concerns and fears of both sides (and) can discover issues (on which) both sides agree. She argued, It is essential to make these negotiations successful. (To do so) we have to change the behaviour of (both) the regime and the opposition. Zakzak is optimistic because Syrians have learned lessons from Iraq, Egypt and Libya as well as Lebanon. Syrians, she said, are well aware of the dangers of sectarianism and fundamentalism. The Lebanese and Iraqi models of governments, based on allocations of role on the basis of sect, are not options for Syrians. We have to have a national (post-war) strategy from the beginning to prevent alienated and unemployed youth from being radicalised in mosques and to recruit armed men into national defence. Instead of claiming that Washington and Moscow will decide Syrias future, Zakzak contended, Syrians will decide with the approval of Russia and the US. Whoever decides, there is no time to waste. Syrians must reach a deal before the end of US President Barack Obamas term in January 2017. Democratic and Republican party candidates standing for his position in Novembers election have vowed to counter Russian and Iranian influence in Syria, thereby escalating rather than ending the conflict. The only way for the US, Europe and opponents of the Assad government to gain the initiative is to end the war and to take a leading role in rebuilding. A plan for reconstruction has already been drawn up by the UN; it needs only to be implemented. For that, Syria needs to be at peace and cleansed of all armed groups, particularly Islamic State and al-Qaedas Jabhat al-Nusra. The BJP on Sunday joined the list of political parties who held a mega-rally at the historic Brigade Parade Grounds in central Kolkata, which is witness to almost all major political developments in Bengal. The star attraction was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who lashed out at both the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Left-Congress combine in equal terms, touching upon every agenda his party has been campaigning on for the last few months. Modi claimed that Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee is attacking everybody because she realises she has lost, adding that people should not vote for the Left-Congress coalition as they are not here to work for Bengals development but to save their sinking ship. Will you vote for those who have been rejected by people across the country? he asked the rally at Kolkata on Sunday afternoon. The prime minister was addressing his first rally at the historic grounds. Earlier in the day, he addressed another rally at Krishnanagar in Nadia district, where he raised same points. Talking about Banerjees recent slur against the Election Commission after being served a show-cause notice, Modi said, She has already accepted defeat and is now fighting with the Election Commission instead of political parties. The EC is like an umpire and everybody should respect it. Elections will come and go but the EC is an institution. He added that if reports are true that the states chief secretary replied to the EC on her behalf, it should be considered a misuse of state machinery. Modi also raised the issue of the multi-crore Saradha scam and the recent surfacing of a controversial video footage, two scams that have got several Trinamool leaders embroiled. Every village in Bengal has been affected by the chit fund scam. There will be hard to find a villager who has not lost money. Trinamool leaders have taken money and compromised the future of Bengal and its youth, the prime minister said. Stating that his three-point agenda for Bengal is ...development, development at a fast pace and overall development, he touched upon issues like the recent flyover collapse in Kolkata and real estate syndicates allegedly run by Trinamool leaders. The BJP and the RSS have sharply reacted on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars call for unity of non-opposition parties for RSS-free India (Sangh-Mukta Bharat). The party has suggested him to visit shakha (drill session of the RSS) to clear his misconceptions about the parent organization of the ruling party. The Bihar chief minister had said on Saturday at Patna that non-BJP political parties have to come together to make India RSS free. He had said that uniting against te BJP and its divisive ideology is the only way to save democracy. In the backdrop of tense situation prevailing in Kashmir, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh on Sunday arrived in the state to take stock of the security situation. The army chief, who was on a one-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, arrived at the headquarters of Udhampur-based Northern Command, where he was received by the northern army Commander Lt Gen D S Hooda, a defence spokesman said. Lt Gen Hooda briefed the army chief about the overall security situation, he said. Sources told Deccan Herald that the army chief was apprised in detail about the latest developments on the other side of the Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC), opposite eastern Ladakh. The 4,057-km-long LAC, also known as the MacCartney-MacDonald Line between India and China, runs through Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The army chief also sought views on Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) vis-a-vis present security situation, they added. Importance of visit The visit assumes significance in view of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti batting strongly for partial withdrawal of AFSPA from peaceful areas of J&K. Situation improves Life limped back to normalcy in major parts of Kashmir on Sunday after five days of curfew and strike, reports DHNS from Srinagar. Tension had prevailed here in the aftermath of killing of five civilians in firing by security forces in north Kashmirs Kupwara district during the week. Shops and business establishments reopened while public transport reappeared on the streets. Curfew like restrictions were lifted from most parts of the Valley but due to rainfall and Sunday, people largely remained indoors. However, apprehending protests and clashes over the civilian killings, the authorities continued with curfew in most areas of Kupwara district for the sixth consecutive day. Kupwara has been on boil as two civilians were killed by forces during protests against the molestation of a school girl by an army man on Tuesday. Three more civilians died in forces firing in the district on the subsequent days during protests against the killings of two boys in Handwara. More than 200 people including policemen and para-military CRPF personnel were injured in the clashes between protesters and forces during the five-day unrest in the Valley. Intra-Kashmir train services between Baramulla and Qazigund resumed on Sunday after remaining suspended for four consecutive days. With the cost of rooftop solar power exceeding the present market rate, the government has stopped signing tripartite pacts for solar energy with industry. It will now get into pacts only with households, provided they generate power only for their consumption. The government initially wanted to promote renewable energy and allowed building owners, financiers and escoms to sign tripartite agreements. The price fixed by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) for one unit of solar power is Rs 9.56 for those who have not availed subsidy and Rs 7.20 a unit for those who have availed subsidy. However, in the last two years, the cost of solar power in the open market has drastically declined to under Rs 5 a unit. The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which is executing a 2,000 MW solar park at Pavagada in Tumakuru district, has quoted Rs 4.65 a unit while it is Rs 4.34 a unit in the recent tenders in Rajasthan, a senior official in the energy department told Deccan Herald. The KERC is now likely to announce a revised solar power tariff, which could be less than Rs 5 a unit, on April 20. It will also come up with the gross metering concept where the entire power generated on a rooftop can be sold to the grid. Under the net metering concept, the power generated is used by the installer while the excess power is sold to the grid. According to the new order, no domestic rooftop installation can sell power to the grid as it is restricted to their installed capacity. This is being done to discourage people from investing in rooftop panels for households, says Jagadishchandra Shetty, director Greensol Renewable Power Pvt Ltd. He feels that the state shouldnt have gone in for tripartite agreements as they were set to lose financially by buying power at a higher price. There was nothing wrong in promoting the government policy. Now, in the current situation, there is need to regulate the flow of investments in rooftop solar units, an official said. By restricting the TPA to allocated load for households, the government will not only offload its peak demand but will also save money for escoms as power purchased during peak hours is more expensive than it is billed to domestic consumers, an officer said. On the other side, he explained: The power sold to industry is higher than the purchase price by escoms. It makes sense to sell power to industry instead of buying it from them at Rs 9.56 a unit. And during lean hours, power is available at a much lesser price. It wont be a burden on escoms, he said, reasoning the governments rationale behind the April 2 order restricting the TPAs only to domestic households. The Centre will soon introduce protocols for mandatory testing of the quality of the midday meal. The Human Resource Development Ministry has initiated the move, aiming to checking complaints about serving contaminated and low-calorie food to schoolchildren under the scheme. The moves comes mainly because the Ministrys guidelines for serving safe and hygienic food to school children and mandatory testing of the food samples from the schools have largely remained ineffective. Reports about poor-quality meals served under the scheme keep coming in from different parts of the country. In February, more than 200 children began showing symptoms of food poisoning after serving of midday meals at a school in Palghar district of Mumbai. The protocol for testing of mid day meal is being finalised in consultation with experts. The views of the states were also sought because the testing protocols cannot be implemented without their active support, official sources told DH. The midday meal testing protocols will make the implementation of the scheme more effective, they added. Last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India observed gross irregularities in the implementation of the midday meal scheme while conducting performance audit of the centre-sponsored programme at 27 states (except Mizoram) and seven union territories. As per rules framed under the food security Act, all primary school students are entitled for midday meal with nutritional value of at least 450 calories and 12 gm of protein, while students of upper primary classes must get meals with nutritional value of at least 700 calories and 20 gm protein. Beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya got a pay package of over Rs 1.7 crore last year from his US-based brewery firm that itself is struggling for funds. The firm has been served default notices by lenders. More than half of Mallyas total package for 2015 has been paid by California-based Mendocino Brewing Company (MBC) Inc to him for promoting the companys beer brands. Mallya serves as the chairman of the board of directors of the company, which has an exclusive licence to brew and distribute Kingfisher premium lager in various countries. Besides, it produces and sells a number of craft beer brands. United Breweries Holdings Ltd (UBHL), the holding firm of Mallya-led UB Group, is the indirect majority shareholder of MBC. Total compensation In its annual Form 10-K filing for the year 2015, submitted with the US markets regulator SEC, MBC has disclosed that Mallya was paid a total compensation of USD 256,900 (about Rs 1.71 crore), unchanged from the previous year. Vijay Mallya, chairman of the board, is paid $120,000 per year by MBC for services rendered as chairman, and 89,600 British pound per year by UBIUK for promoting our products in the foreign territory outside the United Kingdom, it said. MBCs foreign operations are conducted through wholly-owned subsidiary United Breweries International UK Ltd and a step-down unit Kingfisher Beer Europe Ltd. The two largest shareholders of Mendocino are United Breweries America (UBA) and Inversiones, both of which are controlled by Rigby International Corp, which in turn, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UBHL. Charges denied Meanwhile, Mallyas UB Group strenuously denied the allegation by the Enforcement Directorate that he siphoned off nearly Rs 430 crore from the loan extended to Kingfisher Airlines by IDBI bank for acquiring property abroad. Mallya & MBC Mallya serves as chairman of the board of directors He was paid a total compensation of USD 256,900 (Rs 1.71 cr) The liquor baron controls over 68% shareholding held through UBHL in MBC MBC, in financial trouble, is exploring options including mergers and asset sales RBS to terminate credit line to KF Beer Vijay Mallyas troubles do not seem to be limited to India, with the global banking major RBS planning to terminate next month a credit line and all other banking services provided to his European beer venture, PTI reports from London. This has forced Kingfisher Beer Europe Limited, owned by Mallya through a complex web of entities, to look for alternative avenues to replace the credit line. The State government appears to be at its wits end in solving the impasse over the evaluation of second PU answer scripts. They, however, appear to have managed to ensure a smooth beginning for the SSLC evaluation beginning from Monday. After it failed to break ice with the agitating lecturers and its alternative plans backfired, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Kimmane Rathnakar admitted that there could be a 10-day delay in PU results. He, however, assured both parents and the students not to worry, and asked them to focus on CET exams. He said PU evaluation could begin on April 20. The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board has issued orders to 67,000 teachers to report for evaluation work. Out of this 25,000 teachers under the Karnataka State Aided Schools and Colleges Employees Association and Karnataka Rajya Badti Sarkari Praudashala Shikashakara Sangha have decided to boycott evaluations. The rest, all government teachers under the Karnataka State High School Assistant Masters Association will be attending work, assured heads of the association. On Sunday, efforts to complete the coding and decoding by deputing staff from other wings of the primary education failed as many of them could not comprehend the work. Meanwhile, the agitating PU lecturers said they wouldnt attend the valuation work unless their demands are met. Ajay Seth, principal secretary, Department of Primary and Secondary Education, however, said they are roping 4,000 retired PU lecturers in addition to the qualified SSLC teachers who are due for promotions. Around 7,000 lecturers from unaided colleges have also been engaged in the evaluation work. According to Seth, 11,000 lecturers will be reporting to work as against the required 17,000. We may need 16 to 17 days to complete the evaluations. Rathnakar announced that lecturers from the 11 colleges on which the CID conducted raids would be dropped from evaluation work. Rescuers in Ecuador raced to dig out people trapped under the rubble of homes and businesses on Sunday, following a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 233. President Rafael Correa said on Twitter that the death toll on Sunday had risen to 233, up from an initial count of 77 dead and 600 injured. He added that Vice-President Jorge Glas was on his way to the hard-hit city of Portoviejo on the Pacific coast. Glas called it the worst seismic movement we have faced in decades. The quake, felt across Ecuador, northern Peru and southern Colombia, struck at 6:58 pm local time on Saturday, lasting for about a minute and was centered approximately 170 km northwest of the capital Quito. No casualties were reported in Peru or Colombia. In Portoviejo, the temblor reduced houses to rubble, brought down a local market in a nearby community and left streetlights and debris scattered helter-skelter. According to Glas, 14,000 security forces, 241 medical staff and two mobile hospitals were being rushed to the most devastated areas, with reinforcements arriving from Colombia and Mexico. We know that there are citizens trapped under rubble that need to be rescued, he said in a special TV and radio broadcast. Officials declared a state of emergency in the six worst-hit provinces. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the 7.8-magnitude quake struck off the northwest shore of Ecuador, just 27 km from the town of Muisne. The vice-president gave a slightly lower measurement of magnitude 7.6. Ecuador lies near a shifting boundary between tectonic plates and has suffered seven earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher in the region of Saturdays quake since 1900, the USGS said. One in March 1987 killed about 1,000 people, it said. At least 55 smaller aftershocks rattled the country after the main quake, Glas said. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially issued a warning for the nearby Pacific coastline but later said the threat had passed. Curfew was clamped on north Gujarat town of Mehsana and mobile internet services suspended as the ongoing Patel quota stir on Sunday turned violent. Over 1,500 agitators from across the state were taken into the custody. The trouble began in Mehsana, where Patels had gathered in large numbers to participate in jail bharo agitation call given by Sardar Patel Group, one of the two organisations spearheading Patel quota stir in the state. The SPG had urged its supporters to court arrest en masse to pressurise the state government to accede to their demand for the release of the jailed Patel leaders. During the course of events, the Patels took out a rally after holding a meeting in Mehsana. When the police tried to stop the crowd from taking out rally, some in the mob resorted to stone-pelting. This led to the police resorting to lathi-charge and fired teargas shells. They also arrested over 1,000 agitators in Mehsana. SPG convenor Lalji Patel was injured in the melee. Whether the injuries were due to stone-pelting or lathi-charge by the police was not clear. However, visuals of injured Laljibhai became viral on the social media across the state. Offices of ministers Rajnikant Patel and Nitin Patel, a FCI godown and a state government building were set on fire in Mehsana. The Patel mob also torched the Sub Divisional Magistrates vehicle and a state transport bus. Reports of local buses being attacked with stones in Patel dominated Ghatlodia area of Ahmedabad and blockade of Bhavnagar-Talaja highway in Saurashtra region forced state administration to impose internet curfew and divert over 200 state transport buses. In Surat, the police arrested 435 people as Patel agitators clashed with police personnel. This city belongs to all and those creating mischief will be dealt with strictly. We have imposed Section 144 of IPC in the city to prevent any unwarranted incident, Ashish Bhatia, Surat Police Commissioner, said. Even as state BJP president Vijay Rupani, BJP National general secretary Purushottam Rupala and state party spokesperson Bharat Pandya appealed to agitators to maintain peace and urged police to exercise restraint. The City governments second phase of odd-even scheme faces a litmus test on Monday the first official working day since the anti-pollution drive kicked off with schools reopening after the holidays. The AAP governments road rationing plan will be judged on the arrangements made for schoolchildrens pick and drop as autorickshaw and taxi unions plan to go on strike on Monday. Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai wrote to Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung on Sunday and sought adequate deployment of police force on city roads in view of the strike called by autorickshaw and taxi unions on Monday. During the last strike in March, it was seen that autorickshaw drivers ferrying commuters were beaten up by the protesters, Rai said in the letter. Unions affiliated with the BJP and the RSS have decided to go on strike on Monday. So we request you (L-G) to make sure adequate police personnel hare being deployed so that autorickshaw and taxi drivers can operate without fear, he added. Rai also met representatives of autorickshaw and taxi unions on Sunday, but Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the association which has called the strike, said that it was not invited to the meeting. Sources said those unions who met the transport minister are not taking part in the strike. But Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh affiliated autorickshaw and taxi union will go on strike on Monday. We will go on strike as the city government is not able to regulate the private cabs. They charge Rs 5 to Rs 6 per km whereas our kali-pilli taxi charge Rs 25 for the first km and Rs 14 thereafter for every km. We are loosing out customers, said Rajinder Soni, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh Auto-Taxi Unions general secretary. We are staging a 24-hour long sit in outside the Delhi Secretariat starting Sunday evening, he added. by Linda Curda Cama-i! In the Yupik culture, we embrace each other with a warm and welcoming greeting by offering a hand to shake accompanied by the exclamation, Cama-i! It is in that same spirit that I address you today. For generations, Bethels very own festival celebrating Native dance has entertained tens of thousands of us who live in this region, and around the globe. The Cama-i Dance Festival, modeled after the Yupik Tradition of winter dance gatherings, boasts three full days of dance, laughter, and warm celebration. It serves as the highlight of Southwest Alaskas dark, cold, and long winter. The theme for this years festival is Yurarturciqukut ~ Resilience Through Dance. It was inspired by Nightmute, Alaskas very own Albertina Dull, this years Living Treasure. At over a century in age, Albertina continues to build a legacy of The Way of Authenticity. We are proud to recognize and honor her exemplary service to her community and this region. This last April, after COVID-19 caused a global shut down, The Delta Discovery published an article with excerpts from an interview with Albertina Dull about living through the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. Ms. Dull is, indeed, a Living Treasure. Toksook Bay photographer Jimmie Lincoln captured an image of Albertina performing at a recent dance festival on Nelson Island that graces this years event poster. Merchandise featuring a logo designed by the incredibly talented local artist Maria Nicolai is available for purchase at the Kuskokwim Arts Guild gift shop in the Cultural Center. Call 543-4585 to schedule an appointment to purchase the merchandise. Surviving a global pandemic requires us to make decisions that ensure the preservation of the health of humanity. Human beings are a social creature. Our authenticity depends upon the way we strive to serve each other, and our entire world. Our deeply rooted desire and yearning to come together to celebrate our lives makes this situation even more difficult, but we know social distancing is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing includes postponing our annual festival a few more years, until it is safe for us to gather again. Our initial plan is to hold a festival in a year and a half from now, in spring of 2022. Until then, please stay tuned for more videos and communication, including the honoring of our Living Treasure, Albertina Dull. Our next festival will celebrate the true perseverance of resilient, healthy, and vibrant people. Quyana cakneq! Linda Curda is the Co-Coordinator for the Cama-i Festival, the YK Deltas premier celebration of dance, culture, song and art. Share this: Tweet Email Mayor Fred Watson will be hosting a Town Hall Meeting on March 13, 2019 from 6pm to 8pm at the City Council Chambers to inform the public of the impacts the City of Bethel will face if Governor Dunleavys budget is passed as proposed. Public and agency testimony is encouraged and should focus on opposition or support of the Governors proposed budget and feedback on proposed trade-offs. A majority of Council Members may be present however no action will be taken. Share this: Tweet Email April 24, 2019 Today, the U.S. Department of Commerces Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced that it is investing to help the Native Village of Napaimute, Alaska, acquire vital equipment needed to spur economic growth in the wood products sector. Supporting locally-devised strategies to boost economic opportunity is a major focus of the Trump Administration, said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Dr. John Fleming. The new equipment to be employed by the Native Village of Napaimute will help them continue to compete in the wood products industry. A $589,000 EDA grant will help the Village acquire a waterborne landing craft that will aid the transport of harvested wood products. The addition of the waterborne landing craft will help the Native Village of Napaimute increase economic transactions and foster conditions that will be conducive to the creation of business and employment opportunities. Share this: Tweet Email Thank you for finding our loved ones To the Search & Rescue Volunteers of Alakanuk, Emmonak, Kotlik, and Mountain Village Thank you so much for volunteering your time and resources to help search for our daughters, Patience and Haley, last month. Your willingness to help on short notice is much appreciated and helped contribute to their safe return and a positive outcome. We could not have found them without you. Special thanks goes to Jason Fancyboy and Jeff Unok of Kotlik who found them, fed them, made sure they were warm, and delivered them home safely. God bless all of you that helped with their safe return! Thank you so much, the Alstrom and Moses families. Audrey Alstrom Anchorage, AK A GREAT BIG Bethel THANK YOU! The 2017 Bras n Bros fundraiser event sponsored by the VFW Auxiliary Post 10041 at the end of January was a success due to the involvement of several state, city and local agencies and businesses PLUS the selfless contributions of time from many individuals. THANK YOU to the Robert V. Lindsey VFW Post 10041, YKHC and YKHC Injury Prevention, Lynden Air Frieght, Bethel Police Department, Bethel Fire Department, Immaculate Conception Church, the Magic Man, Mike Calvetti, Gold Rush Liquor and Swansons Store. With everyones support, the VFW Auxiliary raised over $8,000.00 for scholarships, funeral and medical assistance, Americanism, Veterans recognition and Veterans family support. LaTesia M. Guinn VFW Auxiliary Bras n Bros Chairperson Post 10041, Bethel AK Lets stand as one, not as divided tribes It has been a while since I last wrote. To my displeasure of some leaders of this region, I dont need to name names as you know who you are. There are a select few of us without getting compensated are trying our best to help this region. I personally have spent countless hours of phone conversations with some respected and tireless elders and real leaders that affect our economically depressed region. I applaud those that had the courage to attend last weeks first YK Delta Intertribal Conference. Alcohol was the main topic first day and many of the attendees were affected by this very hard topic. From my perspective it was a good turnout. Many spoke out mostly because there already have been many preventable and premature deaths. Young and old have died from alcohol since the liquor store opened. I would like for the City of Bethel to reconsider their position with the two that are open now. The AC and BNCs licenses to operate. Needless to say the BNCs store has not been operating after the leaders of that corporation advocated publically that it is time. Time for the younger generation to learn how to drink moderation and what not. One old man from Bethel testified when the Wild Goose was open back in the late 70s which was heartbreaking. As for the AC liquor store, what has it brought to our delta? Are they going to send food, attention, comfort, and especially LOVE to those children that are being neglected? The money that AC liquor store earns is only benefitting a Canadian company. I can only imagine if they earned 2.7 million last quarter to date this delta contributed over 5 million dollars by now. It is time that we stand as one not as divided tribes. These organizations that you tribes erected have their own agendas. We tried and cried wolf but never got heard but turned the other way. With that being said I hope you tribes can come together. We can all agree to disagree as united tribes and great people of this Yupik, Cupik, Cupig, and Athabaskans of this great region. Steven M Alexie Napaskiak, AK You, Womens History, and the Power of Social Security March is Womens History Month a time to focus not just on the past, but also on the challenges women continue to face. Nearly 60 percent of the people receiving Social Security benefits are women, and in the 21st century, more women work, pay Social Security taxes, and earn credit toward monthly retirement income than at any other time in our nations history. Knowing this, you can be the author of your own rich and independent history, with a little preparation. Social Security has served a vital role in the lives of women for over 80 years. With longer life expectancies than men, women tend to live more years in retirement and have a greater chance of exhausting other sources of income. With the national average life expectancy for women in the United States rising, many women will have decades to enjoy retirement. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a female born today can expect to live more than 80 years. As a result, experts generally agree that if women want to ensure that their retirement years are comfortable, they need to plan early and wisely. You can start with a visit to Social Securitys Retirement Estimator. It gives you a personalized estimate of your retirement benefits. Plug in different retirement ages and projected earnings to get an idea of how such things might change your future benefit amounts. You can use this valuable tool at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator. You should also visit Social Securitys financial planning website at www.socialsecurity.gov/planners. It provides detailed information about how marriage, widowhood, divorce, self-employment, government service, and other life or career events can affect your Social Security. Your benefit is determined based on your earnings. You can create your personal my Social Security account to verify that your earnings are correct. Your account also can provide estimates of future retirement, disability, and survivors benefits. If you want more information about how Social Security supports women through lifes journey, Social Security has a booklet that you may find useful. It is Social Security: What Every Woman Should Know. You can find it online at www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10127.html. Robin Schmidt Social Security Administration Alaska Public Affairs Specialist Share this: Tweet Email by Peter Twitchell I remember the days of the Fur Rondy Festival weekend sled dog races in Anchorage back in the 50s when there were many local mushers and names of familiar people from rural Alaska. There was also a musher from the east coast named Dr. Roland Lombard. And notably George Attla from Huslia. In my opinion these were the dominant dog mushers who held my attention. Dad had a Zenith cell pack battery operated radio which got the Anchorage broadcasts of the Fur Rondy dog mushing races by way of White Alice satellite dishes strung across Alaska. Peter Jacob was always my favorite dog musher because he was from our local southwest Alaskan village of Bethel. He was a small man in stature, big in spirit, a jovial Yupik man whose eyes sparkled and laughed heartily whenever I told him that I was cheering him on to victory! Anchorages Fur Rondy Festival Sled Dog races 25 mile race courses looped around Anchorage. Dad was glued to that radio set throughout the race every winter in the latter part of the 1950s and the early 1960s. I remember dogsleds and big strong huskies were the only transportation long before snowmachines. People depended on these dogs to hunt, to fish, and gather wood. We took very good care of the dogs. Mom and Dad had a 15 x 20 log building half of which was dedicated to dog food, which was mainly the backbones of the summer salmon which were smoked with cottonwood in the smokehouse with all the other flat slabs of salmon and salmon strips. In the winter months the dogs would get a whole backbone. As spring approached we would give them half a backbone of the salmon. In the summer we cooked fresh salmon and occasionally added dog food to their dishes. Growing up in the 1950s the Yupiks in southwestern Alaska often spoke to the dogs in our native language and yelled commands like gee and haw and the leader would turn left or right. When Dad gave the command come gee and come haw the lead dog would make a 360 turn back. When Dad yelled in a casual voice tang ava-i kaviaq! which means look ahead at the fox! the dog teams ears and the leader would perk up, look ahead, and quicken their gallop. Dad had a white husky leader named Queenie. I myself never owned a dog team and Ive loved dogs all my life. They have been indeed Mans Best Friend. Share this: Tweet Email by CVRF Staff Each winter for the past 10 years, Coastal Villages Region Fund (CVRF) has provided energy assistance to families in its 20 member communities through CVRFs heating oil program. The program helps residents offset the high cost of heating homes in Western Alaska. Since 2008, CVRF has provided over $2 million in heating oil assistance through the program. This year, CVRF offered $383,885 in such assistance, enough for about 35 gallons of heating oil to each of 2,170 households. The resulting distribution of 75,780 gallons of heating oil is a record for CVRF, a notable increase of 19,620 gallons from the previous year. The program also saw an increase in the number of participating households. When combined with the 55 gallons of heating oil per person that CVRF distributed through its elder program earlier this year, CVRF provided more than 113,000 gallons in heating oil benefits to CVRF residents in 2018. Being part of distributing the heating oil program benefit to our residents is a great feeling because we see, first hand, the reactions of our residents, said Dayna Blakeley-Nash, CVRFs Community Service Representative in Chevak and interim Heating Oil Program Coordinator. There were a lot of laughs, happy tears, hugs, and handshakes while our residents picked up their heating oil. The heating oil program is beneficial because it alleviates one of the hardships that our people face the high cost of living in our rural area. Heating oil is one of the largest household costs for families living in Western Alaska where lower cost alternatives, like natural gas, are not available. According to the Alaska Rural Homeownership Resource Guide published by the USDA , the average 2-star energy rated home in communities served by CVRF requires 870 gallons of fuel to heat, which can cost as much as $4,000 per year. I am very happy for CVRF helping the community, said Sharon Williams, a resident of Napaskiak. When people were running out, CVRF provided heating fuel. Coastal Villages Region Fund (CVRF) is a 501(c)(4) Alaska non-profit corporation with 20 member communities located along the west coast of Alaska, from Scammon Bay to Platinum. It is one of six Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups granted fishing rights in the Bering Sea to foster sustainable and diversified local economies in western Alaska. CVRF is dedicated to creating sensible, tangible, and long-term economic development opportunities that generate hope for the more than 9,300 residents of its communities. CVRF is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of one member elected from each community. It is the largest Alaskan-owned seafood company in history and the first CDQ group to own and control the vessels that harvest the vast majority of its CDQ allocations. For more information, visit www.CoastalVillages.org and www.facebook.com/CoastalVillagesRegionFund. Share this: Tweet Email by Candis Olmstead Medevac aircrew from the Alaska Army National Guard provided emergency medical assistance and helicopter medical evacuation to a 75-year old man after he fell into a river and drowned, requiring immediate resuscitation and sustaining multiple injuries, Aug. 12. The patient was on a guided fishing trip with family members on the Yentna River, in South Central Alaska about 70 miles northwest of Anchorage in a remote area that may only be accessed by aircraft or boat. He had fallen overboard into the river and was underwater for about three to five minutes before being saved. He was not breathing after being saved, and was revived by the trip guide after performing about five minutes of CPR. An Army National Guard UH-60L Black Hawk medevac helicopter and crew from Detachment 2, G Company, 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment, departed Bryant Army Airfield at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, after the Alaska State Troopers requested assistance through the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center. The initial request for support was communicated via InReach SOS activation by the fishing party, which notified AST. The AKRCC, manned with full-time rescue controllers in the Alaska Air National Guards 176th Wing at JBER, provided the rescue aircrew with the fishing tour groups grid coordinates, which directed the Black Hawk crew to the injured mans location. In less than an hour from notification, they launched the aircraft, arrived at the location and began assessing the patient. We had some bad weather on the flight over, but as we neared the location, it opened up and we found a spot to land, said Staff Sergeant Damion Minchaca, a flight paramedic with Det. 2, G-Co, 2-211th AVN. They were on a river bank and I walked through a creek to get to them, but would not have been able to get the patient back to the aircraft, so the two crew chiefs prepared it for hoist. Minchaca assessed the critically injured patient, donned him with an aviation rescue vest, and prepared him to be hoisted into the aircraft. The Black Hawk took off from where it had landed nearby, hovered over Minchaca and the patient, and raised them into the helicopter via hoist. Once we were in the aircraft, I took his vitals again, performed an EKG, provided medication, stabilized him and addressed complications, said Minchaca, and the crew chiefs provided all of the help I needed. Black Hawk crew chiefs in medevac units are responsible for the maintenance and safety of the aircraft, but are also trained in CPR, IVs, basic airway management and drug recognition. While flight paramedics are responsible for providing care and transport of critically ill and injured patients, they are also trained on basic maintenance of the aircraft. We all have to be able to pitch in with such small crews, said Minchaca. This mission involved landing and hoisting, assessing needs on the ground and providing care en route, and it went smoothly and quickly because we work so well as a team. The guide on the trip saved the patients life, and the seamless, joint effort of the Alaska Air and Army National Guard units ensured a successful rescue and crucial medical care during transport to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. The patient was delivered to the hospital within two hours of the AST request for support, and he was passed directly to a physician on site for continuation of necessary medical care. Locals and visitors with plans in Alaskas remote and challenging outdoor environment are highly encouraged to travel with a form of communication and a backup form of service, such as a beacon or satellite tracker. ASTs video, How to Signal Searchers, has great tips on how to prepare for and stay safe in Alaskas outdoors at the link: www.facebook.com/watch/?v=202459725082463. Share this: Tweet Email LOVELAND Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory Saturday in Colorado, taking a majority of the national delegates with a stronger-than-expected showing at a divided state Democratic convention. The Vermont senator captured 41 delegates from the states 78-member delegation, inching him closer to front-runner Hillary Clinton in what the campaign suggested is a larger shift in the presidential race. The margin gives Sanders a clear hold on Colorado enough to overcome Clintons advantage among the states dozen superdelegates. It definitely shows the trend for Bernie Sanders in the state of Colorado is still really strong, said state Rep. Joe Salazar, a top Sanders supporter. I think hes trending toward a win for this presidential nomination. The Sanders campaign won 63 percent in the presidential preference poll at the state convention in Loveland, where Democrats gathered amid a snowstorm that prevented hundreds from making the trip. The vote represented an improvement on his 59 percent victory at the March 1 caucus and gave Sanders 15 of the 23 delegates available at the convention: two more than the initial Super Tuesday projections. Earlier, he claimed 26 delegates from seven congressional district conventions. Outnumbered in a caucus state that favored the high-energy Sanders campaign, Clinton supporters reacted to the final delegate count with resignation. Clinton took 37 percent in the convention straw poll, 3 percentage points lower than the caucus vote, and won eight more national delegates. The campaign finished with 25 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and expects to secure the vast majority if not all of the states superdelegates. Weve been through this before; we know its a long haul, said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, a prominent supporter. We also believe the math is in our favor. Entering the convention, the chasm that separated Clinton and Sanders supporters created a visibly fractured state party. The Sanders team distributed leaflets at the Budweiser Events Center that warned supporters to watch for shenanigans after a caucus process that left hundreds of voters in the cold and faced repeated questions about fairness. Democratic Party chairman Rick Palacios admission during the week that the party misreported the caucus results and kept it quiet until The Denver Post uncovered the error only added to the animosity. To have the most fair and transparent and efficient convention process, Palacio started the convention by adding a top official from the Sanders and Clinton campaigns to moderate events and serve as vice chairmen. Still, the feeling among some Sanders supporters that the system is rigged echoing arguments on the Republican side from Donald Trump led them to focus their anger on the states superdelegates. The Sanders campaign championed a slate of like-minded Democratic National Committee members for the next cycle, even though it wont help their efforts this year. Its not just about just one candidate. Its about a movement. Its about a revolution, said Hayden Pollock, a 21-year-old restaurant manager from Grand Junction. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet took the brunt of the anger on the issue. He accepted his partys nomination in a 20-minute speech interrupted three times with thundering chants of change your vote from Sanders supporters in the crowd. Bennet, a Clinton supporter and superdelegate, preached a message of unity but it did little to quell his critics. In an interview after his speech, Bennet said their message was very heartfelt, but he demurred on the question of whether he would pledge support to Sanders. Instead, Bennet clarified that he would support the candidate that wins the most pledged delegates in the primary race. Theres a time and place for a debate, he said, referring to the chants. And this is a time and a place for people to let their voices be heard for me to hear those voices. And I think thats what was accomplished today. Other elected officials and party leaders with superdelegate status are encountering similar pressure, especially after Sanders sympathizers posted their personal contact information to the Internet. Brenna Payne, a 34-year-old state convention delegate, wrote a polite e-mail to Bennet asking him to support Sanders. I see both sides of it because people are saying Republicans sure wish they had (superdelegates) right now with how its going, she said. But at the same time, if the Colorado people overwhelmingly picked Bernie as their choice, we feel the superdelegates from Colorado should go that way. Mannie Rodriguez, a longtime Clinton supporter and superdelegate, received a huge stack of what he called hate mail just before the state convention. He said it distracts from the mission. The convention is supposed to be to unite us, to heal us, he said. We are supposed to come out of the convention ready to win, not come out looking like we are fighting. A patient was killed when an ambulance crashed around 2 a.m. Sunday in snowy conditions on Interstate 76 near Brush, according to Colorado State Patrol officials. Lauren Putney, a 23-year-old from Julesbeg, was transporting Brenda Ebke, a 57-year-old patient, between hospitals in a Sedgewick County EMS Ambulance when she lost control in the snow. Ebke died on the scene. Putney and another passenger, Vickie Sandlin, 53, were transported to a hospital with injuries. Colorado State Patrol officials said the crash was the only fatality related to dangerous roads caused by the storm. But snowy conditions across Colorado contributed to traffic woes for intrepid travelers braving the roads Saturday night and Sunday morning. A vehicle on Interstate 25 near Castle Rock slid into a Colorado State Troopers vehicle around midnight Saturday while the trooper was assisting with a nearby collision. The driver of the car sustained minor injuries, but the trooper walked away unscathed. Dangerous driving conditions shut down traffic on several Colorado highways Sunday morning. At 7:30 a.m., U.S. 6 at Loveland Pass and U.S. 85 at the Wyoming border were closed. U.S. 287 from Teds Place to the Wyoming border reopened about 1:05 p.m. after closing around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. The Colorado State Patrol in Limon warned of drifting snow conditions from east of Aurora to Flagler Sunday morning. The agency recommended slower speeds for drivers heading that way. Congestion on Interstate 70 is causing delays of at least 30 minutes, from Denver at C-470 to the Eisenhower Tunnel at milemarker 295-215. The Colorado Department of Transportation estimates total travel time between those areas will average 75 minutes. Chain and traction laws were in effect for many areas on Saturday, but CDOT has begun lifting them in areas where the snow has tapered off. CDOT retracted the traction law between Vail and Silverthorne on I-70 Sunday morning, as well as the one in place in both directions between Silverthorne and Denver C-470. Colorado State Patrol in Canon City tweeted at 11 a.m. that the chain law has been lifted on Monarch Pass. But chain laws remain in effect for several areas of I-70. Vehicles heading eastbound from Silverthorne to Eisenhower Tunnel at milemarker 228-215 are required to chain up. As are cars traveling in both directions from eastbound Georgetown to the Eisenhower Tunnel from milemarker 228-215 and from Golden to Georgetown at milemarker 259-228. The American Red Cross has closed a storm shelter in Falcon that it opened Saturday for people stranded in the snow. The shelter closed at around 7 a.m. Sunday, according to a tweet from El Paso County, which said no one ended up staying at the shelter. The Colorado Springs Police Department tweeted around noon Sunday that Colorado Springs is no longer on accident alert, after spending most of the day Saturday After Colorado Springs spent most of the Saturday on accident alert, the Colorado Springs Police Department tweeted at noon Sunday that the alert had been lifted. Katy Canada: 303-954-1043, kcanada@denverpost.com or @KatySusanna By Yuri Kageyama 12 April 2016 TOKYO (AP) To dump or not to dump a little-discussed substance is the question brewing in Japan as it grapples with the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima five years ago. The substance is tritium. The radioactive material is nearly impossible to remove from the huge quantities of water used to cool melted-down reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which was wrecked by the massive tsunami in northeastern Japan in March 2011. The water is still accumulating since 300 tons are needed every day to keep the reactors chilled. Some is leaking into the ocean. Huge tanks lined up around the plant, at last count 1,000 of them, each hold hundreds of tons of water that have been cleansed of radioactive cesium and strontium but not of tritium. Ridding water of tritium has been carried out in laboratories. But its an effort that would be extremely costly at the scale required for the Fukushima plant, which sits on the Pacific coast. Many scientists argue it isnt worth it and say the risks of dumping the tritium-laced water into the sea are minimal. Their calls to simply release the water into the Pacific Ocean are alarming many in Japan and elsewhere. Rosa Yang, a nuclear expert at the Electric Power Research Institute, based in Palo Alto, California, who advises Japan on decommissioning reactors, believes the public angst is uncalled for. She says a Japanese government official should simply get up in public and drink water from one of the tanks to convince people its safe. But the line between safe and unsafe radiation is murky, and children are more susceptible to radiation-linked illness. Tritium goes directly into soft tissues and organs of the human body, potentially increasing the risks of cancer and other sicknesses. Any exposure to tritium radiation could pose some health risk. This risk increases with prolonged exposure, and health risks include increased occurrence of cancer, said Robert Daguillard, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency is trying to minimize the tritium from U.S. nuclear facilities that escapes into drinking water. [] Japans fisheries organization has repeatedly expressed concerns over the issue. News of a release of the water could devastate local fisheries just as communities in northeastern Japan struggle to recover from the 2011 disasters. An isotope of hydrogen, or radioactive hydrogen, tritium exists in water form, and so like water can evaporate, although it is not known how much tritium escaped into the atmosphere from Fukushima as gas from explosions. The amount of tritium in the contaminated water stored at Fukushima Dai-ichi is estimated at 3.4 peta becquerels, or 34 with a mind-boggling 14 zeros after it. But theoretically collected in one place, it would amount to just 57 milliliters, or about the amount of liquid in a couple of espresso cups a minuscule quantity in the overall masses of water. [more] AK LAK, 16 April 2016 (VNS) More than 130 cows and thousands of chickens and ducks died from drought in Ea Sup District in the Central Highlands province of ak Lak, according to the latest statistics from the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The cows and birds died due to a shortage of drinking water and nutrition. In Ia Lop Commune alone, more than 80 cows died, whereas Ia Rve Commune had more than 50 cow deaths. Hundreds of hectares of crops were destroyed, and at least 91 wells ran dry. Phung Ngoc Cuong, of Village 8 in Ia Rve, said he had never seen such severe drought. The commune did not have any grass, so Cuong led his 40 cows anywhere they could find food, including garbage. Cuong had to buy a rickshaw to carry straw at a cost of VN4 million (US$170) and drill a well, which cost more than VN15 million ($660), to supply food and drinking water to his cows. Pham Bao, also of Ia Rve, said he mixed rice husk with saltwater to feed his cows. Several weaker ones were given restorative medicines and vitamin C. My cows are worth more than VN1 billion ($44,400), but now no one wants to re-buy them, so I tried every way to cure them, he said. At present, more than 30 of Baos 120 cows have died, resulting in losses of VN300 million ($13,300). Nguyen Ngoc Phu, head of the Ea Sup District Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the cows died en masse because they lacked nutrition, food and drinking water. They ate so much cassava, so they got indigestion and then died. Many cows in Ia Rve and Ia Lop communes died because the communes did not have irrigational systems or reservoirs. [more] Thousands of chickens, cows die from drought 15 April 2016 (Tuoi Tre News) The devastating climate has caused 83 oxen in Ia Lop Commune and 50 more in Ia Rve Commune in Ea Sup District to die, while destroying hundreds of hectares of crops and draining 91 drilled wells in the locality, the local Office of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Wednesday. The animals have to endure extreme heat from the sun while grazing only dried grass, causing their health conditions to deteriorate, said Le Thi Cuc Phuong, a farmer in Ia Lop Commune. Phuong added that she and her husband have had to force their oxen to drink fresh water in order to prevent exhaustion. Phung Ngoc Cuong, owner of a herd of over 40 cows and bulls in Ia Rve Commune, said that his cattle have been in competition over the few resources available. I have not seen such serious drought in years. As there is no grass left for the animals to eat, they now consume everything in sight, even garbage, Cuong added. The farmer spent VND4 million (US$179) buying straw for cattle feed and another VND15 million ($672) drilling a well to supply them with sufficient water. Showing Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters the herd of skinny and fatigued oxen, Pham Bao, also from Ia Rve Commune, said that he had to buy several metric tons of quality crops to feed his animals. Bao added that he also had to grind rice and combine it with water for the cows and bulls, while providing extra supplements and vitamins for the weaker animals. I have to do everything to save my group of oxen, which is worth billions of dong [VND1 billion = $44,820], the farmer stated. Thirty out of 120 of his cattle have died due to the harsh weather, costing about VND300 million ($13,445), according to Bao. The scarcity of water due to the absence of a reservoir and canal in the commune, accompanied by 40 degree Celsius temperatures, has posed many risks to the survival of the animals, he elaborated. A living cow can be sold for between VND13 million ($583) and VND14 million ($627), said Le Ky Giong, residing in Ia Lop Commune, adding that a dead one is only worth VND3 million ($134). The death of the oxen arose mainly from the deprivation of sufficient nutrition, food and fresh water, said Nguyen Ngoc Phu, head of the Office of Agriculture and Rural Development in Ea Sup District. The situation is common in the two communes, as there is no system of water reservoirs or irrigation ditches, Phu explained. To cope with the severe drought this year, the local budget will be disbursed for the farmers to drill wells and afford food for their cattle, according to the official. [more] Over 130 oxen die from severe drought in Vietnams Central Highlands province HA NOI, 16 April 2016 (Viet Nam News) All forces should be mobilised to cope with severe drought and saline intrusion in order to ensure food and fresh water for daily usage, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao uc Phat said at a meeting yesterday. Topics addressed by the Central Steering Committee for Natural Calamities Preparedness and Control included measures to confront drought and saline intrusion in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands), southern central and Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta regions. Phat asked localities to closely watch weather and saline intrusion developments and water resources to adequately promote effective measures that would minimise production losses and stabilise incomes. The committee pledged to mobilise all forces to cope with the situation and avoid hunger and possible epidemic to drought-affected people. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment was assigned to closely supervise and issue reports on drought and saline intrusion for specific areas and localities. This helps local authorities set up effective plans for drought and saline intrusion control. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce asked the management agencies of hydropower reservoirs to supply fresh water to drought-prone areas as a priority task. The local authorities should co-operate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to adjust production timetables to reduce losses caused by drought and saline intrusion. This years drought was the most severe one in 100 years, and saline intrusion was worsened by the El Nino phenomenon in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands), southern central and Cuu Long Delta regions. So far, the droughts and saline intrusion have caused fresh water shortages in 390,000 households and damaged nearly 240,000ha of rice and more than 4,000ha of aquaculture production. The total loss was estimated to be VN5,200 billion (US$236 million). According to the weather forecast agency, drought and saline intrusion are expected to expand to other regions in upcoming months. [more] Govt outlines anti-drought action 13 April 2016 (Pakistan Defence) China has decided to continue discharging water from a hydropower station into the downstream reaches of the Mekong River for drought relief. Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, said on Monday that his country faced a severe drought, and hoped that China would continue to supply water to downstream reaches of the Mekong. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lu Kang echoed his words during a news conference on Tuesday. Considering the drought situation in downstream countries, China decided to continue discharging water starting from April 11 and last until the end of low water period. The water volume discharged will be adjusted in accordance with the situation in upstream areas and the actual demand of downstream countries. Since the end of 2015, due to the El Nino effect, countries along the Lancang-Mekong River have suffered drought conditions to varying degrees, and their peoples lives and work have been affected. At the request of downstream countries, China discharged water from the Jinghong Hydropower Station in Yunnan Province from March 15 to April 10. [more] China Continues Releasing Water to Drought-hit Mekong River Countries By Adam Frank 12 April 2016 (NPR) You dont need me to tell you how unusual this primary season has been. Every day, more news sites offer more commentary seeking to explain how American politics reached its current, seemly surreal state. But here at 13.7, our goal is to offer commentary on places where science and culture intersect. From that perspective, one key aspect of this seasons political upheaval can be traced back a decade or more. That aspect is reality, or at least the part were all supposed to agree on. Over the past five years, Ive written many times about the rising tide of science denial in this country and the dangers it poses. As last years spread of measles at Disneyland demonstrated, denying real facts has consequences in the real world. Viruses dont care whom you vote for or what Facebook groups you join. And the facts about viruses the what-should-we-do-now kinds of facts are best revealed through science. That is why, as a nation, we give it value. When the methods of science are pursued as intended, what is returned is public knowledge. This knowledge, composed of facts and an understanding of their limits, are critical for a functioning democracy. The founders of the American experiment in self-government understood the urgency of public knowledge. Its why they held science in such high regard. It was, for them, the principle means of establishing the background needed for our public life, a background composed of a shared reality. Unfortunately, over the past 10 years, we have seen the viability of public knowledge eroding in the public sphere for all the wrong reasons. More than anything else, the pressure driving this erosion can be summed up in two words: climate change. Before we go any further, it is crucial to note that the Republican Party was, for decades, a champion of the U.S. scientific effort. Republican presidents created NASA, NOAA, and the EPA. These lawmakers understood how science served as the engine of national security, stability, and economic vitality. Then came climate change. On this issue, the Republicans did not start out uniformly denying global warming was a problem. For a time, there was consideration over proper responses from all players. But over the past 16 years, one half of the American political establishment came to be aligned with what can only be called denialist positions. Time and time again, the nations premier scientific organizations (NASA, NOAA, the AAAS) issued unequivocal statements about climate change and the threat it posed. Even the military weighed in, as it understands the destabilizing global threat climate change poses. And yet, over and over again, Congressional leaders have rejected the authority of these sources. It can be argued that the denial of climate change is simply part of a longer trend in turning away from science. For example, the battle of evolution and creationism has a long history in this country. And, in many ways, the forces seeking to cast doubt on climate science took a page from the playbook of creationism in their choice of tactics. But the debate over evolution has never had the scope or the reach of what has happened with climate. In particular, we have never seen the kind of wholesale political attack on a science (particularly a physical science) that has come with the climate debate. In the decades that followed World War II, politicians understood the ways in which science contributed to the national good. There was an implicit agreement that science should be left to determine its results, and the role of policymakers was to absorb those results within their own policy debates. But that agreement was broken with climate science. An entire field of research whose results have dizzying implications has been rejected as a whole. The work of thousands of researchers spanning decades is claimed to be wrong or, worse yet, a hoax. And, unlike the debate over evolution, the claim is made at the highest levels and seems to span the whole of a political party. This is something new in our history. Our ability to deal with climate change has clearly been adversely affected by this rejection of scientific endeavor. But facing into the winds of this strange primary season, we can see how this denial yielded other consequences, too. If the point of science is to provide us with a method for establishing public knowledge, then its rejection is also the rejection that such public knowledge is possible. If we hold science in esteem because it represents a best practice for establishing shared facts that hold regardless of ethic, religious or political background, then denying science means denying the possibility of such facts. It implies there can be no means for establishing facts about the world and no reason to award authority to mechanisms that deliver those facts. This wholesale rejection of a shared reality was always the great danger lying in organized, politicized climate science denial. After all, why stop with climate science? Once you get started down this road, who or what determines that its gone too far? [more] Shares in Saga are a 'buy' for the Sunday Times' Inside the City column, after a steady but unshowy performance since its initial public offer two years ago. Management plan to shift the business from a plain old insurer that also markets holidays and other services to its over-50s customers, into a broker that makes commission from sales made to third parties, who will offer services under the company's brand but take on more of the risk. This will require the group to hold less cash - of which 210m of cash and equivalents sat on the balance sheet at the half-year - and return some of this in dividends. A reinsurance deal in March took some risk of the table and analysts predict that alone could result in a bigger year-end dividend. Ahead of results this week, Saga's shares are available on a forward p/e ratio of 14, whereas ratings for brokers are nearer 16. Questor in the Sunday Telegraph advises selling the FTSE 100 as part of the old stock market maxim of 'sell in May and go away, don't come back till St Leger's day'. One of the main risks is Britain's vote on 23 June on whether to stay or leave the European Union. An out vote could cause economic shockwaves worldwide, according to the IMF. The UK benchmark index is also overvalued on the basis of its p/e ratio, currently on 17 versus its long-term average of 15. While the old maxim is predicated on brokers and traders heading for the beaches or the hills for the summer, other factors to that will impinge on equity values in 2016 include reports that we are heading towards the late stages of the present cycle, even more so in the US, which retains a big influence over the FTSE 100. Dividend yields are also looking rather top at over 4%, more than double what long-term government bonds are paying! Buy Safestay shares is the advice from Midas in the Mail on Sunday to adventurous investors. The 2014 flotation is the latest from serial property entrepreneur Larry Lipman, following Safeland, Safestore, Bizspace and Hercules Property Services. Safestay, which has raised 3m and 8m from investors so far, is a provider of holidays hostels currently based on four UK location initially but with plans for fairly rapid expansion to 10 more including a one or two overseas. Trying to distance themselves from the dingy hostels remembered from backpacking trips of yore, Safestay's are based in central city locations, bright, welcoming and learn, with bars, free wifi and comfy beds. Although there have been some doubts about the poor occupancy levels at new sites, annual results released this months revealed sales more than doubling to 4.0m and its Elephant & Castle site in London with occupancy of 78.6%. A 0.6m loss was due to investment in sites, sales and marketing, and a new website offering a dynamic pricing engine. Lipman has been joined by experienced hotels executives at CEO and FD as this young business attempts to continue momentum in forging a new direction against the existing tide of AirBnB and budget hotels. Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only and not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information. No power, no hot water, bedbugs at apartment towers near Downtown Residents at the Latitude Five25 apartment towers on the Near East Side said they've had no hot water, no power at times. The city is going to court. Women Made Whole Dothan will present a free financial management and awareness seminar for the community for the groups monthly Serve Day on April 18 from 7-9 p.m. at Comfort Suites, 1650 Westgate Parkway, in Dothan. The speaker will be a bankruptcy paralegal from Brock & Stout discussing The Bible, Your Money, and God's Plan for Financial Management. Women Made Whole is for women of all ages, denominations and backgrounds. Visit www.womenmadewhole.com or www.facebook.com/womenmadewholedothan for more information. Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church #2, 1547 Lucy Grade Road, Dothan, will host its annual spring revival April 20-22 with services at 7 p.m. Guest minister will be Clifton Green of Macedonia Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida. All churches are welcome. Call 334-677-5765 for information. The Dothan Evening Community Lighthouse of Aglow International meets at 5:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at Shoney's Restaurant, located at 3054 Ross Clark Circle in Dothan. Barbara Brunner, the founder of Rahab's Promise, will be the guest speaker on Thursday, April 21. Rahabs Promise is a ministry that reaches out to women in strip clubs and shares the gospel with them. The Mark Trammell Quartet will perform at Eastside Free Will Baptist Church, 1679 E. Main St., in Dothan on April 22 at 7 p.m. Free admission; an offering will be received. Call 334-793-9376 or 334-790-4746 for more information. Grimes Gospel Lighthouse, 1512 County Road 25, Grimes, will host local talent on April 23; and Billy Gene Dickerson of Ashford on April 30. All concerts are at 7 p.m. Admission is free; offering will be taken. Call 334-983-4654 or 334-714-4658 for more information. Stringer Street AME Church Family Reunion will be held April 24 at 11 a.m. with the Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Sherrod III, pastor. Members, former members, future members, family and friends are all invited. A family picnic will follow the morning worship service and will feature games, inflatables, food and fellowship. Rocky Mount Baptist Church, 457 County Road 42 W., Abbeville, will hold an Ushers Anniversary service on April 24 at 3 p.m. Guest minister will be the Rev. Vincent T. Owens, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Dothan. Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, located at Seventh Avenue and Oak Street, Ashford, will celebrate its 104th church anniversary with a service on April 24 at 3 p.m. Guest minister will be the Rev. Christopher Scott of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Slocomb. New Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 2627 Kinsey Road, Dothan, will hold its annual Womens Day program on April 24. Sister Michelle Little of Dothan will be the guest speaker at 11 a.m. and Sister Judy Barnes of New Life in Jesus Ministry in Dothan will be the guest speaker at 2:30 p.m. Lunch will be served. The Jerry Maddox Family will be singing at Ebenezer Baptist Church, located at 3894 Ebenezer Church Road in Columbia, on April 24 at 6 p.m. Food and fellowship to follow. Ebenezer Baptist is located off State Highway 52 East and Jesse Road. Call 334-714-3892 for more information. Tabernacle AME Church, 1724 County Road 79 E., Clayton, will host its annual Womens Day Observance on April 24 at 2:30 p.m. The Womens Day colors will be purple and white. Guest preacher will be the Rev. Josephine Marlow of Hopewell AME Church in Clopton. All churches are invited, and dinner will be served. Park Avenue Baptist Church, located at East Park Avenue and South Main Street in Enterprise, will be hosting a revival meeting April 24-27, featuring different speakers each night. Services will begin at 6 p.m. on Sunday and 7 p.m. week nights. Guest speakers will include: Michael Mynatt, pastor, Hillcrest Baptist Church, on Sunday; Danny Wiggins, pastor, County Line Baptist Church, on Monday; Sam Self, pastor, Basin Baptist Church, on Tuesday; and Sonny Moore, retired pastor and U.S. Army Chaplain, on Wednesday. Joint revival services for Bay Springs Baptist Church, Good Water Freewill Baptist Church and Pilgrim Home Baptist Church will be held at Bay Springs Church on April 24 at 6 p.m. and April 25-27 at 7 p.m. Guest preacher will be Brother Jerry Spencer. All are invited. Bay Springs Baptist is located at 1721 S. Bay Springs Road, Dothan. Call 334-692-3138 for more information. Center Missionary Baptist Church, 4344 AL-173, Newville, will host its annual Youth Day service on April 24 at 11 a.m. and its annual Youth Revival on April 27-29 with services at 7 p.m. and the Rev. Bernard Vickers of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Headland as the evangelist. Call 334-889-4710 for information. Temple Emanu-El in Dothan will hold its annual Deli Day on May 4 and will be taking orders through April 25. Bagged lunches are $12 each and include a deli-style kosher corned beef sandwich with a kosher dill pickle, a bag of chips, a chocolate chip cookie and a picnic pack prepared by the John Conti Center at Vaughn-Blumberg. To order, buy tickets from members of Temple Emanu-El; call the Temple office at 334-792-5001 for an order form; or order online at http://www.dothandeliday.org. The 7:14 Spiritual Renewal services will be held April 25-27 at Selma Baptist Church, located at 3255 S. Park Ave. in Dothan. Sponsored by the Selma Baptist Church Primetimers, there will be a meal each night at 5:30 p.m. followed by a worship service at 6:30 p.m. Guest preacher will be the Rev. Rick Evans from Dalraida Baptist Church in Montgomery (former pastor of Selma). Attendees should contact the church office at 334-793-4602 each day by 12 p.m. to eat the meal the church is providing. Meals are free, but donations will be accepted. Child care will be provided for children up to age 3. There will be different workshop leaders and music each night. The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville will hold a Creation Conference on April 26-27 with breakout sessions designed for pastors and youth groups. The conference, free to attend, will examine apologetics with the primary topic being the biblical account of creation. Leading the conference will be Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International in Atlanta, Georgia. Sarfati will speak at the regular chapel services at 10 a.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday and will lead a special session for pastors on April 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. He will lead a session for youth, homeschoolers and Christian school groups on April 26 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Conference sessions are open to the public by reservation. To register, call 800-328-2660, ext. 513; email hollis.prange@baptistcollege.edu; or visit baptistcollege.edu/creationconference. The Dale Baptist Associations WorshipFest will be held at Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Ozark on Friday, April 29, starting at 6:30 p.m. WorshipFest is a praise and worship service led by local worship bands and praise teams. There is no cost for admission, and everyone is invited to attend. A nursery will be provided. Ridgecrest Baptist Church is located at 1971 Deese Road in Ozark. Klondyke Gospel Music Center, located between Newton and Ozark at 3885 Highway 123 S., will host the following groups: Stepping out on Faith from Marianna, Florida, April 29; The Conrad Family from Dothan, April 30. Concerts start at 7 p.m. Admission is free; offering will be taken. For more information, call 334-405-1500. First Christian Education Conference will be held April 30 at 10 a.m. at Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church II, 1547 Lucy Grade Road, Dothan. The speaker will be Dr. Jonathan McPherson of St. John Baptist Church of Edge Water in Birmingham. All churches invited. Lunch will be served. The Wiregrass Gospel Choir will be singing at Smyrna Baptist Church, 1800 Husky Road, Dothan, on April 30 at 6:30 p.m. Call 334-792-7297 for more information. The Dothan Alabama Community Lighthouse of Aglow International will hold a community outreach program on April 30 at 10 a.m. at Sardis Missionary Baptist Church in Headland. Speaker will be Elder Georgia Curry of Rhema Rock Church. Everyone is invited. Resurrection Power Crusades will be holding a two-day crusade at the Geneva County Farm Center on May 5-6 with services at 6 p.m. There will be anointed worship and a message from the Rev. David Watson of the University of Health and Healing in Enterprise. The farm center is located at 2765 E. State Highway 52 between Hartford and Geneva. Love INC of the Wiregrass will host a development meeting on Friday, May 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at the Dothan Houston County Library Systems main branch at 445 N. Oates St. in downtown Dothan. The nonprofit mobilizes local churches, church volunteers and community organizations to transform the lives of people in need whether they have physical, emotional, mental or spiritual needs. The organization, formally known as Love In the Name of Christ, and its affiliates have worked in communities for more than 30 years. To learn more about the new Dothan affiliate, contact Barbi Nolan at 334-793-4440 or barbi@loveincwiregrass.org. You can also visit www.loveincwiregrass.org. This week, the Alabama Senate rejected a bill to create a constitutional amendment referendum that, if approved by voters, would have allowed a Greene County bingo casino to operate the same sort of electronic bingo games used by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in three casinos on tribal land in Alabama. The bill is now where it belongs relegated to the trash heap of failed legislative ideas. There are several non-tribal bingo casinos in Alabama that have been crippled by the years-long legal battle over electronic bingo. If there were to be a constitutional amendment to address the dilemma, it shouldnt be for one particular bingo operator. Before you give the Senate credit for a sense of fair play, keep in mind that a constitutional amendment measure requires 21 votes in the 35-member Senate, and this measure failed by four votes. That means roughly half of Alabamas sitting senators favored sending this unfair measure to the voters. The idea itself may have merit, as the courts have failed to resolve the bingo question so far. The bills sponsor, Sen. Bobby Singleton, said that Greene County needed the jobs that an operating bingo casino would provide, comparing it to auto plants in other parts of the state. While thats a questionable comparison, the same could also be said about Macon County, where VictoryLands bingo operation is not operating, and Houston County, where Center Stage Alabamas electronic bingo casino has been reduced to running a smaller, non-electronic bingo operation. Before Alabama lawmakers commit to pursuing the expansion of gambling, a questionable mechanism to shore up the states economy, they should ensure that its done in a way that doesnt favor the few before presenting it to the voters. dpa ElectionsData With dpa ElectionsData you get access to a unique collection of data. Via a programming interface (Rest-API), your developers can access detailed information, candidate profiles and live results for all national elections in the European Union and important international elections, like the US Midterm elections etc. The data pool also includes all heads of state and government as well as about 20,000 elected members of parliament throughout the EU. In addition to their data (name, party, constituency or list position), we collect social media profiles and official websites of individuals and parties. 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The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London. 08:11, 22 OCT 2022 February 24, 2022, the day of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, will go down as a tragic date not only for the Ukrainian people, but also for the whole civilised world. Fire service warning following small explosion Fire crews are warning residents about the importance of having both smoke and carbon monoxide detectors following a fire this morning. Crews were called out the Clybane Court in Farmhill at around 7.30am after reports of flames coming from a gas meter. On arrival they used a spray jet to isolate the flames and a crew weaing breathing apparatus then closed the valve inside the meter box closing the gas supply - then proceeded to ventilate and ensure the safety of the building. No one was hurt in the incident and the fire service is taking this opportunity to remind any persons with gas or solid fuel appliances in their home to make sure they are regularly serviced. Re: New to Basel! Quote: stupot I wouldn't want to over exaggerate, it's also basic common sense but I did have a friend who got hospitalised a few years ago and late night robbery is not uncommon, also around kleinbasel like blackbird said. Most of the newcomers seem to live in St.Louis or close by. The ones who've been here longer often buy property, usually a bit further away like Kembs, Hesingue, even as far as Colmar. I have a few friends in Hesingue, it's a nice village. Do you have the option of living in Switzerland? It looks like France it's a better option according to my new colleagues, I was told by HR that 90% of the employees live in France (I have seen new apartments with garage for less than 600), so I guess finances are better. Also cost of living, supermarkets, etc. It would be also useful for me in order to have a car as it looks like parking is easier and car insurance cheaper. I am aware of the fact that living in Basel you don't need a car but it is my intention to be travelling around quite a lot as I love alpinism and climbing so I'd need a car to be close to the walls early in the morning. What I like about Basel is that maybe by spending a little more in accommodation and travelling to France for groceries every now and then, I could have a better social life and by the looks of it, a safer environment. It is difficult to calculate and understand what the difference would be, as the higher insurance, gym memberships, probably getting a garage??, and the accommodation price are higher, but taxes lower... Do you think it would be too quiet for me in St Louis? I've seen Alsace is a perfect place for a family but maybe not for a 26 year old guy just arrived and with no friends there? Hi stupot. I have the option of living in Switzerland, and that's what I am trying to figure out.It looks like France it's a better option according to my new colleagues, I was told by HR that 90% of the employees live in France (I have seen new apartments with garage for less than 600), so I guess finances are better. Also cost of living, supermarkets, etc. It would be also useful for me in order to have a car as it looks like parking is easier and car insurance cheaper. I am aware of the fact that living in Basel you don't need a car but it is my intention to be travelling around quite a lot as I love alpinism and climbing so I'd need a car to be close to the walls early in the morning.What I like about Basel is that maybe by spending a little more in accommodation and travelling to France for groceries every now and then, I could have a better social life and by the looks of it, a safer environment. It is difficult to calculate and understand what the difference would be, as the higher insurance, gym memberships, probably getting a??, and the accommodation price are higher, but taxes lower...Do you think it would be too quiet for me in St Louis? I've seen Alsace is a perfect place for a family but maybe not for a 26 year old guy just arrived and with no friends there? Re: Should I be stocking up on stuff in the US before I arrive in July?? Yes, Switzerland is more expensive than the US for most things, but are you not being paid quite a lot more in Zurich? If no, then you need to reconsider your move. If yes, then you have to factor that in when assessing prices. Your previous tourist/visitor dollars would indeed make things seem pricey, but when you're paying with CH-paid swissies it's really not so bad. And not everything is expensive -- compared to the UK anyway, which is where I was previously. Electric / electronic goods are generally quite well priced as the tax is lower. And buying in the US means the hassle of the different voltage. Groceries will seem pricey at first, but then you discover Denner, Aldi and Lidl + the weekly special offers. Wine is definitely cheaper in supermarkets but OK, almost unaffordable in restaurants -- unless the boss is paying. A large beer in a bar is more than double what I would pay in the UK but again, before I grumble too much I remind myself that I'm earning more here and paying less tax. Among things that I would advise buying before you arrive are outdoor clothes / gear. If you plan to hike or ski or ride a bike (etc.), you'll find it expensive to get kitted out here. It's hard to find bargains in things like walking shoes and good quality backpacks. Remove labels and packaging to avoid the impression they are brand new. Medicines -- stock up with cold remedies, painkillers, and any over-the-counter meds that you use. These things can be hard to find and expensive here. Overall, I'd say don't worry about it too much. Once you've been here a while you'll start to learn where to find bargains, and as an earlier poster said, you can pick up stuff in Germany and France if need be. Amazon is available of course but there are restrictions on some things like healthcare and medicines, and electrical goods will be taxed. It's sensible to think ahead, but remember -- it's not all about money. For most of us, there are many compensations like clean air and water, very efficient public transport, extraordinarily beautiful scenery, and easy access (i.e. within an hour or so's drive) to 4 or 5 countries. For me at least, these benefits are priceless. Amal Clooney might be beautiful, smart and well-dressed (while also being married to one of the most popular Hollywood actors of this generation), yet it looks like she just can't catch a break with her critics. This time around the British-born Human Rights lawyer is being criticized for attending a fundraiser but apparently not donating any money herself for the cause. According to Pop Dust on Friday, Amal managed to turn heads in her pricey outfit (which included a pair of $1,395 pants) while speaking out about sex trafficking at a Dallas fundraising luncheon. Unfortunately, sources say that even though the event raised more than $1 million dollars, Amal didn't contribute anything herself. During the New Friends New Life luncheon Amal also discussed crimes against journalism and how her passion is what gives her the drive to help her clients. Local reports say that even though the conversation sometimes shifted to questions about her husband George, Amal tried to keep focused on the worldwide issue of sex trafficking. Statistics show that over 27 million people could be enslaved throughout the world, including the United States. Writer Joanne Wolf wrote rather sarcastically, "Ironically, Amal could have contributed a million dollars herself, simply by forgoing a few phone-calls to Saks Fifth Avenue, but then there would be no publicity so scrap that idea." It is unknown if and how much money Amal contributed to the cause, as a rep for the lawyer has not made any comments about the report. Keep up with Enstars for all the latest news on Amal Clooney and all of your favorite celebrities right here. Jamie Dornan might not be on the fast track to getting an Oscar just yet, but it looks like he might get another very important honor in his home country, and that's having his image showcased on a bus. There's a new report that says the on-screen Christian Grey is battling it out with other fellow Northern Irish stars for the Translink Metro Legends title in Belfast. According to Belfast Live on Friday, Dornan - who is fast became a household name thanks to his role in last year's megahit 50 Shades of Grey is competing with hometown celebrities Eamonn Holmes, Stephen Nolan, Wayne McCullough, Barra Best and Christine Lampard to see who should be crowned this year's Translink Metro Legend. The site says that the campaign was launched by the transportation hub. They are asking the public to help pick two Belfast "legends" to be features on a Metro double-decker bus. And while Dornan himself has not made any comments about the competition just yet, television star Eamonn Holmes has said that he is quite honored with the nomination on twitter. They might name a Bus after me in Belfast .... is that a Good thing? As you can see I'm excited at the prospect https://t.co/78cB6Gsik5 Eamonn Holmes (@EamonnHolmes) April 11, 2016 So far it looks like Dornan might just win the title as his fans have taken to the Metro's multiple social media accounts to vote for their favorite actor. Keep up with Enstars for all the latest news on Jamie Dornan and all of your favorite Hollywood celebrities right here. Malaga, Spain - April 17, 2016 - Today, at the World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases, an international research team presented the preliminary results of a new study which aimed to determine whether the predictive value of a past major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) for future MOF changed with time. They studied a database of 118,872 men and women born between 1907 and 1935 who were part of the Reykjavik Study during 1967-1991. Data on all fractures from participant entry into the study until December 31, 2012 were extracted. Of the 5039 patients who experienced one or more major osteoporotic fractures and were included in the analysis, 1919 patients experienced a second fracture. The analysis showed: The risk of a second major osteoporotic fracture after a first increased by 4% for each year of age and was 41% higher for women than men. The risk of a second major osteoporotic fracture was greatest immediately after the first fracture. Although the risk thereafter decreased with time, it remained higher than the population risk throughout follow-up. One year after the first major osteoporotic fracture the risk of a second fracture was 3 times higher than that risk amongst those who had not experienced a fracture. After 10 years this risk was still elevated, at 2 times the risk in the non-fracture population but was lower than at one year. Presenting author Prof. Nicholas C. Harvey of the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, stated, "The results of our study show that the risk of further fracture after a first major osteoporotic fracture is greatest immediately following the first event, with a declining, but still increased, risk in subsequent years. These results suggest that pharmacological treatment for secondary fracture prevention should be considered during the period immediately following a first fracture." The results of this study support international efforts to promote secondary fracture prevention in clinics worldwide. Studies have shown that half of all individuals who suffer a hip fracture have already come to clinical attention because of a prior fragility fracture. All too often the broken bone is simply 'repaired' and the patient is sent home without proper diagnosis and management of the underlying cause of the first fracture. It is estimated that approximately 80% of patients who suffer a first fracture are never diagnosed and treated. In order to address this serious problem, the implementation of coordinated systems of secondary fracture prevention has become a major health-policy focus of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) through its Capture the Fracture initiative: http://www.capturethefracture.org ### Reference: OC35 Imminent Risk of Major Osteoporotic Fracture After Fracture (Reykjavik Study) N. C. Harvey, H. Johansson, K. Siggeirsdottir, A. Oden, V. Gudnason, E. McCloskey, G. Sigurdsson, J. A. Kanis Abstract book: WCO-IOF-ESCEO World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases, 14 -17 April 2016, Malaga, Spain Osteoporosis International, Volume 27/ Suppl 1/ 2016 About World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis & Musculoskeletal Diseases (WCO-IOF-ESCEO 2016): Held jointly by IOF and ESCEO, the Congress is taking place in Malaga, Spain from April 14-17,2016. It is the world's largest annual forum for the presentation of clinical research and new advances in the prevention and management of bone, muscle and joint disorders, including sarcopenia and frailty. The next Congress will be held in Florence, Italy from March 23-26, 2017. For complete information visit http://www.wco-iof-esceo.org #OsteoCongress About IOF: The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) is the world's largest nongovernmental organization dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis and related musculoskeletal diseases. IOF members, including committees of scientific researchers, leading companies, as well as more than 234 patient, medical and research societies in 99 locations, work together to make bone, joint and muscle health a worldwide heath care priority. http://www.iofbonehealth.org / http://www.facebook.com/iofbonehealth / https://twitter.com/iofbonehealth About ESCEO: The European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis (ESCEO) is a non-profit organization, dedicated to a close interaction between clinical scientists dealing with rheumatic disorders, pharmaceutical industry developing new compounds in this field, regulators responsible for the registration of such drugs and health policy makers, to integrate the management of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis within the comprehensive perspective of health resources utilization. The objective of ESCEO is to provide practitioners with the latest clinical and economic information, allowing them to organize their daily practice, in an evidence-based medicine perspective, with a cost-conscious perception. http://www.esceo.org After a stroke, there is inflammation in the damaged part of the brain. Until now, the inflammation has been seen as a negative consequence that needs to be abolished as soon as possible. But, as it turns out, there are also some positive sides to the inflammation, and it can actually help the brain to self-repair. "This is in total contrast to our previous beliefs", says Professor Zaal Kokaia from Lund University in Sweden. Zaal Kokaia, together with Professor of Neurology Olle Lindvall, runs a research group at the Lund Stem Cell Center that, in collaboration with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, is responsible for these findings. Hopefully, these new data will lead to new ways of treating stroke in the future. The study was recently published in the international Journal of Neuroscience. When stroke occurs, the nerve cells in the damaged area of the brain die, causing an inflammation that attracts cells from the immune system. Among them you find monocytes -- a type of white blood cells produced in the bone marrow. The monocytes travel to the inflamed area, and here they develop into macrophages that clear out any dead tissue. But this is not all that they do: they also secrete substances that help the brain repair the damage. "This is what we, together with Michal Schwartz's research group in Israel, have been able to show", says Zaal Kokaia. Most stroke patients recover at least partly over time. This spontaneous improvement is well known, but not its exact cause. The Lund researchers now believe that the improvement is partly due to the substances released by the immune cells. In their study, they actually performed the opposite: in animal model of stroke they were able to ablate monocytes from the blood. Mice with decreased number of circulating monocytes were much less successful in their recovery from stroke than mice whose immune system was functioning as normal. Today's treatment against stroke primarily involves dissolving or removing the blood clot that caused the stroke. However, such treatments must be performed in the very early phase after the insult, which means that most stroke patients are too late to receive it. A future treatment method -- one that could be based on the Lund researchers' new findings and that aims to promote self-healing -- could be implemented later. This treatment could start at some point within the first few weeks, rather than within the first few hours after a stroke. The Lund researchers have focused on what happens in the brain during this later stage. Among other things, they were the first to show that, after a stroke, the brain produces new nerve cells from its own stem cells. They now want to proceed with animal experiments to see if the self-healing can be improved by adding more monocytes to the brain, or by stimulating the production of monocytes in bone marrow. "Obviously, there is a difference between mice and humans, but there is no indication that our brains function differently in this regard", says Olle Lindvall. He further argues that this new insight concerning the positive effects of inflammation could also be applied to other diseases. The Lund research group's collaborators from Israel have obtained similar results in cases of spinal cord injury. "This is no less than a paradigm shift within research, as inflammation has in many instances been seen as a purely negative phenomenon that should be combatted using any means available. We now realise that this view is much too simplistic", says Olle Lindvall. ### Monocyte-Derived Macrophages Contribute to Spontaneous Long-Term Functional Recovery after Stroke in Mice The Journal of Neuroscience, 13 April 2016, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4317-15.2016 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/36/15/4182.short Contact Professor Zaal Kokaia Lund University Tel 46-46-222-02-76; 46-70-536-59-17 Email zaal.kokaia@med.lu.se The new model will allow the new groups from the beginning of 2017, to request the Minister for Agriculture and Food to levy properties in their region, to be matched by the State Government to conduct declared pest control activities. , , , , . Fayetteville mother says four charged in son's killing were his friends The mother-of-two is struggling to understand not just how her son could be gone so quickly, but why his friends turned on him. Michael Fassbender swore at Sophie Turner the first time he met her. Sophie Turner The 'Game of Thrones' actress was "nervous" about meeting the 39-year-old actor when she joined the cast of 'X-Men: Apocalypse' but knew they'd get on well when he greeted her with a rude gesture. She said: "I was also about meeting Michael Fassbender, but [on my first day on set] I looked over and he gave me the middle finger, jokingly, and I thought, 'We're going to get on.' " Sophie also got on well with "down-to-earth" Jennifer Lawrence and the 'Joy' star even looked after her when she fell ill. She told Britain's Marie Claire magazine: "Despite being one of the most famous actresses in the world, she's so down to earth. One day I got sick and she was looking after me, constantly checking up on me, getting me tablets. She was like a big sister." The 20-year-old star was signed to the next instalment of the superhero film late last year and has admitted she burst into tears as soon as she received the call from her management telling her she'd secured the gig. Asked what she did as soon as she found out, she explained: "I rang my mum and she started crying, then I started crying. It was crazy. Then my phone started blowing up." Vogue Williams wants to have a baby. Vogue Williams The 30-year-old model-and-presenter - who has been single since splitting from husband Brian McFadden last year - is keen to start a family in the next five years and admitted she feels envious that her brother has just become a father. She said: "I would definitely like a baby in the next five years, but I'm only 30 so I still have plenty of time. "My brother recently had a baby daughter, which makes me feel quite jealous. "But for now, I'm a proud auntie and that's how I'll get my baby fix." Vogue and Brian are still on good terms, and she admits she never expected their marriage to end. She said "We're good friends and are still in touch. We talk every week and we have our dog, Winston. We both love him and we share custody of him. "Like any break-up, it's been painful. This isn't what I expected my life to be like, but once you get used to hanging out with yourself and being OK with it, it's fine. "It's taken me a year but now I feel like I'm in the best place I've been in." And the Irish model hasn't ruled out marrying again in the future. She told Closer magazine: "I still have the same views on marriage. Put it this way, I didn't ever get married to get divorced. "I still think it's a lovely thing and my feelings haven't really changed." Chris Hemsworth kept "cracking up" while filming 'Ghostbusters'. Chris Hemsworth Hemsworth - who plays receptionist Kevin in the upcoming reboot - couldn't keep a straight face because his co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon were so funny in their improvisations. He said: "There's some nice role reversal there and I'm such a fan of those women. "During shooting I spent more time cracking up and trying to keep a straight face, and there'll be more outtakes from that than anything else I've ever made. "This is highly improvised work - they just kept the camera rolling for hours." Chris was initially opposed to the idea of a remake of the 80s classic, but when he heard about the gender role-reversal, he was desperate to be involved. He admitted: "When I heard they were doing a male 'Ghostbusters' I thought, 'No they can't do that, it's sacrilegious, it can't be remade.' "Then when I heard it was being done with a different spin and a female cast, I knew it was going to be something unique. So when I was offered it, I immediately thought, 'Awesome'." The Australian hunk can next be seen in 'Snow White and the Huntsman' prequel 'Huntsman: Winter's War' and was pleased he got an opportunity to return to the saga. He told Gay Times magazine: "I loved the script the first time round and it came right off the back of 'Thor'. "There were things I liked that we achieved and things I thought we could have done better in the next one. "So having another opportunity means you really get to explore things that you may have missed. "This time round, there's a lot more humour and a larger sense of fun and adventure to it. The first film definitely had a darker palette and style." Hong Kongs subway operator, Mass Transit Railway Corp, has invented perhaps one of the worlds most successful business models by selling land above or adjacent to its railway stations to property developers. Across the Sham Chun River, China Vanke wants to kill two birds with one stone by adopting this railway plus property model in Shenzhen to quickly increase its land bank and, more importantly, fend off a hostile takeover attempt by Baoneng, a little-known financial conglomerate. Baoneng, which is controlled by low-key founder Yao Zhenhua, became China Vankes largest shareholder in December after building up its stake in less than six months. Soon after, Vanke chairman Wang Shi (pictured) publicly voiced his discontent, questioning Baonengs credibility. Our reputation is Vankes biggest asset, Wang said at an internal meeting on December 17. The background of Baoneng may lead to a change in our credit rating, which [has helped] us to secure inexpensive funding internationally and domestically. On December 18 Baoneng hit back, calling the groups share purchases entirely legitimate and emphasising that it believed strongly in market forces. Public documents show that Vanke, which is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges, has net assets of Rmb136.3 billion ($21 billion) compared with Baonengs Rmb120 billion. Investors first got wind of a possible takeover battle in July of last year when Vanke announced that Foresea Life Insurance had acquired more than 5% of its shares. By late August, Baoneng, through its subsidiaries Foresea Life Insurance and Shenzhen Jushenghua, had bought more than 20% of Vanke, a level that made it the biggest shareholder of Vanke, surpassing state-owned China Resources Group. At the last count, it had a combined 24.26% stake to China Resourcess 15.29%. Baonengs stake building in Chinas largest homebuilder wowed investors, as it marks a new milestone in the history of corporate China, with a private company trying to wrest control from a state-owned enterprise. China Resources had been Vankes largest shareholder until last August and had been so for about 15 years. Vanke effectively brought in China Resources in 1999, five years after fending off another takeover attempt, this time by a consortium led by Junan Securities, which later merged with Guotai Securities. Through its partnership with China Resources, Vanke gained more financial firepower to expand nationwide, and with considerable success too. The companys Shenzhen share price has jumped by more than 38 times since 1999, compared with a 5.6 times increase in the Shenzhen Composite Index over the same period. Hostile takeovers are pretty rare in China because most companies are controlled by either the state or by single tycoons or families, which makes the Vanke drama all the more intriguing. The cultural preference also is for closed-door negotiations rather than public confrontation. The great thing about seeing a transaction like that [is that it shows] the market is getting more competitive, David Blumenfeld, a partner at law firm Paul Hastings, told FinanceAsia. Ten years ago, a situation like that wouldnt happen without discussions with the government regulators, he said. Now it appears to be less and less so. In China, Vanke and its founder Wang Shi are household names. Vanke started off as a trader of animal feed in 1984, when the government first started under Deng Xiaoping to encourage private businesses as part of the reform and opening experiment. Today Vanke is Chinas biggest homebuilder with a market capitalisation of Rmb172 billion ($27 billion). Its property sales jumped by 32.5% year-on-year to a record Rmb179.3 billion in 2015. Wang, who has twice scaled Mount Everest, is often referred to as one of the most charismatic Chinese businessmen. He is also proud of his management style, professing to have never bribed any officials or hoarded land to bid up house prices, historically common practices in the Chinese real estate industry. But now, at the age of 64, Wang is embroiled in a struggle for control of the company he founded. Target: Shenzhen ONGOING BATTLE The battle is still ongoing. Shareholders of Vanke agreed on March 17 to extend the suspension of its Shenzhen-listed shares for a further three months. However, China Vankes second-largest shareholder, state-owned China Resources, then said on March 19 that the manner in which Vanke had struck a deal with Shenzhen Metro Group was not ideal as it should have informed the board members. Vanke said a non-binding agreement did not need board approval, raising a question mark over whether China Resources will support the proposed $9.3 billion acquisition when it eventually comes to a vote. In a preliminary accord signed by the two parties on March 13, Vanke said it would acquire Shenzhen Metro Groups property projects, mostly atop subway stations in the booming tier-one city. Vanke intends to fund the deal by issuing new shares worth as much as Rmb60 billion ($9.25 billion), potentially making the state-owned firm its white knight with 20% of the enlarged share capital. According to Credit Suisses calculations, that would then leave Shenzhen Metro as Vankes new No.1 shareholder. Vanke vice-president Tan Huajie said at a Hong Kong media briefing after the deal was announced that the partnership with Shenzhen Metro Group would allow Vanke to backfill a scalable portfolio at a reasonable price. Inspiration: HK's MTR Shenzhen had 131 metro stations at the end of 2015 and plans to increase that number to 371 by 2030. Tan said land prices in tier-one cities such as Shenzhen had surged significantly in the past six months as that land prices atop metro stations are more resilient in case of crashing markets. The deal is still subject to approval from shareholders as well as from other government bodies including the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Should Vanke get the green light from all of them, then Credit Suisse expects the share placement to take place in both Shenzhen and Hong Kong. But everything is still to play for. How the saga unfolds will test Beijings willingness to allow market forces to determine outcomes, something President Xi Jinping has repeatedly said he favours. Should Vanke fail in its defence, enabling Baoneng to gain boardroom control it would encourage other potential predators to try their luck with other Chinese companies. DUBAI, UAE, April 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Bid Capital appoints its new Managing Partner, Mr. Tariq Mateen Khan, who will be responsible for all financial institution related projects in the MENA and US region. Mr. Tariq brings over 30 years of experience in the global financial institutions market and has worked in countries such as EMEA, APAC and USA. He specializes in the areas of payment services, loans syndications and corporate and SME banking, credit risk management. Prior to joining Bid Capital, Mr. Tariq was the CEO of Habib Bank in New York USA. He has also held senior banking positions with American Express Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Mashreq bank. Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Tariq shared, "Success requires the right people, a strong focus on results and on building long-term client and partner relationships. Dr. Abdulrahman and I share the same values for success and I look forward to leading the company to build upon these values and take our business to new heights." Dr. Abdulrahman Al Ansari, Bid Capital's Chairman said, "I'm very happy to have Mr. Tariq on board. Tariq brings with him sound business and operational acumen, solid experience and outstanding leadership qualities, precisely the attributes required at this stage." "I am looking forward to working closely with Tariq and supporting this strategic approach to achieving our growth targets," he added. Dr. Abdulrahman brings with him more than 18 years of diverse retail and investment banking experience. He was the CEO at FCS and Fairfax Investment bank and held various senior positions in banks like Dubai Islamic Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, ABN Amro and Mashreq Bank. He is also the personal advisor to some of the Royal Family members in the GCC. About Bid Capital Bid Capital Management Consultancy is an exclusive boutique advisory and management firm which engages in advisory and business consultancy services dealing primarily with corporations, institutional clients, government and government related entities and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI). Bid Capital aims to participate in the ongoing economic development of the region by providing the right combination of experience, management skills and financial know-how. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.bidcapitals.com Or email us at info@bidcapitals.com or rajat@bidcapitals.com for any future queries.Telephone: +9714-348-3882. OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Nature's Touch Organic Berry Cherry Blend, a frozen fruit product, sold exclusively at Costco stores, has been blamed for the outbreak of Hepatitis A infections in three provinces in Canada. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, 12 cases of Hepatitis A have been reported so far - 9 in Ontario, 2 in Quebec and 1 in Newfoundland and Labrador. The product implicated in the Hepatitis A outbreak bears the UPC 8 73668 00179 1, has a 'Best Before' date of March 15, 2018, and was sold exclusively at Costco warehouse locations in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Nature's Touch is recalling Nature's Touch brand Organic Berry Cherry Blend from the marketplace. Consumers are advised not to consume the recalled product. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. MEHSANA, India Protests by an Indian caste demanding the release of one of its leaders turned violent on Sunday, as police fought running street battles with stone-throwing demonstrators and detained hundreds. Statewide marches in Gujarat calling for the freeing of Hardik Patel, a young leader of the Patel community who has been in jail since last October on sedition charges, turned violent in the town of Mehsana. Police fired tear gas, deployed water cannon and staged baton charges against protesters. The local administrator imposed a curfew in Mehsana. Across the state more than 400 protesters were detained. At least two dozen people were injured in Mehsana, NDTV said in a report that could not immediately be confirmed. "The internet has been jammed so that no rumours are spread through WhatsApp and other social sites," said Mehsana District Collector Lochan Sehra. "Peace should be maintained throughout the city." Hardik Patel, 22, emerged overnight last year as leader of a mass movement demanding more government jobs and college places for the Patel -- or Patidar -- community that makes up 14 percent of Gujarat's 60 million population. Last year's protests caught the state and federal governments off guard, and challenged the promise of new job opportunities made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who ran Gujarat for 13 years before winning the 2014 general election. Earlier this year the Jat land-owning caste launched mass protests in another Indian state, Haryana, only backing down when the authorities yielded to their demands for more jobs and opportunities to study. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Louise Heavens) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. New Delhi: After imposing total prohibition in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar plans to visit a number of states including Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are due next year, to lend support to anti-liquor movements as his party JD(U) seeks to widen its reach. Kumar, who is believed to be having a strong support base among women voters in the state, has got invitations from a number of women organisations engaged in anti-liquor movements in UP, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Party General Secretary KC Tyagi said the chief minister has agreed to visit these states and hold interaction with women organisations which will be finalised after the national council meeting of JD(U) in Patna on 23 April, which will give its approval to Kumar's election as party president at party's national executive earlier. "The women organizations, many of whom are associated with Gandhian and Sarvoday movements, have invited Kumar. "Invitations are from Jaipur in Rajasthan, Wardha in Maharashtra, Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand and some places from Uttar Pradesh. The chief minister will be visiting these states in May," Tyagi told PTI. Around a fortnight ago, Nitish Kumar government had announced a complete ban on liquor, domestic and spicy (masaledaar), as well as Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in Bihar. Women are believed to be somewhat a caste neutral constituency, which Kumar has wooed for quite some time starting with bicycle scheme for school girls in Bihar, which has been a key campaign issue of JD(U) in last few assembly elections in the state. Besides, steps like giving 50 percent reservation to women in panchayat polls, reserving 35 percent seats for women in government jobs and initiating several pro-women schemes like Mukhyamantri Nari Shakti Yojana, Akshar Anchal Yojana, Jeevika and Mukhya Mantri Kanya Suraksha Yojana are also cited by the party as proofs of its commitment to women empowerment. The understanding in JD(U) is that alcoholism being a major issue in the country particularly in rural India and women in the lower rungs of society being the worst sufferer of the rampant problem, Kumar's anti-alcohol stand puts him in good stead in these regions and gives the party a plank, which cuts across caste and community barriers. "JD(U) will kick off its social and political outreach programmes soon after 23 April during which over a thousand-member party National Council will put its stamp of approval on Nitish Kumar's election as party president in party's national executive meeting last week. "After 23 April, the ongoing process of merger with some parties as well as alliance with some others will also get a head start. "We cannot afford to wait longer. We have to start public campaign in Uttar Pradesh from May. Pushing for total prohibition will be a key theme for us," Tyagi said. With liquor being a major source of revenue for states, imposing prohibition will be a herculean as Kumar himself admitted some days back, comparing the feat of banning alcohol to scaling Mount Everest. While critics have questioned the feasibility of Kumar's liquor ban move, the Bihar chief minister is confident that the voice for liquor ban has begun to rise in other states. He also referred to the announcements of AIADMK and DMK in the run-up to the on-going Tamil Nadu polls to go for a liquor ban. Kumar feels that states like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which share border with Bihar, would see similar demands to ban alchohal there. In two of these states, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, the JD(U) is eyeing big. In Jharkhand it is finalising the process of merger of Babulal Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha while in Uttar Pradesh, Ajit Singh's RLD will join it besides alliance with smaller parties like Peace Party and a faction of Apna Dal. Beijing: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday arrived in Beijing on his first official visit to China for high-level talks with top military officials to consolidate ties between the armed forces of the two countries. Parrikar arrived from Shanghai by a special aircraft and will hold talks with top Chinese officials, including Defence Minister Gen Chang Wanquan and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) Gen Fan Changlong on Sunday. He is also due to call on Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Later, he would visit China's recently integrated western command military headquarters which has jurisdiction over border with India. Parrikar is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry. Indian officials said the visit is aimed at further consolidating the defence relations between the two countries which showed considerable improvement in the last few years with periodic high-level interactions between the two armed forces. Parrikar's five-day visit will be immediately followed by a visit by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who is scheduled to hold the 19th Boundary Dialogue with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi later next week. Doval and Yang, who are designated Special Representatives for boundary talks, also have a mandate to discuss entire gamut of bilateral issues. The contentious issue of China blocking India's attempts in the UN to ban Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e- Mohammad's chief Masood Azhar is expected to figure in their talks. Before leaving for Beijing, Parrikar visited Urban Planning Exhibition Centre in Shanghai where he was briefed by the Chinese officials on the urban planning achievements in China's biggest metropolis which has a population of over 22 million. The briefing focused on use of innovative technologies and smart city transportations, Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a statement. He also addressed members of the Indian community at a meeting held at the Shanghai Consulate where he spoke of his government's "steadfast commitment" at securing interests of Indians living abroad. The defence minister said there was a significant momentum in India's economy, which had been successful in attracting large investments under the 'Make in India' initiative. He also answered questions from the audience on issues ranging from India's self-reliance in defence production, education to high-end technologies and retaining skilled talented students, the statement said. Editor's note: On Friday, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Kerala government and the Devaswom Boards in Kerala on a petition by Subramanian Swamy and TG Mohandas seeking to abolish the boards and end the state's control over temples. In light of this development, Firstpost is republishing a three-part series analysing why it might be in state's interest to give up control of religious shrines and temples. This is the concluding segment of a three-part series on Hinduism, godmen and the judiciary The Supreme Court appears to have made the right sounds when it announced that temples could not be taken over by governments in perpetuity. The apex court sent out a similar message when it forbade the government from taking charge of the gold that was found in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. It stated that the gold belonged to the temple and the community, and not to the government. Currently, the gold is being looked after by a special committee constituted by the apex court. The apex court did the same thing when it passed an order nullifying the diktat of the Tamil Nadu government regarding the takeover of the Chidambaram Trust. But there are times when the Court has unwittingly allowed some of the most retrograde decisions to be taken. A good case in point is the way in which the Supreme Court allowed the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to reserve an area of 150 km radius around the Niyamgiri hills which was considered sacred by the local population. To be fair the Supreme Court only ordered the government to respect the decision of the local panchayat in September 2013. The 12 gram panchayats (village councils) in turn, prodded by the MOEF passed a resolution stating that there should be no mining within a 150 km radius from the hilltop of Niyam Raja, the presiding deity of the tribals in that region. The panchayats claimed that the entire Niyamgiri hill range is sacred for us and the source of our livelihood. What the Court did not take into account was that a 150-km radius translates into 70,000 square km. Compare this with the geographical spread of some of the most sacred places in the world. Vatican City, for instance, accounts for barely 0.4 sq km. And do bear in mind that Christianity is the worlds biggest religion if one goes by the number of followers it has. The holiest of shrines for Muslims, the second most populous faith, Masjid al-Haram, which contains the venerated Kaaba, is spread over just 0.4 sq km. Unlike most religions, this is where Muslims from all over the world congregate at a fixed time of the year. Yet, it has not seen any reason to claim rights over more space. Tirupati city, not just the temple, accounts for 24 sq km. And this includes the schools, the colleges and the temples that exist within this area. And this despite the fact that Tirupati has a higher density of population than many of the countries in which the above religious centres exist. So what makes Niyamgiri more important than the rest of the world? Was the MoEF stark raving mad when it decided to support such a resolution? Or does it have something to do with the alleged Jayanthi tax that many believed was the guiding principle for granting environmental clearances for projects? Consider the implications of such a move. What would happen if a tribe settled along the banks of the Ganges or the Yamuna were to claim that the entire river is sacred for us and the source of our livelihood and hence should not be exploited for development? So, should one ban cities along the banks of the rivers? Should one scrap the Ganga and Yamuna expressways? What if another tribe that dwells near the Himalayas echoes similar views and claims that the entire mountain range is sacred for us and the source of our livelihood? No sane government would buy such an argument. That is why the apex court needs to be more careful before granting rights to tribals that nobody in the entire world has. If the tribals have rights, so do industrialists. So do people who want development. Having a blinkered perspective on religious rights can be both vexatious and pernicious. Also read, Part I: Does Hindusim produce more godmen than other religions? Part II: The Supreme Court's attempts to rescue Indian temples A senior BJP leader, campaigning in Kolkata, may well have put his finger on the people's pulse. When he attacked Mamata Banerjee and the Left-Congress Front in equal measure, the crowd response was tepid. But when he attacked the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for 60 percent of his speech, people applauded. At 75 percent, there was thunderous applause. This was at the earlier phases of polling, but there is no reason to believe that the trend will change before counting day. In fact, if the violence witnessed during the earlier phases continues, and the stuffing of ballot boxes by 'ghost' voters after polling hours multiplies, it will become clear that the TMC is nervous. It is brazening it out through violence, which has now become associated with Mamata's party in the popular imagination. Does this mean there was no violence during 34 years of CPM rule? A left liberal intellectual explains it succinctly: "CPM was more disciplined because it was cadre based; cadres knew the area and its leaders, the ones who had to be attacked. TMC goons who have grown during the five years of TMC rule, enter areas they may not know and attack everybody. There is, therefore, much more bloodshed." There is universal fear. "Laat khayega ki biryani khayega" (Would you like to be kicked or served biryani?) An "aabdar" or barman at one of Kolkata's many clubs, mimics the TMC's neighbourhood tough. Aabdar is derived from Urdu - one who serves drinks. "This time we are quiet, but we shall show our hands at the polling booth." He is clearly among the urban Muslims still loyal to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). Otherwise Muslims across the board have no grievance with the Mamata. In fact, they quite adore her for the way she created an almighty movement in West Bengal on the land issue in Singur and Nandigram between 2006 and 2007. In both these efforts at industrialisation by the CPM, poorest Muslims, among others, would have lost their livelihood and property, "had Didi not intervened". That is where she hit the political jackpot. She had lost the 2006 assembly poll but she used Singur and Nandigram as fulcrums to turn her fortunes around. She won 70 percent of the 54,000 Panchayat seats in 2008. In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, Left Front came down to 15 seats from 42 in 2004. In 2014, they had only two seats. Mamata won 38. Now comes the "vote share" punditry on which those who wish to see the back of Mamata in Bengal base their calculations. Even at her peak Mamata's vote share was only 40 percent. The CPM was 30 percent and Congress, 10. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have won just two seats but its vote share was 17 percent. A very arithmetical argument is: CPM's 30 percent and Congress 10 makes the alliance equal to Mamata's 40. The question is: Which way will the BJP's 17 percent split? In a complex sociological turf, arithmetic is inadequate to accurately calculate electoral outcomes. To this comes a quick riposte. In Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav held onto his vote bank. After the Nitish Kumar-BJP combination ran its course, it was the Nitish-Lalu combination that triumphed. Through grit, courage and a refusal to lose, once Mamata ascended the gaddi, she faced her biggest challenge: How to cope with the CPM cadres? Violent tactics to overcome this handicap has become a strategy. Willy nilly she must keep riding the tiger. A group of thugs, cheering her along. Some of these cheering goons have formed an irregular system of co-operatives, called syndicates. Imagine the new, garish, multi-storeyed buildings near Kolkata airport. Obviously, land has been acquired. "Land losers" have been given a novel compensation. They will supply all the materials used in the buildings. The infection has spread. No enterprise can take to wing without the syndicate's "blessings". A senior Bengali academic from the US, confident that many in Mamata's administration had once been his students, returned to Kolkata to have his ancestral house repaired. Work progressed until one day a dozen peak-capped TMC volunteers materialised. How had work begun without their knowledge? The professor and his wife called up a powerful minister, their student. The minister said he was helpless because the syndicate operated on the directives of a different minister. This system has replaced the Left cadres. Indeed, out-of-job cadres have switched sides and joined the syndicate system. There is great consternation all around. Obviously, there is loss of support for her. This explains the conventional wisdom across the board: She will return with a vastly reduced margin. If it is generally accepted that she is on a down-hill slope, who can say with certainty where she may land? She will, however, not lose support among Muslims who are over 30 percent of the state's population. Talk to Samsuzaman Ansari, local leader in Matia Burj, where Awadh's last Nawab, Wajid Ali Shah, was exiled by the British in 1856, and he will list all that Didi has done for the community. Did not the Left Front government also give them protection? Yes, they gave us protection but they also gave us a mantra: "Gai ka gosht khaao/CPM ke geet gaao" (Eat beef to your heart's content; but sing the CPM's praises). That was all. There is populism all around. She has improved on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's rural schemes not just Rs two per kg of rice but even gold bangles for girls. For the Left Front and the Congress this could well be their last battle for survival in the state. They have joined hands in Bengal even though they are in direct conflict in Kerala. There may be no morality in all of this, but is it practical commonsense? Hyped to the skies, the first ever television interview with Narendra Modi this election season ended up feeling like being stuck in someone's home movie.The first part of the six-part interview of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on NewsXhad little by way of untold revelations and way more of gyan for those who cannot remember Modi's first term. Conducted in a dimly-lit environment, the interview (or monologue?) showed Modi travelling down the memory lane in a sort of stream of consciousness where the questions were edited out and the interviewer remained resolutely off camera. It made for a very puzzling "interview" experience. The interviewer Madhu Kishwar came on camera finally but only after the interview was over to talk about her experience of interviewing the BJP prime ministerial candidate. Here are some of the highlights of what Modi chose to share. On taking over as Gujarat CM "When I took over as Gujarat CM, the media was hostile towards me. The general belief was that Modi looted Keshubhai and used his connections to dump Keshubhai Patel. The negative media coverage against me when I took over as Gujarat CM suited the Congress the most." His secret of how to run an efficient government Modi felt that he could not last through the culture of files and sought a different method of governance. "My inner voice told me that I cannot run the government in an academic style. I am not a Robin Hood kind of personality. I am a good listener. I learn 30 percent by reading but retain 70 percent by listening. I didn't believe in going through a heap of files," said Modi who attended sessions at IIM on management to get up to speed. How 'bhai' became saheb' Giving an insight to his humble upbringing, Modi said he was uncomfortable with senior bureaucrats addressing him as 'saheb'. "I felt awkward when senior bureaucrats addressed me as saheb. I was used to Narendra bhai, Narendra ji," Modi said. Man of action Modi believed in actions more than words. "The message of my sincerity was delivered within 100 days to taking over as Gujarat CM through my actions," Modi said while explaining how he dealt with issues like austerity and increasing the productivity of government officials in his first few days as the state's chief minister. On empowering bureaucrats Modi believes that red tapism tends to slow down the process of governance. He felt that most acutely while dealing with disaster management in the aftermath of the Bhuj earthquake. He felt that officers on the ground should have the authority to take immediate decisions without needing to wait to take approval from the top. "Empowerment was my basic priority. I empowered the officers to take decisions instead waiting for approval from the top," Modi told NewsX. Those who were expecting him to get to the contentious issues of his tenure in Gujarat will have to wait a little longer. Rupa Subramanya, co-author of Indianomix tweeted "Ok folks not a joke. Multi-part series of the Modi interview. Tomorrow we move to day 3 of his CMship... Exciting!!" Stay tuned. As the Congress Tamil Nadu unit gathers up its flagging resources to battle 41 constituencies in alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) next month, one candidate, in particular, is threatening to go rogue. The Press Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and former Youth Congress leader S Jothimani has gone public, airing grievances about the Aravakurichy seat in Karur district being denied to her. The seat, which is held by a sitting DMK MLA KC Palanisamy, has been retained by the Dravidian party in the seat sharing agreement. Speaking to The Lede, Jothimani lashed out at the Tamil Nadu Congress President EVKS Elangovan for not bargaining hard for that particular seat. All over India, educated youth, youth who do not have any opportunity and are in the lower rungs of the society should come up as leaders that is the goal of Rahulji, she stated. That is the reason why many youngsters and I contested in the two previous polls. But, the approach, deeds and the way the seats were shared shows that the TNCC president EVKS Elangovan is completely against the goal of Rahul Gandhi. In this manner, he has done a grave injustice to the growth of the next crop of youngsters to lead the party, she stated. Jothimani had, by herself, announced that she would contest for the Congress from her native Aravakurichy seat earlier this year, and had even begun canvassing aggressively for votes since January. She has been steadfast in conducting door-to-door canvassing in the constituency, has visited farmlands to ask for votes and to playgrounds in this area to persuade the youth to vote her in. Jothimanis face also beams from calendars hanging in the homes of many in her chosen constituency. Jothimani, who had earlier worked closely with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi while in the Youth Congress, said she believed that Rahul would somehow intervene and get her the Aravakurichy seat. She states that she was shocked when the list of 41 constituencies allotted to the Congress was announced and Aravakurichy did not find a mention. Jothimani has taken the fight to social media, posting in her Facebook account There is no change in my contesting and this has reassured the people. Her followers have responded with support some comments on her timeline are as follows If it is a problem for you then it is also a problem affecting us; We will not sit back. Just tell us when to come and what to do and we will do it, they declare. Jothimani in turn posted Parties and their leaders can be bought with the fraudulent money from selling sand but the people cannot be bought that way. This has given me a sense of peace and surety. With the people's great affection and great support begins my Aravakurichy travel. The Congress President for Tamil Nadu was to blame for not landing the seat, charged Jothimani. Sources tell Firstpost that when seat sharing talks were on between the DMK and the Congress, DMK leaders pointed to Jothimanis antics. Congress state president EVKS Elangovan is mockingly said to have uttered - It is just her own enthusiasm. Jothimani contested from Karur constituency in the 2011 Assembly elections and also in the 2014 Parliamentary polls. She lost both times. This is why she has shifted back to her native Aravakurichy and is campaigning hard before even a promise of a ticket. The DMK is reluctant to part with the seat to the Congress since they already have a sitting MLA there. DMK MLA KC Palanisamy refused to comment on the issue, when contacted. Jothimani though is adamant. If necessary, I will contest as an independent candidate, she stated. It is evident that the state Congress president is fed up. Speaking to reporters on 9 April, EVKS Elangovan said, When the seat sharing talks started we decided to retain our own seats. So, we got our own 5 seats and Aravakurichy went to the DMK. They refused to part with it. It is a setback for Jothimani but she has to overcome that and work for the alliance candidate without rancour. He has also warned of severe action against Jothimani unless she changes her mind about contesting as an independent. Jothimani is unfazed in the face of such warnings. I do not know what he said to the press, but Elangovan has promised to try for Aravakurichy seat for me, she said. I am waiting for his decision. I will not change my decision for any reason. I have worked here for the last 20 years and as a Congress representative and I have made promises to them. If I back out at this stage it would dent the Congress credibility, she added. As per Rahul Gandhis direction I have taken a different route, a route of change in politics, she continued. Instead of the leaders nominating the candidates, the person desired by the people should be made the candidate, as Rahul Gandhi always reiterates. I am the desired candidate of the people of Aravakurichy, she said, dogged in her decision. The Congress, already weakened with the exit of former Union Cabinet Minister G K Vasan and his loyalists in 2014, is hoping to piggyback on the DMK in the upcoming elections in May. Recently, around 150 members of the Congress who had left with Vasan, rejoined the Congress along with senior Congress hand Peter Alphonse and former MP Viswanathan. They stated that they were unhappy with Vasans alliance with the Peoples Welfare Front (consisting of Vaiko, Thirumavalavan and the two Left parties) and would work hard to secure a win for the DMK-Congress alliance in the state. New Delhi: In the ongoing battle of political parties to claim BR Ambedkar as their own, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has shot up the next big volley. The Sangh Parivar will be organising a celebration of Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary in the national capital in a big way at the Karnail Singh Stadium on Sunday. According to a senior RSS functionary, the objective of the celebration is to propagate the ideals of the Dalit icon among the masses, especially since there is so much politics going on in the name of Dalits. Prior to this, the Congress party had organised a tribute of their own in Nagpur on 11 April, which was seen as an attempt to counter the aggressive bid of the BJP and its ideological fountainhead RSS to usurp the legacy of the Dalit icon through its own brand of aggression. Last year, in its Pratinidhi Sabha (annual conclave), the RSS had taken the decision to celebrate Babasahebs 125th birth anniversary on a national level, which prompted others to also become active, a senior RSS functionary told Firstpost. RSS is not organizing the event in Delhi to gain any political mileage, but they intend to make the world aware about the great contributions of this Dalit icon in our nation building,his fight for the upliftment of the Dalits and his message of equality and social harmony, the RSS functionary said. Exactly a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had kicked-off Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary celebrations by laying the foundation stone of the BR Ambedkar International Centre in Delhi. For the first time in its history, the RSS has planned to take out processions, in the form of its traditional march-past by the Swayamsevaks, from three locations in the city Ambedkar Bhawan (Araam Bagh), Valmiki temple (Mandir Marg) and Hari Mandir School (Sadar Bazar) which will culminate at Karnail Singh Stadium around 6 pm on Sunday. A public rally has also been scheduled at the stadium. The gathering will be addressed by the RSS Sah Sarkaryavah, Krishna Gopal, who will speak on Babasahebs ideas on Samajik Samrasta (Social harmony). Recent incidents across the country have shown disturbing trends of social inequality and social disharmony. A lot of politics has also been played in the name of Dalits. We hope that Babasahebs message would bring social harmony to our society, the RSS functionary added. Despite of strong efforts by the RSS to show its affinity to Ambedkar, his grandson Prakash Ambedkar had recently remarked that the right-wing organization (RSS) will never be able to digest Ambedkars thinking and ideology, and that his views would be in conflict with the RSS philosophy asAmbedkar believed and taught an ideology that was against Hindu dominance. DrAmbedkar was very much on the left side and the RSS, on the other hand,stands for the complete opposite. The thinking of both the RSS and DrAmbedkar are conflicting of each other, Prakash Ambedkar had remarked while speaking on the 125th birth anniversary celebration of BR Ambedkar. Reacting sharply to this, the RSS had said, DrAmbedkar was everyones leader and should not be tagged as belonging to left or right. The Sangh Parivar has been trying for a long time to integrate Dalits under the broad Hindutva umbrella, which ultimately would help the BJP in expanding its voter base. The 17 April issue of the right-wing weekly - Organiser, has BR Ambedkar on its cover with the title, "Ultimate Unifier, Dr Ambedkar is erroneously projected as a divisive figure by certain vested interests but recognition of his contributions will finally prove to be unifier for Bharat." New Delhi: Illegal cash of over Rs 60 crore has been confiscated from the five states facing Assembly polls, with Tamil Nadu leading the list with seizures of Rs 24.55 crore. Even as polls have concluded in Assam and the third phase of voting is being held in West Bengal on Sunday, the Election Commission (EC)-appointed surveillance teams are taking action. The north-eastern state is still ranking second in the tally with Rs 12.33 crore having been seized there. In West Bengal, the figure stands at about Rs 12.14 crore, while Rs 10.41 crore has been seized in Kerala. Puducherry has seen seizures of about Rs 60.88 lakh, the latest EC data said. The cash seizures were made by EC-appointed special flying squads and surveillance teams and by officials drawn from the Income Tax Department. "The total progressive figure of seizures made till now is about Rs 60.03 crore. Some cash has been released after seizures in West Bengal and the figures have been compiled after excluding that. Polls in Assam are over now," a senior official said. The Model Code of Conduct for these polls came into force on 4 March after EC announced the schedule for the Assembly polls in five states. The first phase of polling was held on 4 April in Assam and West Bengal while the second part of that phase was conducted on 11 April. Three more phases of polls are due in West Bengal. Elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will be held in a single phase on 16 May. EC, as part of its measures to curb the use of black money in the polls, has deployed expenditure observers drawn from central revenue services like Income Tax and the Customs and Excise departments. To keep a tab on the huge cash expenditure during polls, EC has also asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Customs and Excise department and state police units to keep a strict vigil. It's been just over 24 hours and the world is still reeling from the shock of the horrific Paris attacks that took place in the French capital. It was the worst attack on French soil since World War 2 in 1945 and has left more than a 120 people dead. Facebook has since launched its security check feature and hundreds are being 'marked safe' to the relief of family and friends around the world. People across the networking site have been changing their profile pictures to the blue, white and red filter showing their solidarity and support with the victims and the French. The collective murmur of "nous sommes francais" echos throughout the statuses of countless social media users and news channels are providing 24-hour coverage. While the support and outrage of hundreds of thousands is a sign that this attack has shaken the world to realise the threat of the Islamic State is real in the western world, does changing our profile picture to the French flag or posting pictures from your France vacations and the Eiffel tower really make a difference? With Paris in mind, Lebanese users across Twitter and Facebook are wondering why their disaster didn't receive the same treatment. "No Facebook safety check or Obama address for #Beirut yesterday," one user Tweeted. "Sad but true." Nor did the bombings in Lebanon draw mass tweets from World leaders and celebrities, no live media blogs or 24-media coverage from Western media. Where were the Lebanese flag filters two days ago when suicide attacks killed 41? Or the Kenyan flag filters after the Al Qaeda attack at Garissa University in April that killed 150 in Kenya? Or when Boko Haram razed the town of Baja in Nigeria, killing more than 2,000 people. There was a collective silence from the west and the western media. Throughout 2015, thousands of similar attacks have occurred in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Yemen, Cameroon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey... the list is endless. But it was only after the Paris attacks that President Obama in a statement said, "This is an attack not just on Paris...this is an attack on all of humanity." Was the Garissa University attack not an attack on humanity? Is the Syrian conflict that is causing people to dislocate from their homes not an attack on humanity? It leaves us with the lasting question-- Did the reaction to the Paris attacks reach such a level of outrage because it happened in a European country? to European people? After the Charlie Hebdo shooting more than 40 world leaders and what officials claims were between 1.2 and 1.6 million people took part in a unity march to honor the 17 victims, the same will probably be done for the Paris attacks. At the heart of this debate lies the question: Is some life is more valuable than others, or by extension, European lives more valuable than those of the Syrians? the Lebanese? The 43 students that have been missing for over a year now in Mexico? France has sadly experienced what the Syrians and Iraqis have been experiencing for the last two years with the rise of the Islamic State. Over the last year, more than 700,000 requests for asylum have been submitted to European countries by refugees fleeing horrific violence and persecution in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries. Is that not enough to be considered worthy of global outrage? We cant change our profile pictures to express solidarity with one section of people when we ignore another. Don ka intezar to gyarah mulkon ki police kar rahi hain, lekin ek baat samajh lo, Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, naamumkin hain. It is not known whether Anubrata Mondal is a fan of Amitabh Bachchan but when asked if the Election Commission's order to put him on round-the-clock surveillance on polling day has inconvenienced him, the Trinamool Birbhum district president delivered a dialogue that reminded one of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan-Zeenat Aman cult classic, Don. "I am under no surveillance," said the TMC leader whom Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee loving calls by his nickname, Keshto. "Nobody can put me under surveillance." And he was right. Just as the Don kept eluding the police, Mondal forced a deputy magistrate, eight paramilitary personnel and a videographer who were supposed to tail him 24x7 to chase thin air as he pillion rode a motorbike to a booth in Bolpur to cast his vote during the second phase of polling on Sunday in West Bengal Assembly elections. Across 13,645 polling stations in seven districts, 383 candidates' fate was on the line on Sunday and as curtains fell on second phase, 56 Assembly constituencies recorded 79 percent attendance, said provisional EC data, among a voter base of nearly 1.22 crore. Six of the seven districts Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, north Dinajpur, south Dinajpur, Darjeeling and Malda are in North Bengal where polling remained by and large peaceful. All the action was centred around the sole south Bengal district, Birbhum, and the TMC president remained the centre of all attention among a spate of reports of violence, voter intimidation and rigging from different parts of the area. Earliest report of violence came from Bolpur in Birbhum, Mondal's lair, where a BJP agent suffered head injury in clash. Unrest then spread in Ilambazar area where CPM agents came under attack. Altogether, there were reports of 6 BJP and 2 CPM workers getting injured in clashes and TMC activists were blamed for each of these incidents. Four have been arrested so far. Mondal set the pace with his Houdini act in the morning when he stepped out of the house and reached booth No. 186 and cast his vote with his daughter in tow. Even as he barged into the booth with a TMC logo dangling on his chest, in clear violation of polling norms, the EC's surveillance team was nowhere to be found. The deputy magistrate later told a local TV channel, ABP Ananda, that they failed to tail Mondal since he was riding a motorbike and there were too many media vehicles around him. With a look of despair writ large on his face, the deputy magistrate and his crack team cooled their heels at TMC's party office, waiting for the man, who they were supposed to shadow 24x7, to arrive. Mondal was in a belligerent mood though. Even as reports came pouring in of trouble from different parts of the district, the TMC strongman suggested that the incidents of violence were all rubbish. "Vote has been very peaceful, free and fair," a confident Keshto said, showing no signs of being under pressure. "There have been no incidents of violence. The one in Ilambazar was only exception, but it wasn't TMC's fault. The person who suffered head injury tripped, fell and hurt himself," Mondal was quoted, as saying in ABP Ananda. The EC has reportedly filed an FIR on account of Mondal's violation of polling norms by sporting party symbol while casting his vote. The TMC leader first dismissed the reports saying he didn't and that local TV channels were misleading people by showing "old footage", but he later changed his statement. "I know I am not supposed to. I did not notice it. It was an unintentional mistake. All my kurtas have this party symbol. But the presiding officer could have stopped me. He could have reminded me when I stepped into the booth," said Mondal, brushing aside the allegation as Don does those who dare who confront him. Incidentally, many polling booths in Birbhum had no rival agents, including the one where Mondal exercised his democratic right. "That's not my problem," said the TMC Birbhum chief. "What can I do if BJP, CPM and Congress fail to install their agents in polling booths," said Mondal, who is well known for his organizational skills, strong-arm tactics and vitriolic speeches which have led to the EC acting against him. On Sunday too, TV footage showed Mondal boasting of how "dhakis (drummers) have been placed at different pandals for Dashami celebrations", an apparent euphemism for voter intimidation. Though EC had sought to put the TMC strongman on a leash, it became clear as the day progressed how little an effect it had on the overall "polling arrangements" for "free and fair elections". In Nanoor a town in Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum, villagers blatantly refused to step out of their homes, fearing trouble. This, after central paramilitary forces had assured them of all help. "Come out and vote," an officer was heard speaking to villagers in Nanoor. "Cast your own vote. Don't be scared. We are all here to help you," he added. ABP Ananda footage showed unconvinced villagers still fearing for their lives. "'They have warned us not to vote today," a voter said. "I have been casting my vote for a very long time. This has never happened before. I shall not step out of the house to vote today," she added. "Tomorrow the central forces won't be there, you (pointing to the media personnel) won't be around too. Who will come to our help if they attack us," she asked before walking away. Mysterious are the ways of Don. Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday assured External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj that his country can be a "reliable partner" for India's energy needs, as the two nations decided to significantly expand engagements in their overall ties, particularly in oil and gas sectors. Swaraj, who arrived in Tehran on Saturday, called on Rouhani and held talks with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, besides meeting with Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei's Advisor Ali Akbar Velayati and deliberated on a range of issues. "Iran can be a reliable partner for India's energy needs," Rouhani told Swaraj. India has been eying deeper energy ties with Iran following lifting of nuclear sanctions and has already lined up USD 20 billion as investment in oil and gas as well as in petrochemical and fertiliser sectors there. India is also keen to increase oil imports from Iran from current 350,000 barrels a day. Rouhani spoke of Chahbahar port as a "defining partnership which has the potential of connecting the entire region", Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup told PTI. Enhancing energy cooperation and development of the Chabahar port were the centerpiece of talks which was mostly dominated by economic issues. Rouhani, whose country shares border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, also hoped for closer consultations with India on regional issues especially Afghanistan and the challenge of terrorism. On her part, Swaraj briefed him on her discussions with Zarif and said that India has always considered Iran as part of its extended neighbourhood, the spokesperson said. She apprised him about India's keenness in enhancing investment in various sectors including oil and gas in Iran. "Given our natural complementarities we should move beyond a buyer seller relationship to a win win partnership," Swaraj told the Iranian president. Rouhani recalled his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ufa, Russia, and asked the minister to convey his regards to him, the spokesperson said. The president also called for intensified engagement with India in academic, scientific and technological fields. "India and Iran have had very rich cultural ties through history and this could pave the way for enhanced partnership in tourism and people-to-people ties," he told Swaraj. Earlier, during her talks with Zarif, the two sides agreed that pending agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty should be concluded on a priority basis to spur trade and investment. "The talks were very successful and would give new energy to our centuries old ties with Iran. In particular, the economic partnership will get considerable fillip as a result of today's forward looking talks," Swarup said. Sources said the issue of Kulbhushan Jadhav was not at all raised by the Iranian side. Jadhav was reportedly arrested in Balochistan after he entered from Iran and was accused by Pakistan of planning "subversive activities" in the country. Both sides discussed the progress on the Chabahar project and agreed that the commercial contract on Chabahar as well as the modalities for extending USD 150 million credit for Chabahar Port should be signed in the "very near future". Decisions on this line of credit, as well as USD 400 million credit line for supply of steel rails from India have already been taken by India. Swarup said both sides discussed the energy partnership and Iran invited greater Indian participation in its oil and gas sector. "Iran said it would be happy to participate in the refinery sector in India." On Farzad B oil field project, both sides took note of the constructive discussions held during the recent visit to Iran of Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. "The Indian side welcomed the Iranian decision to keep the Farzad B field outside the auction basket. The concerned companies have been directed to complete their contractual negotiations in a time bound manner. Iranian side had earlier communicated their gas pricing formula and expressed their desire for Indian investment in the Chabahar SEZ," he said. "In terms of connectivity, Iran said it supported Indias desire to join the Ashgabat Agreement. The two ministers reviewed the progress made in the International North South Transport Corridor. IRCON from India would be visiting Iran for discussions on the ChabaharZahedan Railway link," said the spokesperson. On Trade and Investment, the two sides agreed that with the lifting of sanctions, the potential for expanding these ties was immense. "They agreed that pending agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty should be concluded on a priority basis," said Swarup. India is keen to enhance its investment in Iran as there has been impressive prospect of the countrys economic growth. The size of Irans economy is around USD 400 billion, the second largest in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia, and the country is being seen as one of the world's hottest investment destinations as it has opened various critical sectors including oil and gas for joint ventures and foreign capital. Countries like Japan, China, the US and a number of European nations are scrambling to take advantage of opportunities in the oil-rich nation after the sanctions were lifted in January. Both sides decided to enhance cooperation in counter-terrorism and maritime security as they agreed that concerted global effort was required to combat the menace. They reviewed bilateral relations, in particular the progress in implementing the decisions taken at the last Joint Commission Meeting held in New Delhi in December 2015. "Both sides took note of the good cooperation between the National Security Council structures of the two countries and agreed to intensify this engagement," said Swarup. In terms of cultural cooperation, both sides agreed to promote and strengthen the existing cultural exchanges, inter-alia, by observing "Weeks of Iran and India" in each other's country, publication of manuscripts, organizing conferences and events related to language, literature and religion. They also agreed on the establishment of a Hindi Chair in Tehran University sponsored by ICCR and to renew the Cultural Exchange Programme. Both leaders expressed satisfaction at the recent exchange of visits and called for more high level exchanges to give fresh impetus to India-Iran relations. The two ministers also reviewed global and regional issues, in particular the situation in Afghanistan. Earlier in the day, the External Affairs Minister visited an Indian Gurudwara and the Kendriya Vidyalaya. She met the members of the small but vibrant Indian community in Tehran and assured them that she would take up issues of concern to them with the Iranian leadership. Her visit is seen as a balancing act by India as it came nearly two weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Saudi Arabia, another West Asian power which considers Iran its rival. Iran is an important country for India for its energy security as well as to get access to oil and gas-rich Central Asian nations. India imports close to 12 million tonnes of crude from Iran and it is looking at increasing the oil import from the country. From Iran, Swaraj left for a two-day trip to Moscow to attend the annual Foreign Ministers' meeting of RIC (Russia, India and China). Last year, I had two weeks left on deadline for a book I was writing. My publisher was getting antsy, as I hadnt sent her anything yet. Id done all the research, the problem was sitting down and getting the writing done. But I wasnt worried. Id been here before. With 12 days left until my deadline, I went to the United Airlines website, and bought a round trip business class ticket to Tokyo, leaving the next day. I got on the plane, armed with nothing but my laptop, a power cord, and my phone. When the plane took off, I took out my laptop, and in the 14 hours it took us to get from Newark to Tokyo, I wrote chapters 1-5. We landed in Tokyo, I went through immigration, walked outside, took a deep breath of fresh air, turned right around, went back through security, back to the gate, and boarded the same plane back from Tokyo to Newark. I even sat in the same seat. On the 12-hour flight home, I wrote chapters 6-10. I landed 31 hours after I took off, with a completed book, and my second best-seller. When I tell this story to normal people, they look at me like Im insane. Why? Because what normal person would spend upwards of $5,000 to not really go anywhere, and write a book in 31 hours? Not one normal person. But then, if youve ever met me, you know: Im not normal. Im faster than normal. Like, waaaay faster than normal. And what does that mean? It means I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. But instead of medicating myself with amphetamines, or acting out, Ive learned to use my ADHD to my advantage, and as a key to improving my life. I understand that my brain works differently than normal people. It moves quick, darting in and out of ideas at light speed. I do things to encourage that, and drive my brain differently than people without ADHD. Whats normal for regular people could be deadly for me, so Im hyper-aware of that. I dont drink. I workout every single day. I know what triggers I have and how they affect me, and I go out of my way to avoid them as much as possible. Having a faster than normal brain is responsible for a lot of my success, if not all of it. Thinking differently helps, as does realizing that what other people think of me doesnt matter, as long as Im happy with myself. I focus my time on doing things that improve my life. Im a constant reinvention of myself, always striving for the next great thing. In the end, the goal is to create, build, and keep myself occupied with things that work for me, so Im focused on doing positive things, as opposed to that which could negatively affect me. I fall out of airplanes, for example. It drives my family crazy, but Im a licensed skydiver. Why? Because it keeps me grounded, ironically enough. It keeps me focused, keeps my dopamine and serotonin levels at good, normal doses. It allows me to drive my faster-than-normal brain all the way to success. For years, weve been looking at attention deficit disorder (ADD) and ADHD as a disability, because it makes us not normal. Well, it does make us not normal. But thats a gift, not a curse. It makes us Faster Than Normal! In the end, who doesnt want to be faster? Peter Shankman is the founder of ShankMinds Business Masterminds, a day-long business mastermind series in multiple locations around the world. Hes perhaps best known for founding Help a Reporter Out, the worlds largest source repository in the world, which fundamentally changed how journalists source their stories. Peter is the author of four books, including his most recent best seller, "Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans." Peter recently launched the Faster Than Normal Podcast, helping people understand that ADD and ADHD is a gift, not a curse. EXCLUSIVE: Since 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps has prided itself on being The Few" and "The Proud." But while the Corps takes pride in doing more with less, senior Marine officers are warning that the Corps' aviation service is being stretched to the breaking point. Today, the vast majority of Marine Corps aircraft cant fly. The reasons behind the grounding of these aircraft include the toll of long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fight against ISIS and budget cuts precluding the purchase of the parts needed to fix an aging fleet, according to dozens of Marines interviewed by Fox News at two air stations in the Carolinas this week. Out of 276 F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters in the Marine Corps inventory, only about 30% are ready to fly, according to statistics provided by the Corps. Similarly, only 42 of 147 heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters are airworthy. U.S. military spending has dropped from $691 billion in 2010 to $560 billion in 2015. The cuts came just as the planes were returning from 15 years of war, suffering from overuse and extreme wear and tear. Many highly trained mechanics in the aviation depots left for jobs in the private sector. Quite honestly, it is coming on the backs of our young Marines, Lt. Col. Matthew Pablo Brown, commanding officer of VMFA(AW)-533, a Hornet squadron based at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. They can do it, and they are doing it but it is certainly not easy. Brown's squadron is due to deploy to the Middle East in the coming days. Lack of funds has forced the Marines to go outside the normal supply chain to procure desperately needed parts. Cannibalization, or taking parts from one multi-million dollar aircraft to get other multi-million dollar aicraft airborne, has become the norm. To get one Hornet flying again, Marines at Beaufort stripped a landing gear door off a mothballed museum jet. The door, found on the flight deck of the World War II-era USS Yorktown, was last manufactured over a decade ago. Imagine taking a 1995 Cadillac and trying to make it a Ferrari, Sgt. Argentry Uebelhoer said days before embarking on his third deployment. You're trying to make it faster, more efficient, but it's still an old airframe [and] the aircraft is constantly breaking. Maintaining the high-performance Hornets is a challenge with 30,000 fewer Marines, part of a downsizing that has been ongoing since 2010. We don't have enough of them to do the added work efficiently. We are making it a lot harder on the young marines who are fixing our aircraft, said Maj. Michael Malone of Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 31. Sometimes it takes the Marines 18 months to get parts for early model F-18 jets whose production was halted in 2001. We are an operational squadron. We are supposed to be flying jets, not building them, said Lt. Col. Harry Thomas, Commanding Officer of VMFA-312, a Marine Corps F/A-18 squadron based at Beaufort. The cuts include those made by the Obama administration as well as the sequestration cutbacks agreed to by Congress. Asked about the Marines concerns on Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest put the onus on Congress to right the problem and said Republicans have blocked spending reforms that would have helped military readiness. He said Republicans championed the sequester cuts. Lt. Col Thomas, call sign Crash, deployed to the Pacific with 10 jets last year. Only seven made it. A fuel leak caused his F/A-18 to catch fire in Guam. Instead of ejecting, he landed safely, saving taxpayers $29 million. Thomas has deployed eight times in all, including six to Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now only two of his 14 Hornets can fly. His Marines deploy in three months. We are supposed to be doing the type of maintenance like you would take your car to Jiffy Lube for replacing fluids, doing minor inspections, changing tires, things of that nature, not building airplanes from the ground up, he added. The aircraft shortage means pilots spend less time in the air. This last 30 days our average flight time per pilot was just over 4 hours, said Thomas. Ten years ago, Marine Corps pilots averaged between 25 and 30 hours in the air each month, according to one pilot. This is the worst Ive seen it, he added. Another pilot who asked to remain nameless told Fox News that Chinese and Russian pilots fly more hours each month than Marine Corps pilots. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets are supposed to have a shelf life of 6,000 hours, but they are being refurbished to extend the life to 8,000. There is talk that some aircraft might be pushed to 10,000 hours while the Marine Corps waits for the 5th-generation Joint Strike Fighter, which is slated to replace the F-18, but has been plagued by cost overruns. Our aviation readiness is really my No. 1 concern, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told Congress last month. We dont have enough airplanes that we would call ready basic aircraft." Col. Sean Salene oversees nine helicopter squadrons at Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina. Unlike previous wars, we did not have a period of time afterwards where we did not have tasking, said Col. Salene. There was no time to catch our breath. Maj. Matt Gruba, executive officer of HMH-461, a Super Stallion squadron at New River took Fox News reporters inside one of the large helicopters, which has sent thousands of fully loaded Marines into combat over the past three decades. Inside, hundreds of small wires cover every surface of the helicopter except the hard non-skid deck. Its up to the Marine maintainers to inspect each one. One failure could be catastrophic, as happened in 2014 when a Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon crashed off the coast of Virginia after a fire engulfed the aircraft due to faulty fuel lines. "It would be easy to miss some small minute detail, some small amount of wear [which] could potentially, eventually cause a fire, Gruba said Lt. Gen. Jon M. "Dog" Davis is the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, tasked with getting his aircraft back in the air. Davis ordered the Corps to refurbish all of the old CH-53E helicopters to their pre-war condition, including fixing the chafing wires and jerryrigged fuel lines that were repaired in theater. "The biggest thing is right now after 15 years of hard service, of hard fighting and deploying around the world, is we don't have enough airplanes on the flight line, Davis said. The cuts have not sat well within the military leadership. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Fox News Bret Baier in a recent interview that he felt betrayed when told to cut billions from the budget after having already done so. I guess Id have to say I felt double-crossed. After all those years in Washington, I was naive, he said. And last week, the Armys top officer, Gen. Mark Milley, said cuts could mean more American troops could lose their lives. If one or more possible unforeseen contingencies happen, then the United States Army currently risks not having ready forces available to provide flexible options to our national leadership. ... And most importantly, we risk incurring significantly increased U.S. casualties, Milley testified last week on Capitol Hill. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top Obama administration doctor, urged Congress on Sunday to promptly agree to appropriate an additional roughly $2 billion to fight against Zika -- the latest in the back and forth between the White House and GOP-led House about funding against the deadly virus. We have to act now, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Fox News Sunday. House Republican leaders have argued that the federal government has enough money now to fight the virus and that additional funding should come through the regular appropriations process this fall. However, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers suggested last week that he would support immediate supplemental funding, with a White House request that includes a detailed spending plan. We cant do it without the numbers, the Kentucky Republican said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. While Rogers also has tried to assure the public that Congress will not allow a public health crisis, he has suggested that the administration might not get all of the roughly $2 billion, which he has referred to as a slush fund. I disagree with that, Fauci said, arguing the administration has presented Congress with a project-by-project approach and that it will also use money left from fighting the Ebola virus. There has so far been no documented Zika infections in the United States from mosquitoes that carry the virus. But nearly 350 illnesses have been reported across all 50 states, each linked to travel to Zika outbreak regions, largely the Caribbean and Latin America. Thirty-two of the infected women were pregnant. The virus can also be spread through sex. The regular appropriations process takes too long, Fauci said Sunday. I dont want to wait to have to develop a vaccine. The House agreed late last week on a bipartisan measure to speed up development of a treatment. However, on Friday, Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, N.Y.; Rosa DeLauro, Conn.; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Fla., urged Rogers to hold a special meeting on the administrations request for emergency supplemental funding. Under the rules of the Appropriations Committee, three members may request the chairman convene a special meeting. If the chairman fails to schedule such a meeting within seven calendar days, a majority of the committee members may convene a special meeting on their own. A Zika infection causes only a mild and brief illness in most people. But in the last year, infections in pregnant women have been strongly linked to fetal deaths and devastating birth defects, mostly in Brazil, where 1,113 cases of related microcephaly have been confirmed since October. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A 101-year-old Florida woman is getting a second chance at prom. Eleanor Bessin says she attended her prom on a boat in Boston with a man she had been planning to marry. However, he went off to serve in World War II, and when he returned, he developed cancer and died. She still carries his picture. Student government leaders from TERRA High School are setting up the dance for about 75 seniors at the Palace Nursing & Rehab. Nursing home staff will vote for a prom king and queen during Thursday's prom. Resident Sadie Gilbert, 86, says she was never invited to her high school prom but will now get the chance to attend. A real gun went off during a water-gun fight at a family barbecue Saturday and the bullet struck a teen in the shoulder, Houston police said. The victim, a 15-year-old girl, was in stable condition at a local hospital and was expected to recover, KHOU-TV reported. Police said people at the barbecue were playing with water guns when the girl was shot. They said there were conflicting stories about what happened but it appeared the shooting, which took place around 5 p.m. Saturday at a home in North Harris County, was accidental, KTRK-TV reported. Lt. Daniel Garza told the station the owner of the 9-mm. gun, a 40-year-old friend of the family hosting the party, was taken into custody and could be charged with deadly conduct. A teen told KTRK that he saw the shooting. "When the 40-year-old man went to go get his dry clothes, he had a gun somewhere in there, Lawrence Martinez said. And when he went to holster it he was spinning it on his finger, he pulled the trigger and accidentally shot her near the collarbone. A Border Patrol agent on routine patrol found a 140-foot-long tunnel extending across the Mexican border to California. The agent was on patrol Thursday morning 2 miles east of the Calexico Port of Entry and noticed a depression in the soil which caved in as the agent approached, exposing a hole 18 inches wide, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. It was not immediately clear if the tunnel was completed. The entire tunnel was about 3-feet wide and almost as long as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, according to the Times. The tunnel ended in the Mexican desert, 60 feet from the border. This agent saw something that didnt look quite right and it turned out to be a tunnel, Border Patrol Sector Chief Rodney Scott said, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles. The Board Patrol discovered another smuggling tunnel last month that ran 400 yards underneath the border from a restaurant in Mexico to the living room of a home in Calexico. A Florida school bus driver was arrested Thursday for allegedly molesting at least four special needs students, authorities said. Carlos Ojeda, 72, of Haines City, was charged with 10 counts of capital sexual battery. Polk County Sheriffs investigators said Ojeda used candy to lure special needs students onto his bus and then sexually abused him, WFLA-TV reported. A student at Horizons Elementary School in Davenport told his school counselor Wednesday that he saw Ojeda repeatedly put his hands down the pants of two female students, officials said. Fox 13 News reported investigators checked the school bus video surveillance system and saw Ojeda motioning to the girls and flashing candy from the stairwell of the bus. Investigators said Ojeda had candy in his pocket when he was arrested. According to Fox 13 News, the video shows Ojeda pulling a girl toward him and sexually abusing her out of the view of other students. He then gave her candy as she went to the back of the bus to sit down. Investigators said similar scenes played out three separate times over the last week. Since his arrest, Ojeda has admitted to inappropriately touching two girls each of whom under 12 years old eight times. "There are no words to describe the depravity displayed by this suspect," Sheriff Grady Judd offered. "He drives a school bus, where he has access to these precious children. He lures them with candy, and physically assaults them in such a way that nobody will see it, or report it." The Polk County School Board told Fox 13 News Ojeda drove a school bus for three different schools and has been employed by the country since April 2007. Detectives plan to interview all the school children Ojeda has been around, as well as their parents, to try and identify other victims. Together with the Polk County School Board we are committed to keeping children safe. Thanks to their quick actions in reporting this, we were able to prevent this monster from hurting anyone else, Judd said. Click for more from Fox 13 News. Click for more from WFLA-TV. A Chicago murder suspect was arrested on a U.S. Navy base in Key West on Saturday, the U.S. Marshals Service said. Jacqueline Rutherford-Brown, 21, was living in a housing unit with her husband at the Key West Naval Air Station, officials said. She had been living at the Florida residence since mid-March, a base spokesperson told The Miami Herald. Rutherford-Brown is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing Ismael Rangel to death in Chicago during a 2013 attempted robbery. An unidentified accomplice also allegedly participated in the murder, The Herald reported. Rutherford-Brown, who also goes by the name Jackie Brown, was booked into the Monroe County Detention Center and is set to be extradited to Chicago. Chicago police issued a warrant for Rutherford-Browns arrest on March 29 and had been looking for her in Virginia before locating her in Key West. Rutherford-Browns husband, who has not been named, is an enlisted sailor stationed at Navy Munitions Command Detachment Key West. He was not arrested and is not under suspicion of anything, the base spokesperson said. The cost of body cameras is preventing the Los Angeles Police Department from equipping them on officers, officials said Saturday. Mayor Eric Garcetti had vowed to have the cameras on thousands of officers by the end of 2016. But the department doesnt expect to outfit 7,000 officers until the fall of 2017 at the earliest, the Los Angeles Times reported. The plan is projected to cost $58 million. Councilman Mitch Englander told the LA Times that he wants the department to start the bidding process over and plans to introduce a formal proposal next week. "This is too big to get wrong," said Erlander, who heads the council's public safety committee. "It's more important that we get it right and not just do it quickly." Steve Soboroff, the Board of Police commissioner and a longtime advocate of the cameras, said city lawmakers are horribly underestimating the ramifications of delaying the program for what could be years. "This is an unequivocal disaster for public safety in Los Angeles," Soboroff said. City Hall has been scrutinizing the camera plan over the costs, with one council member saying he was experiencing "sticker shock" over the price tag of $57.6 million over five years. Technology companies planned that they were unfairly left out of the police departments selection process, which in part relied on a separate search for body cameras for a much smaller nearby sheriffs department. Garcetti said through a spokesman that he hoped the council would act as quickly as possible. The police department has about 860 cameras, bought through private donations. Last year, the department negotiated a contract with Scottsdale, Arizona-based Taser International to provide thousands more, as well as replacement equipment, digital storage of the recordings and thousands of Tasers. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A woman and her friend are facing charges after they left her infant in a hot car outside a strip club where she was auditioning. WSB-TV reports 24-year-old Kelsey McMurtry was auditioning at club in downtown Nashville Thursday while her daughter sat in a locked car with the windows up. A passerby saw her and called police. According to a warrant, it was 72 degrees outside when officers arrived and temperatures inside the car had reached 100 degrees. Witnesses estimated the baby was in the car 30 minutes. She was treated at a hospital and placed with children's services. McMurtry's friend, 19-year-old Summer Taylor, told police she was watching the child but witnesses disputed that. McMurtry and Taylor both face child neglect charges. A group that represents 240,000 University of California students statewide called for the chancellor of UC Davis to resign Friday over the schools public relations spending to scrub the universitys 2011 pepper spray incident from internet search results. The UC Student Association wants Chancellor Linda Katehis to quit, joining seven state lawmakers and student protesters who say she must go, The Sacramento Bee reported. The demands come after the newspaper reported earlier this week that UC Davis paid image consultants at least $175,000 to repair the damage online to the universitys reputation after campus police pepper-sprayed student protesters in 2011. Video of the altercation gained nationwide attention. "The students ... are free of course to express their opinions, and I appreciate it," Katehi said Saturday at the campus' annual Picnic Day festival. She said the Bee misrepresented the facts, but she didn't elaborate. Other companies were also paid to help improve UC Davis online image, using a strategic communications budget that almost doubled in the six years after Katehi became chancellor in 2009. "It's inconceivable that they thought this was either a good idea or something that wasn't going to be seen or recognized eventually," a PR expert told CBS Sacramento Wednesday. UC Davis Provost Ralph Hexter said in a statement to the campus Friday that the university used no public or student funds when it hired consultants to "optimize search engine results in order to highlight the achievements of our students, faculty and staff." "Even if such a thing as eliminating stories and images from the Internet were possible, 'pepper-spray' will always be part of UC Davis' history," the statement said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Two Ohio teens led Alabama police on a dangerous car chase Wednesday night, bypassing roadblocks and attempting to ram police officers and cruisers, officials said. The pursuit ended when a Fayette City police officer shot Chase Alexander McKinney, 19, in his right shoulder. McKinney was the passenger in a vehicle driven by Cassidy Marie Francis, 17, WBRC reported. He was treated at a hospital and released on Thursday. Francis was charged as an adult with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer. McKinney wasnt facing charges since he was a passenger in the car, Sheriff Jim Underwood told WBRC, but he was due to be extradited back to Youngstown, Ohio, to face unspecified charges. Police initially began following the car on Wednesday after receiving a 911 call from an unidentified person reporting an intoxicated driver. Francis, however, is not facing any alcohol-related charges. Police attempted to stop the vehicle she was driving, but officials said the driver was not following directions to pull over. As Francis and McKinney fled, police said their vehicle tried to ram a Fayette police cruiser near the county line and later tried to run over an officer, AL.com reported. Francis was reported missing from Youngstown on April 12. The vehicle she was driving belonged to her mother, Underwood said. Two 17-year-old boys, who were swept out to sea Saturday while playing in the surf at San Franciscos Ocean Beach, are presumed drowned after rescuers failed to find them. The Coast Guard and the San Francisco Fire Department called off the search at about 9 p.m. after nearly five hours of looking, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Fire Department spokesman Jonathan Baxter said no recovery effort will continue Sunday. He said the boys families understood what likely happened to them. We offered to continue to have a presence, Baxter said. But the families were very understanding as to what has likely happened to their children. The boys had run into the surf linked at the arms with three other friends when they were pulled by a strong wave, Baxter said. Their friends made it back to shore and were taken to the hospital in stable condition. Coast Guard officials said the boys bodies could have been carried up to 15 miles out to sea since the time they disappeared. Baxter said the extensive search included air, land and sea crews. The Coast Guard used 47-foot life boats to search for the boys, while San Francisco fire officials used air- and water-rescue squads. Some fire crews also searched on foot. The boys' names weren't released. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from The San Francisco Chronicle. Two brothers suspected of murdering a Washington state couple remained on the loose Monday as authorities continued a frantic hunt to find the dangerous duo. Brothers John Blaine Reed, 53, and Tony Clyde Reed, 49, may be driving a 2007 Volkswagon EOS Coupes with Washington license plate AXH5106, but authorities, speaking during a Sunday news conference, did not know their current location. Both are convicted felons, though their previous crimes weren't named. Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary cautioned anyone who sees them to avoid contact. They are armed and dangerous and the public should absolutely be worried, Trenary said Sunday. John Reed is 508, 190 lbs. with hazel eyes and gray hair #ShunnPatenaude https://t.co/XFGMjLPNiA pic.twitter.com/7NpgXXhroJ Snohomish Sheriff (@SnoCoSheriff) April 17, 2016 Detectives on Saturday found two vehicles a Jeep Wrangler and a Land Rover belonging to former Army Airborne Ranger Patrick Shunn, 45, and his wife, Monique Patenaude, 46, in a remote, rocky area about 15 miles from the couples Arlington home. Trenary said its clear Shunn and Patenaude are deceased based on evidence collected from those vehicles, and evidence obtained from the couples house. Officials have not yet recovered any bodies. Tony Reed is 511, 150 lbs. with green eyes and gray hair. #ShunnPatenaude https://t.co/XFGMjLPNiA pic.twitter.com/53m9GsDlix Snohomish Sheriff (@SnoCoSheriff) April 17, 2016 Trenary said the Reed brothers were seen on video surveillance disposing of the vehicles that were discovered Saturday. John Reeds house was very close to where Shunn and Patenaude lived and its believed there was a property dispute of some kind between the parties. John Reed had been intermittently visiting his house, officials believe. It was known that Shunn and Patenaude had been engaged in a legal dispute with neighbors, accusing the neighbors of assault, trespassing and scratching death threats in the mud, The Seattle Times reported. The neighbors were not named in The Times report and its unclear if they were John or Tony Reed. Shunn sought a restraining order against one of the neighbors, but a court commissioner dismissed the request in January, saying a physical encounter between the two groups appeared to be unintentional. Shunn and Patenaude were last seen Monday and were reported missing Tuesday afternoon. Their disappearance was instantly considered suspicious because it was unusual for the husband and wife to stay out of contact with family or friends for such a prolonged period of time. Pat did not show up for work nor did he call in, Shunns brother, Erik Shunn, wrote on Facebook Tuesday. That is very uncharacteristic of him. Pat and Monique have pets and livestock and they havent been taken care of the last day and a half. A man with a gun was subdued Saturday by workers when he slipped past security at a Fiat Chrysler factory in Detroit. The morning shift had just started when the intruder appeared at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant, Fox 2 Detroit reported. Before any shots were fired, about eight workers wrestled the .45 caliber handgun out of the mans hands and then held him until police arrived and placed him under arrest, the station reported. He was a former employee at the plant who was on parole in an assault case, according to the station. His companion works at the factory, police said. A police spokesman told the Detroit Free Press that the man, who was not identified, was a suspect in a series of carjackings earlier Saturday. Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson told the paper the man entered the plant through the shipping yard. He was apprehended by plant personnel and disarmed and the police took him into custody and fortunately no one was harmed and no shots were fired, she said. The paper reported that the plant was evacuated and employees from the morning shift were sent home. Click here for more from Fox 2 Detroit. Twelve people, including three children, were killed when Afghan and U.S. forces conducted a raid on the house of a suspected Al Qaeda member in east Afghanistan, according to a confidential report and people familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal reviewed an Afghan interior ministry incident report that detailed the early Friday operation in eastern Logar province. The report said the operation was conducted by coalition forces, a term used to refer to the U.S. force that maintains a presence in the country and works with the Afghan army. It didnt detail whether Afghan forces were present. A U.S. coalition member said the operation was jointly conducted by Afghan and U.S. military forces. The Afghan defense ministry declined to comment. The report said the night raid targeted a suspected Al Qaeda operative named Abu Abdullah. The operation took place in Kharwar district, an insurgent stronghold. Two people were seized at the house along with weapons, phones and a fake passport, the report said. No further details on the intended target were provided, but overnight raids are a cornerstone of Afghan and coalition efforts to defeat the Taliban and other militant groups, including Al Qaeda and a local affiliate of Islamic State. The operations aim to take out powerful commanders, leaving lower ranks in disarray. The number of casualties from Fridays operation was unusually high compared with others carried out in recent months, based on information gathered from Afghan witnesses of previous raids. The report didnt detail how the deaths occurred. It said the children were among seven ethnic Chechens killed at the house. Extremist members of Chechnyas rebel movement adhere to ideas tied to jihad and the creation of an Islamist state. Afghan and foreign officials say as many as 7,000 Chechens and other foreign fighters could be operating in the country, loosely allied with the Taliban and other militant groups. An American spokesman for the NATO force that maintains a presence in the country said the mission was aware of the civilian casualty allegations and that U.S. officials were investigating. There were contradicting reports about how many people were killed and who had conducted the raid. Saleem Saleh, spokesman for the governor of Logar, said three Afghans and seven Chechens died. He said the operation was carried out by Afghan forces and there were no children among the dead. The raid comes as Afghan and U.S. officials say the Taliban has intensified an offensive near the northern city of Kunduz, raising fears it could once again fall to the insurgents. Click for more from The Wall Street Journal. Even as Iran brazenly rolled out components of a new advanced air defense it received from Russia Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani said "a mighty Iran" would not "mount a threat to neighbors and other Islamic countries." Iran started to receive its first parts of the S-300 missile defense system from Russia last week. Some of the parts were shown in the countrys Army Day parade Sunday. A mighty Iran militarily, politically and economically wont mount a threat to neighbors and other Islamic countries," Rouhani said, The Tehran Times reported. "The strength of other Islamic countries is ours and vice versa. Russia delivered the defense system despite repeated U.S. objections. A video from the parade purportedly shows the missile system being carried past a podium. However, the Pentagon hasnt confirmed whether they are parts of the system. The S-300 missile defense system is one of the more advanced types of weaponry of its kind that can engage multiple aircrafts and ballistic missiles around 90 miles away, according to Reuters. We all pursue the same goal and likewise, our diplomacy and armed forces both pursue the same goal: national security, stability and development," Rouhani said. Flying overhead during Iran's Army Day celebrations were old U.S. F-14 and F-4 fighter jets, sold to Iran during the Nixon administration. At the time, the jets were the most advanced warplanes in the U.S. military's inventory, but they have both been long scrapped. In the late 70s, the United States sold high-end military equipment to Iran, as long as it was non-nuclear. This news comes days after Russian jets harassed a U.S. Air Force spy plane over the Baltic Sea Thursday as well as buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer 31 times over two days, according to the Pentagon. "The enemy should bear in mind that there is no schism among our nation, government and armed forces," Rouhani said. "We are all fingers of the same hand. President Obama will be in Saudi Arabia this week to discuss with Gulf leaders about Iran's growing presence in the region. Rouhani highlighted that presence in his speech Sunday, noting a series of economic, technological and scientific advancements the Islamic Republic had achieved due to increased travel to the country, The Tehran Times reported. "Had it not been for the mighty army, it would have been impossible to achieve this, he said. Fox News Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report. Click for more from Reuters. PAIA, HawaiiThe plantation town of Paia, with its single stoplight along a main drag edged with bikini shops, arty boutiques and tempting little locavore eateries, is a surfer haven these days. While American tourists throng Lahaina, a 45-minute drive to the west, Europeans head for this windsurfing capital on the north shore for all the right reasons. There are no big resorts here, just a handful of small inns and a few dozen vacation rentals. But Paias charms are appreciated by celebrities, surfers and French expats alike. Willie Nelson occasionally drops in at Charleys bar, were told. And Gene Simmons opened a Rock & Brews here two years ago. Theres a rock n roll meets beer hall vibe at the latteran open-air sipping-noshing spot with long communal tables, flat screens airing surfing competitions, ball games and rock footage, and plenty of rock memorabilia. Its all caressed, blessedly, by a cooling breeze. Order a Local Flight and the pours, which include Maui Brewings Bikini Blonde and Big Swell, arrive on a Stratocaster-shaped serving tray. The town, which makes the perfect jumping-off spot for treks to Hana or Mauis Upcountry, is flush with quirky little spots to grab a bite or get your java fix. Stroll down an unprepossessing driveway just off the main street and youll find Paia Bay Coffee, for example, where you can sip a latte in an oasis of lush tropical plants. Other local eateries range from the 26-year-old Paia Fish Market to the 6-month-old Hana Ranch Provisions, which celebrates the organic ingredients raised at the end of the famous Road to Hana. Need bottled water, bison jerky or another critical food item? The Mana grocery store is so winsomely crunchy, it makes Whole Foods look corporate. Theres an entire aisle devoted to the seaweed genre, from nori to furikake. Organic, vegan, gluten-freeyou name it, its here someplace in the towering, narrow aisles. Weve grown accustomed to Bubba Gumped seaside scenes, with their trademarked restaurants, beer oclock T-shirts and souvenirs that run the gamut from tacky to tawdry. But this is the opposite. Paias main street is blissfully bohemian, the beach vibe translated into hand-blocked prints on covet-worthy bedding at Pearl Butik, cheeky bikinis at Maui Girl and other swimwear shops, and stunning underwater photography at John and Dan Ceseres photography gallery. This beach town has a beach, too, with playful waves rolling up the strand. Its pretty much perfect. MILLER Please accept my sincere thanks for the ones who sent cards for my 90th birthday and also the ones who planned the party at the Tower. Also, thank to... Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia was among the right people enshrined on the memorial wall on Saturday, Oct. 21. Inherent Resolve Strikes Target ISIL in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, April 16, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Attack and fighter aircraft conducted three strikes near Mara in Syria, striking three separate ISIL tactical units and destroying two ISIL fighting positions. Strikes in Iraq Attack, ground-attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 15 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government: -- Near Fallujah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit. -- Near Hit, two strikes destroyed an ISIL mortar system, 14 ISIL boats and an ISIL vehicle. -- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position. -- Near Mosul, four strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, 14 ISIL modular oil refineries and two ISIL crude oil stills and destroyed an ISIL assembly area and 10 ISIL boats. -- Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed 24 ISIL boats, two ISIL rocket rails and two ISIL assembly areas. -- Near Sinjar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system and an ISIL assembly area. -- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike suppressed an ISIL tactical unit. -- Near Tal Afar, a strike suppressed an ISIL tactical unit. Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, officials added. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Transcript Presenter: Secretary of Defense Ash Carter April 16, 2016 Media Gaggle SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ASH CARTER: Okay, well you'll be happy to learn I don't need the podium. I'm not going to open a notebook and -- I just said pretty much what I wanted to say to those folks, which is why they're here, why the counter-ISIL mission is so important, and their other missions in the region, and how proud we are of what they're doing. I should note that in addition to our hosts here, there were some other coalition members who came through the line there, so you had a lot of good friends out here also. But anyway, let's just go right to your questions. STAFF: Courtney, you're the new arrival. SEC. CARTER: Hi, Courtney. Q: Hi, Secretary. You mentioned (inaudible) that the U.S. wants to do more. Can you give us some specifics what they're talking about? Is it more of the same? Is it (inaudible)? What is that -- are we talking more (inaudible)? SEC. CARTER: Across the whole spectrum. You know we're looking to do more, but it ranges from in the air to on the ground. All consistent with our overall strategic approach, which is to enable local forces ultimately to hold and sustain the defeat of ISIL, after ISIL is defeated, but to enable them to do so and accelerate that process so we continue to look for and identify ways of accelerating that, and as we find those we will do them. Obviously in Iraq we do that with the permission of the Iraqi government. But we -- you should expect us to -- to see us doing more, to be consistent with the same approach, but it will be across all the domains, right up to cyber, which I mentioned earlier. Now over the next few days I'll have an opportunity to talk to our commanders, and also to some in the region here, and obviously look for more good opportunities to accelerate the defeat of ISIL here in Syria and Iraq, which is absolutely necessary. Q: When you say "on the ground," do you mean more U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq? SEC. CARTER: Yes, I mean, I think some of these have that aspect to it, but I just want to emphasize there's a lot more that goes with this, and our -- and our presence on the ground is -- and will continue to be to enable, not to substitute, for local forces. STAFF: Lita. Q: Mr. Secretary... SEC. CARTER: But I mean, don't forget, as far as I'm concerned these people here are in the fight too. I mean, I know when you talk about on the ground you're thinking of Iraq and Syria. I just want to remind you here at al Dhafra these people are pretty busy, and some of them are in risky situations every single day. Q: You talked a lot to the troops about the accelerants and wanting to put an end to ISIL. How soon do you see any further decision on who (inaudible) the White House of some of these options and accelerants that you've talked about? SEC. CARTER: We've gotten approval from the White House every time the chairman and I have gone to ask for something that we've needed to accelerate, going way back to last year, and so that isn't really the issue for us. The issue for us is identifying yet more ways to accelerate the campaign. Q: As far as the ones you keep mentioning, the... SEC. CARTER: We haven't had any problem getting anything approved by the president -- I mean, anything that's made sense, but we don't propose anything that doesn't make sense, and that's been pretty much across all of those domains that I've mentioned to you. This is a campaign, which you know, is novel in the sense of the way that ISIL operates and so forth, so we're doing a lot of innovation. And then of course you wouldn't have thought of a war in the past that we would have fought in cyberspace, as well as in the air, so it's got a lot of novel dimensions to it, and I expect it more -- I expect more, and that's why I'm encouraging General Votel and General McFarland, and all of our other commanders here, and that's what I said to these kids out here, that we're looking for more approaches to accelerate the defeat. STAFF: Tara? Q: For the airmen at this base (inaudible). --does that mean you want sorties, or airstrikes or surveillance? What can we expect? SEC. CARTER: It could be more sorties. It can be a shift in the nature of their campaign. I mean, what they've seen here and mentioned to me in the course of the last year is, as we've learned more and are more on top of the enemy, you can do more dynamic targeting, whereas the ratio of deliberate to dynamic was (inaudible). But on the -- but we're also finding new deliberate targets as well. You remember the banks and that kind of stuff as well. I talked to several people here about important changes they're making to these platforms and their command and control, and that's important. That's in the data systems. It's in the command and control systems. It's in ways to make them -- so that they can operate more easily with coalition air forces, and so it's constantly evolving. You see the family of aircraft here has grown over time, and I think it's fair to say -- I don't know that this is exactly right, but that every major airframe in the American armament of the Air Force is on this base. I'll bet that's true, and it's very few exceptions if there aren't. STAFF: Laurent, you had a question? Q: I've heard you saying that you were paving the way, that you would be paving the way this week for the next GCC summit. SEC. CARTER: Right. Q: What are you -- what do you intend to discuss with the GCC leaders (inaudible)? SEC. CARTER: A couple of things. I'd put them in sort of three categories, as I was doing on the plane there. The first is the two "I"'s, as I called them -- the counter-ISIL campaign, and the concern by everyone in the region, which we share, about the possibility of Iranian aggression and malign influence, and the need to stand with them, and the other is just generally the capabilities of our allies and partners out here, and particularly our Gulf partners. And the president promised that last year at Camp David that we work real hard this year, and we have been, to look at ways -- to identity ways, and advance ways, that we can work better together. I mentioned some of them today on the -- they range from cyber to integrated air and missile defense, to ground forces, special operations forces, the kinds of capabilities that they need in order to make the full contribution that they can make to whatever happens here. And I also note that of course we'll be in the -- in connection with the counter-ISIL thing, continuing to discuss with our Gulf partners, the additional contributions they are making -- military, economic and political. I'm sorry. I shouldn't call on -- put Peter out of a job. STAFF: It's your press conference, sir. SEC. CARTER: Could've fooled me. Q: On the economic front can you outline a little bit more what you'll be asking (inaudible)? SEC. CARTER: Yes, in general terms, and I don't want to get ahead of a conversation the president is going to have with other heads of state. But in general, it is in recognition of the fact that for the defeat of ISIL to stick in Iraq and Syria, these badly broken places, destroyed, by ISIL, pillaged by ISIL, mistreated by ISIL, are going to need to be rebuilt. And also in recognition of the fact that our oil prices are down, and that has a serious impact in Iraq, which depends so heavily upon oil to support all of its regions, and therefore to support the overall multi-sectarian state, which is what we support, and what Prime Minister Abadi wants. So you know, Iraqis have lots of political debates, lots of things. These go back and -- a long time. But Iraqis want to get ISIL off their territory, and after they do that, they want to get back to some sort of normal life, and that's going to take some economic and political help, as well as military help, and so even as we're looking to make contributions in all three of those areas, so also can the Gulf partners, and we'll want to talk to them about that. STAFF: So we have time for one more. Tara? Q: With additional assistance, military assistance, to Iraq's (inaudible) depend upon any sort of political milestones that the Iraqi government would have to make, or (inaudible)? SEC. CARTER: Well, we're not going to change in any way what we're offering to contribute to the fight, and what we're willing to contribute to the fight. And as I said, I mean, there are a lot of debates in Iraqis politics that I've got to leave Iraqi politics to the Iraqis. But it's a very popular idea that they should rid their country of this evil group, and so I'm confident we'll be able to continue to work with them. I do want to emphasize that, you know, we're very careful, as is appropriate. Everything we do is with the permission of the Iraqi government. That's the way we operate there. That's the way we'll continue to operate there. But we're going to continue to accelerate what we can do for them, and we're not going to change that. STAFF: Thanks, everybody. SEC. CARTER: All right, thanks, everybody. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/722852/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Recovery operations from HMH-463 helicopter mishap concluded US Marine Corps News By Cpl. Timothy Irish | April 16, 2016 Recovery operations to retrieve wreckage from a January 14, 2016 aviation mishap involving two CH-53E helicopters and 12 U.S. Marines from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 have been concluded. The 12 Marines serving as air crew on the helicopters were officially announced deceased on January 21 by Marine Corps officials. They had been previously been listed as duty status whereabouts unknown (DUSTWUN) while the U.S. Coast Guard searched for the missing helicopters. The human remains discovered during the search and rescue operations and during the subsequent recovery and salvage operations led to positive identification of nine of the 12 Marines involved in the incident. Remains of Sgts. Dillon Semolina and Adam Schoeller, and Cpl. Christopher Orlando were not recovered. Significant wreckage from both helicopters has been recovered. The recovery operations were conducted primarily by the USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52), a rescue and salvage ship from Military Sealift Command, a Remotely Operated Vehicle Detachment from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), Navy divers attached from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1 and Marine Aircraft Group 24. Various echelons of command within the U.S. Pacific Command assisted in the planning and execution of the recovery. The USNS Salvor used sonar, video cameras, and a submersible deep-dive remotely operated vehicle to search while utilizing cranes to retrieve found items. A systematic mapping of the known wreckage site began immediately after the conclusion of search and rescue operations on January 19. Although weather and sea states delayed the USNS Salvor's port departures, a thorough mapping and detailed recovery effort was conducted with 24-hour operations while on station. Before concluding recovery operations, the USNS Salvor and attached units twice swept the entire debris field, the surrounding area, and the flight path from the debris field back up to the initial aircraft collision site. The USNS Salvor supported recovery and salvage operations for a total of 13 days, with the recovery team conducting 24-hour operations and completing more than a hundred dives on the site. There is the chance that some small debris not recovered may eventually wash ashore; should any member of the public find such a piece of debris, they are asked to contact either the Honolulu Police Department at (808) 529-3111, or the Marine Aircraft Group 24 Duty Officer at (808) 590-6961. Aviation Mishap Board (AMB) and Judge Advocate General Manual (JAGMAN) investigations into the cause of the crash continue. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China's top military officer inspects islands in South China Sea People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 19:00, April 15, 2016 BEIJING, April 15 -- Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected Nansha Islands in the South China Sea in recent days, the Ministry of Defense said Friday. Fan, who was accompanied by military officers and civilian officials, met with officers and soldiers stationed on the islands as well as construction workers, the ministry said on its official website. Fan was also briefed on the construction projects on Nansha islands and reefs. The ministry said the construction projects are going smoothly. Those projects, including lighthouses, automatic weather stations, oceanic observation centers and oceanic research facilities, will provide public services for the international community. Five lighthouses for navigation safety have been completed, and four of them are operative now, it added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gunmen kill 140 civilians near South Sudan: Ethiopia Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:9PM At least 140 people, including women and children, have reportedly been killed after gunmen attacked an area near Ethiopia's border with South Sudan. According to a Saturday statement from the Ethiopian Government Communication Affairs Office, the attack took place on Friday when gunmen from South Sudan raided the Jakaya area, in Ethiopia's Gambella region. "140 civilians died in the attack carried out by bandits that crossed from South Sudan," the statement said. The statement added that Ethiopian troops had crossed the border to pursue the attackers, saying "60 of the assailants have been killed so far." The Ethiopian region hosts thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled conflict in the world's youngest nation. It is also home to Ethiopian and South Sudanese armed groups that attack government installations and soldiers. The statement also said that the armed men had no relation with South Sudanese government troops or rebel forces that fought the government in the capital, Juba, in a civil war that ended with a peace deal signed last year. South Sudanese officials were not immediately available for any comment. South Sudan plunged into chaos in December 2013, when fighting erupted outside Juba, between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by rebel leader Riek Machar. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over two million others. The warring sides reached an internationally-mediated peace deal in August 2015 and agreed to share out ministerial positions in January. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN says new sex abuse allegations in DR Congo Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 5:55PM The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has acknowledged the receipt of new complaints of sexual abuse by peacekeepers. Maman Sidikou, the head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, on Saturday that the mission had received seven new allegations of sexual abuse by its soldiers. Five involve Tanzanian soldiers who arrived last September, one involves the South African contingent and the seventh case involves forces from Malawi, Sidikou said. Earlier this month, the UN had announced it was investigating accusations regarding Tanzanian peacekeepers based in northeastern Congo sexually abusing and exploiting five women and six girls, leaving them all pregnant. "All of these cases are presumed cases of either pregnancy or of paternity ... and eight of the victims are minors," Sidikou said. The UN is hit by a huge sex scandal involving peacekeepers and monitors accused of either exploitation or raping women and children of both sexes in exchange for money, food, water and other commodities. Amid the scandal, the UN has ordered an entire contingent of troops from the DRC to return home. The UN forces have been accused of so many sexual abuse cases that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the phenomenon "a cancer in our system" and vowed a "zero tolerance" approach toward violators. "It betrays the values and principles that the UN purports to advance, and tarnishes the credibility of United Nations peacekeeping operations and the United Nations as a whole," Ban stated. Human rights advocates and experts say systemic issues still hinder the investigation and prosecution of alleged abusers, leading to a sense of impunity among UN troops. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Majority of US Marine Corps jet fighters not airworthy: Report Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 4:45PM A new report says some 70 percent of the US Marine Corps combat aircraft are not airworthy over years of wear and tear and maintenance costs. The report by the Fox News television channel says out of 276 F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters in the US Marine Corps, only about 30 percent of the fleet are ready to fly. Also, out of 147 heavy-lift Super Stallion helicopters, only 42 are operational. Marine Corps officers at airbases in North and South Carolina told the channel pointed to several reasons in this regard, including years of service in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as military spending cuts. The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to drive Taliban out of power. It then raided Iraq in 2003 to oust former dictator Saddam Hussein. American combat aircraft have over the years suffered wear and tear and had little time to see renovation, noted the report. Fox also said the US military spending was slashed from $691 billion in 2010 to $560 billion in 2015, thus contributing to Marine Corps fighter jets being grounded. It said lack of money forced the Marines to seek unconditional ways to procure the needed parts for the planes. They were reduced to 'cannibalizing', or taking parts from one aircraft to get another one airborne. This even led to the snatching of aircraft parts from museums in order to keep planes flying. The report said many Marine Corps mechanics left their jobs as a result of cost-cutting measures and had to seek vacancies at the private sector. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US unable to be fully in lockstep with Russian subs: Official Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 2:24PM A senior US Navy official has stated that Russia has been deploying combat submarines and missiles in scales that America has issues keeping pace with. Admiral Mark Ferguson, commander of US Naval Forces in Europe, has told CNN that Russia is deploying new submarines that are harder for the American Navy to track and detect. He said that is partly due to the NATO military alliance's eastward expansion in the post-Cold War world. "NATO is viewed as an existential threat to Russia, and in the post-Cold War period, the expansion of NATO eastward closer to Russia and our military capability they view as a very visceral threat to Russia," said the commander. They are quieter, better armed and have a greater range of operation, noted Ferguson. "The submarines that we're seeing are much more stealthy. We're seeing [the Russians] have more advanced weapons systems, missile systems that can attack land at long ranges, and we also see their operating proficiency is getting better as they range farther from home waters." "We cannot maintain 100% awareness of Russian sub activity today," retired Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO commander, told CNN. "Our attack subs are better, but not by much. Russian subs pose an existential threat to US carrier groups." The US currently has 53 submarines in its inventory, but because of decommissioning and budget decisions, Ferguson said that figure will drop to 41 by the late 2020s, the report added. According to CNN, Russia is adding or upgrading some 12 naval bases across the Arctic Circle - expanding its capability to send subs in numbers through the crucial Greenland-Iceland-UK gap into the Atlantic - and closer to US and NATO territorial waters. The US believes the new activity is designed to achieve multiple objectives, including denying NATO and the US the ability to operate within Russia's so-called "near abroad," the channel added. On Monday, two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes flew within meters of the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. Russia on Thursday denied its aircraft were engaged in reckless or provocative behavior, as claimed by Washington, saying the fighter jets "turned away in observance of all safety measures" after observing the US Navy warship. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Polish FM calls for more NATO troops near Russia border Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:10AM The Polish foreign minister has called on NATO to step up its military build-up in East Europe to counter what he called "existential" threats posed by Russia to the continent. "The presence of troops from various NATO countries could be a symbol of determination to defend the eastern flank," said Witold Waszczykowski while addressing the annual Globsec security forum in Slovak capital Bratislava on Friday, Poland's state news agency PAP reported. He added that the scale of such deployment could be discussed during the Western military alliance's July Summit in Warsaw. The top Polish diplomat further made a comparison between Moscow and the Daesh terror group mainly active in Iraq and Syria, adding: "We have existential threats and non-existential threats. Of course the Russian activity is kind of an existential threat because this activity may destroy countries," he added. Waszczykowski rejected terrorism and the refugee influx in Europe as immediate threats to the continent. The minister further said the deployment of NATO forces in the region should not be considered as a provocation against Moscow, but rather a decisive military measure aimed at deterring potential aggressors. "Showing weakness," he said, "is often seen as an incentive for aggression." Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnicky also stated at the same summit that Russia was actively "testing the defensive capabilities of NATO in the Baltic region." Russia plans to use its rare talks with NATO officials next week to protest the alliance's "absolutely unjustified" military buildup in the Baltic states under the pretext of the Ukrainian crisis, according to Moscow's ambassador to Belgium. Relations between Russia and NATO specially soured after Crimea separated from Ukraine and rejoined the Russian Federation following a referendum in March 2014. The military alliance ended all practical cooperation with Russia over the ensuing crisis in Ukraine in April 2014. The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine, a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied. Russia has also repeatedly slammed NATO's military buildup near its borders, saying such a move poses a threat to both regional and international peace. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address War-hit Yemen closest ever to peace: UN envoy Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:52AM The United Nations special envoy for Yemen says reconciliation between warring sides to the conflict gripping the Arab country has never been as close as it is now. In an address to the UN Security Council on Friday, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said both Houthi Ansarullah fighters and Saudi-backed loyalists to Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's former president, had "never been so close to peace." The two parties' consensus on an open-ended ceasefire that began at midnight on April 10 and their commitment to attend peace negotiations due in Kuwait on April 18 highlights the potential for peace, he added. They last sat down for discussions in the Swiss city of Geneva in December 2015. However, the six-day talks ended with no major breakthrough and led to a shaky truce that officially ended on January 2 following repeated breaches mainly by Saudis. Elsewhere in his comments, Ahmed said the developments over the last weeks have raised hope despite "a worrying number of serious violations" of the latest truce. He also called on both sides to the Yemeni conflict to "drop their destructive and belligerent attitudes," agree to overcome obstacles and restore peace. "Yemen is now at a critical crossroad," said the UN official, adding, "One path leads to peace while the other can only worsen the security and humanitarian situation." He further emphasized that a positive outcome in the peace talks will require "difficult compromises from all sides, as well as determination to reach an agreement." The Houthi Ansarullah fighters took state matters into their own hands after the resignation and escape of Hadi, which threw Yemen into a state of uncertainty and threatened a total security breakdown in the country, where an al-Qaeda affiliate is present. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a deadly military campaign against Yemen since March 26, 2015 in a bid to reinstate Hadi and undermine the Houthi movement. Riyadh's military has turned a blind eye to the new ceasefire agreement and continues its bombing campaign against Yemen. Ansarullah has in recent days recorded tens of truce violations by the Saudis and their allies. Over 9,400 Yemenis, including 4,000 women and children, have lost their lives in the Saudi airstrikes. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Washington Targets IS in Mideast Military, Diplomatic Talks by Carla Babb April 16, 2016 U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter compared the Islamic State group to cancer on Saturday, saying the insurgent group must be destroyed in Iraq and Syria because that is "where the whole thing arose." He spoke during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, part of an effort to get Gulf nations to help Iraq as it fights the Islamic State. He said it would be vital to have a capable local force in place once IS was defeated to be sure someone "keeps them defeated." Carter toured Al-Dhafra Air Base, where he was briefed by key U.S. military and diplomatic officials. The U.S.-led coalition has used the base to launch airstrikes against IS militants, as well as for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions. This Middle East portion of a lengthy diplomatic trip by Carter will include talks with Gulf Cooperation Council defense leaders in Saudi Arabia. President Barack Obama, who is to join Carter in Riyadh, will most likely ask for contributions to rebuild areas of Iraq damaged by the fight against IS when he speaks with Gulf partners. "That's a global effort in which many countries can make a contribution," Carter said. The secretary also plans to talk with GCC leaders about how to fight IS more effectively. "We're going to accelerate the military campaign" he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Nigerian Military Vows to Continue Effort to Rescue Chibok Girls by Peter Clottey April 16, 2016 The Nigerian's military is continuing with the fight to combat terrorism and would not be deterred to rescue all civilians including the kidnapped Chibok School girls abducted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar, director of Defense Information, said Saturday. Abubakar said the army has not given up efforts to find the missing girls and return them home safely to their parents. This, after dismissing the recently released video allegedly showing proof the abducted Chibok school girls were still alive. Increased pressure In an interview with VOA, Abubakar called the video inconclusive and a demonstration of the frustration of the militants due to the army's continued pressure on them. He said it is uncertain that the latest video released by Boko Haram is genuine, describing it as propaganda tool. He urged the media not to drag the military into a media war with Boko Haram following the release of the video. Abubakar said the military is focused on ensuring the country maintains its territorial integrity by defeating the radical Islamist group. Abubakar declined to give details about plans to rescue the abducted Chibok girls and other kidnapped victims from the Boko Haram militants, but added the military will not be deterred in the commitment to bring back the girls home. "Our operations are on course and we have a total unified operation against the Boko Haram, which led to the total decimating and breaking their will in order to wage any reasonable attack against the armed force and other security agency locations. These are indications that they are weak However, terrorists as they are rely on information to champion their cause keep on coming up with series of purported, unconfirmedclips.," said Abubakar. "So the issue of video or not video is not our concern, because that will not affect our operations towards liberating whoever are with the terrorists; either the Chibok girls or non-Chibok girls," he said. Difficult task Critics of the military said it appears the security agencies are not up to the task to rescue the abducted school girls. They cited instances of suicide bombings in Nigeria and the ability of the militants to launch cross-border attacks in neighboring countries including Cameroon as examples of the potency of Boko Haram, despite what they said are claims by the army and government of technically defeating the militant group. Abubakar disagreed. "So many of them have surrendered to the armed forces and other security agencies. We have about 800 Boko Haram members who surrendered willingly. And these are some of the things which the remnants are not happy with, and they are doing all sorts of things to tell the international community and the domestic audience that they are still alive, but they are not," said Abubakar. Local media reported that the army has opened a backdoor channel to negotiate with the militants to release the kidnapped Chibok girls. "These are some of the blackmails, which some organizations or groups are [peddling] against members of the Nigerian military and its allies. All these things are not true and are dreams of those who are saying it. The Nigerian military [is] strong enough to quash not only Boko Haram, we have done it elsewhere and we will do it in this country, and I believe we have all the capacity to do that," said Abubakar. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Weapons, Rights Frame Hollande's Egypt Visit by Lisa Bryant April 16, 2016 French President Francois Hollande arrives in Egypt Sunday for a visit intended to shore up security cooperation and produce lucrative weapons deals despite sharp criticism by rights groups. Hollande's Cairo leg is part of a four-day trip to the Middle East that began Saturday in Lebanon and ends Tuesday in Jordan. There, he will address shared concerns with Arab allies, ranging from terrorism and instability in Iraq, Syria and Libya, to the refugee crisis and the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Monday, Hollande and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi will oversee the signing of arms agreements worth roughly $1.1 billion, including Egypt's purchase of a French military satellite communications system, according to France's La Tribune website. Arm sales The acquisitions add to a string of high-profile French weapons sales in recent months, including multi-billion-dollar deals in which Egypt and Qatar will each buy 24 French Rafale fighter jets. Paris is in discussions to complete another Rafale agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The weapons sales underscore France's new role as top weapons supplier to Egypt, edging out the United States and bringing in needed revenue, says Paris-based Defense News correspondent Pierre Tran. It also sends a message to the United States, which suspended military aid to Egypt in 2013 following the ouster of former leader Mohamed Morsi. While Washington lifted the freeze last year, Egypt has diversified its arms suppliers. Washington's role in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was another strike against it. "They're thumbing their nose at the U.S., which has disappointed Arab nations specifically because of the agreement with Iran," Tran said. By contrast, Paris scored points with its hard-line stance during the Iran nuclear talks, he added. The payback partly came with Hollande's invitation to become the first Western leader to attend the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council summit last May. "He was there while the U.S. was not," Tran said. France and Egypt may also sign a deal Monday for Cairo's purchase of four French warships, La Tribune reports. Once again, Iran's growing regional clout is a driving force. "It's all about Iran," Tran said. "The Gulf is why Egypt wants warships to patrol and control the security of the Gulf where all the trade flow happens." Rafale sales The Rafale sales, however, also reflect shared concern about the growing regional threat posed by the Islamic State militant group, he added. Hollande's visit to Egypt comes amid growing international criticism over Cairo's deteriorating human rights record since Sissi took power in 2013. Earlier this month, Italy recalled its ambassador to Egypt, accusing Egyptian authorities of failing to fully cooperate in a joint investigation into the death of an Italian student whose battered body was found in February next to a Cairo-area highway. In an open letter published in the Le Monde newspaper on Friday, five prominent rights groups urged Hollande to press Sissi to abandon a crackdown against Egyptian nongovernmental groups, and to demand answers on the 2013 death of Frenchman Eric Lang while in Egyptian police custody. They also called on Hollande to ensure Egyptian authorities will not use weapons purchased from France for internal repression. "France will bear a heavy responsibility if it abstains for bringing up these points" in discussions with Sissi, warned the groups, which included Amnesty International France, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights. On Lang, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday that Paris "is mobilized so all light is shone on this tragedy." A New York Times editorial this week sharply criticized Western countries "that trade with and arm Egypt" for failing to speak out against the country's human rights abuses. Noting Hollande's upcoming visit, it added, "there has been a shameful silence from France." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Obama Sides with Saudis, Opposes Bill to Release 9/11 Findings Sputnik News 20:58 16.04.2016(updated 21:19 16.04.2016) The Obama Administration has been lobbying Congress to block a bill that would allow Saudi Arabia's government to be held accountable in American courts for any role it played in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In addition to Obama's efforts to keep information about 9/11 confidential, Saudi Arabia has threatened to sell hundreds of billions of dollars worth of its American assets if Congress passes the bill. In recent weeks, administration officials have been warning lawmakers of the bill's potential economic fallout. The Obama Administration's strict opposition to the 9/11 bill has left many family members of the terror attacks' victims outraged. Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, expressed her discontent in an interview with the New York Times. "It's stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens," Kleinberg said. In the past, families of the victims have had trouble using the courts to face elements of Saudi banks and the Saudi royal family, whom they've accused of funding terrorism. Their efforts were slowed by a 1976 law that awards foreign nations a certain degree of immunity from lawsuits in American courts. The 9/11 bill would eliminate this immunity for nations found culpable of terrorist attacks that kill Americans on American soil. So far, a 9/11 Commission found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization [Al-Qaeda]." Critics argue that the Commission's limited scope and wording steered the investigation away from lesser-level officials and other elements of the government that may have played a role in the terror plot. They also point to a still-classified Congressional Inquiry in 2002, which cited evidence that members of the Saudi government played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration argues that limiting foreign nations' immunity would put the American government, as well as its citizens and corporations at risk of lawsuits if foreign nations were to retaliate with their own legislation. As for Saudi Arabia's economic threat, some economists are calling the move an "empty threat" that would not only be difficult to pull off, but it would also cripple the Kingdom's own economy. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Transfers 9 Yemeni Inmates From Guantanamo by VOA News April 16, 2016 Nine Yemen nationals have been transferred to Saudi Arabia from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the Obama administration pushes to close the controversial facility despite strong opposition from congressional Republicans. Television footage late Saturday showed the detainees, captured in the U.S.-led war on terror, arriving in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where they underwent medical exams and where a top Yemen official awaited their arrival. Several detainees thanked the Saudi government for taking them in. "We are looking to carry out a genuine program that gives them hope and a window into the future ... part of this society, one that is based on peace," said Yemen Human Rights Minister Ezzeldin Al-Abahi. The transfer, announced by the Pentagon earlier Saturday in Washington, came just weeks after President Barack Obama announced an accelerated plan to try to shutter the prison before he leaves office in January 2017. It also came days ahead of Obama's scheduled arrival in the Saudi capital for a summit of the six-nation security and economic forum known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. The transfer followed extended negotiations with Saudi officials, who eventually agreed to take in the detainees and put them through a government-run rehabilitation program that seeks to reintegrate militants into society. The Obama administration has ruled out sending Yemenis to their homeland because it is engulfed in civil war and has an active branch of al-Qaida. Hunger-striking inmate Saturday's transferred prisoners included Tariq Ba Odah, a hunger-striking inmate whom the U.S. military began force-feeding in 2007. At its peak, Guantanamo housed as many as 780 inmates. With the latest transfers, the Pentagon said the prison population now stands at 80. The remaining prisoners include 26 detainees already cleared for release in the coming months by a U.S. government interagency task force. Obama is seeking to make good on a 2008 campaign promise to close the facility, a vow that has met stiff opposition from Republicans both inside and outside the government. Republican 2016 presidential hopefuls have vowed to send more terror suspects to the facility rather than close it. Guantanamo is a U.S. naval base on the southeastern Cuban coast that former President George W. Bush designated as a prison for enemy combatants just months after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The designation classified the detainees as unlawful combatants, who were not afforded legal protections under the Geneva Conventions. Since then, the inmates' legal status has been challenged in numerous court cases. Some information for this report came from Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Corruption Charges False, Impeachment 'Anti-Democratic Coup' - Rousseff Sputnik News 21:47 16.04.2016(updated 21:59 16.04.2016) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff stated that her government had fought against corruption, passing anti-corruption laws, created administrative transparency and supported an independent judiciary. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Saturday stressed her innocence of corruption charges, accusing opponents seeking her impeachment of violating the country's constitution and endangering democracy. Brazil's lower house of parliament is set to vote on Rousseff's impeachment on Sunday, with opposition accusing the president of corruption and violating financial rules by manipulating state banks accounts to close budget gaps. "To unseat a president by impeachment, without her having committed a crime, means tearing the Brazilian Constitution. This is a coup against the Republic, against democracy and, above all, against the votes of all Brazilians who participated in the electoral process They want to submit to one of the greatest injustices can be committed against someone: condemn an innocent," Rousseff said in an article published in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. The president stressed that her government had fought against corruption, passing anti-corruption laws, created administrative transparency and supported an independent judiciary. Opposing and criticizing the government is part of democracy, while attempting to unseat an elected president on unfounded charges has no place in democratic practice, she added. Meanwhile, Rousseff lost several allies with the Progressive Party and the Social Democratic Party having left her coalition earlier this week. The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party left the governing coalition in late March. Rousseff has been facing a wave of public discontent for over a year amid Brazil's struggling economy and a major corruption scandal in the state-owned Petrobras petroleum company. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Security Council condemns DPRK's firing of ballistic missile People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 13:33, April 16, 2016 UNITED NATIONS, April 15 -- The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday strongly condemned the firing of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) earlier in the day. "Although the DPRK's ballistic missile launch was a failure, this attempt constituted a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions," the Council said in a statement. The DPRK shall refrain from further actions that violate relevant Security Council resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions, the statement said. UNSC members also highlighted the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and expressed their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation. "The members of the Security Council agreed that the Security Council would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures in line with the Council's previously expressed determination," the statement said. The UNSC has adopted four resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UNSC deplores N Korea's latest unsuccessful missile test Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 4:59AM The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has denounced North Korea's reported unsuccessful test-firing of a missile, warning that it could take further punitive measures against Pyongyang. In a statement issued on Friday, the 15-member council "strongly condemned" the launch, adding that the move "constituted a clear violation" of UN resolutions although it ended in failure. The council further noted that it would closely monitor the situation and was ready to "take further significant measures" against North Korea. The United States and South Korea said on Friday that Pyongyang had failed in its attempt to launch what was believed to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile. The launch came on North Korea's so-called Day of the Sun, which marks the birthday anniversary of the country's founding leader Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang has not made any comments on the Friday reports so far. North Korea launched a long-range rocket in February, which according to Pyongyang was aimed at placing an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul described the practice as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test. Pyongyang declared itself a nuclear power in 2005 and carried out four nuclear weapons tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016. In March, the UNSC unanimously approved the toughest sanctions on North Korea in two decades over its missile and nuclear tests. Chinese state media censure N Korea missile test In another development on Friday, China's official Xinhua news agency said in an English language commentary that the firing of a mid-range ballistic missile, though failed, "marks the latest in a string of saber-rattling that, if unchecked, will lead the country to nowhere." "... Nuclear weapons will not make Pyongyang safer. On the contrary, its costly military endeavors will keep on suffocating its economy," the commentary added. North Korea has pledged to develop a nuclear arsenal in an effort "to protect itself from the US military", which occasionally deploys nuclear-powered warships and aircraft capable of carrying atomic weapons in the region. Washington also holds joint military maneuvers with Seoul, which Pyongyang views as preparations for war and a direct threat against its security. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Larijani calls for resolution of Iran's banking problems IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, April 16, IRNA -- Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani in a meeting with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on Saturday called for resolution of Iran's banking problems. He voiced hope that the European delegation's trip to Iran will produce tangible economic results. Larijani called for resolution of banking problems, adding that certain states are sabotaging the execution of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Terrorist groups are harmful to all regional states, he added. Mogherini for her part said that Europe is keen to revive its relations with Iran, adding that closer ties between Iran and European parliaments could be very helpful in this regard. Saying that Iran has been bound to its obligations, she voiced hope that other parties to the talks would be committed to their obligations. Mogherini underlined that Europe wants a sustainable agreement with Iran that would lead to concrete economic and political results. There is political will in US for resolution of banking problems of Iran and EU is doing its best to resolve it, she said. Mogherini added that Europe is against separatism and believes that regional problems should be resolved through national reconciliation. Praising Iran's positive role in Iraq, she called for Tehran's constructive role in Yemen and Syria. The official urged collective cooperation against terrorism and said that Europe is keen to cooperate with Iran in Lebanon and Afghanistan. 9191**1664 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address SNSC sec.: US decision to maintain sanctions unconstructive, undesirable IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, April 16, IRNA -- Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that the US approach to continuation of sanctions and impeding implementation of JCPOA is undesirable and unconstructive. He made the remarks in a meeting with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini here on Saturday afternoon. If such a process continues and if EU fails to confront it, this will have negative affects on continuation of cooperation and implementation of reciprocal commitments, Shamkhani said. Recalling the EU's pivotal role in the signing of Joint Comprehensive Plan of action (JCPOA), Shamkhani underlined necessity of maintaining the achievement and supervising and controlling the correct implementation of the deal through EU cooperation and active role of the joint commission. Shamkhani referring to Iran's key role in confronting ISIL and terrorists groups in Syria and Iraq and hefty expenses borne by Iran in providing security for the region said that long term presence of Takfiri elements would spread insecurity and instability at global level. He said stopping suc a process needs closer cooperation of EU in the fight against terrorism. Imposing sanctions against a number of Iranian officials under false pretexts of human rights abuses runs counter to the the new atmosphere of relations between Iran and the EU and will lead to lack of confidence. Shamkhani added that mistreating, rejecting and returning refugees, who have escaped from danger of terrorists by European countries, are contrary to the spirit of human rights. He pointed out that a big part of crises in Syria, Iraq and Libya was due to the supply of weapons and support of European states for opposition and armed groups in those countries and now they should accept responsibility for the consequences of their policies. Shamkhani reminded that the Zionist regime in spite of numerous condemnations by international fora is going ahead with its settlement construction and massacring Palestinians and its illegal nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction has threatened the security of the region. He underlined the need for the EU to take a realistic approach towards the Syrian people's will and demands and said that recent parliamentary election in Syria demonstrated the fulfillment of democracy and political participation of different groups of people in determining the fate of their country. For her part, Mogherini praised Tehran's efforts for implementation of JCPOA and said that achieving the real outcomes of the deal including elimination of all financial sanctions is the right of the Iranian people. She added that all sides should take steps in direction of strengthening JCPOA. Considering Iran's important role in maintaining security and stability of the region, cooperation between Iran and EU can facilitate settlement of crises through diplomatic means, Mogherini added. 1391**1412 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mogherini: Iran missile tests not violating N. deal ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sat 16 Apr 2016 - 14:47 TEHRAN (ISNA)- The EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said that Iran's missile tests do not breach the JCPOA. "Iran's missile tests are not violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and we are not so concerned about this issue," she said in a press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif here in Tehran on Saturday. She also said that the EU welcomes Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Mogherini continued that during her current trip to Iran, she is being accompanied by 7 commissioners of the EU working in transportation, economy and energy, to pave the way for boosting bilateral ties with Iran. She was referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 states -- Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany -- in Vienna last July. Mogherini, however, said "this doesn't mean that we are not concerned." On March 9, Iran successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles as part of military drills to assess its defense capabilities. The missiles dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F were fired during large-scale drills, code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat. A day earlier, the country's Armed Forces fired another ballistic missile called Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country. The US claims that Iran's missile tests violate the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA. Zarif, in turn, told the presser that Iran's missile tests neither breach the JCPOA nor any United Nations Security Council resolutions as the missiles "are not designed to carry nuclear weapons." Elsewhere in the press conference, the two sides underscored their determination to promote Iran-EU bilateral relations in various areas, particularly economy, as well as cooperation on other issues of international importance. Zarif said Mogherini's trip to Tehran could be a "new beginning" in ties between Tehran and the 28-nation bloc. "Today is the serious beginning in the relations between Iran and the European Union and we hope that this cooperation leads to common interests, progress and international development for the people of Iran and EU," Zarif said. He said economic and financial cooperation as well as the opening of a permanent EU office in Tehran is on the agenda of talks, adding that four statements are to be issued at the end of the discussions. Referring to last July's nuclear agreement, Zarif said Tehran and the EU "will cooperate to remove the remaining obstacles in the way of the JCPOA's implementation." "We are certain that the EU's political and economic interests lie in implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and cooperation with Iran," the Iranian foreign minister said. The top EU diplomat, for her part, said her visit to Tehran is focused on a broad spectrum of topics from the expansion of bilateral ties to regional issues. She further hailed the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 states adding that the JCPOA proved "diplomacy works." "Iran has delivered on its side of the deal and so has the EU by lifting the sanctions," the EU official said. After the JCPOA went into effect on January 16, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US were lifted. Iran, in return, has put some limitations on its nuclear activities. The EU official further said the 28-nation bloc will support the Iranian bid to join the World Trade Organization. Mogherini has traveled to the Iranian capital on a one-day visit at the head of a high-ranking political and economic delegation comprising seven European commissioners. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU must act on US mischief on implementing JCPOA: Iran Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 4:52PM Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani says the European Union needs to take an "effective measure" to thwart subversive US acts concerning the implementation of a nuclear agreement reached between Tehran and six global powers last July. In a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Tehran on Saturday, Shamkhani said the US has adopted an "inappropriate and unconstructive" approach in keeping to put sanctions against Iran and refusing to fulfill its obligations stipulated in the nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). "If this trend continues and the European Union does not take an effective measure to counter it, it will have a negative impact on the continuation of the path of cooperation and the fulfillment of bilateral obligations," he added. Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia plus Germany started to implement the JCPOA on January 16. The JCPOA was signed on July 14, 2015 following two and a half years of intensive talks Shamkhani also said Iran has played a leading role in fighting terrorist groups, including Daesh, operating in Syria and Iraq and is paying a considerable cost to improve security in the region. "The long-term presence of Takfiri elements will lead to the spread of insecurity and instability at an international level," he said, urging the EU to cooperate more in the fight against terrorism. The SNSC secretary further said the Israeli regime's "illegal possession of nukes and weapons of mass destruction poses a threat to regional security." Removal of financial restrictions, Iran's right: Mogherini The EU foreign policy chief, for her part, said Iran has the right to see the tangible outcomes of the implementation of the JCPOA, including the removal of financial restrictions. She also added that Iran plays a key role in improving regional security and stability and said cooperation between Tehran and the 28-nation bloc can facilitate political solutions to regional crises. Mogherini arrived in Tehran on Saturday at the head of a team of seven European commissioners. Earlier in the day, she held talks and attended a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran missile tests no violation of nuclear deal: Mogherini Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:19AM The European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says Iran's missile activities are not in contravention of the country's nuclear agreement with the six world powers. "We do not see the missile tests as a breach of the JCPOA," she said on Saturday during a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran. She was referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 states -- Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany -- in Vienna last July. Mogherini, however, said "this doesn't mean that we are not concerned." On March 9, Iran successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles as part of military drills to assess its defense capabilities. The missiles dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F were fired during large-scale drills, code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat. A day earlier, the country's Armed Forces fired another ballistic missile called Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country. The US claims that Iran's missile tests violate the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA. Zarif, in turn, told the presser that Iran's missile tests neither breach the JCPOA nor any United Nations Security Council resolutions as the missiles "are not designed to carry nuclear weapons." 'New beginning' in Iran-EU ties Elsewhere in the press conference, the two sides underscored their determination to promote Iran-EU bilateral relations in various areas, particularly economy, as well as cooperation on other issues of international importance. Zarif said Mogherini's trip to Tehran could be a "new beginning" in ties between Tehran and the 28-nation bloc. "Today is the serious beginning in the relations between Iran and the European Union and we hope that this cooperation leads to common interests, progress and international development for the people of Iran and EU," Zarif said. He said economic and financial cooperation as well as the opening of a permanent EU office in Tehran is on the agenda of talks, adding that four statements are to be issued at the end of the discussions. Referring to last July's nuclear agreement, Zarif said Tehran and the EU "will cooperate to remove the remaining obstacles in the way of the JCPOA's implementation." "We are certain that the EU's political and economic interests lie in implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and cooperation with Iran," the Iranian foreign minister said. 'Diplomacy works' The top EU diplomat, for her part, said her visit to Tehran is focused on a broad spectrum of topics from the expansion of bilateral ties to regional issues. She further hailed the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 states adding that the JCPOA proved "diplomacy works." "Iran has delivered on its side of the deal and so has the EU by lifting the sanctions," the EU official said. After the JCPOA went into effect on January 16, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US were lifted. Iran, in return, has put some limitations on its nuclear activities. The EU official further said the 28-nation bloc will support the Iranian bid to join the World Trade Organization. Mogherini has traveled to the Iranian capital on a one-day visit at the head of a high-ranking political and economic delegation comprising seven European commissioners. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi protesters call for political reforms, anti-graft fight Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 10:12AM Dozens of the Iraqis have held another demonstration in the capital Baghdad, demanding the government fulfill its pledge to enact anti-corruption reforms. Protesters gathered at Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on Saturday to express their dissatisfaction with what they called hesitation in carrying out the proposed reforms aimed at combating 'systemic political patronage that has abetted graft' in the Arab country. Security forces cordoned off all roads leading to Baghdad's al-Khazra zone (Green Zone), with heavy security measure adopted in nearby streets. On Friday, thousands of human rights activists also staged a similar protest at the same square. Some media reports said the parliament's Saturday session has been postponed until further notice over security threats to the lives of lawmakers and the legislature's staff. The Iraqi parliament has witnessed a tumultuous week amid a political rift which has thrice prevented a vote on a list of new ministers proposed by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. The Iraqi parliament gave Abadi a three-day deadline, which started on March 28, to present a new list of ministers or face a vote of no-confidence. Abadi met the deadline, but the legislature has so far delayed voting on the cabinet reshuffle amid stiff resistance from some parties seeking to maintain their influence in the administration. Most of those on Abadi's list were later substituted with new names on a second list distributed among lawmakers, prompting some lawmakers to launch a sit-in at the parliament building. The following day, a fistfight erupted in the parliament hall, forcing the premier to say he would make changes to the disputed names on the new list. Iraqi lawmakers also voted on April 14 to unseat Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri and his deputies and appointed Adnan al-Janabi, a senior tribal leader, as the acting head of the legislature. The latest developments on Iraq's political scene come at a time that the Iraqi army troops and allied volunteer forces are conducting large-scale military operations against Daesh Takfiri terrorists controlling swathes of land in the northern and western parts of the country since 2014. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO to help Libya security if requested: Deputy chief Iran Press TV Sat Apr 16, 2016 5:10PM The NATO deputy secretary general says the military alliance is ready to help the new UN-sponsored Libyan government in building up security institutions if requested. "The progress towards the consolidation of this new government of national unity in Libya is encouraging and we stand ready to assist the government if it requests," Alexander Vershbow said on Saturday. Vershbow's remarks came as the European Union is expected to consider moving security personnel into Libya to help stabilize the crisis-stricken country. EU foreign and defense ministers are expected to agree in a Monday meeting in Luxembourg to look into police and border training missions for Libya, initially in Tripoli, where the new government is trying to establish itself. "Two years ago we were very close to implementing a program to assist the government at that time in Libya ... to develop and reform its defense institutions," Vershbow told reporters at the Globsec security conference in Bratislava. "If this new government requests NATO assistance in the same area, we stand ready to help them out," he added. Diplomats said there had yet to be a detailed discussion with the new unity government in defining what kind of assistance they wanted from the EU and that the bloc is keen to avoid the impression of moving into North African state uninvited. "It is a delicate balance," said one senior EU official involved in the plans. "We need to prepare to help Libya, but we cannot jump the gun." Libyan officials with the new unity government were not immediately available for comment on the development. Libya has been dominated by violence since a NATO military intervention followed the 2011 uprising that led to the toppling and killing of longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. The oil-rich state has had two rival administrations since mid-2014, when militants overran the capital and forced the parliament to flee to the country's remote east. The two administrations reached agreement on a unity government last December, and the new government received endorsement by the United Nations. However, it has had difficulty taking over. Daesh, which is in control of some parts of Iraq and Syria, and other militants have also used the lack of security in Libya to get a foot in the door there. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A Man Of Modest Means? Putin Says He Made Just $133,000 In 2015 April 15, 2016 by Carl Schreck Kremlin opponents and Western officials have long accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using his power to accrue massive wealth and lavish real estate, including a sprawling Black Sea estate widely referred to as "Putin's Palace." Officially, of course, the Russian leader's pockets are considerably shallower, as evidenced by his income disclosures released by the Kremlin on April 15 showing that he earned 8.9 million rubles ($133,900) in 2015, up from the 7.6 million rubles ($115,000) he reported last year. There was no mention of the Baroque-style seaside mansion allegedly built for him in the southern city of Gelendzhik, to which the Kremlin has denied any link. Instead, Putin declared ownership only of a 77-square-meter apartment, a 1,500-square-meter plot of land, and an 18-square-meter garage. The declaration also showed that he uses a 153-square-meter apartment. Nor did Putin declare any expensive foreign cars favored by Russia's political and financial elite. His disclosure shows that he owns two rare Soviet-made automobiles, a Russian-made Lada Niva off-road vehicle, and a boat trailer. But no sign that he owns a boat -- although a 2012 report co-authored by opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead near the Kremlin last year, said Putin has access to a fleet of four yachts, including one with a waterfall and a wine cellar. The new disclosure echoes similarly modest income declarations by Putin in previous years. But its release comes amid heightened scrutiny of Putin's wealth, including the leak of a trove of financial and legal documents detailing the offshore financial dealings of his close associates. Investigative reports based on the documents, known as the Panama Papers, show that his close friend, the cellist Sergei Roldugin, owned secretive offshore firms through which some $2 billion moved. Putin was not named in the documents, but Kremlin critics allege that Putin may be an ultimate beneficiary of this and other offshore cash -- suggestions he and the Kremlin vigorously reject. The U.S. Treasury Department has said that Putin "has investments" in Gunvor, a company formerly owned by his associate Gennady Timchenko, a Russian billionaire, and "may have access to Gunvor funds." Gunvor and the Kremlin deny these claims. Adam Szubin, the Treasury's acting secretary for terrorism and financial crimes, told the BBC in January that Putin has been amassing wealth outside the public view. "He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year," Szubin said. "That is not an accurate statement of the man's wealth, and he has longtime training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth." Putin's 2015 income declaration shows he fared worse financially last year than other Russian officials, including his own spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Peskov over the past year has come under withering criticism for pricey accoutrements -- most notably a wristwatch allegedly worth some $600,000 -- luxury real estate, and vacations that Kremlin foes say are far beyond the means of a civil servant. Peskov earned 36.7 million rubles ($552,500) in 2015, according to his declaration, up nearly fourfold from the 9.2 million he reported last year. His wife, 2006 Olympic ice dancing champion Tatiana Navka, earned 89 million rubles, according to the declaration. However modest Putin's official wealth may be, he does appear to have extremely rich relatives. The Russian version of Forbes magazine reported this week that Kirill Shamalov, widely reported to be Putin's son-in-law, has become Russia's youngest billionaire at the age of 34. Based on his official income, Putin also has a way to go to match the up to $2 billion that the Panama Papers tied to offshore companies held by Roldugin, reportedly a godfather to one of Putin's daughters. "He needs 17,000 years to earn as much as the cellist Roldugin did by busking in pedestrian underpasses," Russian Twitter user Sergei Guryanov quipped. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/a-man- of-modest-means-putin-says-he-made- just-133000-in-2015/27677602.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Military Registered Eight Ceasefire Violations in Syria Sputnik News 23:23 16.04.2016(updated 23:55 16.04.2016) The Russian center for Syrian reconciliation at the Hmeimim airbase registered a total of eight violations of the truce in Syria in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Two violations of the truce have been registered in Damascus, where militants of the Syrian Islamist group Jaish al-Islam carried out mortar shelling for two times, the ministry added. In total, the number of settlements participating in the ceasefire regime has reached 63, according to the bulletin. "The ceasefire regime has been observed in most provinces of the Syrian Arab Republic. Within last 24 hours, 8 ceasefire violations have been registered," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website. Syrian Army Repels Al-Nusra Front Attacks in Aleppo Syrian army repelled two attacks on its units by the al-Nusra Front militant group in Aleppo, while the militants continue their warfare in three Syrian provinces, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday. "Jabhat al-Nusra [Nusra Front] militants do not stop warfare against the government troops in the Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. Armed formations of Jabhat al-Nusra carried out two attacks against units of the government troops near Handrat (Aleppo). Units of the Syrian Armed Forces have repelled the attacks," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address SHARE Earths water masters recycling By Rachel Webber Dear Dr. Universe: Do we drink the same water dinosaurs drank? Sophia, 7 Dear Sophia: Yes. The water on our Earth today is the same water that's been here for nearly 5 billion years. Only a tiny bit of it has escaped out into space. As far as we know, new water hasn't formed either. That means there's a very high chance the water in your glass is what thirsty dinosaurs were gulping about 65 million years ago. It's possible that you could drink the same water as a stegosaurus or a T-rex because of the way water circulates around our planet. A dinosaur, you and I are actually part of this water cycle, too. As water on the surface of lakes, oceans and rivers warms up, it travels into the sky as very tiny droplets, or vapor. When the water vapor gets colder, it turns back to liquid to help form clouds. When the liquid gets so heavy it can't stay in the atmosphere anymore, it falls, or "precipitates," as rain, snow, sleet, hail or, my favorite, graupel. Once the precipitation reaches the ground or lands in lakes, oceans and rivers, the cycle continues. You, a dinosaur and I drink water, and eat foods that contain this water, too. It's so refreshing to lap it up from my bowl. We get rid of some water as fluids or gases, such as the ones we let out when we breathe. That's what I found out from my friend Kent Keller who investigates the water beneath Earth's surface. He's a geologist with Washington State University's School of the Environment. He said water also moves in ways we don't always think about. Scientists have found water trapped in minerals deep within the Earth's mantle and crust, he explained. This water is even older than dinosaurs. It doesn't look like liquid water that's in your glass, but it still made of the same stuff. "We've realized there is a lot of water down there," Keller said. "There's as much water chemically speaking, more or less, as there is in the oceans. It's just in a different form." Another place we find water from dinosaur days is in organic matter. When the dinosaurs died, their bodies broke down to become part of the Earth. Over time, some of this organic matter became shale, coal and oil we use for fuel. The water dinosaurs drank is in more than just the water we drink, minerals and organic matter. It's also what we use to shower, cook and water plants for food. Right now, Keller is visiting with fellow scientists at the Global Institute for Water Security in Saskatchewan, Canada. They are curious about how we'll take care of our water for the future. "Life as we know it every cell in every plant and animal is mostly water. To say it requires water is an understatement," Keller said. The water in your glass may be the same water dinosaurs drank, but it's also the same water that's going to keep life on our planet in the years to come. Send emails to Rachel Webber at Washington State University, Dr.Universe@wsu.edu or visit her website at askdruniverse.com. SHARE Students display talents during tour By Aubree Bailey As the winter chill fades, Cornerstone Christian School opens its doors. On March 29, the faith-based school that combines God and education hosted its annual spring open house. Students from the National Honor Society guided tours around the growing campus, and prospective families conversed with teachers and current students to gain more insight on the atmosphere and purpose of the institution. In the elementary building, the Parent Teacher Fellowship put on its annual spring book fair. Based on Psalm 47:7, the theme this year was "King of Our Jungle." A vast variety of Christian titles, devotionals and Bibles filled the artfully decorated library. By far the most crowded building, though, was the gym. The second- and third-grade classes performed their Live Museum. Each student acted as a different historical or biblical figure and prepared a short monologue outlining the life and achievements of their character. Bright backdrops and elaborate costumes added an imaginative touch to the transformed gymnasium. Other classes' projects were also displayed in the space, and the building was filled with terrific examples of the students' creativity and dedication. Preparing for TAPPS Another highlight of the spring approaches as the high school students prepare to compete in the annual TAPPS competitions. TAPPS (Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools) is similar to UIL and hosts statewide academic, music and art contests each school year. Cornerstone has had great success at these events in the past, and students have consistently placed in the top 10 in the categories of piano, writing, painting and yearbook, as well as others. This year, the school is sending representatives to vie for places in the science, math, speech, literary criticism, Spanish, spelling, music and general art divisions. The school staff anticipates seeing its students excel in these areas and prays for their safe travel throughout the semester. 3rd-quarter awards The recent Third Quarter Awards Ceremony also served as a demonstration of the students' excellence this season, and many elementary as well as secondary students received high academic marks and perfect attendance. This ceremony also served to recognize a handful of high school students on their high character and academic proficiency by presenting them with the ACSI Distinguished Christian Character Award. The Association of Christian Schools International accredits the school each year and seeks out students who show leadership and integrity as well as other traits and qualities. These students were selected by a panel of teachers and determined by the panel and association. Each quarter, the school strives to encourage students and show how proud they are of their hard work and achievements. Through out the busy spring, Cornerstone continues to be a place that fosters not only scholarly accomplishments but creativity and Christian character as well. Aubree Bailey is a student at Cornerstone Christian School. Pirelli is now edging close to finally sealing its new deal to stay in F1 beyond the end of this season. The deal with Bernie Ecclestone is already done for 2017 and beyond, but details over the next contract with the FIA have held up the rubber stamp. The biggest issues are over testing, with the Italian supplier demanding much more running in order to prepare bigger tyres for the much-faster cars of 2017. When asked how those talks are progressing, Pirelli's F1 chief Paul Hembery said in China: "I think we are moving forward. "At the beginning of next week the final decision will be taken, including a contract with the FIA." Indeed, obvious progress has been made in the Shanghai paddock, as it emerged that Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren-Honda and Williams have all put up their hands to modify 2015-spec test cars to simulate the speeds of 2017. Hembery confirmed that "five teams" have decided voluntarily to help with the 2017 tyre development, with the first test outing already tentatively pencilled in for "the end of July, around Hockenheim". And crucial wind tunnel tyres in 2017 specification have now been released to the teams, allowing design work to press ahead on the cars for next year. But that doesn't mean everyone is happy with Pirelli, with Romain Grosjean even calling the mandatory minimum tyre pressures imposed for Shanghai "ridiculous". "It's like a piece of wood, it's just not driveable," said the Haas driver. And Grosjean was not the only driver complaining, so Hembery said it is possible the mandatory pressures will be tweaked. "The process is that on Friday night we will get telemetry data from the teams, compare it with the results of computer simulation, and check to see if the prescribed pressure settings are correct," he said. (GMM) Haas, the new American team, has stepped up the tone of its rhetoric amid criticism of its close alliance with Ferrari. The team's two points finishes in Australia and Bahrain respectively have sparked controversy in the pitlane that driver Romain Grosjean brands as "jealousy". Technical boss Gunther Steiner, meanwhile, said Haas is doing nothing wrong by buying parts from Ferrari, declaring in Shanghai: "While people can express their views, I suggest everyone also reads the rules, as they are easily available." And now team founder Gene Haas has come out with an even stronger rejoinder to the critics, telling reporters in China the complaining is simply "sour grapes". "A lot of the teams at the back really don't know what competition is," he said. "They're getting maybe a little too fat and happy. "I guess there are a lot of whiners in F1 that talk about our success." Haas' final comment about "whiners" may also be a reference to none other than F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who told business journalist Christian Sylt recently that the new American squad's car is good "because it's a Ferrari". The French news agency AFP said Haas, 63, was even ready with a "sheet of paper detailing a list of parts his team makes itself". An insider told us the Californian is being very bold in facing down Ecclestone. "I've honestly never seen anything like that before and it made me think that success has gone to his head," the source told us. The source explained that the fact Haas has compiled a written list of the parts it makes for itself could be a sign he is "worried" about a potential challenge. "We never came into this (sport) to run at the back," Haas insisted. "If people don't like that then that's their problem, not my problem." (GMM) Jean Todt's predecessor says the Frenchman should put formula one back on the right track by having the current agreements challenged in court. Amid a poisonous political climate at present and fierce criticism of the sport's deadlocked governance processes and rules, current president Todt admitted in Bahrain recently that the FIA should have total control of F1. But he said Bernie Ecclestone's existing agreements with the Paris federation and the eleven competing teams do not expire until 2020. So if he behaves like a "dictator" and tears up the rules and the contracts, Todt tipped the FIA to be sued. "But I've been entrusted by 250 FIA members to be the president, so I cannot allow the FIA to be sued, and we would lose," said the Frenchman. But getting sued, argues Todt's much more brazen predecessor Max Mosley, is exactly what could steer F1 back onto the right track. "Todt is terrified of being sued," Mosley told London's Times newspaper. "But the only thing you can do is to go to litigation and arbitration. "Todt is all for peace and compromise but you have to be prepared to risk litigation or you can't do anything. You have to be prepared to go full steam ahead," he insisted. (GMM) Sebastian Vettel has played down speculation F1 drivers' anger at the political situation in the sport could lead to a strike. The response to the controversial letter penned recently by the drivers' association GPDA, in which the drivers hit out at F1's governance, was generally dismissive. F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, for instance, called the drivers "windbags", but Vettel was quoted by the German newsmagazine Focus as playing that down. "None of us takes that too seriously as he is known for always having a quote ready on his lips," said the Ferrari driver, who along with Alex Wurz is a GPDA director. "The debate must not be reduced to a single person," Vettel told Bild newspaper. But the other GPDA director, Jenson Button, seems less impressed, describing the backlash to the letter as "catty". "Our comments were correct and in the right manner," the McLaren driver insists. "It's up to people to reply in the right manner, and so far I haven't seen any of that." 18 of the current drivers made another stir on Wednesday this week by getting together in Shanghai for an ultra-rare collective dinner. "The current problems have united us (drivers) more than was the case with previous generations," said Vettel. But he played down the notion that the drivers might make their voices heard more loudly than ever by organising a strike or race boycott. Vettel insisted: "I don't believe that is an issue in the current situation." (GMM) Ferrari may be poised in China to secure its first victory of 2016. The red cars were first and second in Friday practice at the Shanghai circuit, and fast not only over a single lap but also in the crucial 'long runs'. Mercedes, whose Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton have won every grand prix since last September, say they are taking notice. "Ferrari is closer," a team engineer told Auto Motor und Sport. "On a lap it is now three tenths rather than six. And in race trim they are a real challenge." World champion Lewis Hamilton told Sky Italia: "It seems that we're going to have a bigger fight than we ever have, so it should be good for the fans." It could also be perfect timing for the Maranello team, whose demanding president Sergio Marchionne is planning to attend the Chinese grand prix on Sunday, according to Italy's Tuttosport. "We promise to earn more (money) and win in formula one," the Italian-Canadian said after a shareholders meeting in Amsterdam. "These things are sacred and non-negotiable," Marchionne insisted. Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, however, moved to ease some of that pressure by describing Mercedes as "the strongest team I have seen in the last ten years". But former F1 driver David Coulthard told the Telegraph: "Ferrari don't really have any excuses. They have done their restructuring, have all the budget in the world, and still don't quite seem to be there. "Now is their chance to prove us wrong," he said. (GMM) Daniel Ricciardo is on the front row of the grid in China because his Red Bull is "the best chassis" in 2016. That is the claim of the energy drink team's surly official Dr Helmut Marko, referring to Australian Ricciardo's surprise second place behind pole sitter Nico Rosberg in the damp qualifying session in Shanghai. "We didn't have it (Ricciardo's pace) on the radar," admitted Mercedes' Toto Wolff. "Ricciardo is a strong driver. And the car is also good. These conditions in particular seem to have suited them," he added. Even Marko doesn't disagree with that, admitting he would have liked the torrential conditions of morning practice to have carried over into qualifying. "Then we would have been on pole. For sure," the Austrian is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport. "Because we have the best chassis." Marko suggests, therefore, that only the Tag-Heuer branded Renault power unit is letting the team down, even though the mistakes of Ferrari's drivers helped with the result on Saturday. "The Ferrari drivers did not put their laps together," he admitted. (GMM) McLaren may not be Stoffel Vandoorne's only option to step up into a full-time race cockpit for 2017. The Belgian, strongly backed by the British team, made an impressive debut recently in Bahrain, where Fernando Alonso sat out the race with chest injuries. Spaniard Alonso is back in action this weekend, but 24-year-old Vandoorne, the reigning GP2 champion, made his point two weeks ago in Bahrain. "At this stage I don't think he (Vandoorne) has to prove anything more," McLaren team boss Eric Boullier said in China. "It's just a question of having an opportunity." That opportunity could come in 2017, with reports suggesting F1 veteran Jenson Button might have to switch to Williams in order to continue his long career. "This year I was already close to a permanent race seat," Vandoorne told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. "Right now it's too early to talk about 2017, but the coming months will be interesting," he said. "McLaren and some other teams have already expressed their interest in me." Vandoorne's talent and potential is being mentioned in similar tones to that of Max Verstappen, who is from the Netherlands. Verstappen said it would be good for another driver from a Benelux country to shine in F1. "It would be nice if we can dominate as drivers from the Lage Landen (low countries)," the 18-year-old said, before smiling: "But with me first and Stoffel in second place." (GMM) Jose Silvano Alvarez Jr. has been sitting in a cell in the Rockingham County Jail for 236 days. Charged with two counts of first-degree murder, he has only left his cell, which is no larger than 7 feet by 12 feet 2 inches, for four brief appearances in Rockingham County Superior Court. He waits to see if Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer will pursue the death penalty in the killings of Troy and LaDonna Moseley French and when he might stand trial on those charges. A hooded intruder broke into the Frenches house in the Bethany neighborhood near Reidsville in the early morning of Feb. 4, 2012, and shot them to death while their 19-year-old daughter, Whitley, watched from the stairs above. Investigators say that Jose Alvarez Jr., her brother-in-law, fired those shots before vanishing into the night. And the Frenches and the Moseleys, two beloved families in Rockingham County, have been waiting, too. They havent escaped their confinement of this case for 1,534 days. They waited 269 days for Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page to announce that investigators had found DNA in the Frenches house and that the gun used to shoot the couple had been registered to Troy French. They waited 999 days for investigators to connect that DNA to John Alvarez, now the husband of Whitley French and Joses younger brother. They waited another 291 days before the state crime lab matched that DNA to Jose Alvarez Jr. The families continue to wait for investigators to announce publicly that five drops of blood found on and around the stairs of the house led to the arrest of a man they had known for years. They waited. They talked. They heard whispers. They heard questions. Who had killed Troy and LaDonna French? Their first real answer came on Aug. 25, 2015, when investigators knocked on the doors of several family members and said they had made an arrest. That night, Blitzer and Page stood before the cameras and told the media. Then everything would come to a halt again. Everything but the questions. The Frenches, Moseleys and Elaine and Jose Alvarez Sr. all bound close by tragedy still wanted to know: Did he do it? Why? How? Did he act alone? Where was Troy Frenchs 9-mm Hi-Point handgun? How was Whitley injured that night? Three years ago I made a promise to the families of Troy and LaDonna French that the Rockingham County Sheriffs Office would not stop until an arrest was made in connection to the murder of their loved ones, Page said in front of TV cameras that night in August. Today we made good on that promise. Page and Blitzer declined to comment on many questions: What had led to the arrest of Jose Alvarez Jr.? When had they developed him as a suspect? Did he act alone? Did he break into the house or was he let in? How long was he considered a suspect? Did his DNA match what was found at the crime scene? Did Whitley or John Alvarez know he was involved? They also declined to comment on whether to expect more arrests. We notified four different family members throughout four different locations in the state East Carolina, Greensboro and two in Rockingham County, Blitzer said. The sheriff and I, Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Keeney and Captain (Tammy) Howell were at the Moseley address. They seemed to be relieved, had a lot of questions, like you all, which regrettably we cant answer questions in a pending case thats an ongoing investigation. Blitzer, who took over the case in January 2015 when he succeeded Phil Berger Jr. as the district attorney, did answer one key question about Alvarez Jr.s participation in the double homicide: We dont need a motive, but we have not developed a motive at this time. Page, sheriff for 18 years, also told reporters that this was a case on which he had dwelled. Each day when you get up and each night when you go to bed and youre thinking about a case and the impact it has had on a community, on the county, across the state, it feels good that someone is brought to justice on this, Page said. But again our job is not done. We still have information were going to continue to work. The case is still open until weve exhausted all other information. I would think also making an arrest today also would put some relief on the community that the person involved who lived in the community, or previously lived in the community, has been taken into custody in a serious case. I would think that there are some persons throughout the community that are relieved to know this information, too. And that was it. The lights went out. Judges sealed records. Investigators dodged questions. Witnesses and experts in various locations went mum. Officials said they would release details at the appropriate time. That time hasnt come. Page, an imposing figure known for his political ambition, his steel-handed control of law enforcement and a love for appearing on camera, is oddly quiet. His spokesman, Kevin Suthard, said the sheriff is denying all interview requests about the French homicides. Amid those many questions and dearth of answers, the fourth anniversary of one of Rockingham Countys most analyzed crimes in modern history came and went Feb. 4. Troy and LaDonna Frenchs granite gravestone is visible along Brown Road in the first row of markers at Sharon Baptist Church. Their burial site is just a mile from where she grew up on property owned for generations by members of her family. The skies were streaked with clouds much like it was the day they were killed in 2012. The sun rose and peeked through gray. This time, instead of illuminating a crime that had just taken place, it shone on the victims graves. A flock of seagulls sat in a nearby field until a light, chilly breeze sent them soaring above the churchs cemetery. Nearby a woman who lived across the street from the cemetery in the close-knit community of Bethany and who had watched LaDonna Moseley grow up looked up at the birds before turning to look at the graves. Were still waitingon closure, she said quietly. The arrest of Jose Alvarez Jr., 29, has done little to explain the unthinkable. It could be that this guy acted alone, but we just dont know, said Craig French, Troys younger brother. Were going to find out, but we dont know when. He said a hundred different theories of what might have happened and who is responsible still plague him. LaDonna Frenchs parents, Donald and Nancy Moseley, both in their 80s, she confined to a motorized cart for transportation, continue to pray that peace comes during their lifetimes. They recently placed their own tombstone next to their daughter and son-in-laws marker. Their birthdates are present, but a spot is left blank for the dates of their deaths. Shortly after 8 a.m. on the anniversary, the Moseleys drove past the cemetery and slowed but did not stop. Its something the Moseleys see every morning when they drive the 11 miles into Reidsville. On this morning an arrangement of artificial poinsettias sat in a vase that divides LaDonnas name from her husbands beneath a shared, medium-sized, gray, granite monument. The Moseleys headstone, to its left, is nearly identical, except for the words across its bottom: God is good. Thats a philosophy to which family members cling as they await their answers, a binding strength during all these years of waiting. He (God) is not caught (surprised) by anything, said Lisa French Moore, Troy Frenchs younger sister. Nothing surprises him, and that was a main staple for us to work through this. Craig French said the families are at peace knowing their loved ones are in heaven. These deaths also have left them fractured. Grandparents on both sides see their loved ones in the faces of Whitley French Alvarez and Hunter French, the children of Troy and LaDonna. Theyve watched as Hunter and Whitley have navigated their teens and early adult years without their mother or father. This is the time in life that I need advice about life and what choices to make about money and school, Whitley French said during an interview in 2012, about six months after the shootings. And there are those nagging questions: Why would Jose Alvarez Jr. want to kill Troy and LaDonna French? Who, if anyone, helped him? Some family members have been outspoken in their theories, which has caused friction between the Frenches and the Moseleys. I think everyone is on edge wanting to know why, Craig French said. Thats the biggest thing, and thats going to make your emotions run one way or another. But those differences havent kept the families apart. I wouldnt let that happen, Troys mother, Ann French-Faucette, said. In May 2015, just months before Jose Alvarez Jr.s arrest, the three families celebrated the marriage of Whitley French and John Alvarez. Her younger brother gave her away. Jose Alvarez Jr. served as a groomsman. After the arrest, members of all three families sat, wept and embraced during court hearings. Hunter Frenchs Eagle Scout Award ceremony on Nov. 8, 2015, again brought together the Moseleys, Frenches and John Alvarez at Reidsville Christian Church. They always feel Troy and LaDonna Frenchs absence at gatherings such as this one. I definitely would have wanted my dad here to see me, Hunter French, 18, said following his ceremony. I know theyre watching me now, and theyre proud of me. Hunter French, a poised high school student thrust into the spotlight by the brutal deaths of his parents, chose not to talk about the homicides, but he continues to honor both his mother and father by fulfilling wishes they had for him. Troy French never earned his Eagle Scout award. He told Hunters troop committee chairman, Tim Underwood, that he wanted to help his son and any other boys in the troop achieve that honor, which takes several years. A month before Troy was killed, father and son planned Hunters Eagle Scout project, an idea that would incorporate their love of sports and Rockingham County High School, where Troy and LaDonna had fallen in love. Hunter didnt complete his project a heated ticket booth for the baseball team at Rockingham County until he turned 18. I wanted to do something that honored my parents at Rockingham, he said. A plaque on the booth dedicates his project to his slain parents. Thank you, Troy and LaDonna, for the part you played in Hunters life, Underwood said during the presentation. You might not be with us now, but you live on with us. Hunter presented pins meant for an Eagle Scouts parents to Nancy and Donald Moseley, who helped him complete the project. Normally stoic, Donald Moseleys eyes filled with tears. I wish his mom and dad were here, he said. They would have been tickled to death. Since that ceremony, prosecutors have brought Jose Alvarez Jr. into court only twice, once for a hearing to address how investigators would handle evidence going forward, another when Blitzer sought a judges order to keep the News & Record from obtaining a copy of the 911 call from the night of the murders. Each time he has sat quietly at the defense table, next to Vincent Rabil, a longtime attorney from Winston-Salem appointed by the Capital Defenders Office to defend him. He wears a tan, jail-issued jump suit, his hands and feet shackled. Recently he has started to wear heavy black-rimmed glasses. The dark hair on his slightly balding scalp is in need of a trim. He doesnt say a word or show emotion and listens as Rabil whispers to him what is happening. In the meantime, Page and his investigators continue to compile information as Blitzer searches through evidence, looking for enough proof for a jury to find Alvarez guilty and perhaps sentence him to death. Alvarez has not entered a plea, and the case is on no specific judges docket. From what is known publicly, Blitzer, despite having stated he has no motive, has connected Alvarez to the crime scene through the blood drops gathered in the hours immediately following the shootings. Rabil said he and the prosecutor are working together to conclude the case. There has been a flow of discovery evidence between them. Neither will say whether there is a plea deal on the table. The Frenches, Moseleys and Alvarezes wait. There could be a trial that might not begin for months or even years. The transitions of life wont wait for that day. Whitley French Alvarez has declined all requests for comment about her parents deaths. French-Faucette said Whitley has trouble talking to anyone, at this point, about the double homicide she witnessed. She is reluctant to return to the house on Pinewood Road. In May she will graduate with honors from East Carolina University with a degree in nursing and plans to move, with her husband, John, to Fort Worth, Texas, where she has been hired at Cook Childrens Medical Center, a trauma hospital. A month later, Hunter French will graduate from Greensboro Day School. He plans to attend a community college in Wilmington while he decides his major. He has spent the past year living with Faye and Carl Stone, his great aunt and uncle, after moving among various family households. The Frenches and Moseleys see their pain. They hear their worries. They feel the same despair. All of them rely on their faith and love of one another to guide them through. French-Faucette married a long-time friend without her son there to see it. Craig French has had to learn to enjoy golf and movies without hearing his big brothers laugh. Hes home with the Lord, but hes not here with us, Craig French said. A Bible verse at the bottom of Troy and LaDonna Frenchs monument reminds that the separation is temporary. It reads: Thus we will always be with the Lord. The second half of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, missing from the granite, sets a meeting place for Troy and LaDonna Frenchs loved ones: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. As a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, I am the employer of Sens. Burr and Tillis and they are my employees. They are expected to perform the duties assigned to them by the job description cited above. The president has done his job by nominating a person to become the next member of the Supreme Court. Now it is incumbent on senators to perform their duty, by either denying or confirming that appointment. Burr and Tillis must insist that the Senate hold hearings on the nominee, and vote him up or down. Do not try to tell me that the people must be heard: 65 million of us already spoke when we elected Obama. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory muscled through HB 2, an inflammatory law claiming to protect North Carolina children from possible assault by transgendered people in public restrooms. Few Democrats supported the bill. The logic for the so-called Bathroom Bill rests on nothing apart from ignorance and bigotry. To my chagrin, HB 2 became front-page news for several days as I traveled out of state, and I was questioned as to why North Carolina is so regressive and disinterested in civil rights. The economic fallout of McCrorys decision has been swift and damaging. In a stroke of revealing irony, federal prosecutors soon reported that former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert abused at least four boys. If any of these conservative homophobes are interested in protecting children from sexual assault, perhaps they might begin by policing Senate restrooms and their own political role models, given the very real chance they might encounter a predator within their closest ranks. Cynthia Adams Greensboro As we live more of our lives online, the companies we trust with our digital secrets are increasingly clashing with authorities who want access to the messages, pictures, financial records and other data we accumulate in electronic form. Microsoft opened a new front in the battle over digital privacy this week, suing the Justice Department over its use of court orders requiring the company to turn over customer files stored in its computer centers often without notifying the customer involved. Its the latest in a series of legal challenges brought by Microsoft and some of its leading competitors. Apple recently fought a high-profile battle over the FBIs demand for help unlocking an encrypted iPhone in San Bernardino, Calif., and its continuing to challenge similar demands in other cases. Other companies, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo, have increased their use of encryption. Theyve also sued for the right to report how often authorities demand customer information under national security laws, after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of government data-gathering efforts. Privacy advocates have applauded those moves, while authorities complain they could stymie legitimate investigations. But those legal maneuvers may benefit the companies as well as their customers. In the wake of Snowdens revelations and high-profile hacking attacks, tech firms want to reassure customers their information is safe. Privacy is an economic good at this point, said Jennifer Daskal, a former Justice Department attorney who now teaches law at American University in Washington, D.C. Its good for business because consumers care about it. So the companies are competing over being privacy protective. Many tech companies make money directly from customer information, of course, by selling advertising targeted to their users interests and behavior. While some privacy advocates have criticized those practices, others note thats different from handing over information to authorities who have the power to put people in jail. In the latest case, Microsoft Corp. says the U.S. Justice Department is using a decades-old law to obtain court orders for customers data, while in some cases prohibiting the company from notifying the customer. Microsoft says those non-disclosure orders violate its constitutional right to free speech, as well as its customers protection against unreasonable searches. Microsoft is also fighting a court battle in New York over the governments demand for emails of a non-U.S. citizen that the company has stored in a data center located in Ireland. Microsoft President Brad Smith has argued the case could open the door to other governments demanding information stored in the United States. As people and businesses store more information on their electronic gadgets, or online in corporate data centers, these companies are increasingly the intermediary between the government and our own privacy, said Daskal. One former federal official was critical of Microsofts latest lawsuit. Daniel D.J. Rosenthal, a former Justice Department lawyer, said it could lead to warning child molesters, domestic abusers, violent criminals and terrorists that theyre being investigated. But authorities are required to disclose most search warrants for information stored in filing cabinets, safes or other physical locations, as Microsoft notes in its lawsuit. With more people storing data online, the company contends the government is exploiting that trend as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations. The company understands the need for secrecy in some cases, Smith added in a statement. But based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in specific facts that truly demand secrecy. To the contrary, it appears that the issuance of secrecy orders has become too routine. Microsofts business customers regularly convey to us their strong desire to know when the government is obtaining their data, Smith said, while adding that individual customers should have the same right. The Redmond, Wash.-based company says authorities used the 1986 law, known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, to demand customer information more than 5,600 times in the last 18 months. In nearly half those cases, a court ordered the company to keep the demand secret and, in about 1,750 cases, those gag orders were indefinite. In recent years, the tech industry and civil liberties groups have pressed Congress to reform several aspects of the law, which they say is outdated, but previous attempts have stalled. Hopefully this litigation will either produce a ruling or it will spur Congress to act, said Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Microsofts move was also praised by Aaron Levie, the CEO of online data storage company Box. In a statement, Levie said his company has been expanding its encrypted storage services to give customers more control over their data. Levie added: We also fully support Microsofts effort to require more transparency in government data requests and the governments full observance of the protections guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. GREENWICH Private donors have responded to funding troubles at Safe Rides, enabling the program, which provides weekend rides to Greenwich teenagers who dont have safe transportation home, to continue. So far $10,000 has been pledged to the Transportation Association of Greenwich, which operates Safe Rides, after operating funds for next year were left out of the town budget. TAG had requested an allocation of $18,000 for 2016-17. Unfortunately due to communication issues the request for money in the budget did not get transmitted, said First Selectman Peter Tesei. That left the future of the program in doubt. James Boutelle, TAGs executive director, had said it would be a major challenge to keep Safe Rides going next year without town money to pay for insurance, fuel and other expenses. It appears the program, with the help of town officials, will try to cover next years costs through private funding. Tesei donated $2,000 of his unused campaign funds left from his reelection last fall to TAG to be used for Safe Rides. Certainly the BET can appropriate up to $5,000 without going to the Representative Town Meeting but my preference is to seek out additional private funding, Tesei said. If in fact this program is going to sustain itself it will require broad citizen support and support from the community that uses it, which is our young people. Also contributing last week was former Republican Town Committee Chairman Ed Dadakis, who gave the organization $8,000 through his foundation. This is an incentive grant and we hope that this will inspire people to raise whatever other money they need however they can, Dadakis said. Dadakis Excelerate Foundation has been in place for close to 10 years. He said its goal is to give money to organizations where the grant will have a big impact even if its not a lot of money. Other local organizations that have received Excelerate Foundation grants include the Greenwich Emergency Medical Service, the Boy Scouts and Community Centers Inc. Dadakis said he wanted to support Safe Rides for two reasons, the first being that it can protect Greenwich youths from making the mistake of driving when theyve been drinking. Its important for kids to have that safe haven where they can get a safe ride home and not have to worry about mom or dad, Dadakis said. You dont want there to be a situation where a teen is at a party and knows theyve had too much to drink but theyre afraid of calling their parents because they dont want to get in trouble so they get behind the wheel. Dadakis said he also supported the organization because of what it can teach Greenwichs youth. This is an organization thats for Greenwichs youth and its run by Greenwichs youth, Dadakis said. It really fosters a sense of ownership and innovation that I think serves the kids in this town very well. Peter Negrea, president of Safe Rides and a Greenwich High School student, said he was pleased to see the money coming in to keep the program going not just through the rest of the school year, especially with prom and graduation coming up, but into next year as well. Negrea and other student leaders in the organization had urged the Board of Estimate and Taxation to restore funding for Safe Rides in next years budget. When that didnt happen, they worked to publicize the problem. I think its phenomenal, Negrea said on Friday. He said he was thrilled by the response because it shows the support in place for Safe Rides. But he said he was not taking his attention off the bigger picture. Its still very important that we dont forget that we are going to need town support for this eventually, Negrea said. To close the remaining gap for next year, Tesei said he had met with Negrea and Youth Services Coordinator Jenny Byxbee about a plan to find 16 people to give $500. That would produce the remaining $8,000 needed. Maybe the students will be able to pick up one sixteenth of that with $500, Tesei said. We can resolve the issue for the year ahead. Thats not to say theres not going to be further discussions about the town contributing to it through our external entities budget but at least we will be able to sustain the program going forward. Negrea is set to graduate in June but said he is confident in the direction of the program. I have no doubt that they are going to keep pushing this forward and get this program to where it needs to be, he said. Donations earmarked for Safe Rides can be made to TAG. More information is available at http://www.ridetag.org/. kborsuk@scni.com GREENWICH School officials have scheduled a public meeting on school start times for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club. Tuesdays meeting will be the third of three forums held in the past two weeks to get community input on the eight scheduling options that school officials are considering. It will include a video replay of school officials presentation at the April 6 meeting at Central Middle School and then a public-comment section. Its important for the stakeholders to weigh in on the proposed options, and the board is appreciative of all the feedback, Board of Education Chairman Laura Erickson said. Superintendent of Schools William McKersie makes his recommendation on start times at the school boards May 12 meeting at North Street School. The Board of Education will then vote on his recommendation at their June 14 meeting at New Lebanon School. Many students and parents want later start times at Greenwich High School and the districts three middle schools because they say later schedules will help students get more sleep. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends secondary students not start classes before 8:30 a.m. Greenwich High and the middle schools respectively begin at 7:30 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. But some of the options would involve elementary children starting as early as 7:30 a.m., a scenario that many parents have said would cut into their childrens sleep. At the same time, a number of working parents of young children said they do not want late starts around 9 a.m., for instance because such timetables would complicate their morning child-care arrangements. There are also two forums scheduled between McKersies May 12 recommendation and the boards scheduled June 16 vote on start times. Parents and other community members can also comment on school schedules at the school boards April 21 meeting at Riverside School and May 26 meeting at Western Middle School. pschott@scni.com; 203-625-4439; twitter: @paulschott While several local Republican politicians and bigwigs have expressed their intention to either outright support or consider supporting the truly horrifying con artist Donald Trump for president, not every GOPer feels the same way. And while itll be interesting to see if these supporters will pro-actively agitate for a Trump nomination at a contested convention, at least it will show us their true colors. Either they actually agree with Trumps despicable positions, or theyre simply sheep. The old canard says Democrats fall in love, but Republicans fall in line. So hopefully most Republicans in the Greenwichtocracy arent mini-Trumps themselves, but are simply doing what comes naturally, following the front-runner. But enough about Trump. Lets talk about the guy who just because hes not Trump or Ted Cruz is considered the reasonable one. Remember how the Beatles were characterized with Paul being The Cute One, John was The Smart One, George, The Quiet One. Ringo was, I believe, The Other One, but whatever. In actuality, Paul was pretty smart himself and George was never really quiet when he was passionate about something. But we have this need to pigeonhole people and give them labels that might help us understand them better. So while Trump and Cruz are the Worst One and the Worser One, John Kasich, because we desperately need to believe we have a full spectrum of candidates to choose from, is The Reasonable One. Haiti - FLASH : 7.8 Earthquake in Ecuador where about 30,000 Haitians live Saturday at 6:58 p.m. local time, a violent 7.8 magnitude earthquake whose epicenter was located off the Pacific, at a depth of 20 km shaken Ecuador. According to a provisional assessment (Sunday morning) there are at least 100 victims, more than 600 injured and extensive damage in the southwest of the country, until more distant places like Guayaquil. This is the most violent earthquake that Ecuador has experienced since 1979. Recall that nearly 30,000 Haitians live in Ecuador according to the latest estimates and whose families, relatives and friends are worried in Haiti because they are without news. The Embassy of Haiti in Ecuador informs that through its crisis cell, together with local authorities it receives all important information about the safety and the situation of Haitians affected by the terrible earthquake. The Embassy of Haiti in Ecuador "asks the Haitian community to remain vigilant and observe the councils and actions of the authorities. The crisis cell ask all compatriots living in Ecuador to kindly contact us and inform us of any urgent situations regarding those affected by the earthquake. Please contact in Ecuador the : 022547565 or 0991890878" HL/ SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - DR : Development of the border, 200,000 jobs over 10 years... Friday, the Binational Economic Council Quisqueya (CEBQ) presented its development project for the Haitiaon-Dominican border at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution devoted exclusively to the private sector belonging to the Group of the World Bank. As part of the activity "Private Sector Solutions in a complex market", in which were presented several projects at an international level, Fernando Capellan and Juan Bautista Vicini, leaders of the Economic Council Binational Quisqueya on the side of Dominican Republic, explained how the border development project, simultaneously creates the conditions for progress for its inhabitants. "The decision to invest in Haiti was a logical decision based on the benefits of the Dominican Republic with respect to the Hope-Help legislation. The Industrial Development Company, currently has 8,000 employees to its workforce and we believe that for the next 10 years, we can create 200,000 jobs. Therefore, we would like the World Bank is preparing to evaluate the needs on the border and help us to face them," declared Fernando Capellan President of the CODEVI, textile manufacturing company located in Ouanaminthe and part of the project CEBQ. Juan Bautista Vicini, for his part has focused on the need to create employment opportunities in the Dominican Republic and Haiti for the next 25 years. "Population growth in both countries is a fact, investing in the border, this is the best way to create opportunities and improve the living conditions of the population of both countries. We are currently conducting a large investment project and we would like the World Bank accompanies us in this project. If the World Bank deals with issues such as health and water, us, we will do the rest," indicated the Dominican businessman. SL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2016/04/17 | Source Centre Pompidou in Paris (file photo) Advertisement Centre Pompidou in Paris, Europe's biggest modern art museum, will open a pop-up space in Seoul in March next year. The man in charge will be Seo Soon-ju, who is known for his successful planning of large-scale exhibitions of Picasso, Monet and Gauguin. "We got the proposal from the Centre Pompidou two years ago and started preparing, and we recently confirmed the opening date in March next year", Seo told the Chosun Ilbo on Sunday. "Prior to the official opening, we will hold other special exhibitions including a collection of some 100 works owned by Pompidou such as Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, and Matisse". "Although it is a private initiative, the matter was discussed by the French government and the president, Francois Hollande, during his visit to Korea last November, when he was accompanied by Serge Lasvignes, the head of the Pompidou", the U.K.'s Art Newspaper reported last week. Starting with the Centre Pompidou Metz in France in 2010, the museum has been active in setting up temporary exhibition spaces around the world. Malaga in Spain hosted the first Centre Pompidou outside of France last year, and will stay open for five years initially, with the possibility of an extension. "The initial plan is to run the Seoul center for five years like the one in Malaga, but we're thinking about renewing the contract already because the Centre Pompidou takes Seoul seriously as a platform for worldwide expansion", Seo said. Published on 2016/04/17 | Source Six out of 10 office workers are being inconvenienced by their bosses or colleagues because their smartphone rings constantly even when they have left work for the day. Advertisement In an online survey by the Korea Press Foundation of 1,040 salaried people between 20 and 59, some 62.3 percent said their life is being made more inconvenient by smartphones. Work-related calls from colleagues or superiors often disrupt their evenings. Only 37.7 percent said their life has been made easier by smartphones. The most inconvenient thing for 57.8 percent of the respondents was mobile messengers like KakaoTalk, followed by social media with 23.1 percent, calls and texts with 17.3 percent, and emails with two percent. Some 74.9 percent admitted they have intentionally not checked their messengers to avoid work-related hassle out of hours. In France there are efforts to draft a bill on the right to disconnect outside working hours, and a whopping 85 percent of the respondents here welcomed the idea. But over half believe that would be ineffective even if it became law. Published on 2016/04/17 | Source /Yonhap North Korea operates around 130 restaurants around the world and earns around US$40 million a year from those businesses each year, intelligence agencies estimate. Advertisement Around 90 of them are in China, nine in Russia, seven in Cambodia and four in Vietnam. Their number has increased recently as various North Korean agencies competed to raise foreign currency after Kim Jong-un came to power. Each restaurant hands over around $300,000 a year to the regime, so they are de facto fronts for the state to generate funds for the nuclear and other weapons programs. North Korean authorities usually select staff from among the children and relatives of party or military officials. They are usually young women with training in dancing and music. One high-ranking North Korean official who defected to South Korea said, "The workers are chosen among the children or relatives of families in good standing because they are believed to be less vulnerable to being influenced by the outside world". But as demand for pretty young women increased, they have been drawn from a wider pool with less emphasis on family background. They work under strict surveillance just like other North Koreans laborers abroad, living in collective accommodation and prevented from traveling freely in their host country. If they do leave their quarters they must travel in groups of three or four and are not allowed to use mobile phones. They earn anywhere between $150 and $500 a month depending on how well they can dance and play an instrument. They also get tips, so their income is relatively high by North Korean standards, which makes the positions a dream job for many young people. Published on 2016/04/17 | Source Koreans seem as addicted as ever to status symbols, bucking global market trends by snapping up luxury watches. Advertisement According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, its exports plunged 3.3 percent last year compared to 2014 to 21.8 billion Swiss francs. Shipments to Hong Kong, the world's largest market, slumped 23 percent, and to the U.S. and China between one and five percent. Sales to Japan, the world's fifth-largest market, also fell 1.9 percent. But exports to Korea surged a whopping 18.8 percent in 2014 and another 0.2 percent last year. Lotte, Hyundai and Shinsegae department stores saw sales of luxury watches surge 20 to 30 percent last year and 30 to 40 percent in the first two months of this year on-year. One factor is the rise in the number of Chinese tourists who go shopping here, but Korean customers still accounted for 80 to 90 percent of luxury watch sales. Test Market Swiss watchmakers naturally keep a keen eye on Korea. Jaeger Le-Coultre, whose entry-level watches cost a cool W8-9 million, unveiled a W370 million watch in March and chose Hyundai Department Store as its first outlet (US$1=W1,147). And more Swiss watchmakers are setting up shop in Korea. Panerai opened a flagship store in Seoul last month and CEO Angelo Bonati visited Korea to attend the event. Breguet, which has not opened any new stores since 2010, opened one in February at Shinsegae Department Store in Gangnam. Piaget and Audemars Piguet also opened new stores at Shinsegae in Gangnam, their first since 2014. Yoo Tae-young at Hyundai Department Store said, "Luxury watchmakers used to consider Europe, the U.S., China and Japan their major markets, but private consumption in China is slowing and Beijing is cracking down on corruption. As a result, Korea is emerging as a major market in Asia". Ready Cash And younger customers are increasingly keen. In 2012, 23.6 percent of luxury watch buyers at Hyundai Department Store were in their 20s and 30s, rising to 30.4 percent last year. "Younger customers usually buy entry-level brands like Tag Heuer, which cost W3-5 million, or IWC, which cost W8-10 million", said Oh Myung-hoon at Lotte Department Store. Jang Hye-jin at Shinsegae said, "The usual course of luxury brand consumption starts with high-end handbags, followed by clothes, watches and finally jewelry, and consumers in their 20s and 30s these days have few qualms about buying expensive products since they can save on other things". Statistics show 90 percent of high-end watch buyers are men, but the number of female customers is rising as well. One advantage is that luxury brand watches can be readily exchanged for cash. Kim Ji-young at Complete K, a company specializing in high-end product marketing, said, "Watches and jewelry often rise in value over time, so they're popular in a recession". Published on 2016/04/17 | Source Actress Shim Eun-ha (left) congratulates her husband Ji Sang-wook at his campaign office in Seoul early Thursday morning. /Yonhap Advertisement Candidates who brought a famous wife, child or other relative with them on the stump were not always guaranteed a win in Wednesday's general elections. For some it went well. Actress Shim Eun-ha's husband Ji Sang-wook won his seat for the Saenuri Party in Seoul's Jung district. Shim cast her ballot alongside her husband and stood by him at a party office in central Seoul as the votes were being counted, and he duly thanked her for her support. Actress Lee Young-ae canvassed for Saenuri candidate Chung Jin-seok, who won in South Chungcheong Province for the fourth time. Chung is the uncle of Lee's husband. Actress Lee Young-ae (left) visits Gongju in South Chungcheong Province to help a relative's election campaign on Monday. /Yonhap Minjoo Party lawmaker Moon Hee-sang got a campaign boost from his niece, former Miss Korea and actress Lee Hanee, who had also gone on the stump with him in the 2008 and 2012 general elections. From left, Shim Eun-ha, Lee Young-ae, Kim Kyung-ran and Song Il-kook But ex-KBS presenter Kim Kyung-ran's husband Kim Sang-min, who ran for Saenuri, lost to his rival in Suwon although she went along to her husband's rallies. And Saenuri Party lawmaker Kim Eul-dong, whose son is actor Song Il-kook, lost her seat. Published on 2016/04/17 | Source The U.S. State Department in an annual human rights report Wednesday slammed Seoul's plan to force government-authored history textbooks on schools. Advertisement "A government plan to end middle and high schools' right to choose Korean history textbook raised concerns about academic freedom", the 2015 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices note. "This would end the right of schools, since 2010, to choose from a range of textbooks approved by the ministry". The government here claims official textbooks are needed because those currently available display intolerable leftwing bias, but it has failed to convince critics that it will not replace it with rightwing bias. Other human rights concerns in Korea are "government interpretation of the National Security Law, libel laws, and other laws to limit freedom of speech and expression... and the continued jailing of conscientious objectors to military service", it says. The criticism comes after a failed attempt by prosecutors to imprison a Japanese reporter for allegedly libeling President Park Geun-hye. The report mentions endemic bullying and hazing in military barracks. It also finds fault with bureaucratic corruption and discrimination against defectors from North Korea, LGBTI persons, HIV/AIDS patients and foreigners. Read this article in Korean Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby. 09:00, 23 OCT 2022 The term "breakfast nook" sounds hopelessly trapped in the 1970s, but modern homeowners are embracing the style and practicality of built-in seating in the kitchen. "The idea of the built-in, with the kids piled in it and the pillows" can bring the casual fun of a beach house or farmhouse to any home, says Massachusetts-based interior designer Kristina Crestin, featured this season on "This Old House." Maxwell Ryan, founder of ApartmentTherapy.com, says built-in kitchen seating can maximize space in smaller kitchens and highlight a great window view. It can even become the most distinctive design ele-ment in your home. "People, especially children, will gravitate toward it," Ryan says. "Who doesn't like to get a booth at the diner over a table?" Practical and Pretty For homeowners with an open-plan kitchen, built-in seating creates a cozy gathering place that functions like a formal dining room but is right in the heart of the cooking and socializing. In smaller kitchens, a nook allows the dining table to be positioned along a wall or in a corner without looking as if it were stuffed awkwardly out of the way. Built-ins also offer lots of space for storage. "The space underneath a built-in banquette is ripe with possibilities," says stylist and crafter Marianne Canada, host of the "HGTV Crafternoon" web series. Closed cabinets can be designed to match your exist-ing cabinetry, or you can add open shelving, she says, to "add texture with baskets, show off your cook-book collection, even use it to store large ceramic bowls that take up too much cabinet space." Just be sure the design of the built-in seating area matches the architecture of the rest of the house, says Crestin. Sketch out what you want and plan carefully before starting construction. If the breakfast nook will include a window, she says, consider the height of the sill and whether it will hit the backs of people seated along the wall. Also, be sure to use a pedestal table so you're not bumping into table legs when sliding into the seats. Cool Variations If you can't commit to a fully built-in breakfast area or if you worry your kitchen will look too much like a roadside diner Canada suggests adding a banquette to just one side of the kitchen dining area. "This gives you the best of both worlds," she says, "an architectural feature that provides storage and easy seating, and the opportunity to mix things up with chairs." This approach is cheaper to build and easier to remove if you want something different later. One popular option: Extend the bench the entire length of one wall, installing open or closed storage un-derneath. "A table at one end for kitchen dining, general seating for those times when everyone ends up in the kitchen, and a space near the door that serves as a landing area for shoes, backpacks and jackets," Canada says. "Add some hooks above the bench, and baskets below, and you'll find that clutter disappears effortlessly." Fabrics One big draw of built-in kitchen seating is the softness and color of the cushions and pillows. A tip from Crestin: Invest in high-quality fabric in a pattern and colors that are neutral enough you can love them for years to come. Then get really creative with fabrics for loose pillows, spending a bit less so you can swap those out seasonally for new ones when the urge strikes. To highlight the fabrics you've chosen, Ryan painting the backrest area behind the seating in a coordinating color. "You can easily swap out the fabric on the seat or the paint on the backrest anytime you want to shake up your kitchen decor," he says. And here's a secret: If you love this look but want to avoid the commitment and cost of real built-in seating, you can create a faux version. Ryan suggests installing a large upholstered bench along one wall and painting the wall around it with semi-gloss paint (easily wiped clean) to highlight the space. Add pillows and you've got a perfectly cozy space where guests can lean back and enjoy your kitchen. Passover begins at dusk on Friday, April 22. Acknowledged and celebrated worldwide by Jews for more than 3,000 years, the communal event will rise to the fore right here in Bristol. Rabbi Arthur Rutberg invites the community to attend BNai Sholom Community Seder on April 22 at Bnai Sholom Congregation in Bristol, Tennessee. Everyones invited. Jews, Christians, Muslims whomever, come one and come all to herald Gods freeing of Jewish people from the bondage of Egyptian-imposed slavery in about 1300 BCE. I do look forward to Passover, said Rutberg, the spiritual leader of Bristols century-old BNai Sholom Congregation for nearly a year. I enjoy the Seder. Recognition includes empathy relative to the Jewish Passover. Look to the Torah. The law of God as re-vealed to Moses, the Torah includes the Ten Commandments and is considered the most important text in Judaism. So imagine the exodus of Jews from slavery and Egypt to freedom. Its a commandment in the Torah, Rutberg said. We are to imagine what it was like to have been a slave, to be a foreign entity forced into slavery, building the bricks, building the bricks and getting nothing. Then to be freed. Its part of the process. Empathy coupled with imagination through acknowledgement leads to the Passover Seder. Its critical, Rutberg said. Rutberg will lead Bnail Sholom Congregations Passover Seder beginning at 7 p.m. An important aspect thereof includes the reading of the Haggadah. The Haggadah is the telling of the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt. The reading of the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills a commandment to all Jews to pass along from generation to generation the story of Jewish liberation from the bonds of Egyptian slavery. Whoever is the leader of the Seder will tell the story of the Haggadah, Rutberg said. Everyone will have a copy. Rutberg will read from the story, but so will other people in attendance. Exactly, he said. Its a shared experience. Such aspects adhere to the fact that the Passover Seder can be either a familial or community event. Well light candles and say the first blessing over the first cup of wine, Rutberg said. Then shortly af-terward, we do a ritual dipping of parsley into salt water. Parsley, chosen from the Seder plate from which six items symbolize various aspects of the Jewish exo-dus, represents spring. Gods liberation of Jews from bondage occurred during spring. Then well do the matzo (unleavened flatbread). Ill break the matzo and hide it, Rutberg said. Some kid or kids will ask four questions, which begins the story. Attention to details of tradition run throughout the Seder. In the story, Ill tell about the 10 plagues, Rutberg said. Well use our pinky finger and take 10 drops of wine out of the cup. Again, symbolism. Were showing that were lessening our joy as the result of their suffering, Rutberg said. Music will filter through the Seder at various intervals, including after the retrieval of 10 drops of wine. Well sing a song in Hebrew that says, God, if only you took us out of Egypt, then wed have been OK with that, Rutberg said. But God gave us Jerusalem, the holy temple and more. The song, Dayenu, stands as one of the more popular Hebrew songs performed during Passover. When its done, we eat the ritual foods (herbs, matzo, etc.), Rutberg said. Shortly thereafter, the meal is served. Items on the menu include salmon, potatoes, matzo ball soup, ge-filte fish, cheese frittata, honey-glazed carrots, couscous with mushrooms and roasted tomatoes, desserts and more. Once the meal is over, Rutberg said, a child finds the hidden piece of matzo, which is the afikoman, which means it comes after the meal. For practicing Jews, Passover equates to one of the most important holidays of the year. Its family and its faith, acknowledgement of and a passing forth of the past. Its community and commandment-fulfilling all in one event. If its not the most important, then its the second most important holiday, Rutberg said. Its number two on the hit parade. It is a big deal. ABINGDON, Va. - As part of her national book tour, Lee Smith reads from her new book Dimestore: A Writers Life Sunday, April 24, at 3 p.m. at Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church in Abingdon, Virginia. Her visit is part of the annual Sunday with Friends series, sponsored by the Friends of the Washington County Public Library. Smith has firmly established herself as a voice of the South, and beyond, through her award winning and critically acclaimed fiction over the past 45 years. Now, in her very first work of nonfiction, Dimestore: A Writers Life, Smith looks inward to tell her own heartwarming story, from growing up in Grundy, Virginia, her inspiration and friendship with Lou Crabtree from Abingdon, to becoming a writer and raising her own family in North Carolina. "I always knew I wanted to set down some thoughts and reminiscences based around these themes about place, memory, and writing but this project got a real kick-start recently when the entire town of Grundy was demolished as part of a flood-control project," explains Smith. "Only last August, the house I grew up in was bulldozed too." The event is free of charge, and everyone is welcome. There will book sales, book signings and a reception following the event. For more information about the library system visit www.wcpl.net or call 276-676-6233. The year was 2004. And, at age 34, she learned that she had breast cancer. The diagnosis appeared just as this pastor's wife had gotten her sons settled into kindergarten and pre-school. "I was young, she said. I was a young mother." Still, she didn't stop and cry too much. She fought. And fought some more. And, later, she wrote a book about it. "I just felt like that was what I was supposed to do," said Parris, who grew up in Waynesville, North Carolina. At the time of her diagnosis, Parris was living in Grundy, Virginia, where he husband, Stan Parris, served as the pastor of Vansant Baptist Church. Today, and for the past seven years, Parris has been living at Rocky Mount, Virginia, in Franklin County, where her husband now pastors Franklin Heights Baptist Church. But she maintains contact with the greater Southwest Virginia region, working as vice president of mar-keting for the 12 locations of TruPoint Bank. "I also wanted to help other women," Parris said, still talking about why she wrote her book. "And I think my story is unique for a couple of other reasons." As a patient, Parris participated in the clinical trial of an experimental drug. "I was one of 25 women in the United States," she said. "I went outside the norm for treatment and took a risk in the clinical trial." Parris, now 45, also had to leave home, spending as much as six weeks at a time away from her husband and young sons while seeking treatment at Houston, Texas. "It was a crazy, hard time. And it was expensive," she said. "Being sick is not cheap." Parris is cancer-free, she said. And now? She's the author of the 212-page "Cancer Mom: Hearing God in an Unknown Journey" (Pointe Press, 2015). Much of the basis of this paperback comes from Parris's journal entries, written while she was sick with cancer, she said. "My goal is that my story brings people hope," Parris added. "And I hope when people read it, it gives them hope." In the cause of science, many experts who research the lives of the world's birds make use of a vast army of citizen scientists willing to observe, record and report on the activities of the birds that share the planet with us. Residents of the region can join those ranks for Virginia's Second Breeding Bird Atlas. The first season of the official event launches this spring as part of a five-year study to document the breeding status and abundance of all bird species spending their breeding season within the borders of Vir-ginia. To accomplish this, a statewide network of volunteers is being sought out for the purpose of field data collection. Steven Hopp, a professor at Emory and Henry College, is looking for volunteers to help with what is being described as a mammoth collaboration between the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Society of Ornithology, local bird clubs, Master Naturalist chapters, and the citizen scientist volunteers who will help collect atlas data over the next five years. Hopp is an enthusiastic proponent of citizen science. "There are many areas of science where active citi-zen scientists make significant contributions," he said. "In astronomy, for example, many backyard observers have discovered new comets or asteroids." In the monitoring of the health of animal populations, Hopp added, reports from citizens are very im-portant. "Records from fishermen and hunters have always been useful for tracking changes in populations," he said. "For birds, the huge number of avid birdwatchers have always been a valuable part of tracking the changes in bird numbers and populations. From the over 100-year history of the Christmas Bird Count, to simple backyard feeder watches, citizen reports are a strong part of our information." This army of citizen scientists is also greatly assisted by advances in technology. "In the modern era, access to good cameras, GPS devices and internet access, even in remote locations, allows for accurate and reliable reporting of information," Hopp said. "Getting hundreds of active bird-watchers involved in projects like this is not just part of the effort; the atlas project would not be possible without them." Hopp has been a bird watcher since his college years. "I started as a young professor at Emory & Henry in the early 1980s, right when the first Virginia Bird Atlas project was started," he said. "I was asked to be the regional coordinator for the project and I readily agreed. When this new project was started, they asked me to join the team again, and I readily agreed again." Volunteers who wish to help carry out atlas surveys will be able to register on the VABBA2 website and sign up to survey one or more atlas blocks. More details about block sign-up can be found on the vabba2.org website. "If a volunteer adopts one of the priority blocks, they are asked to spend a minimum of 20 hours in that block documenting the occurrence of birds," Hopp explained. "But any records during the breeding season are useful, and people can record them as incidental observations in any area." Volunteers will watch for an array of breeding behaviors. "Just the presence of birds during the breeding season tells us theyre probably breeding, but its best to watch for behaviors that more strongly suggest or verify breeding," Hopp said. "These might include seeing a male and female pair together, or a bird carrying nesting material, seeing fledgling birds or finding an active nest." He added that a list of different indicators can be found on the Atlas web site. Hopp said there are many benefits to be reaped from the project. "Because birds are so mobile, their populations change more rapidly than most other animal popula-tions," he said. "Keeping track of which birds are present or are breeding in an area is one of the best ways to track environmental health and see how natural systems are responding to human disturbances, changes in land use or changes in climate." The project will also track species that have become less common over the years. "For uncommon species, such as loggerhead shrikes or saw-whet owls, the atlas allows us to keep track of where these species are nesting in Virginia," Hopp said. "Comparing the results from this current atlas to the results collected in the 1980s will give us important information about how these populations change." For example, Hopp noted that such documenting may shed some light on the decline of whip-poor-wills in Virginia and other locations. Hopp explained that the atlas areas are determined by using the United States Geological Survey maps. "Each map is divided into six equal areas, and the block located in the southeast corner of each topographical map are designated as the priority block," he said. "The priority blocks become the main suggested area for volunteers. If we could cover every one of the priority blocks in the state, this would give us a nice, even sample for the whole atlas." He added that the areas are not assigned, but rather each volunteer chooses their own area, and are en-couraged but not required to choose the priority block. "If a volunteer wants to be in charge of a particular block, they can do so, but they can also report obser-vations for any block. If people want to look over the blocks in the entire state, the Atlas Coordinators have put together a great fun map of Virginia showing all the block areas." The map can be viewed at https://vafwis.dgif.virginia.gov/BBA2/BlockExplorer/. Hopp hopes to hear from birders throughout Virginia and other nearby locations. "One of the great things about this atlas project is that it is all organized online, and volunteers can access downloadable maps and field data sheets, and even upload observations remotely from the field," he said. "This is the first atlas project in the United States that will be using the Cornell University eBird site for entering and tracking all the atlas data." For more information, Hopp invites interested people to explore the well-organized information on the internet at www.vabba2.org. They can also email him at shopp@ehc.edu or call 276-944-6727. Volunteers can also contact the state atlas coordinator, Ashley Peele, at ashpeele@vt.edu. It's a great way to help the cause of science while also getting outdoors this spring and looking for some birds. Kind of a drag if you miss The Buckinghams concert Wednesday The Buckinghams, a Chicago-based pop rock band that exploded onto the charts in 1967 with Kind of a Drag, are coming to the Maryland Theatre. Insider: A QB change won't save IU's season. It's already lost. IU quarterback Connor Bazelak's struggles have IU fans suggesting change, but at this point change might not make much difference. The line between demographic dividend and demographic disaster is getting dangerously thin for India. According to the National Skill Development Agency, 21 government departments and ministries trained 7.6 million people in 2014-15. At this rate, India will have trained, at best, another 40 million people by 2020, far short of the governments target to skill 500 million. The ground reality gets worse. Ninety percent of those trained undergo three months of short-term training to secure Rs 5,000-7,000 in wages. This is hardly enough to support a family. Read | Employability goes up by 40% if you speak English: Rudy A major part of the solution lies in examining the principal group that urgently needs skilling. Every year nine million graduate 12th class, of which less than half go to college. Another 15 million drop out of high school. This group of 20 million is the main target for market-driven vocational training. While vocational training can start in high-schools, leveraging the existing 13,105 industrial training institutes (ITIs) is crucial. Recognising this, the Prime Ministers Office has directed the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship to open 7,000 new ITIs in one year. As is clear, the race is against time. How can we beat the odds, ensure scale along with consistency of skills training at affordable costs? What is the physical and soft infrastructure needs? How can the ITI curriculums stay flexible to meet industry demands? We cannot wait for investments in infrastructure and therefore need to leverage existing infrastructuresay, besides ITIs, make use of existing school and college infrastructure in the evenings, introduce corporate internships and apprenticeships that provide access to laboratory infrastructure etc. Read | SSC students can opt for skill subject instead of language Second, we should make vocational skilling mandatory from Class IX and introduce a vocational-only track from Class XI for those who are not college bound. This would inspire students to not drop out of schools. This is not unlike what happens in Germany, Australia, South Korea and Scandinavian countries. Third, revamp and realign the ITIs to modern manufacturing training hubs and transform them to multi-skill institutes. To address the lack of trained faculty, leverage modern technology such as Cloud and mobile computing, video-based self-learning and Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Finally, we need to get employers sitting at the table through this process as they are the ultimate beneficiaries. This includes building networks of employers that engage in curriculum development, provide adjunct faculty, and commit to internship and apprenticeship programs incentivised through CSR funds or ready access to trained talent for their own needs. Read | Government ropes in Sachin Tendulkar for Skill India campaign If the Make in India dream is to come true, policy wonks, industry leadership and technology must be thrown into the mix with immaculate project management at the core. And if we dont, we must be prepared to witness unemployment and youth unrest on a scale we have not witnessed in India. Ajay Kela is president & CEO, Wadhwani Foundation The views expressed are personal Polling was largely peaceful in the second phase of elections in West Bengal on Sunday, barring Birbhum district, where sporadic violence and intimidation were reported. Fifty-six seats in seven districts Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur, Malda and Birbhum went to polls in the second phase. Congress-CPI(M) leaders expect big gains in this phase that saw 79.70% polling at 5pm. The BJP leadership, however, demanded cancellation of elections in all 11 assembly segments of Birbhum, alleging use of force and terror. Birbhum district was in focus for the EC because of TMC district president Anubrata Mondol, who shot to fame for his repeated intimidation of voters, prompting the poll panel to put him under surveillance. Two FIRs were also lodged against him. Violence was reported from Nanoor, Panrui, Dubrajpur, Hansan and Sainthia in the district. In Lavpur, TMC workers tried to forcibly enter a polling station and cast vote. The presiding officer called in forces that had to resort to lathi-charge when party members clashed with them. Opposition leaders of the Congress, BJP and CPI(M) alleged that their agents were driven out of the booths. BJP leaders Babul Supriyo and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi made a representation to the EC headquarters in Delhi to cancel the entire polling process in Birbhum. We have demanded that polls in all 11 assembly seats of Birbhum be cancelled. TMC has unleashed terror in the district. However, in North Bengal, polls have been more or less peaceful, said Siddharth Nath Singh, BJP national secretary. State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said, People could go out and vote, barring some stray incidents. Compared to the first phase, the Election Commission did well and fair polls were held in most areas. CPI(M) leader Ashok Bhattacharya said, We will emerge victorious despite TMC undertaking terror tactics. Voting took place in festive spirit. Malda and North Dinajpur districts also reported a few stray incidents of intimidation. India asked the World Bank on Saturday to increase its developmental fund to $100 billion a year from the existing $50-60 billion and called for enhancing the share and voice of developing nations in the management of institutions providing assistance under it. The World Bank provides developmental assistance through International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). These three institutions provide approximately $50-60 billion per annum in concessional, non-concessional and private sector resources, finance minister Arun Jaitley said in his address to the development committee of the World Bank. Within next five years, we should work to raise annual financing volumes from the World Bank Group to $100 billion a year, said Jaitley, who is in Washington to attend the annual Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This would be a kind of minimum contribution from the Bank Group for the developing countries, in their task of bringing about development and finance reconstruction, he said. Observing that the World Bank is highly capital constrained, Jaitley said the IFC has no space to invest today even at low level volumes it has been doing for some years. IBRD would not be able to maintain lending levels of even $20 billion per annum in two years time, he said. To better reflect the increasing weight of developing and transition countries (DTCs), their share and voice in the management of these institutions also needs to grow, Jaitley asserted. We should therefore plan to have a Selective Capital Increase (SCI) to raise Developing and Transition Countries (DTCs) voting share to 50% and a large general capital increase in IBRD and IFC for being able to finance $100 billion per annum going forward, he said. Jaitley stressed that the time has come for raising partnership of DTCs in the IBRD and IFC to 50%. This would require that the economic weight captured by GDP remain the primary factor in the formula, with share of purchasing power parity (PPP) based GDP of not less than 60%. IDA has enormously useful role in financing development IDA has enormously useful role in financing development in low income countries, but recognising IDA contributions in IBRD/IFC share capital has adverse impact on voting share of developing countries, he observed. Therefore, it would be more than fair if a weight of not more than 10% is given to IDA contributions in the dynamic formula, Jaitley said. Such a weight should also recognise only recent contributions to act as rightful incentive for the emerging countries to contribute in IDA and should also recognise a multiplier based on burden share and generosity, he added. The formulation we have suggested is equitable, and recognises all contributions equally in accordance with capacity of each donor. We must also not lose sight of the fact that while there may be losers or gainers today, our collective negotiating power must be deployed to ensure a fair formula rather than to minimise losses and maximise gains in the current round, Jaitley said. Once we have a fair formula, future shareholdings will automatically reflect the relative economic positions of the country in the interest of all shareholders, he said. Iran said it would boycott Sundays meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC member countries in Qatar as it did not agree with a plan to freeze oil production at the January level. We have told some OPEC and non-OPEC members like Russia that they should accept the reality of Irans return to the oil market. If Iran freezes its oil production at the February level, it means it cannot benefit from the lifting of sanctions, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the oil ministrys news agency SHANA. SunEdison is in talks to sell its Indian solar assets to Finlands Fortum Group as liquidity problems globally crimp its balance sheets. Canadas solar company SkyPower is scouting for partners that can collaborate in its Indian plans, while homegrown Welspun Renewables has already initiated efforts to sell its plants, attracting a roster of marquee local and foreign players. The Indian renewable energy space has suddenly become a hotspot for large companies and investors, who want to tap the countrys potential. Renewables is set overtake coal as the largest source of electricity by early 2030s, with renewable-based generation accounting for 25% of total power generation. Renewable energy has long-term potential, said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser, SBI Research. A megawatt (MW) capex of solar power project, which was Rs 14- 15 crore five years ago, now stands at around Rs 6-7 crore. With the cost of production falling nearly 60%, the price of renewable energy is set to equal that of thermal power in next two to three years. According to Sumant Sinha, founder of ReNew Power, one of the countrys largest renewable energy producers, there is a lot of interest from foreign players, most of whom want to build a presence in India. We are also looking at opportunities but we would look at all options. However, there are challenges. Since there are no fuel costs and operational costs are also low, availability of funds at competitive rates is key. India will need about $200 billion to build 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. Then there is the risk from deteriorating credit profile of state electricity boards. Suzlon group chairman Tulsi Tanti pointed at land and infrastructure as another challenge. Tariff has gone under Rs 5 per unit, the sustainability of such low tariffs will have to be seen. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON When you are in the bottom of a hole, leave the hole. Mistrust the ladder because the ladder is usually the ruse of those who made the hole. Dig a tunnel. This is the summary of a theory of Babasaheb Ambedkar, whose 125th birthday was recently an unprecedented news cycle partly because of the persistent human infatuation with numbers that are divisible by five, and chiefly because Indian society has transformed. Almost everybody is in a hole. Ambedkars idea that those who are born in the bottom of the Hindu caste system should not hope to reform the hole or trust the late invention of the social ladder, which is merely the aesthetics of ethics with yawning gaps between the rungs that the emaciated cannot scale, is largely perceived as a political thought. Which it is, but it also illuminates a path to dignity and happiness for everyone in the modern economic system, and not just Dalits of another time. Read | Ambedkar Jayanti brings little joy to his flock Caste is everywhere; in most places it is called hierarchy, even order. And almost everyone today is on a rung of a system rigged by the greatest beneficiaries of the system. You dont have to be in the bottom of a hole to be the oppressed anymore. People do believe that if there are rungs, they can climb them and emerge at the top, but these ladders, even in the corporate world, are designed to be perilous. There is wisdom in following Ambedkars advice and just disappearing from the hole. There would be losses, but there would be dignity. The happiest people in society are probably those who have done just that. On what is the meaning of feminism, most people, including women, claim it is about equality. This view contains the notion that the best that women can become is something that resembles successful men. That is why the writer Germaine Greer once asked, Equal to what? She scoffed at the life of the modern man and said she did not wish women to be equal to that. Women must dig their own tunnels and invent their own systems, was her message. And millions are doing just that. Men, too, of course. People are ejecting themselves from corporate rungs and starting their own enterprises; artists who waited for years to find recognition in the film industries are reinventing television; and many are relinquishing the very idea of city-life without surrendering to the ways of the Indian village, which is a deeper hole than cities. But millions are entrapped in the holes of the elite. An unknown number of writers are toiling away on the literary novel fooled by notions of high art and a reward system regulated by a global elite. The poor who pursue doctorates in liberal arts because they imagine it is a path to respectability are wasting their best years in a Brahminical academic system where the social elite, who of course say all the right things, have absolute control over the very distribution of acclaim. Such researchers, if they are digging only for respectability and not for knowledge, would be better off in the holes of journalism or even politics. Read | From Mahad to Mumbai to Hyderabad, the story of Indias caste blues Over a decade ago, on the sidelines of the Lakme Fashion Week, which was so new then that serious editors from Delhi flew to Mumbai to be in the audience, I saw a bunch of impoverished girls from the chawls of Mumbai. They wished to be fashion designers, they wished for success in an industry where it is mandatory to hail from a particular social class to have a shot at success. And, scores of ambitious youth toil in television journalism hoping to become anchors, not realising the importance of fair skin, pedigree, social contacts and accent. This columnist has earlier argued that all of Indian elite is a system where there is a hundred per cent reservation for its own genetic material. But, the poor think they can climb the rungs up the hole. A crucial observation of Ambedkar is that culture must always be viewed with suspicion because it is the relic of the upper castes that they present as the history of all. The culture of the poor is usually called folk. An important part of digging the tunnel is to relinquish the dominant culture of the hole and everything that is considered sacred. Millions of Dalits did just this when they developed a contempt for the idea of the Indian village, which Gandhi venerated. Ambedkar, a far superior and honest writer, wrote, The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite, if not pathetic. What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism? As we know it was not only the Dalits who profited from relinquishing culture. In fact, the first Indian middle class was a creation of rustics relinquishing culture. They relinquished not only their village origins, but also their mother tongues in favour of English. Read | Mahad relives BR Ambedkars water satyagraha for Dalits It is not easy to abandon the hole, because it is home. In fact, Ambedkars effort to convert the untouchables into Buddhism failed in his lifetime and has been largely a failure after his death. Hinduism is not an easy home to leave. Ambedkar himself took two decades to convert after he announced that he would relinquish Hinduism. And he converted days before his death. The delay was, of course, because he wanted hold out the threat as long as he could to get his way with the Indian National Congress. Also, he had to prepare his people to abandon their faith. Even so, it is possible that he himself was affected by the idea of the hole of Hinduism as home. Among all the politicians who lined up to pay their respects to Ambedkar on April 14, the most honest might have been the Hindu nationalists. They owe him a debt. When Ambedkar decided to convert he was lured, among others, by Muslims. If Ambedkar had chosen Islam it would have created an extraordinary havoc. But he did not wish to be a Muslim. He found Islam culturally alien to his being and regressive. In relinquishing one hole he did not wish to enter another. Manu Joseph is a journalist and the author of the novel, The Illicit Happiness of Other People Twitter: @manujosephsan The views expressed are personal. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Hours after the Delhi government hinted at fare revision and action against app-based cabs on Sunday, auto-rickshaw and taxi unions withdrew their strike call from Monday. We decided to call off our strike after an hour-long meeting with the transport minister. The minister has agreed to meet our long-pending demands. The government has promised action against the app-based taxi service providers starting Monday, Rajendra Soni office bearer of Delhi Autorickshaw Sangh and Delhi Pradesh Taxi Union, which are a part of the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. Auto and taxi unions, including Delhi Autorickshaw Sangh and Delhi Pradesh Taxi Unions had called for strike on Monday to protest against app-based cab services. According to sources, the decision to roll back the strike was taken after a meeting between the union leaders and Delhi transport minister Gopal Rai. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday also announced action against app-based cabs. Kejriwal on Sunday tweeted, reacting to a complaint by a man, that his government will announced action against Ola/Uber. Earlier during the day, Rai had alleged political opponents of trying to fail odd even scheme by orchestrating auto and taxi strike, Gopal Rai wrote to lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, urging him to ensure enough police presence to combat any untoward incident on Monday. auto, taxi unions of RSS and BJP have announced to go on strike on April 18. Several auto union representatives who met me have distanced themselves from the strike while expressing fears of violence and sabotage by the striking unions... the letter read. Delhi BJP President Satish Uadhyay said after the letter of assurance issued by Delhi government to auto unions, the chief ministers lies stand exposed. On Saturday, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had accused the RSS and the BJP of trying to fail his governments odd-even traffic scheme saying even during its first phase in January, the RSS and the BJP had orchestrated the strike by government officers. The transport minister had even hinted at a possible tariff increase during the day. The tariffs have not been revised for quite some time now. We will look into the matter in May, said Rai, who met the also met a section of auto and taxi union representatives on Sunday. We met representatives of several auto/taxi unions and they have assured us that they will not participate in the strike, said Rai. A section of auto drivers associated with the Aam Aadmi Party had told reporters on Sunday morning that they would not participate in the strike. A four-month-old girl was rescued minutes before she was to be sacrificed as part of a ritual in northeast Delhis Khajuri Khas on Sunday. The toddlers uncle, a sorcerer and his aide were arrested. Police raided the Loni cremation ground after they got information about a Mohammad Ilyas, who practices black magic, preparing for a human sacrifice. Police saved the girl while Ilyas chanted verses, preparing for the sacrifice. Tools, including a dagger, a knife and a pair of tongs along with a platform to keep the kids, were seized. According to the police, the toddlers uncle Asif who reportedly learnt black magic from Ilyas offered to sacrifice her to help the sorcerer increase his powers. The sorcerer reportedly asked Asif to arrange for a new born and initiate a human sacrifice so that he can possess supernatural powers. When the sorcerer promised to train Asif in black magic once he initiated a girls sacrifice, Asif offered his own niece. The father of the four-month-old girl came to us and complained that she was kidnapped. He told us that his brother-in-law Asif had visited the house last. He complained that the girl was in the house, but after Asif left, she also went missing. When he went to meet Asif to ask about his daughter, he was also missing. He lodged a complaint against Asif, a senior police officer said. A team was formed to trace Asif. During investigation, it was found that Asif was learning black magic from a sorcerer and the two were planning a human sacrifice. The police team went to Loni, where the sorcerer used to practise. Within six hours of the complaint, our team reached Loni and the sorcerer along with Asif and his associate Dilshad were arrested. The baby girl was rescued and reunited with her family, said deputy commissioner of police (northeast) Ajit Kumar Singla. Investigations revealed that Asif had taken Rs 40,000 from the sorcerer and his associate to bring the child for sacrifice. We have arrested the three men and are questioning them. It appears they previously indulged in human sacrifices. Investigation is on, a senior police officer said. A 26-year-old woman from Mumbai was locked in a flat in central Delhis Old Rajender Nagar, forced to drink alcohol and then allegedly gang-raped by two men on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. One of the suspects, a contractor, has been caught by the police, but the other one is still at large. The absconding accused is believed to be an executive engineer in a municipal body, police sources said. The detained contractor was known to the victim. Senior police officers, however, refused to share details about the suspects saying that would hamper their probe. Sources said the woman received injuries in her private parts and is undergoing treatment at a city hospital. She is also being counselled by an NGO. The accused had allegedly forced her to have unnatural sex with them, a police source said. A case of gang-rape has been registered at the Rajender Nagar police station. In the FIR, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times, the woman has said that she was staying at a rented accommodation in south Delhis Safdarjung with another woman. She had moved to Delhi around seven months ago. According to the womans complaint, she had met the contractor, Manish, on Facebook while she was in Mumbai. Manish befriended her and they started chatting over the social site. Soon, the two exchanged their mobile numbers. A few weeks later, Manish proposed marriage and asked her to move to Delhi, the woman said. Manish assured her that he would take care of all her expenses after which she moved to Delhi, said a police officer. On Thursday, the FIR says, Manish called the woman to his Old Rajender Nagar flat to discuss their marriage plans, as she had been putting pressure on him for the past 3-4 days. She was in a room when Manishs friend arrived and started forcing himself on her. The woman protested and told Manish about it. Manish in turn verbally abused her and they together forced her to drink alcohol. The two then took turns to rape her. The woman managed to escape from the flat and called the police control room. She was heavily drunk when a police team met her on the street, the officer said. The medical examination of the woman confirmed that she was gang-raped, the officer said. The real test for the second phase of the odd-even scheme in the national capital will be on Monday, the first working day since the road-rationing measure was rolled out in the city on April 15. All offices, schools and other institutions will reopen on Monday after the extended weekend. The second phase of the scheme was rolled out on the day of Ram Navami, a public holiday, followed by the weekend. Unlike the schemes pilot phase, in which the focus was more on awareness and voluntary compliance, the government has cracked the whip on violators this time, with over 2,300 challans issued in the first two days as against 479 during the same period in the previous phase between January 1 and 15. Read: Odd-even: Kejriwal says BJP wants plan to fail, but people dont A strike called by auto and taxi unions in the city threatened to add to the woes of commuters. However, the strike call was later withdrawn after an assurance by the government that it would look into the demands of the unions. The Aam Aadmi Party earlier alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to foil the odd-even scheme by terrorising a section of auto and taxi drivers into striking work. Under the fortnight-long scheme, private cars having odd registration numbers can ply only on odd dates and the even numbers on even dates, subject to a set of exemptions, which include VIPs, women, school going children, medical emergencies, commercial vehicles and CNG cars. During the first phase, since schools were shut, it was mostly office goers who had to make arrangements for themselves. This time, the problems are set to multiply. In order to ensure the success of the scheme, the government has set a fine of Rs 2,000 for violators. It has also deployed 2,000 traffic personnel, 580 enforcement officials and over 5,000 civil defence volunteers to implement the scheme. In the second phase from April 15 to 30, the government added into its exemption list people driving with schoolchildren in uniform. However, the government has not been able to arrive at a solution to the problem of cars returning after dropping school children or heading towards the schools in the afternoon hours to pick them up, and suggested car pooling. Delhi Police on Sunday arrested Saurabh Agarwal and Sulabh Bhardwaj for allegedly writing a threat letter to assassinate two JNU students and leaving a countrymade gun inside a DTC bus. Agarwal, police said, is the brother of Amit Jani, the self-styled leader of the group UP Navnirman Sena. In the threat letter, allegedly written by one Amit Jani, it was mentioned that the weapon was to be used on JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid were spotted on the campus. In March, Jani had threatened to kill Kanhaiya and Umar Khalid, over Kanhaiyas purported remarks on the Indian Army. The main suspect in the case, Amit Jani, was absconding, police said. On Thursday a pistol, cartridges and a letter ordering the kill was recovered from a DTC bus route number 615 which cuts inside the JNU university campus. Following the weapons recovery, police had increased security for the duo. Kanhaiya, Khalid and fellow-student Anirban Bhattacharya had been jailed recently on sedition charges following a controversial event in February at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Last month, Kanhaiya was manhandled while he was on his way to attend his classes in the evening. The Delhi police later provided police personnel in plain clothes for his protection. We had sought Agarwals police custody so that he can be questioned about his brothers plans. His associate Bhardwaj has been sent to judicial custody. During interrogation, Agarwal has revealed that the plan to murder Kanhaiya was made at a hotel in Paharganj, said a police officer. In many of our Himalayan towns, especially the ones that still have army cantonments, it is not uncommon to find the graves of British soldiers who served in the imperial army. Similarly, the graves of Indian soldiers who fought for the British during the world wars can be found in Europe and other places. The issue of dead soldiers and repatriation of the bodies is an emotive issue and so it is heartening to note that the Indian government finally gave the US clearance to carry back the excavated remains of soldiers and artefacts of a US Air Force B-24 bomber and a C-109 aircraft that had crashed in Arunachal Pradesh during World War II. These allied airmen ferried about 650,000 tonnes of fuel, munitions and equipment over the eastern Himalayas from 1942, when the Japanese cut off the main land route through Myanmar. Read | A lot to gain from a logistics pact with the US The issue of repatriation had figured in the joint statement issued last year during the visit of US President Barack Obama to India. Last week, US defence secretary Ashton Carter, who was in New Delhi on a three-day visit, oversaw the repatriation ceremony. One set of remains was recovered in Arunachal Pradesh between September 12 and November 17, 2015. Another set of remains was handed over to Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) by a third party from the same region. Over the years, the demand for the search and repatriation of the remains of the US airmen had also got support from senior Indian Army officials and several politicians. Read | India expresses displeasure to US over F-16 sale to Pakistan Sadly, the UPA had stopped the recovery of the remains following objections by China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh to be its territory. Other than conceding the long-standing demands of the families of the missing airmen on humanitarian grounds, the Modi governments decision to allow the recovery also negates Chinas dubious claims on the Indian state. The US government says that over 500 aircraft are still listed missing in the China-India-Burma theatre of World War II. Hopefully, the government will allow them to continue the search. A DPAA official said the remains found at the site could fit into a ziplock sandwich bag. But for families of US soldiers even that much will mean the world. It is almost a Pavlovian response from successive governments. Whenever one assumes office, it is bound to reorganise the boards or charters of institutions. And the NDA is no exception. Ever since it came to power two years ago, it has made a concerted effort to change the composition of the administration of many national institutions. The National Book Trust, the Planning Commission, which was abolished altogether and replaced by a new Niti Aayog, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), the Nehru Memorial, the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and now the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). Now there is nothing wrong with governments wanting to bring in fresh talent and sweep out the cobwebs in these mammoth institutions. But the change must be aimed at bringing in innovation and new ideas, not change for the sake of it. Read | Govt reconstitutes board of Indira Gandhi Centre for Arts, Cong fumes In some cases, the changes have been to the detriment of the institution. The head of the FTII, Indias premier film faculty, has been in the eye of the storm from the day his name was announced. He lacks professional expertise, has a patchy track record and has not shown much inclination to resolve things amicably. The Niti Aayog has been in existence for a while now, but whether it is better than its predecessor is a matter of debate. The same can be said of most of the other institutions that have brought in new faces. This penchant on the part of political parties to treat great institutions as parking slots for the favoured has led to excellence and professional knowledge being eroded. Read | A historians tribute to archives and archivists In the case of universities, some of the new vice-chancellors clearly lack man management skills, something which has contributed to unrest among students and the faculty. The prime minister is a great believer in merit he himself has relied on hard work and intrinsic talent to reach where he is today. The same principle should apply to institutions of excellence. The persons chosen to steer these should be the best and brightest, irrespective of their political propensities. All that must be ensured is that they dont bring their politics into these institutions. In the case of many individuals rewarded by not just this government, but by previous governments, the main criterion seems to have been loyalty to the ruling dispensation. Such individuals have either not aided in adding value to these institutions or have even damaged them in significant ways. The line of least resistance is to seek out a malleable person. The result has been the needless devaluation and politicisation of many of our great institutions. This is hardly the sign of a confident government or a mature democracy. Read | Scholars, academics question govts efforts to shift focus of NMML Padma Shri scientist Bulusu Lakshmana Deekshatulu on Saturday batted for Prime Minister Nadendra Modis Make in India and advised young engineers in Bhopal to use their technical knowhow to come up with products of local significance. Deekshatulu, who was in Bhopal for the 12th convocation ceremony of Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), urged engineering graduates to introduce new and revolutionary products to help in the socio-economic development of the country. A total 1,607 degrees were conferred upon undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students on the day. For the first time in three years the institute discontinued Gandhi caps during the convocation ceremony and students received degrees wearing the traditional gowns. Engineers should ensure that the manufacturing starts with India on the similar tracks of the Make in India project of the government of India. They should make use of their technical knowledge and come up with products according to the local society as well as the local market, he said, adding that it was important for engineers to ensure that the concept of sustainable development was not limited to political rhetoric, but is visible on the ground level. Advocating the need for significant changes in engineering institutes in India to come on par with the worlds leading institutes, he said: Engineering institutes in the country are trying to produce 21st century engineers with a 20th century curriculum. Engineering education should not be monolithic; it should achieve adequate intellectual depth and rigour across a highly diverse engineering enterprise, demanded by the changing needs of society and nation, he said. The scientist said students should be told about basic business processes. They should be taught to overcome cultural and social inhibitions in the profession and ways to improve the communication skills of engineering graduates, he said. Sultan Jahan Salik, 88, lives alone in her ground-floor flat in the Park Circus area of Kolkata. A retired teacher, active researcher and author, she has been living by herself since her husband died in 1998. She cooks, picks up groceries, visits chemists and banks, and on days when her maid doesnt show up, also does the cleaning. She travels alone to meet her daughters, who are professors and live abroad. Its difficult to live alone when you are old. My attempts to be self-reliant are really a test of my character. But there is no use complaining, says Salik, who recently returned from Dhaka where the Bangla Akademi published a book she edited, called Muslim Modernism in Bengal Selected Writings of Delawarr Hosaen Ahmed Meerza, who is a Muslim reformist of the 19th century. She finds support in her four brothers, two sisters and their spouses, who live nearby. All in their 70s and 80s, they connect over the phone at least once a day. Many, like Salik, live alone, because their children have moved away. Read: Safety not only issue for senior citizens Only one of my nephews lives nearby and, in case of emergency, he is the one to depend on, Salik says. The septuagenarian Khatris living in Sector-62 Noida in Uttar Pradesh have no such extended support, which has forced their son Shivum Khatri*, 31, to move in with them once again. An advertising professional, Khatri had moved to Gurgaon, in Haryana, to save on commute hours. But he was forced to return home after his father was diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) four months ago. It meant frequent hospital visits and my parents found it difficult to negotiate long queues, paperwork and laboratories tests. I initially used to visit them every weekend, but I soon realised it wasnt sustainable for either them or me. They needed help 24x7, says Shivum. At present, there are not many facilities focusing on care of older persons, but India has started preparing for change. The worlds largest study on the elderly The Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) was launched in March, to track the ageing patterns and diseases affecting Indias 103 million people over the age of 60. The study will survey 60,000 seniors across all states and union territories every two years for the next 25. With people living longer, the global share of people 60 and older has risen from 9.2% in 1990 to 11.7% in 2013 and is expected to reach 21.1% by 2050. Older people are projected to exceed the number of children for the first time ever, in 2047. With 65% of Indias population under 35, there are set to be 350 million seniors in the country by 2050. With the rapidly changing social structure, the study will provide valuable data on the health needs and issues faced by older persons, and help us draw policy tools to address these issues, says BP Sharma, secretary, Ministry of Health. Whether we need more hospitals or clinics, rehabilitation centres, hospice facilities or homes for the elderly, taking care of their specific needs, this study should help us be better informed. The rapid rise of Indias elderly population, coupled with the rise of the nuclear family and limited social support, poses pressing economic, health and social challenges for policymakers. Read: Police extends safety net to elderly in working families Population ageing threatens to topple existing insurance and pension systems and create health system overload. This therefore calls for review of existing models of healthcare, familial and social support, says Anita Agnihotri, secretary at the Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment. Currently, the 60-plus population accounts for 9% of Indians, amounting to roughly 103 million seniors, and there is still no sufficient broad national representative data on this demographic. This study is important to determine where money should go when it is allotted to older people. Society is moving fast and the healthcare system is stuck, says Dr AB Dey, head of geriatrics at Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Currently our focus is not older people; its on paediatrics and neurology. The ministry of health approved two national centres of ageing last year, one of them at AIIMS. We hope the centre at AIIMS starts functioning soon. REACHING OUT : Senior care centres Mumbai Varista: 022-26606033 Dignity Dementia Care:022-65133848 Kolkata Ananda Ashram: 93310-03123, 98302-84526 Sebayan: 99030-36803, 82729-26860 Delhi Sandhya: 011-24671273, 24103542 Aaradhana: 011-23382795 The Jungle Book released in India on April 8, a week prior to its US release (April 15). Even X-Men Apocalypse and Ice Age: Collision Course are slated to hit Indian screens in May and July, respectively, before releasing in America. But this was not always the case. In the past, Hollywood films had an international release first, and would then hit theatres in India. Indians connect strongly to stories from The Jungle Book. Today, many international production houses now think of India as a major market for their projects. Perhaps thats the reason why many Hollywood movies now release in India first. Read: The Jungle Book has earned Rs 74 crore in first week and its a big deal Talking about the trend, Vijay Singh of Fox Star Studios says, We are seeing a paradigm shift in India and the rest of Asia when it comes to Hollywood films. The market for bigger movies is expanding. This is one of the reasons why many studios are now choosing to release some movies in India first. The X-Men franchise has a huge fan following in the country. Similarly, Ice Age: Collision Course is also a highly anticipated film, and it makes sense to showcase the film here before its US release. Winds of change While India is growing as a market for international films, Kamal Gianchandani of PVR Cinemas says that an increase in the number of multiplexes has been one of the biggest contributors for that development. He also adds that since moviegoers here are hooked on Indian films, releasing Hollywood movies ahead of their international opening dates is strategic. The main objective behind releasing Hollywood films earlier is to avoid clashes with big Bollywood movies, says Gianchandani. Read:Bagheera from Jungle Books like a general: Ben Kingsley Agreeing with Gianchandani, exhibitor Akshaye Rathi says, Earlier, Hollywood films wouldnt do this (release films in India first) as they were worried about piracy. But when international production houses realised that piracy did not take place on such a large scale here, they started releasing their movies earlier. India connect On the other hand, Hollywood films with a strong Indian connect also have a good chance of making it big in the country. For instance, The Jungle Book reportedly collected around Rs 75 crore in the first week of its release in India. Amrita Pandey of Disney India says, Indians have a strong connect when it comes to stories from The Jungle Book. Its rare to get a big English movie with an Indian story. So, we thought The Jungle Book deserves to release in India first. Moreover, the first week of April is when many schools across the country have summer breaks. So, the timing was perfect. A concrete slab at the under-construction metro station in Alambagh here came crashing down on Sunday morning, injuring four people and disrupting traffic on the busy Kanpur road for over nine hours. The 4,000 kg, 10x2 metre iron and concrete slab between two pillars fell after a cross-arm and the staging steel structure collapsed. Sohan Lal, a labourer, suffered serious injuries in the incident and was rushed to Awadh Hospital by passersby. He was later moved to KGMUs trauma centre, where his condition is said to be critical. The other three, two auto drivers -- Kuldeep and Hitesh Srivastava -- and a passenger Mohd Muzair, sustained minor injuries and were discharged after first aid. The incident created panic among locals and passersby as it was initially feared that several people were trapped under the debris. However, after the site was examined, district magistrate Raj Shekhar confirmed that no one else was trapped there. Shekhar informed that a team of 15 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel was also called for the rescue operation adding that compensation of around Rs two lakh would be given to Sohan Lal as per the labour laws. Besides Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) officials, senior police officials, including inspector general of police, Lucknow Zone, A Satish Ganesh, rushed to the mishap site. LMRC spokesperson Amit Kumar Srivastava said work for the cross-arm was going on since Saturday and was about to be completed when the incident took place. A probe panel has been constituted to investigate the matter, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modis home district in Gujarat was brought under curfew and internet services suspended on Sunday after more than two dozen people were wounded as Patidar pro-reservation campaigners clashed with police, demanding jailed leader Hardik Patels release. Violence revisited Mehsana, which is chief minister Anandiben Patels home district too, when thousands of members of the Patidar or Patel community took out a rally against 22-year-old Hardiks detention since October on charges of rioting and sedition. The district is the epicentre of the economically and politically influential Patels movement for reservation in education and government jobs, which they have been demanding since July 2015. The protesters under the banner of the Hardik-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti and Sardar Patel Group called a statewide bandh on Monday after police charged them with sticks, fired tear gas shells and used water cannons. Angry protesters reportedly threw stones at police and set ablaze an unspecified numbers of buildings and vehicles when authorities stopped them on the way to prison where they wanted to court arrest as part of their jail bharo programme. Offices of ministers Nitin Patel and Rajnikant Patel were ransacked, a bus was set ablaze and police vehicles were damaged by the mob. Mobile internet services were blocked in Mehsana, Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad districts till April 19. Read: Behind bars on sedition charges, Hardik Patel turns author Union home minister Rajnath Singh spoke to chief minister Anandiben, who informed him about the situation in the BJP-ruled state. But at a function in Dharmpur, she said: Such agitations keep happening. Our work is to serve the people. Hardiks mentor and Sardar Patel Group leader Lalji Patel, who was wounded near Mehsana sub-jail, called the chief ministers statement irresponsible while Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela blamed the governments inaction that forced Patidars to resuscitate their stir. The police were prepared as the Mehsana administration on Saturday denied permission for the programme, calling it anti-national and illegal. Some antisocial elements started pelting stones after which clashes broke out, director general of police PP Pandey said. The violence broke out a day before a crucial meeting between Patidar leaders and the government to break the reservation deadlock. The community had submitted a 27-point charter of demands but after talks failed on April 11. Sources said the government is likely to offer two proposals reservation to the economically backward section of society and setting up a commission to address the Patidars demands. The meeting will go ahead as scheduled. What happened today is a law-and-order issue, said health minister Nitin Patel. But Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti and Sardar Patel Group might boycott the meeting. The Hardik groups convener, Atul Patel, said no dialogue can take place in such an atmosphere. On one hand the government talks about negotiation, on the other they keep on opposing Hardiks bail pleas. The Patidars stir, demanding reservation benefits since July 2015, caught national attention in August when seven people were killed and public property worth Rs 40 crore damaged during clashes with police. Hardik and three of his aides were charged with sedition and put in jail in October, a move that managed to calm down the aggressive campaign. The stir is considered one of the reasons behind the ruling BJPs panchayat elections debacle in December. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a move to support budding entrepreneurs, the government will on April 21 launch Twitter Seva, a new service to address various queries of startups in a timebound manner. On April 21, we will be launching a Twitter Seva. Any startup which wants to access government irrespective of any department, they can (put their queries). The process is on. We would have a place where you can virtually contact us, tell us your issues. We have a team that will divert the things or issues to the particular ministry and then come back to you and try to reply in 24 hrs, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. Dont sit with questions. Pls give us suggestions. Let us work together - @nsitharaman #startupindia open chat pic.twitter.com/Rl2gX7mgaX Startup India (@startupindia) April 16, 2016 She announced the launch of new service during an interaction with over 70 startup firms here at a co-working place. During an hour-long interaction, the minister heard their issues and responded to their queries. On the matters related to other departments, she assured them to take that up with the concerned ministries. Sitharaman said that as part of follow-up of the action plan announced for startups by the Prime Minister in January, the ministry would be meeting with you as in what exactly is happening in the start up place. Getting a feel, get inputs from you. We want the inputs to keep coming from you. I assure you that I will go back and come with responses. We will do course correction if required. We are here as a facilitator, she added. The interaction was aimed at giving a thrust to budding entrepreneurs. Start-ups which participated in the open chat include Velmenni Lifi, Fitternity, Glance, DeliveryTrack, FoodTalk, Chakar, BabyBug Step and Marketing Masala. A schoolgirl in Jammu and Kashmirs Handwara told a magistrate that she was not molested by an army soldier, an allegation that led to five deaths as security forces fired at protesters during widespread unrest since Tuesday. Police presented the girl before a chief judicial magistrate on Saturday night after a Jammu and Kashmir high court order on a petition filed by her mother, who alleged the 16-year-old made a video statement under duress to clear the armys name. She told the magistrate that two boys assaulted her on the way from school in Handwara town of Kupwara district on April 12, police said on Sunday. The girl reiterated what she said in the video that she was not molested by a soldier. In her statement before the magistrate, she said she entered a public lavatory near the main chowk in Handwara on her way home from school with her friend, a police spokesman said. When she came out, she was assaulted and dragged by two boys and her bag was snatched. One of the boys was in school uniform. Her admission before the magistrate could be a vital evidence in court. Violent protests engulfed Handwara on Tuesday and spread throughout the Kashmir Valley following word that a soldier had molested a schoolgirl. The protesters even tried to torch an army bunker. Forces fired in retaliation, killing three people in Handwara, about 85km from Srinagar. As tension flared up, clashes broke out in other parts of the state, killing two more. A video authenticated by an army spokesperson after Tuesdays clashes in the militancy-hit state showed the girl in school uniform blaming youngsters for the trouble. The girl said she knew one of them and accused him of instigating the mob. On Saturday, the girls mother approached the high court and alleged that her daughter was being held in unlawful confinement. She said her daughters video statement was made under police pressure as no adult guardian was accompanying her. Chief minister Mehoboba Mufti, heading a coalition government with the BJP, visited Handwara on Saturday and met relatives of those killed in the shooting. She assured them justice. Kashmir limped to normality on Sunday and separatist groups did not call fresh protests. Public transport was back on the roads. Shops, fuel stations and other business establishments opened after four days in the capital city and across some other districts, an official said. Government offices and educational institutions remained shut as it was a Sunday. Train services between Baramulla and Qazigund resumed after remaining suspended since Wednesday. But authorities were yet to take a decision on resuming mobile internet services in the Valley. (With agency inputs) Read: Two men killed after soldiers fire at protesters in Kashmirs Handwara It was on a June night in 1982 that YC Pawar, then a deputy commissioner of police, first encountered the infamous bootleggers of Bombay. I was on patrol in Dharavi when my diver spotted a black car with tinted windows and informed me that it was a carrier of illicit liquor, says Pawar. I turned on the siren and gestured to the car to stop. To my surprise, it didnt. Until that year, I had been posted in small towns in Maharashtra where people feared the police. I was outraged at this behaviour and gave chase. After a 45-minute, sirens-blaring pursuit which Pawar describes as more thrilling than a Bollywood movie, the bootleggers began throwing things at the cop car. It turned out what they were throwing were tyre tubes packed with illicit liquor. Nearly 25 years of Prohibition first total, then conditional had turned the brewing and sale of illicit liquor into a booming underground business. From 1949 to 1963, all manufacture, purchase, transport and consumption of alcohol in the state of Maharashtra had been banned. Read: Facts know about Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949 Bombay had responded with its characteristic opportunism, as one-time thugs and smugglers switched livelihoods, sensing a more profitable opportunity. Most of the citys hooch units operated on their own man-made islands in what where then the far-flung, swampy suburbs of Dharavi, Goregoan and Antop Hill. The bootleggers had poured truckloads of sand into swampy patches to create tiny reclamations where they could mix and brew. For extra safety, once the brewing was done the barrels filled with fermenting hooch were hidden underground. In 1963, Prohibition was eased -- in part because implementation had failed -- and the ban on manufacture was lifted, but so few production licences were issued that supply was severely limited, while levies and prices remained high. Read: What to know before you grab that drink In mid-1960s Bombay, legal supply was scarce and the bootlegging business remained well-organised and profitable, says Pawar. I have always maintained that no illicit business can function without the polices help. So it was with this business too. By the time Pawar arrived in Bombay, a clear hierarchy had formed, with the biggest of the bootlegging operations run by one of the first underworld dons of Bombay Vardarajan Mudaliar. The massive profits from the illicit liquor trade would act as the launchpad for a parallel economy with tentacles in everything from prostitution and gambling to Bollywood and, eventually, gun-running and terror. Gangs formed and allied with one another to protect their territories. Their grip on the city, their ruthless wars and the deep inroads they made into local law enforcement would last decades. It would take a special squad, the encounter specialists, to break the back of the beast that was created as a byproduct of Prohibition. The growing lawlessness and the loss of scores of lives at a time from hooch tragedies pushed the state to alter its law and Prohibition would eventually morph into the licence raj. But it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the market opened up, that the illicit trade dwindled. You still legally need a permit to get a drink in Mumbai, although this law is only rarely enforced. Bootlegging, on a small scale, still exists. Read: Are you breaking the law in your kitchen? So does inter-state smuggling. Cheap alcohol from Haryana is often smuggled in, says a senior officer from the state excise department, speaking on condition of anonymity. Around the world, and across the country, enforcement agencies have never been able to enforce complete Prohibition. TIMELINE * From 1949 to 1962, there was strict prohibition. Minimum consumption of foreign liquor was allowed on permits. Manufacture, import, export, sale and consumption of country liquor and toddy were totally prohibited. * In 1963, the law was relaxed to grant liquor permits to people over 40 if a doctor said they needed it for health reasons. It was also decided to start manufacture of liquor in the state. * In 1968, the consumption of mild liquor (beer) containing less than 5% alcohol and of toddy was allowed without permit by people over 21. The minimum age for a permit was also lowered from 40 to 30, though you needed a medical certificate. * Prohibition was further relaxed in 1972, after more than 100 people died in Khopoli after consuming hooch that was mainly an alcohol-based industrial solvent. * In 1973, permits to consume country liquor became available to people over 21. India has led the charge of several developing countries at the United Nations (UN) against clubbing refugees with migrants. The intervention by India, ably assisted by countries such as Mexico, Bangladesh and many others of the G-77 bloc that send migrants, has succeeded in ensuring the international community addresses the two as separate issues. The process of consultations on the issue, ahead of the UN general assemblys high-level meeting on September 19 to address movement of refugees and migrants, is likely to conclude on Monday. During the consultations for a draft resolution for the summit, there was a concerted effort by the European countries to redefine refugees and mix them with migrants. Faced with a large number of refugees from countries such as Syria, western nations have been advocating preventive diplomacy efforts to diffuse the situations that result in refugees which many developing countries termed intrusive in nature. Developing countries like India have argued that even if preventive measures are applied to the refugee crisis that is often triggered by political causes, the same yardstick cannot be used in the case of migration, where the reason is mostly economic. We cannot use preventive political measures to address migration because it is largely economics and demand-and-supply that govern such movement, said an Indian official when questioned about the opposition of the developing nations to such a move. Another Indian source said, In the draft that was first initiated, there was an attempt to mix refugees and migrants and address them together, thereby adversely impacting countries like ours that have no refugee issues but have a large migrant diaspora. He added, Our forthright intervention has made them agree and change this and address the two as largely separate issues. India has one of the largest migrant diasporas in the world. Any effort to club refugees with migrants would adversely impact the country that is the top remittance recipient in the world. India had received over $69 billion in remittance last year. Migrants are governed by national laws, whereas the international legal regime is applicable on refugees. The West is mainly agitated due to a fundamental principle of the legal framework that guides refugees non-refoulement. It is a principle of international law that forbids the rendering of a true victim of persecution to his or her persecutor. In other words, it means one cannot forcibly repatriate a refugee. Several western countries see the need to change this and want migrants to be equated with refugees as both end up staying in another country. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh on Sunday visited Jammu and Kashmir where he met senior commanders amid fresh bouts of violence in the state that have left five civilians dead. Army spokesperson Colonel SD Goswami said the chief met commanders of the 14, 15 and 16 Corps at Northern Command headquarters at Udhampur near here to take stock of the situation in the state following deaths of civilians in alleged firing by army men in north Kashmirs Kupwara district. The general arrived on a day-long visit to the state. The Kashmir Valley has been on the boil since Tuesday after the death of at least five civilians in clashes with security forces. The trouble began after rumors that a soldier molested a college girl in Handwara of the border district. When 14-year-old Rahul Singhs parents brought him to Delhi psychiatrist Sunil Mittal last week, he was suffering from attention deficit hyperactive disorder. They were worried it would affect his performance in school. But they were not worried about the fact that Rahul often drove the family car something Dr Mittal found out quite by chance during his conversations with the boy. Rather, the parents were proud of Rahuls driving skills. The youngsters father is an engineer, who has his own business and his mother is a corporate executive. When I confronted his parents on why Rahul was driving at such an early age, they simply said he wouldnt listen to them. But they didnt think it was a serious problem, says Mittal. That underage driving could have serious consequences was made tragically clear in the national capital last week, when a 17-year-old driving a Mercedes hit 32-year-old Siddharth Sharma, killing him. In another chilling case of juvenile crime, two teenagers shot an Uber cab driver in Delhi. YOUNG OFFENDERS Anecdotal evidence showing a spurt in crimes committed by juveniles in the past few years, is backed by data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which shows a substantial rise in the crime rate for juveniles between 2010 and 2014. Not everyone is comfortable accepting the NCRB data as an indicator of increasing criminality among juveniles. The population of youngsters has increased more than before. If we check what percentage of total crime is being committed by juveniles, we will find that figure has not changed alarmingly, points out author-activist Harsh Mander. But he agrees that it is an issue that needs urgent attention. SOURCE: NCRB Most conversations around juvenile crime in recent years have centred around the age of criminality and whether in cases of heinous crimes, juveniles need to be tried in adult courts or not. But activists, NGOs and psychiatrists working with juvenile offenders feel that the dialogue should focus on why youngsters are being drawn into crime and what can be done to prevent this. INTO A JUVENILES MIND Poverty has always bred resentment, a root-cause of many crimes. But over the years, a fast-changing and developing society has introduced other insecurities. Across socio-economic and educational groups children are affected by parents not spending quality time with them, and by an increasingly competitive world, says Dr Rajesh Kumar, director, Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses. According to him, there are a few factors that are specific to each group. In lower middle class families, for instance, where both parents are working, children grow up in a vacuum. In middle class families, parents have multiple expectations from the child, including high grades in school. This often makes the school environment a threatening one for the child. When children fail to cope, depression may lead to substance abuse, and then crime. In high-income families, almost every amenity is provided to the child either from a desire by parents to maintain their own status in society or to satisfy the ego of the child. Such parents are often insensitive to the moral pitfalls of over-indulgence. Dr Mittal remembers the case of a child who had come to him for counselling five years ago. Dheeraj, 12, had fired at one of his friends while they were both playing at the formers house, he says. Thankfully, nothing happened to the other child, but when his parents complained to Dheerajs parents, Dheerajs parents tried to shield him. When the school sent Dheeraj to me for counselling, I found that Dheerajs father had been teaching him how to shoot. Children are also quick to pick up on friction between adults. Explains Astha Mahajan, senior counsellor, Delhi Public School, Mathura Road , In cases of marital discord or domestic violence, kids do not reach out to their parents. They consult their friends who may not give the best advice. Or worse, the child finds refuge in the virtual world where there is an information overdose. Adults are struggling to control what the kid is getting exposed to, says Mahajan. Constant exposure to aggression verbal and physical on television news, videos and games, works on an already heightened imaginations, making it seem cool to the child at an age when he or she is seeking role models or patterns of behaviour to emulate. It either makes the child desensitised to violence or creates a curiosity to experiment with it. There have been reports of juvenile offenders confessing that they indulged in violence because they wanted to see what it felt like. The easy access to sexually charged or explicit content can have the same effect. There are MMS sex videos being made and shared, says Anuradha Sahasrabudhe, founder of Dnyana Devi, an NGO that works towards child-centred community development in Pune. Zero sex education makes them more prone to all this. IN THE DARK Often, juvenile crime can emerge out of sheer ignorance. A study done by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights in June last year found that a majority (70.3%) of the children who were serving in the detention centres were quite unaware about the consequences of their acts. It is inferred that driven by the immediate rewards and other unique characteristics such as impulsiveness, adventurism/risk taking and susceptibility to peer influence, they tend to make wrong choices. This is especially true of adolescent offenders, those who have reached puberty, says Mittal. Those in the age group of 15-18 physically resemble adults. They have strength and sexual drive. But their brains are yet to develop logic or reasoning power. THE WAY OUT The onus to ensure that children do not stray is with adults. At home and at educational institutions, they need to monitor the behaviour of children and behave like role models for youngsters. Paediatrician and Mumbai president of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics Dr Samir Dalwai feels that one solution (to avoid juvenile crime) is for parents to be held legally responsible when their teenaged children break the law. Early detection and counselling for those with criminal tendencies is important so that they do not end up as offenders, and also so that they dont influence others to do the same. This is possible only when parents are cognisant of what is wrong in the childs behaviour and alert to correcting him/her. Prevention of juvenile crime is also an important part of the juvenile justice system. But the Indian state has completely neglected this aspect, says Mumbai-based advocate Maharukh Adenwalla. There is little involvement of psychological counselling during the reform procedure, says Dr Rajat Mitra, a clinical psychologist with experience in criminal psychology. Without getting into the debate of punishment and the age of criminality, it is important to instil respect for the law. By and large in India, we do not have rule of law. And youngsters are finding out that it is easy to get away with breaking the law, says Dr Mitra. With inputs from Kanika Sharma (Names of all minors have been changed to protect their identities ) A candle light march in New Delhi to demand that juvenile offenders in cases of heinous crimes, such as rape, should be tried in an adult court. (RAJ K RAJ/Hindustan Times) CASE STUDIES: MINOR TRANSGRESSIONS I hit him with a stone, but i didnt want to kill him Sixteen-year-old Sathyas parents have a large family of four sons and one daughter. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, the family migrated to Delhi for a better life. Both his parents had had no formal education. His father worked as a casual labourer, but being an alcohol addict, spent most of his money on drink. Our parents never bothered about us. Poverty made them focus more on earning a livelihood. When the financial condition of the family worsened, I was forced to start working at the age of 10, says Sathya. Initially he worked with his father, but later got a job in a real estate office where he earned `7000 per month. I never went to school. I dont know how to write but I can read a little, he says. The office where he worked was about a kilometre away from his house. On the way I had to cross a park which was used as a hang-out by many of the anti-social people from the neighbourhood. On my way back home, an acquaintance who was always under the influence of drugs, would often stop me and demand money. Most days, I used to give him small amounts to avoid a fight. One day I had about `300 with me which I had kept to give to my mother for buying provisions. I refused to give him the money. This made him angry and he started beating me. When I couldnt take his blows any more, I picked up a stone, hit him and ran away. Later, I came to know that he succumbed to the injury, says Sathya. He was caught by the police four days later. Initially I was sent to Tihar jail. It was a nightmare. There are frequent fights between inmates. They abused me sexually and physically. Later, after confirming his age, he says he was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board and transferred to an observation home. Sourced From the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights 2015 Report Why Children Commit Crimes I swore i hadnt raped her, but cops booked me Kishore, 16, from Jharkhand, was 15 when his father fell on the terrace of their house, injured his head and became mentally unstable. One day he wandered away from home and has not been traced since. Kishore had to stop studying and start working to support his mother and younger brother. He moved to Delhi on the advice of his uncle who had a roadside restaurant there, hoping to earn some decent money in the city. He had studied till class 8. I was poor in studies. Even if my father hadnt had the accident, I think I wouldve discontinued my studies, he says. In Delhi his uncle found him a job as a salesman in a grocery shop. He stayed with his uncle in a rented one-room apartment in an old two-storeyed building. The building had a common bathroom and toilets on the terrace. On the second floor lived a couple with two children (a boy and girl). Kishore and his uncle had to cross their apartment to go to the terrace. One morning Kishore says he was walking past the apartment when he found the door open and the 15-year-old girl standing by the door. The girl allegedly made some comments about him. He asked her to stop but she continued to make fun of him. He says he lost his temper and slapped her. When she ran inside, he rushed in and began hitting her. She was alone at home as her parents and brother had gone out. According to him, the girl threatened to teach him a lesson. The boy says that when her parents returned, she told them that he had tried to rape her. The girls father filed an FIR and the police caught him. Kishore says he swore that he had not raped or seduced her, but the police did not believe him. He was produced before one of the Juvenile Justice Board members and was sent to an observation home. Sourced From the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights 2015 Report Why Children Commit Crimes I will do what I want When a weeping neighbour told Vishays mother that he had sexually assaulted her seven-year-old child, she was shocked. Vishay was a troubled teen he stole money for cigarettes and had failed his Class 10 Board exams but she could never have imagined he would go this far. Trouble had been brewing for two years though, hidden in plain sight. Vishay started smoking and stealing small sums from his parents when he was 15. He responded to reprimands with outbursts of rage. He chafed at the restrictions caused by his parents poverty they were manual labourers and the family shared a single-room home in a south Mumbai slum. Vishay would often complain that he could never have new clothes and even schoolbooks had to budgeted for, says Dr Sagar Mundada of the Sir JJ group of hospitals, the psychiatrist now treating him. In a way, he adapted by becoming manipulative and opportunistic. He made friends with children whose parents were better off, and one of them gave him an old smartphone. After dropping out of school, he would spend all day with them and together they began watching porn online. Vishay was going through what we call conduct disorder when children passing through adolescence become stubborn and aggressive, says Dr Mundada. This can manifest as fights with family members, bullying of classmates or petty crimes such as stealing money from parents. At this time, it is vital that parents talk to the child, offer positive guidance, or seek therapy if things seem like they are getting out of hand. With his parents exhausted and unable to cope with his behaviour, Vishays issues escalated. Two months ago, the neighbour discovered that the 17-year-old had been sexually abusing her little girl for four or five months. Kiya maine aisa, laga mere ko karna chahiye (I did it; I felt it was what I wanted to do), Vishay said to Dr Mundada at their first meeting in March. He said he picked the girl because she was small and would be easy to control, the doctor adds. At his second session, Vishay said: Who are you to judge me? I will do what I want. Vishay will meet with the doctor once a month for counselling. That is how the families have decided to resolve the issue. Kanika Sharma All right, well see When Rakesh first walked into psychiatrist Dr Amit Desais clinic at Jaslok hospital, he was nervous, fidgety and angry. Only some of this was a result of his drug addiction. Two years earlier, the 18-year-old had been taken from the small town in UP where he grew up and deposited with an aunt and uncle in Navi Mumbai while his parents moved to the Gulf to work. In his new, unfamiliar surroundings, Rakesh was largely unsupervised, since his guardians worked long hours as accountants. His parents called occasionally, on the weekends. Desperate to fit in, Rakesh fell in with the wrong crowd and began experimenting with drugs. From marijuana, he migrated to heroin and began stealing money from his uncle, filching and pawning his aunts jewellery, even robbing small items from neighbours homes and conning people into contributing money for fake neighbourhood celebrations, in order to fund his habit. The young man was finally brought in to see Dr Desai after his uncle discovered a letter from his college stating that he would not be allowed to take his year-end exams because he had not attended classes all year. He had developed a veneer of indifference by this time, downplaying everything, seeming unconcerned. His response to most things was, Theek hai, dekha jayega (All right; well see), says Dr. Desai. By this time, Rakesh had gone from a muscular teen to a skinny young man. I worked with him for over a year, from 2013 to 2014, but he needed his parents, Dr Desai says. He had missed crucial years of love and affection. He felt orphaned, in a way. In 2014, his mother returned and took him home to UP. But there would be no happy ending. Last year I head that he had returned to the drugs and wayward ways, says Dr Desai. There is so little mental health care available outside our main cities. And so much anger and alienation in our youngsters. Everyone is aspiring to have more, be more. And when they cannot get what they aspire for, the world starts to seem hostile and they respond with aggression. Without treatment, this can become a vicious circle. Kanika Sharma MAIN POINTS OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT When a child alleged to be in conflict with law is apprehended by the police, he/she will be placed under the charge of the special juvenile police or the designated child welfare police officer, who shall produce the child before the Juvenile Justice Board Where a Board is satisfied on inquiry that a child irrespective of age has committed a petty offence, or a serious offence, or a child below the age of 16 years has committed a heinous offence it may (a) allow the child to go home after advice or admonition (b) direct the child to participate in group counselling and similar activities; (c) order the child to perform community service; (d) order the child or parents of the child to pay a fine (e) direct the child to be released on probation of good conduct (f) direct the child to be sent to a special home for a period not exceeding three years In case of a heinous offence alleged to have been committed by a child, who has completed or is above the age of 16 years, the Board may say that there is a need for trial of the child as an adult No child in conflict with law shall be sentenced to death or for life imprisonment without the possibility of release Read: Rise in Juvenile Crime Read: Sorry State of Reform Homes As the Narendra Modi government works on several measures to take forward the outreach to Canadas Sikh community and support for Khalistan dwindles, a counter-movement by separatist groups may be taking root. A troubling aspect of the situation is the link of Pakistani officials to elements attempting to whip up support for Khalistan. Our neighbour has been fishing in troubled waters, is the view of this development among Indian officials. Pakistans consul general in Toronto, Asghar Ali Golo, was photographed with Sukhminder Singh Hansra, president of Shiromani Akali DalAmritsars Canada East unit, at a pro-Khalistan event a couple of months after Prime Minister Modis visit to Canada in April last year. In an interview, Hansra said Golo wasnt at an event held by the Shiromani Akali DalAmritsar. Golo, he said, was at a nagar kirtan at which he appeared and they didnt talk. An emailed request to the Pakistani consulate for an interview with Golo didnt receive a response. Among the strategies deployed by New Delhi to sabotage support for extremism in Canada are culling the blacklist of Sikhs banned from travelling to India, exploring the possibility of giving visas to those who came to Canada as political refugees fleeing alleged persecution in India in the 1980s, and back channel talks. A pro-Khalistan rally in the Greater Toronto Area. (HT Photo) Meanwhile, those espousing Sikh sovereignty have fired several salvos a 2020 referendum for Khalistan, boycotting Air India, and what an Indian official described as indoctrination of children. This has been done, say officials, to overcome changing demographics and distance from the events of 1984, including Operation Bluestar or the storming of the Golden Temple by the army. Read: ISI using Sikh extremists in Canada for pro-Khalistan activities Contests have been held for children in gurdwaras, with some artwork lauding the assassins of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was gunned down months after she ordered Operation Bluestar. Children have been posed with toy guns. Photographs of leaders such as Talwinder Singh Parmar, chief of the banned Babbar Khalsa terror group, have been placed on display at some gurdwaras in the suburbs of Vancouver and Toronto. An invitation calling for participation of children in competitions to mark Operation Bluestar. (HT Photo) The Indian governments initiative for talks with separatist groups through a London-based interlocutor too garnered a swift response. In a statement emailed to Hindustan Times, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the New York-based legal advisor to Sikhs for Justice, said: We are campaigning for referendum and with the backing of majority Sikh community, there is no dialogue with Indian government except on referendum. His group is planning the 2020 Punjab Independence Referendum among the Sikh diaspora in several countries, including Canada. However, Surrey-based Harjit Singh Atwal, one of those associated with the dialogue process and on the blacklist for his views on Khalistan, said, As long as there are fair talks, people will support it. He added, You cannot make 100% people happy. Five or 10% people may have a different view on it. Among those differing is Hansra, who hosted the World Sikh Organisations February convention to move forward with the struggle for Khalistan. He said, Khalistan movement has always been live and vibrant because it makes sense. Only those who try to exploit it is Indian media, trying to link it to terrorism and extremism. Clearly, the Indian governments attempts at reconciliation will meet its share of challenges. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A witness to the disputed Murthal gangrapes in February was allegedly attacked by two unidentified men while he was driving from Chandigarh to Delhi on Saturday night. Bobby Joshi, a resident of Delhi, said two men threw a stone at his Swift Dzire car along the Karnal-Panipat stretch breaking its windows. The Punjab and Haryana high court has taken suo motu notice of media reports that some women, who were commuting on the Delhi-Ambala Highway, were stripped and raped by rioters during the Jat agitation for reservations in February this year. Joshi is one of the witnesses in the case, which the Haryana government has dismissed as a complete fabrication. Describing his ordeal, Joshi told HT: I stopped at a shop to buy water when two men started saying: Yahi hain jo jaton ki baat kar raha hain Murthal maamle mein. (This is the man whos talking about Jats in the Murthal case). I ignored them and got into my car, but they broke my cars rear window with a big stone. As I was alone, I fled from the spot without looking back. When asked why he had not alerted the police, Joshi said, As I was to get security at Panipat toll, I thought I could directly relate the incident to them. Everything happened so fast that calling 100 did not occur to me. Read: Possibility of rapes in Murthal during Jat protests: Haryana tells HC Inspector general Mamta Singh, SIT in-charge in the Murthal gangrape case, said that Joshi did not take the initiative of approaching the police. I called Joshi on Sunday morning to ask when he could join the investigation. That was when he told me that he was attacked the previous night. I forwarded the complaint to the Karnal superintendent of police, and he is looking into the matter, Singh said. The matter would have been much easier to resolve if the witness had informed the police immediately after the incident, she added. Earlier, an unknown caller had allegedly threatened Joshi with dire consequences for talking too much. I received a threat call. The caller said: You are speaking too much. We will see you. Following this, I complained to the IGP, Joshi said, adding that he could not view the callers number because it was made through an internet-based system. Read: Another FIR lodged against alleged gang rapes by Jat agitators Joshi told HT that his family members were concerned about his safety and didnt want him to pursue it any further. My mother is a little worried right now, but I will join the investigation soon. Kisi se darta nain hun (Im not scared of anyone), he told HT. Earlier this week, the Haryana government had told the high court that a section of gangrape had been added to the FIR on the basis of a complaint filed by Joshi on March 30. During the Jat agitation, I saw some rogue elements creating a ruckus and misbehaving with women near Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal. I am not scared of any threat. Besides me, there was a woman who saw everything that occurred then, Joshi was quoted as saying by ANI. Around 30 shops were set ablaze on Sunday when riots broke out in Jharkhands Hazaribagh that had been on the edge for the past two days after a Ram Navami procession by Hindus passing through a Muslim-dominated area sparked violence. Hazaribagh, roughly a two-hour drive from state capital Ranchi, was put under curfew as shop owners from both communities were targeted in the arson. Around 200 people arrived at the district hospital with injuries from the stone-pelting at the procession that led to a stampede. Deputy commissioner Mukesh Kumar said trouble started when objectionable recorded slogans were played at a Ram Navami procession triggering clash between two groups of people at the nearby Kud Rewali village near Hazaribagh railway station, according to news agency PTI. Stones were pelted at police when they tried to control the situation and in the process several policemen were injured, he said. An unspecified number of people were arrested, Kumar said, according to PTI. (With PTI inputs) An AIADMK worker was allegedly hacked to death by a gang at a village in Sivaganga district, police said on Sunday. The victim, Kathiresan (55), a farmer, had some dispute with one Pandi of Kallupatti village, police said. He was herding his cattle back to his house, along with his wife, when he was waylaid and attacked by the gang on Saturday evening. Kathiresan died on the spot, police said. Victims wife, who was injured in the attack, has been admitted to a hospital where her condition is stated to be stable. A case has been registered and a hunt is on for the assailants, police added. Two Indian citizen stuck in Bhutan managed to cross over to India following a flurry of tweets from them and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor alerted authorities. Border guarding force SSB came to help the two Ahmedabad residents after they got stuck in Bhutan when the border was sealed for the ongoing assembly polls in West Bengal. The travails of Deep Shah and Parth Trivedi began on April 15 when they were told in Bhutan, while packing their luggage for the journey back home, that they cannot cross the Indo-Bhutan International Border as it has been sealed in view of the polls. The duo said they checked with the Indian embassy in Bhutan but the phone operator was helpless as to how to help them. They found the only way out by taking a flight was expensive. Shah then took to Twitter and wrote about his plight and tagged numerous official handles of the government like those of Prime Ministers Office, the MEA and Sushma Swaraj, MoS Gen VK Singh, Railway ministry, Rail minister Suresh Prabhu and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee with the plea that they be allowed inside India as they had a train to catch from Hasimara in West Bengal the same evening. Mam, we are in Bhutan, we heard that border gate to India is sealed due to election. V have train to catch at @5pm. wouldnt we allowed to enter our own country? #stuckinbhutan, Shah tweeted to the WB CMs handle. Getting restless after there was no response to his tweets in the early hours of April 15, Shah then tagged Congress leader Shashi Tharoors handle seeking help. Sir, v r in Bhutan, border gate sealed due 2 election in WB, we need to get back to our country. Pls help, he wrote to Tharoor. Tharoor, who was awake, responded: Attn @SushmaSwaraj this young Indian says hes #stuckinBhutan bcos border gates closed due to elections in Bengal? Attn @SushmaSwaraj this young Indian says he's #stuckinBhutan bcos border gates closed due to elections in Bengal? https://t.co/VaqvW4hqPG Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 15, 2016 The tweet was soon noticed by Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) inspector general Renuka Mishra, at its headquarters, on her personal ID and she acknowledged that it Pays to stay up late Happy to help. Mishra, who also manages the forces Twitter handle @DGSSB, responded to Shah asking Where exactly are you right now and what is your contact number. Saw your tweet to @ShashiTharoor #stuckinbhutan. Pays to stay up late :) Happy to help. Thank you for the thank you :) https://t.co/jvptcXUHZr renuka mishra (@renukamishra67) April 16, 2016 Mishra told PTI that she soon got in touch with the forces commanders on the Indo-Bhutan border on the eastern frontier. She was told that the gates have been closed and additional vigil mounted in the wake of administrations instructions to seal the borders before the polling day today. Soon after, the SSB area commander got in touch with his Bhutanese counterpart and Shah and his friend were asked to report at an official crossing point at the border. They were allowed to cross over after due verification of their documents at about 3pm on Saturday. I along with my friend @parthlyright have safely crossed border. Thanks, Shah tweeted with photographs he took along with his friend and SSB company commander Ranjit Baidya. The SSB responded with a short tweet in response: Glad to be of help. SSB officials said they later facilitated many other Indians cross over the border following this for their onward journey into India. The border sealing directions are in place till Sunday evening, they said. Later, Tharoor complimented the SSB and IG Mishra for ensuring prompt help to the youngsters. Well done @DGSSB! Such episodes reinforce my belief that social media can do good & in our Govt& securitry services, he tweeted. Glad you're back home and all is well. Social media works! https://t.co/BjU83Pnox5 Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 16, 2016 Vijay Mallya invested nearly half of a Rs 950-crore loan from IDBI bank in properties outside India, investigators probing allegations of money laundering by the embattled liquor baron told a special court on Saturday. The court is hearing a plea by the Enforcement Directorate, an agency that investigates financial crimes, seeking a non-bailable arrest warrant and a red-corner notice against the Rajya Sabha MP who owes Rs 9,400 crores to several banks in India. The court reserved its order until Monday. ED counsel Hiten Venegaonkar told the court that Mallya siphoned off Rs 430 crore from the IDBI bank loan under heads such as aircraft lease rent, import of spare parts and aircraft maintenance services. The loan was given to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. The EDs remarks before the court are the first specific charges against Mallya, who left the country in March amidst mounting pressure from banks to pay up. Read | Order reserved on ED plea for non-bailable warrant against Mallya The agency has approached several countries, including Britain, France and the United States over Kingfisher Airlines transactions. Some ED officials suspect that money might have been parked in overseas tax havens, sources said. We have stumbled upon the money trail and found that of the money he borrowed, a portion had been used to buy a property outside India, Venegaonkar said adding that major recipients of the amount have been identified, along with their bank details. Payments of various amounts to companies apparently unrelated to the business were made, he said. He said the agency has approached countries such as Ireland, UK and France to verify the transactions by Kingfisher Airlines which ceased operations in 2012. Read | Vijay Mallyas passport suspended for 4 weeks, govt seeks response The 60-year-old businessman -- once known as the king of good times for his flamboyant lifestyle -- owns several properties outside the country, including in the US, South Africa, UK and France. Mallya, believed to be in UK, ignored three summons by ED to appear for questioning in the case but claims he is not on the run and will abide by the law. The ED counsel told the court that Mallya offered to answer its questions through video-conferencing or mail but that was not acceptable as investigations cannot proceed as per the convenience of the accused. Venegaonkar said Mallya could tamper with evidence or dispose of key evidence. Read Govt had nothing to do with Vijay Mallyas case, says FM Arun Jaitley Earlier, a consortium of banks rejected Mallyas offer to pay Rs 4,000 crore by September towards settlement of his loan. The banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) have demanded that Mallya be personally present at the next hearing of the case in Supreme Court on April 26. The top court has also asked Mallya to disclose all assets owned by him and his family in India and abroad by April 21. (With PTI inputs) A week of high-level interactions between India and China including meetings between visiting defence minister Manohar Parrikar and Chinese military officials starting Monday is set to bring back bilateral focus on issues dogging the relationship between the two giant neighbours. Discussions are likely to focus on Chinas recent veto on Pakistani terror suspect, Masood Azhar, the festering border dispute with recurring incursions by border patrols, Beijings disquiet over New Delhis increasing military engagement with the US, subsequent joint statements and reports on joint patrolling of the South China Sea (SCS). The modalities to open a sixth meeting point for military personnel along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) could also come up for discussion. In 2015, two new meeting points were opened at Daulat Beg Oldie in Ladakh and Kibithoo in Arunachal Pradesh. The other three points are Spanngur Gap in Ladakh, Bum-La in Arunachal Pradesh and Nathu-La in Sikkim. Parrikar is landing in Beijing Sunday evening after spending a day in Shanghai where he met the Indian diaspora. His delegation includes Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba, FOC-in C, Western Naval Command and Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, DGMO. Over the next couple of days he is expected to meet Premier Li Keqiang and top officials from Chinas powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), which is headed by President Xi Jinping. A visit to the Chengdu military command headquarters is on the cards. External Affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj will meet Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the annual foreign ministers meeting of the Russia, India and China (RIC) grouping in Moscow. And, back in Beijing, national security adviser, AK Doval will hold border talks with Councilor Yang Jiechi; both are the designated Special Representatives (SR) and will hold the 19th round of talks to resolve the border dispute under the SR mechanism. The last round was held more than a year ago in March in New Delhi. During Parrikars meetings, he is likely to be asked about Indias position on the South China sea disputes that China has with several countries in the region. Beijing might want to know why India has in the recent past has talked about the freedom of navigation in the South China sea echoing US and Japans opinions. Azhar will loom large over the meetings with Beijing using technical jargon to defend its decision to oppose the move to ban him much to Indias indignation. In order to reach international consensus on counter terrorism, China encourage all parties to fully leverage the leading and coordinating role played by the UN and the Security Council and forge international synergy on counter-terrorism, the Chinese foreign ministry told PTI. On the border, the two countries are probably not any closer to resolving the dispute any time soon. The discussions between Doval and Yang will focus more on the mechanisms that have been put in place to tackle situations like incursions and stand-offs between the two militaries; and whether those mechanisms have been effective in defusing tension along the border. When Madhur Saluja ordered biryani at a Bangalore cafe in December, he was surprised to find the cutlery that came with it was edible. It was actually really tasty, says the 40-year-old IT manager, laughing. The spoon hed been served was jowar cutlery made by Hyderabad-based Narayan Peesapaty, a former scientist with the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). As a scientist, Peesapaty says, he had become increasingly concerned about the ease with which Indians used, and discarded, plastic spoons. Plastic is a petroleum derivative and contains toxic chemicals, he says. Its not just bad for the environment, its bad for us too. Peesapaty isnt the only one stepping up. Amid growing concerns over global warming, mounting garbage and rising pollution levels, three companies have begun to offer edible or even biodegradable cutlery and even dinnerware over the past two years. While Peesapatys Bakeys offers edible spoons, soup spoons, forks, sporks and chopsticks in three flavours plain, sweet and spicy, 18-month-old Shunya Alternatives offers bowls, plates, meal trays and takeaway boxes made from wheat-straw and sugarcane fibre. And month-old Anahata founded by former copywriter Alok Banerjee, 28, makes dinnerware (including soup bowls, plates, and spoons) from areca leaves. Anahata, a month-old company set up by former Mumbai copywriter Alok Banerjee, 28, makes dinnerware (including soup bowls, plates, and spoons) from areca leaves. We first thought of creating an alternative when we were at Mumbais Juhu beach three years ago and saw the waves of plastic and Styrofoam littering the sand, says Yash Maniar, 24, who set up Shunya with his sister Sachi, 27, in Mumbai, incubating the idea at Germanys Do School. We picked wheat and sugarcane because both crops are grown across the country and we can use the chaff that otherwise goes to waste. Since areca leaf and the chaff have high heat-resistance, the products made by Shunya and Anahata are microwavable, in addition to being freezer-friendly and water-resistant. Back to basics The aim, say Peesapaty, Banerjee and the Maniars, is to steer people away from non-biodegradable options and back towards traditional alternatives that produce near-zero waste. Bakeys, for instance, is a take on the Indian tradition of lifting food with a chapatti or a sukha puri. And Anahata draws on the leaf-based platters and pudis of coastal Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Even if Saluja had wanted to throw away his spoon rather than eat it, for instance, he could have done so without any guilt, because it would have been devoured by insects, dog or birds, or as with the products on offer by Anahata and Shunya broken down into its natural components in a matter of days. Scale and distribution are something all three companies are still working on. At Shunya and Anahata, the minimum order is 25 pieces, with prices per piece starting at Rs 80 and Rs 125 respectively. Bakeys was launched in December 2013 offering limited delivery for bulk orders only, but scaled up in March and now has a minimum order of 100 pieces (which costs Rs 275) and delivers across India. Bakeys edible spoons do not droop or melt in liquids. They come in three flavours plain, sweet and spicy. Optional add-on flavours include onion and tomato, garlic, and ginger. Already, in the last case, the benefits of scaling up are showing. Where Peesapathy had 20 clients before March, he has since had over 2,700 orders for cutlery worth Rs 5.5 lakh. We mortgaged our family house to fund the initiative, says Peesapaty, whose operation consists of his wife and 10 workers. But we knew it was an idea that would work, and we are now seeing interest from investors too. Meanwhile, as retail orders trickle in, the largest customer base for all three product lines is cafe and restaurant chains, wedding caterers, and event planners. Bakeys spoons are made from wheat, jowar and rice flour, which is packed into moulds and baked. In Mumbai, for instance, the trendy Kala Ghoda Cafe is among Shunyas 40 hospitality clients across 12 cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Goa and Indore. We decided to turn fully organic in December and went looking for eco-friendly cutlery at various exhibitions, says cafe manager Sayeed Shaikh. Thats when Yash got in touch with us and we have since bought 1,000 forks and spoons and 500 takeaway containers from him every month. All our takeaway orders now feature Shunya. In Hyderabad, event management company Royal Treat Hospitality Services has used Bakeys cutlery at 20 events since April 2013. Weve used the spoons and forks at weddings, cocktail parties and business conferences. I love the concept and so do my clients, says Krishna Jakka, 52, owner of Real Treat. Retail customers are snapping them up too, encouraged by their durability and uniqueness. Read: SC worried over littered plastic time bomb I ordered 50 Anahata plates for my daughters birthday party on April 7 and I am amazed by how sturdy they are, says Pallavi Ajmera, 38, a chartered accountant from Mumbai. Friends at the party were asking where I got them. These are great initiatives and have the potential to reduce the use of plastic, says Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general at the independent Delhi-based thinktank Centre for Science and Environment. Though there is pressure to reduce the use of plastic bags, not much is being done about plastic cutlery, whose use is growing at a phenomenal rate. We must do everything to reduce its use. Watch | Now, eat your food and the cutlery too The Thane anti-narcotics cell and crime branch have seized Rs2,000 crore worth of ephedrine, a recreational drug, at Solapur in the past week. Last Sunday, Okhay Sipren Chinnas, 30, from Nigeria, was arrested from Vartak Nagar for possession of half a kilogram of ephedrine worth Rs12.50 lakh. After two days, two Raigad residents were arrested by cops from the Thane crime branch unit-3 and Thane anti-narcotics cell at Shildaighar. A total of 2kg of ephedrine worth Rs80 lakh was seized from the duo. The two accused were identified as Sagar Powale, 28, who works for a private company and Mayur Sukhdare, 25, who works with a pharmaceutical company in Navi Mumbai. The duo revealed the place from where they used to get the drug in Solapur. Amol Walzade, sub-inspector, anti-narcotics cell said, We then made two teams and sent them to the place. The accused also told us from whom they used to buy it. When we reached the place at Solapur a day before yesterday [Thursday], we found the dealer, Dhaneshwar Rajaram Swami, 28, a resident of Solapur. When we arrested him, he told us about a manager of a pharmaceutical company at Chincholi, MIDC in Solapur who was involved. We then traced and arrested the manager, Rajendra Jagdamba Prasad Dimbri, 48, Walzade added. Walzade said a pharmaceutical company, Avon Life sciences limited, where Rajendra used to work was the main centre for producing the drugs. We investigated the factory and seized the drugs, said Walzade. The cops seized 18.5 tonnes of the drug which costs around Rs2,000 crore. The drugs will be brought back to Thane. Prambir Singh, Thane commissioner said, The five arrested were produced in court and they have been remanded in police custody till April 20. This drug has a market in Europe and Poland and we came to know that these drugs were exported to there. We are trying to find out if more people are involved. This one of the biggest drug hauls in history, said Prambir Singh, police commissioner. Meanwhile, the Gujarat police crime branch asked Thane police for more information about the drug as they are looking to bust a smuggling racket. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Four more scrap dealers were arrested for the fires at Deonar, taking the total number of arrests to 13. The police have recovered metal pieces from them. The names of those arrested are Firoz Rais Khan, 33, Vijaykumar Krishnakumar Gupta, 32, Kalam Iqbal Shaikh, 44, and Sayeda alias Lallu Hafijulla Shah, 46. All the accused are scrap dealers and we have recovered the metal pieces they got from the Deonar dumping ground, said Sangramsinh Nishandar, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 6. Sources said more arrests are likely in the case, including the kingpin involved in sending ragpickers to the dumping ground to ignite the fire. Investigations revealed fires make it easy for ragpickers to dig out exposed metal from the scrap. The police have already arrested Mohammad Shaikh, Shamim Khan, Sohail Shaikh, Jayprakash Yadav, Hussain Shaikh, Alibaba Shaikh, Shoaib Shaikh, Umarghani Khan and Rajesh Mahadik (all in their thirties) for orchestrating the fire. The officials said the arrests were conducted on the basis the statements of more than 25 ragpickers, who have been made a witness in the case. Officials said despite three fires at the Deonar dump, with the last major one reported on March 20, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to close several ruptured walls, which serve as illegal entry points. Most of them are located at the Rafiq Nagar slums in Tilak Nagar. Several letters have been sent by the local police to the BMC. The fires resulted in thick toxic smoke engulfing parts of the eastern suburbs and central Mumbai, including Govandi, Deonar, Chembur, Ghatkopar, Wadala, Antop Hill and Sion. A man who was injured after a BMW ran over him in Noida on Saturday afternoon has died. The car, allegedly being driven by a resident of Mayur Vihar in East Delhi identified as Vinod, knocked down four people. The driver is on the run. The incident once again puts the spotlight on rash driving in Delhi and the NCR area. About two weeks ago, a 32-year-old student was killed by a Mercedes in North Delhis Civil Lines. Police said the BMW hit another car near Noidas Adobe crossing in sector-22/24, before it hit two people on a bike. Out of control, the BMW hit the wall of a nearby house and came to a halt. Gulfam and Anwar, both aged around 20, were returning from work on a bike when the accident took place. Two others, Prem Kumar and Jogendra Bhandari, were also injured. Gulfam, who suffered head injuries, died at night at a hospital. Police called four people for questioning. We will soon arrest Vinod, who was driving the car, Neeraj Kumar Singh, SHO of Noida Sector 24, was quoted by news agency ANI as saying. Picture of Noida Hit & Run case victim Gulfam, who succumbed to his injuries last night. pic.twitter.com/HhSTm3r5Ug ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 17, 2016 The driver fled, leaving the car behind. We have seized the car and registered a case under proper IPC sections at Sector 24 police station. During the initial investigation, it has come to light that the BMW was being driven by a gym owner who operates the facility at Sector 22. However, the information is yet to be verified, said Dr Gaurav Grover, Noida assistant superintendent of police (city). Speculations were rife that a race between two BMW cars led to the accident. After the incident, the driver allegedly took out a pistol and escaped in the second car. These theories have come to light but are yet to be verified. We do not have confirmation on whether there were two BMW cars. We are trying to ascertain the sequence of events from the footage of nearby CCTV cameras. So far, we have not found any CCTV footage that can confirm the same, Grover added. The car was reportedly registered in the name of a woman from Haryana. Clarifying his partys stand on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur on Saturday said the AAP supported Punjabs cause. During his visit here, Chhotepur said that owing to a technical error the Delhi government had mistakenly submitted the affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting Haryana. The AAP will file a rectified affidavit supporting Punjab, he claimed, adding that the earlier affidavit was prepared by the previous Congress government of Delhi. The statement by the AAP Punjab convener assumes significance as opposition leaders, including Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, had cornered the AAP in Punjab after party national convener Arvind Kejriwals no politics on water comment and his support for his native state Haryana. Chhotepur asked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to clear his stand on the issue. The Congress is raising fingers at Kejriwal but Rahul has not spoken a word to support Punjab; he must clear his stand, he said. Taking a dig at the Congress for calling the AAP a party of outsiders, he said Amarinder had accepted the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, who is a foreigner, whereas Kejriwal is a loyal Indian. SAD leader joins AAP Senior SAD leader and former chairman of SBS Nagar District Planning Board, Resham Singh Thiara, who once was close to chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, joined the AAP on Saturday in the presence of Chhotepur. Thiara was virtually sidelined by the SAD in SBS Nagar after Markfed chairman Jarnail Singh Wahid is being projected as the SADs candidate from SBS Nagar for the coming assembly election. He was denied ticket in the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections after he had lost the election on a SAD ticket in the 2002 elections. Dr Manjit Singh, former chief medical officer of Amritsar, also joined the party. In a bid to make health services better, the civil surgeons will also oversee the functioning of the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) hospitals in their respective districts. The ESI hospitals at Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, SAS Nagar (Mohali), Phagwara and Mandi Gobindgarh are being managed by medical superintendents. The state also has 70 ESIC dispensaries. Director health (ESI) Dr Gulshan Rai said the decision has been taken for better coordination between the ESI and general hospitals. The civil surgeon can take the staff from the ESI hospitals if he needs to depute in general hospitals and similarly, he can depute staff of other hospitals in ESI hospitals, Rai added. He said the civil surgeons would also promote the scheme of treatment or health check-up of the general patients or non-ESIC card holders in the ESI hospitals. The civil surgeons have also ordered to install flex boards in the city for the publicity of the scheme. The scheme was getting a lukewarm response since it was launched in August 2015. At present, the primary and subsidiary health hospitals in the districts are under the direct supervision of the civil surgeon and four civil hospitals in Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala and Ludhiana are being headed by medical superintendents. The government stated that the decision would help in reducing the workload of the other government health institutions, especially civil hospital. Moreover, it will also lead to optimum utilisation of facilities and infrastructure at the ESIC hospitals that remained unutilised most of the time in the year. Jalandhar has a 100-bedded ESIC hospital. Around 350 patients visit the OPD per day. The 400-bedded Shaheed Babu Labh Singh civil hospital, which is adjacent to the ESIC hospital is visited by 1,300 patients per day. Patients have to stand in long queues for hours at the civil hospital to get themselves examined. It has around 45 specialists, including four senior medical officers and 80 staff nurses, working at the civil hospital. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A 21-year-old engineering student was killed, while his friends, including two girls, suffered injuries, after their Maruti Swift car collided with a private bus at Dholewala Chowk in phase-1, SAS Nagar in wee hours on Sunday. Investigating officer, Jaspal Singh said, the deceased identified as Gursimrat Singh, was coming from phase-1 and was on his way to Zirakpur at around 2.15 am, when their car collided with a private bus bearing Jammu and Kashmir registration number. The injured were rushed to Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), where their condition is stated to be critical. Gursimrat Singh was driving the car and his friend Ashish Kumar was sitting next to him, while the girls-Shabnam and Anjana- were seated on the backseat. All occupants of the cars were engineering students of Rayat and Bahra University in Kharar. Gursimrat Singh, who was also rushed to PGIMER, was declared brought dead. Gursimrat, a native of Jethi Nagar of Khanna in Ludhiana district, was staying at a rented accommodation in Zirakpur. The deceaseds father Avatar Singh, in his statement to the police, said he was only the son and had two sisters, who are married. He was good in studies and was pursuing civil engineering (first year) from the university. We had high hopes from him, the father said. Soon, after the incident, the bus driver fled from the scene leaving the bus. We have registered a case against the bus driver under Section 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 304-A (causing death by negligence) and 427 (mischief causing damage) of Indian Penal (Code IPC). After the postmortem, the body has been handed over, said the IO. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday accused Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi of refusing to support Punjab on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal even as the state unit of his party had supported the bill withdrawing the land acquisition order for the canal, besides passing a resolution not to allow construction of the canal. Why has he developed cold feet over the SYL issue? Harsimrat asked Rahul in a statement here, citing his assertions during his visit to Zirakpur on Saturday. It is unfortunate that the Congress vice-president had offered the lame excuse that he could not react on the matter because it was sub judice when no bar had been put by the apex court on speaking on the issue, she said. Rahuls refusal to speak up and be counted on the side of Punjabi farmers has negated the support extended to the issue by the Punjab Congress, she said. Read: AAP mere hype, the contest is with Akalis in Punjab: Rahul Gandhi The Congress has a policy to taking different stands on any issue in Punjab and Haryana. Since Rahul was in Zirakpur near Chandigarh, the joint capital of both the states, he chose to clam up rather than to be exposed, she added. As traders from across the border have reached Amritsar to take part in Indo-Pak International Expo-2016 at the Trillium Mall here, activists of Shiv Sena and other Hindu bodies staged a protests in different parts of the city, including the one outside the venue. Shiv Sena (Sher-e-Punjab) activists held a protest outside the venue and burnt the Pakistani flag. Also, members of another faction of the Shiv Sena, held a protest on Jhabhal Road. Though police managed to restrict the protesters are different locations, one group managed to reach outside Trillium Mall. They raised antiPakistan slogans and demanded that the organisers should ask the traders from other side of the border to leave. Despite the fact that Pakistan sponsors terror attacks in India, Indian government allows traders from across the border to make money here. This very money they spend against our country, said Sachin Behal, president of Shiv Sena (Rashtrawadi). Om Parkash, convener of Shiv Sena (Sher-e-Punjab) said, Pakistani-hand had been proved in Dinanagar and Pathankot attacks; Kirpal Singh was killed in a Pak jail. Such exhibitions and shows of traders from Pakistan cant be tolerated. The Shiv Sainiks were reportedly detained by the police at some places.Police commissioner Amar Singh Chahal said the police had not detained anyone. We only stopped the Shiv Sena activists from going near the expo venue, he said. Congress on Sunday accused Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal of spending Delhi taxpayers money for advertisements in Punjab and vowed to expose him ahead of the assembly elections next year. We will expose Arvind Kejriwal and his outfit. We will run expose AAP campaign to reveal the many faces of Kejriwal who has been caught lying on the SYL issue, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh said, adding the Delhi chief minister has different yardsticks on issues in every state. He claimed AAPs Lok Sabha upsurge is now history and the situation is changing rapidly, as he questioned Kejriwals multi-crore spending on advertisements in Punjab. Kejriwal is using Delhi taxpayers money to market himself in Punjab. Tomorrow where will he spend Punjabs money...in Tamil Nadu? he said. Captain said people of Delhi should demand an answer from Kejriwal as to how he can use their hard-earned money for marketing himself and for doing his politics. He claimed AAP will disintegrate in the next six months and its people will start joining Congress. Capt said the ruling Akali Dal will suffer the same fate. AAPs position has gone down very much since the last elections. One should have a credible face in Punjab and they have no credibility, he said. He said Punjab, which has been pushed behind many years due to the over two decades of militancy, cannot afford to be pushed behind further as the Delhi chief minister has no solutions to offer to solve the problems of farmers in the state and is resorting to mere theatrics and gimmicks to woo the gullible Punjab voters. Dismissing suggestions that AAP was gaining ground in Punjab, he said the 2014 AAP euphoria had already fizzled out and it was suffering a progressive decline in Punjab since then. It contested two by-elections after 2014 and forfeited security in both and then did not dare to contest again, he pointed out. He said Kejriwal had been exposed over double speak on Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) by supporting Punjab while in Punjab and then backing out the moment he landed in Delhi. And to top it all, he submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting Haryanas case on SYL, he said. Singh claimed the ruling SAD will completely disintegrate before 2017 assembly polls. There is a subtle and simmering discontent prevailing within the Akali Dal and I guarantee you it will explode at the right time ahead of polls, he said. The Punjab Congress chief also claimed Akalis were very much in touch with us and will join the party by the end of the year. Right now they (the Akali leaders and workers) are lying low as they do not want to be implicated in false cases, he said, adding, the moment the Akalis lose control over the administration after the model code of conduct comes into effect, they will resign and join us (the Congress). Singh also warned about serious law and order problem in the state as the farmers may not receive the money for their produce since the state government was unlikely to get the credit limit due to Rs 12,000 crore alleged wheat scam, unearthed recently. Inspired by an African proverb, If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation, Hariom Jindal, an advocate by profession, has started educating women in a slum area in the city. After an effort that lasted for a month, Jindal has been able to convince eight women to study at the school run by him at a shanty in the slum on Hambran Road. Jindal said, This will encourage slum children to come to school on a regular-basis. In one month, these women have learnt to write their names in English and Hindi. Now they can even read hoardings and signboards and are ecstatic over their achievement, he said. Jindal has appointed a teacher to teach them and provides free stationery and books to them. Manika, who is a regular student at the school, said Initially, I hesitated to join the school, but Jindal ji and schoolteacher convinced me. I am learning a lot here. I can write my name in English, which is an achievement for me. As I have understood the importance of education in our lives, I have decided to send my children to school regularly, so that they can make their future better, she added. Hariom Jindal said, It was a tough job to bring women to school, as they were reluctant. But I never gave up and succeeded in bringing them to school. Savita, another woman, said, Apart from reading and writing, we are being taught about our administrative system. I know what my rights as a citizen are. Saroj, who is teaching the slum women, said, I started from teaching them alphabets, and then making words from them. These women are learning fast. NO SCHOOLS NEAR HAMBRAN ROAD SLUM Jindal said, Many NGOs visited this slum to enroll children to school. But, they failed to persuade children as well as their parents, as the school was situated far away from the area. So, I started the school in the shanty itself two years ago. At present, 30 students study here. They no more beg on the streets and took pledge to go to school for further education, he added. He said, Students were not coming to the school regularly, so I decided to bring their mothers to school. This has helped in improving the attendance at school. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Slum children, whose labour-class parents have no choice but to leave them unattended as they head for work in Ludhiana, are increasingly becoming victims of sexual crime. In the underbelly of Punjabs industrial city alone, 11 sexual assaults on minors have come to light in the past month. The perpetrators of the crime are young neighbours and relatives, who the victims trusted. For instance, on March 14, a local girl had her throat slit in a rape attempt. Left for dead, she bled copiously but survived. She is just 2, the assaulter only 14. In 10 days, another child, barely 4, was raped in Ludhiana. The accused, her 23-year-old cousin, had lured her with the promise of a chocolate. Here is an account of four of the 11 victims and their families who have been living with the trauma as they struggle to make ends meet and lead a life of dignity. Railway quarters adjoining the Ferozepur line Teenager tried to rape, kill two-year-old (HT Representative Photo) Adjoining the railway tracks in the small, dingy, railway quarters, two children a girl, 2, and a boy, 5, are engrossed in play. The girl, who has just returned from school, has a deep scar around the neck, where the stitches are now healing. She is in a tattered frock, playing in filth. Her chewing gum drops out of her mouth repeatedly. Every time she picks it up from the dusty surface and puts it back into her mouth, unaware of the risk to her health. Asked how she got the wound, she is quick to name the boy who did it. Her brother volunteers to narrate the incident: He picked her up from here, locked her in a room, and gagged her with his hand, he goes, putting his hand over his mouth. Looking for her, we heard her cries from a room. When we broke open the door, there she was, with blood all over, he narrates in a single breath what he has overheard elders say umpteen times in the recent days. The incident On March 13, a neighbourhood boy, 14, whom she called Bhaiya (brother) fondly, kidnapped her. At vacant quarters in the area later, he attempted to first rape her and then kill her using a kitchen knife. Saved in time, she spent a week in hospital, where she survived after a difficult surgery and four days of being on ventilator. The mental scar Her wind pipe was damaged 95%, Doctors said it was a tough surgery, says the victims father, a juice vendor from Bihar, staying in the city for the past 15 years. Her mother works as a domestic help. We have to make ends meet. There is no one to look after the children once we go off to work, he says. My daughter started going to school only today. She used to be cheerful but now she gets scared outside and clings to her mother all the time. The boy who tried to kill her was drunk, he adds. Accused a porn addict The accused boy told police he had been carrying a kitchen knife all the time only to kill the child after raping her on first opportunity. The school dropout who took to selling vegetables said he was addicted to watching porn videos on the mobile phones of his friends. He is in a juvenile home now. EWS Colony Danger lurks in neighbourhood Let without support, the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Colony girl, 9, was crying even two days after a neighbour had made an alleged rape attempt on her. She moved to Ludhiana only a month ago, to assist her ailing aunt in chores. Her parents and three siblings remain at Saharsa in Bihar. Her house, with a dark entrance and corridors wide enough for only one person, is piled up with garbage. Flies hover over the area, where the last sanitation campaign was four months ago. The incident She was raped on the evening of April 6.The accused, brother-in-law of her familys tenant, lives only a few metres from the cramped quarters. No woman to turn to after being raped, she could not share her pain with anyone that night. Only the next morning she could telephone her aunt in Bihar. The neighbour came in that evening and locked me up in my fathers room. Drunk, he pinned me to the bed and shut my mouth to not let me scream. He then raped me, and I have been in pain since, says the girl. Victim in depression The girl continues to be in deep shock after the incident. She cant reach her parents in Bihar and her uncle is the only support she has here; but hes too busy making a living. Alone all day in the one-room tenement in a crowded locality, she has sunk into depression. I will send her back to her village. It was a mistake to bring her to Ludhiana. At least, she was safe there. The neighbours beat up accused Jai Parkash, who is in judicial custody now, said her uncle. Uneducated, of course Accused Jai Parkash, 19, a bachelor from Bihar, is a school dropout. He works as a labourer and was reportedly inebriated when he committed the crime. Dholewal What safety when the monster is in the family While the one-room tenement at Dholewal, where a girl, 4, was raped by her cousin, is empty, her father is found ironing clothes nearby. His daughter soon returns from school. Asked what had happened to her, she puts her hand on her mouth and points to her private parts. Her expression changes and she hides behind her mother and clings to her. The claw marks are still visible on the face. The incident It was Holi (March 24). Her father was sharing drinks in his one-room quarters at Dholewal with relatives, including the accused, his nephew Santosh, 23. The child was playing nearby. The accused passed her a Rs 50 note and told her he would get her a chocolate. She followed him outside to the storeroom. He was about to strangle her after rape when another relative raised the alarm. Neighbours gathered and thrashed Santosh before handing him over to police. The girl was left bleeding. Cannot trust relatives now I cannot trust my relatives now. I will never leave her alone, says the childs father, while her mother describes how their daughter wakes up horrified at night. I have to keep her close all the time, she says. The devil in drink Police say accused Santosh of Bihar is a drunkard who works in a local factory. He is a bachelor who switches jobs frequently. Jeevan Nagar Forced into silence Sitting in her mothers lap at Jeevan Nagar locality of Ludhianas Moti Nagar area, the girl (7) runs away on seeing the HT team. Her mother is reluctant to talk about the incident. There is no use, she says. The incident (HT representational image) Neighbour Mohan Ji Kesri, 30, police say, is the man who tried to rape the girl on March 30 after picking her up when she was playing. Her father says he heard her screams from a room, which was bolted from inside. The people who broke open the door found the accused trying to disrobe the child. They beat him up and called police. Fear factor Feeling humiliated and threatened, the family, which includes the victims three older siblings, doesnt want to pursue the case. We fear the man will come out of jail and threaten us, says the victims mother. The accused has two sons, aged 8 and 6. His wife has now left him and taken the children with her to Bihar. Violent man Unemployed, school dropout, and known to be violent, the accused, say neighbours, has been involved in frequent fights in the colony. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chief Avtar Singh Makkar on Sunday condemned the gurdwara blast in the German city of Essen and sought the arrest of those involved. The blast that occurred on Saturday left three persons, including a granthi, injured. In a release, Makkar has called upon the German law-enforcement agencies to investigate the matter in detail to come out with the truth. The SGPC chief wished the injured a speedy recovery, while stating that Sikhs were a peace-loving community that had contributed to the progress and development of countries where they have settled after migrating from India. Read: Germany gurdwara explosion leaves 3 injured; Indian authorities express concern Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) president Manjit Singh, meanwhile, has written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeking a thorough investigation into the incident to restore confidence and ensure safety of Sikhs living in the European nation. A German policeman stands guard at a gurdwara in the western city of Essen. (German Media) The SGPC has so far refrained from terming the incident a case of hate crime. Since the 9/11 terror strikes in the United States, Sikhs have become targets of hate crime in the West, as they are often mistaken as Muslims due to the turban. Incidents of gurdwaras being attacked and vandalised have also been reported. Sukhbir calls for campaign to sensitise people about Sikhism Condemning the incident, Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday appealed to all Sikhs, especially gurdwara management committees in Indian and abroad, to launch a campaign to sensitise people across the world about Sikhism and its concepts of peace and universal brotherhood. The deputy chief minister said he has also urged the Union minister for external affairs to take up the issue of safety of Sikhs and their religious places with the German government besides helping the injured and working with the local community to rebuild the shrine. It was about a fortnight ago that I had posted on Facebook seeking volunteers who could talk about robotics at a school in my native Hoshiarpur. This request was not an outcome of any curiosity to see humanoid robots cooking midday meals, but the result of intense conversations with leading thinkers who felt that if Punjab was to turn around its fate, the first step would be to consider introducing robotics and coding in schools. Other than bringing the youth closer to new-age technology, the latter could also democratise computer science across the state. These thinkers, while talking about why Punjab was missing out on every technological revolution that had taken place, stressed that until the political set-up backed a narrative which focused on investing in research and creating a scientific and tech savvy temper, Punjab would keep plummeting further in the unproductive rhetoric it finds itself in. Vivek Wadhwa, a researcher, thinker, writer and Fellow at Stanford Law School, said these two subjects prepare the youth for a future in which they will be working with robots and writing apps. It gives them an advantage in being able to gain jobs in new fields and to build new technologies. It lets them be on par with the best students in the West - with whom they will be competing. In other words, the Punjab politician has to make a significant leap from its present uncreative and barren narrative of setting up memorials, memorial gates, religious festivals, political rallies, self aggrandisement towards STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and other skill-imparting courses. Having said this, one is acutely aware that all this is easier said than done because one keeps facing ridicule each time this topic is broached with political people or at social gatherings. Ojhi thuanu nahi pata log kiddan dey ney (This is drawing room talk). To which my usual response is, Well, arent they like that because you the politician has ensured that they remain like that? At this point, I know Im hitting a a dead wall. Give them education and then see if they stay the same. Provide them with a progressive narrative and see them chak de phattey. Punjabis surprise in both ways. They outperform when given ideal circumstances (West is an example) and become non-performers without stimuli. No, I was also not taking myself seriously and neither was I under this delusion that one Facebook status could spark a coup where robots took over from the politician. I am not a dream merchant, but a robot programmed to lead the state without a selfish agenda isnt a bad idea either. Let us move on to the subsequent part which is the response to my Facebook request. After many young folks volunteered to conduct the session, I narrowed down to one Akshay Ahuja, who runs a start-up under the name Robo Champs. Akshay volunteered to hold the workshop free of cost, after which we fixed up a date in consultation with the school teachers. That the government schools are in a pitiable condition is a topic for some other day, but what struck me was the glee and inquisitiveness on the faces of these kids when the Robo Champs team arrived at their school. Sir, you will be surprised to see their response to the workshop. They have no precondition to learning and have this immense quest to acquire more knowledge, said Akshay. Even though the pathetic level of education in government-run schools was clearly visible making me feel silly that what on earth I was trying to prove, what kept my hope alive were the jubilant kids. Their shout of joy at every successful attempt made my belief stronger that they were ripe for this revolution, if only someone held their hand. The future of these children lies not in poisoning their minds by making them join political youth organisations like SOI, YAD, Youth Congress, NSUI or the ABVP but in enriching their lives with quality education. To all those influential people in villages, I have only one plea. Rise above your sarpanchi election mindset and promote intellectual activity in your pind dey schools. And to the politician, I have a word of caution. Turn your narrative into something worthwhile, otherwise, a coup by robots cannot be ruled out. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government for giving up on the long-delayed Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform, saying, now the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) doesnt want GST anymore. Speaking to select journalists here, Gandhi said, We will give them GST in five minutes if the government accepts the Congress preconditions. GST, a key indirect tax reform aimed at creating uniform tax rate across the country, has been mired in a political and parliamentary stand-off between the ruling NDA and the opposition Congress. Gandhi made the GST remark while aggressively panning the Modi governments performance on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. He charged prime minister with practicing an event management-type polity.People get taken in by his hype and the government gets away with it, he said. Things they (the NDA rule) are very good at is catching eyeballs by managing events he said, mockingly labelling Modis flagship initiatives like Swachh Bharat, Stand up India, Make in India as false promises but well-executed events. Gandhi, however, accepted, in a serious tone, that the Congress was also learning from the BJPs idea of politics as an event and marketing exercise. Unfortunately, thats what politics has become even in the US, and to certain extent it works he said. To buttress his point, Gandhi quoted the example of the Aadhaar scheme: We laid the policy foundation, but couldnt market it. Accusing the Modi government of moving from one event to another without delivering results, he said the prime ministers foreign policy on Pakistan was an example of short-sightedness. One knows well the Punjabi phrase Vehrha shaguna da which in spontaneous translation would be a courtyard of festivities. The reference is towards the wedding celebrations in the central courtyard of old-style havelis where sweets and savouries would be cooked and women would sit together singing happy songs. The men folk would make it to the terrace or some room to drink their fill. Such scenes by and large have vanished, but for Punjab-centric movies high on a nostalgic trip maujan hi maujan style. The well-packaged Punjabi nuptial extravaganza today has moved to resorts, five-stars, farm houses and of course marriage palaces. But the phrase Vehrha shaguna da persists for old times sake. However, I came across a curious coinage recently: Theka khushian da. Now a theka or a liquor vend in the Chandigarh-Punjab context has hardly had a joyous outcome, yet it continues to be a subject of celebratory songs like Theka pind wala and others. A tragic-comic song was penned by a young colleague in Punjabi magazine that I worked for. It was quite desolate because his wife had moved for some time to her parents home and he had penned an unusual song. It went thus Tu baih gayi peke ja ke, main theke bahinda haan! Well the end was quite happy because she came back and so destination Theka was abandoned. But what interested me in this song was that the peka-theka rhyme was something new. Theka continues to be a popular word in the Punjabi psyche even though its meaning in English is as prosaic like contract or tender. Of late a young entrepreneur has built a whole range of Punju souvenirs with this brand name, including ceramic beer mugs stating: I am not drunk, I am just Ghaint, Talli nai hundey; Awesome ho jaaida or Drink Responsibly - means Dullan na Deyo! Then there are hundreds of theka jokes, even though some may be irked at the habit of poking fun at Punjabis, particularly the Sikhs. However, most of these jokes are actually Made in Punjab. So here is a theka joke for the road of the inter-state variety: Bengali: My grandfather lived to be 96 but he never used glasses. Punjabi: True, some of my folks too drink straight from the bottle. The menace has been simmering for years, but came to a boil in Patiala last week, and is now set to reach the Prime Minister and President how much fee is too much at private schools? Thats the burning question being asked across Punjab as parents take to the streets, fight battles in court, and wait for the government to do something. The school staff did not let us go out to have water, and even switched off the fans, alleged Kiranpreet Kaur, a student of Patialas Budha Dal Public School whose staff detained nearly 40 students of various classes in the library for two hours over non-payment of an annual fee component. Police had to intervene, inquiries were ordered, even as the annual capitation fee of Rs 11,000 to Rs 13,000 each remains the subject of a court battle between the parents association and the private schools management. This is not an isolated case. The row over payment of such fees at private schools across Punjab has brought parents onto the roads across the state over the past few weeks, carrying out protests, resorting to hunger strikes. Disappointed over the lack of regulation of these annual fee hikes and the arbitrary style of functioning of private institutes, members of various associations in the state feel the government has left them with no option but mass agitation. Annual fee, maintenance charges, smart-class fee, or, simply, miscellaneous charges the names vary but the problem is the same. NO OPTION A woman and child shaken after a Patiala school detained students for non-payment of a disputed fee. There was a long-drawn manifestation of this in Ludhiana too, where parents held a three-week agitation in March-April against hike in fees and an alleged nexus of schools with bookshop owners. The deputy commissioner had even directed the schools to reduce development charges by 30% and limit to 5% the hike in tuition fee; but to no avail. Nearly 300 members from the Ludhiana parents association sat on a day-long hunger strike on February 8 last. Despite being asked by a high court-appointed fee committee to refund over `3 crore to students of Bal Bharati School, Ludhiana, the school authorities failed to pay heed, thereby intensifying the protests. In Jalandhar, too, members of Punjab Parents Association have been holding regular protests and even submitted a complaint against 154 schools to the additional deputy commissioner (ADC) accusing them of commercialising education by charging hefty annual fee besides levying maintenance charges, tuition fee and charges for books. There is no respite in the smaller towns either. Parents in Batala and Tarn Taran have been staging similar protests. In Bathinda, about 1,000 parents sat on a hunger strike for six days. The DC had to intervene when the secretary of the association started a fast unto death earlier this month. To the day, protests continue. POLL PROMISE TOO The matter could even become a poll issue, as parents on Friday raised it with state Congress president and former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, he assured to put a check on the working of private schools and make sure that fee was not arbitrarily increased. I have got several representations from parents from different areas and if voted to power, it will be my priority to deal with this issue timely, he said, speaking at the Coffee with Captain programme at Yadvindra Public School in Patiala. AUTONOMY OR AUTOCRACY? Private schools feel they have the autonomy to do anything. Besides ignoring norms of the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education), they have failed to implement the DCs orders too, said Arvind Sangaral, member of the Patiala Parents Association. District president of the Ludhiana Parents Association, Rajinder Ghai has similar views: We have done all we could, but, despite the HC committee directing a local school to refund fee, the management refuses to act. Now the government needs to take action against schools not adhering to the DCs order; otherwise nothing will change. In Jalandhar, a parent whose child studies in a leading public school said he `1,000 was the charge for an identity card alone. In Batala, the protest is led by the district women wing president of the ruling Shiroamni Akali Dal (SAD), Geeta Sharma, who said, Parents are being forced to buy books only from school premises. An NCERT book worth ` 220 is sold a thrice the price by the school authorities or by private publishers with whom schools have a nexus. President of NGO Bathinda Welfare Association, Gurvinder Sharma added, Schools keep citing a Supreme Court judgement saying they can increase fee by 10% every year; but the annual fee hike is over 20% actually. GOVT A MUTE SPECTATOR The government, however, either prefers to be a mute spectator or passes the buck to the HC-appointed committee. Education minister DS Cheema said his department was in the process of forming a state-level regulatory body. There is a thin line between autonomy and government interference in case of private institutions. He went onto blame mindset of parents: There are some great educational societies and also good government schools in Punjab, but parents dont get out of the mindset of sending their children to private schools, where they are then not able to bear the fee burden. He noted that the HC-appointed committee had recommended action in case of certain schools. PANEL TOO SLOW That said, not much has come of the high courts formulation of a committee in 2012 to address the issue. A panel for private unaided schools of Punjab under the chairmanship of Justice Amar Dutt (retired) was to look into the aspects as to how much fee increase was required by each individual school on the examination of records and accounts of these schools and taking into consideration the funds available, etc. Of the almost 4,000 schools in Punjab whose data was received by this panel, members have submitted the report of only 152 schools, which is less than 4% of the institutions in four years. TOMORROW : WHATS THE HC-FORMED COMMITTEE DOING? SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Two months after the merger of Manpreet Singh Badal-led Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP) with the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Longowal) --- a constituent of the Sanjha Morcha stitched by Manpreet ahead of 2012 polls --- too merged into the grand old party on Sunday. The merger was announced jointly at a press conference at the New Delhi residence of Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh in the presence of AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmad and campaign committee chairperson Ambika Soni and SAD (Longowal) president Surjit Kaur Barnala, secretary general Baldev Singh Mann, and Barnalas son Gaganjit Barnala and grandson, Simranjit Barnala. Like Manpreets PPP, which merged with the Congress at New Delhi a day after the Maghi rally in Muktsar, the Congress kept the SAD (Longowal) merger after its rally at Talwandi Sabo on Wednesday and party vice-president Rahul Gandhis visit to the state on Saturday. On why was the merger not announced at Talwandi Sabo or during Rahuls Punjab visit, Gaganjit said the decision was taken by the Congress. Keen on mergers, Cong not nagging allies As it faces a triangular contest, the Congress is not willing to forge alliances with smaller parties but asking them to merge. With AAP now emerging as a third contender in Punjabs pollscape, the splinter group of the SAD opted to merge and secure some seats for family and loyalists than be pushed into political oblivion. Though it has little political standing, the SAD (Longowal) enjoys panthic appeal among a section of Sikhs. Though the Barnalas has initiated talks with Ahmad in January at Delhi, Ganganjit said they had no demands on seats and the merger was unconditional and in the interest of the Panth and Punjab. The SAD is no more a Panthic party but a gang of Badals. I too could have been deputy CM like Sukhbir Badal when my father was CM. But our partys ideology is against dynastic politics. We are giving up our identity as a seperate party as Amarinder is a good Sikh and has Panthic appeal, Ganganjit said. On how would their party contest the SGPC elections after merging into the Congress, he said they out throw out corrupt mahants controlling the SGPC by supporting right candidates of other parties. Read: Rahul steers clear of declaring Amarinder as CM candidate, but will declare candidates early Thousands attended the Baisakhi parade in Vancouver on Saturday. Organised under the banner of Khalsa Diwan Society, the oldest Sikh body in Canada, the annual parade attracted people from across North America. What added to the enthusiasm of the Sikhs was the presence of defence minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, who is an MP from Vancouver South. He is the first turbaned Sikh to be appointed as defence minister of Canada. His posters greeted visitors from different spots. The celebration followed the recent announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the official apology for Komagata Maru episode coming next month. Significantly, Sajjan had previously led the regiment that was responsible for forcing the Komagata Maru ship to return in 1914. Also in attendance was Raj Singh Toor, whose grandfather was aboard the ship. Encouraged by the upcoming official apology, the members of the East Indian Defence Committee also displayed a banner along the parade route seeking recognition of Mewa Singh as a Canadian hero. Mewa Singh was hung in 1915 for assassinating a controversial immigration inspector William Hopkinson who was instrumental behind Komagata Maru episode. Already, a petition has been launched to get Mewa Singh recognised as martyr for standing up against racism. Meanwhile, in the light of forthcoming assembly election in Punjab next year, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had pitched a tent to raise awareness among the NRIs on the occasion. Notably, the BC is also headed for assembly election next year. Not only the BC Premier Christy Clark and her cabinet colleagues paid obeisance at the Ross Street Sikh temple before the parade started, the opposition NDP caucus team was also present. Clark emphasised that Baisakhi was no more a South Asian festival, but it has rather become a Canadian festival. It is pertinent to mention that baisakhi was also recently celebrated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. A significant number of Chinese and Caucasians also participated in the parade. A float also carried a portrait of Bhim Rao Ambedkar to mark his 125th birth anniversary. Fearing protest by parents, a local school in Jalandhar has deployed police outside its premises citing security reasons. Students of Shiv Jyoti Public School were surprised to see cops outside the school. Around 50 parents had gathered on the school premises on April 12 and protested against imposition of readmission fee, building charges and expensive books and asked the school management to stop the illegal practice. School principal Ravi Suta said: We have deployed police due to security reasons. Its hard to maintain discipline at the school due to frequent protests. Even the students are suffering because of the ongoing protest and we can never compromise with their studies. The school is dedicated to its students, she added. Suta said she had already asked the parents to keep calm as she would hold meeting with the management on April 30 regarding the issues raised by them. Protest outside CT Public School On Saturday, around 15 parents along with the Punjab Parents Association held a protest outside CT Public School. Parents said the school had increased tuition fee and was charging re-admission fee, besides taking hefty charges for school books, in contravention to the high court orders. The parents were not allowed to enter the school following which president of the association talked to chairman of the CT Group of Institutions Charanjit Singh Channi on phone. He alleged that the chairman asked him to stop protesting otherwise action would be taken against them. Channi, however, denied the allegations and said he did not want the studies of students to suffer. The parents can approach the district-level committee if they have some issues. Ajay Sharma, a parent whose child studies in Class 4 at CT Public School, said the school was taking building fund of `2,000 every year and `1,000 for an identity card along with other charges. Deputy commissioner, Muktsar, has asked private schools to give details of infrastructure, area of the school, educational qualification of teachers and their salary, name of publishers of books being given to the students, admission fees being taken from the students. In Fazilka, the deputy commissioner, after getting complaints from the parents has ordered to form committees at sub-divisional level that will solve the problems regarding the admission fee taken by the private schools. The DC has asked the schools to ask the parent members in their management committee before hiking the fee. He has also ordered all schools to follow the CBSE orders which say: No capitation fee or voluntary donations for gaining admission in the school or for any other purpose be charged or collected in the name of the school. The premises of the school should not be used for any commercial activity and no commercial shops for the sale of books, uniforms be operated within the school campus. Bokaro city and Pandu village in Hazaribagh on Saturday remained peaceful with things returning to normalcy a day after clashes between two communities during the Ram Navmi festival. Bokaro administration said curfew under four police stations would be relaxed from 5 am to 11 am on Sunday. The administration deputed around 600 police personnel from the district police, JAP and the Jharkhand Jaguar to ensure peace in the area. There were violent clashes between members of two communities in Siwandih suburb of Bokaro steel city when a Ram Navami procession was stopped and pelted with stones. The mob also burnt several vehicles of the administration. The administration imposed curfew in Maraphari, Sector 12, city centre and the Balidih police station areas. The situation in Bokaro and Hazaribag is peaceful. The local administration would assess the situation in Bokaro and decide to lift the curfew, said DIG Upendra Prasad. We reviewed the situation and found that normalcy has returned to the area. The administration would relax the curfew from 5am to 11am on Sunday. Police have arrested 25 persons from both the communities for stone pelting and arson, said Bokaro deputy commissioner Rai Mahimapat Ray. Senior police officials including DIG, DC and SP YS Ramesh conducted a flag march in Siwandih on Saturday. The situation was peaceful but tense in Pandu. People of two communities had clashed over the slow movement of a Ram Navmi procession at Pandu chowk on Friday. District administration conducted a meeting with the representatives of both the communities on Saturday morning and asked them to maintain peace and harmony. Police and para military forces camped in the village. Legislator Nirmala Devi and representative of MP Jayant Sinha visited the spot and met the injured persons. Hazaribagh SP Akhilesh Jha said the police was keeping a close watch on anti-social elements so that no mishap takes place again. Twelve people were and 11 injured in a fire at a chemical plant in Saudi Arabias east, a state-run news agency said on Saturday. According to the Saudi Press Agency, the fire in al-Jubail happened around 11.40 am on Saturday at the Jubail United Petrochemical Co. The news agency quoted the company as saying the fire began during maintenance at the plant. The company also said the fire caused thick black smoke. The victims suffocated from fumes of burning chemicals, he said. Another 11 employees were injured, six of them left in serious state. The website for Sabic, a chemical conglomerate based in Riyadh, says the firm holds a 75% stake in al-Jubail United Petrochemical Co. Sabic did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Pope Francis spoke emotionally on Sunday of his meeting a day earlier with migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, which culminated with him taking 12 Syrians -- all Muslims -- from three families back to the Vatican. Addressing worshippers at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peters Square, the 79-year-old pontiff, who is himself the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, related his visit to a migrant processing centre where around 3,000 people are being held. We greeted around 300 of them, one by one, said Francis, who was accompanied on his visit by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens. There were so many children. Some of these children witnessed their parents and friends dying, drowned at sea. I saw such suffering, he said, visibly moved. Pope Francis caresses a child as he meets migrants at the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. (AP) The Roman Catholic leader then went on to tell of one particular case, that of a young man, who was not even 40. I met him yesterday with his two sons. He was Muslim and told me he had married a Christian, (and that) they loved and respected each other. But the woman fell victim to Islamist radicals, he said. She had her throat slit by terrorists because she would not renounce Christ and abandon her faith, said Francis, calling her a martyr. As for her grieving spouse, he said sorrowfully, this man was crying so much. The popes visit to Lesbos, one of the main ports of arrival for people fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East and Asia, was seen as a lesson in solidarity for Europe, where the doors to migrants are progressively being slammed shut. Declaring we are all migrants, Francis used his trip to emphasise that the arrivals were not mere numbers, but people with faces, names and individual stories. This handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis (C), Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the worlds Orthodox Christians (L) and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos II (R) throwing wreaths of flowers in the port of Mytilene in memory of the migrants who died at sea trying to reach Europe. (AFP) All refugees are children of God, Francis said on the flight back to Rome referring to their religion, adding that though his gesture was a drop in the ocean he hoped the ocean will never be the same again. Last year, the pope had appealed to every Catholic diocese in Europe to take in a refugee family -- an appeal that fell on deaf ears in most parts of the continent. Migrant arrivals in Greece have drastically fallen since Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants landing on the Greek islands in return for billions in EU cash and other concessions. Over 1.1 million people have crossed clandestinely from Turkey to Greece since the start of 2015, with hundreds drowning en route. Speaking for the first time, the mother of a 19-year-old British boy, who reportedly joined the Islamic State, has said she is completely shocked at the loss of her intelligent son to the dreaded terrorist group. Muhammad Rajas mother told The Sunday Times about her son on condition of anonymity after the newspaper showed her a leaked ISIS recruitment file in which Raja was named. Im completely shocked. Hes such an intelligent boy. He got grade As at GCSE (Board exams) and was loved by his teachers. We need to find out how this happened, she said. She last saw her son at Heathrow airport as he left on holiday to Turkey. But days after arriving in Istanbul, the boy, mysteriously vanished. For almost the past two years his mother has been searching for news of his whereabouts and hoping he might still call her. His ISIS recruitment file states that after flying to Istanbul, Raja took a 21-hour bus journey to Sanliurfa, near Turkeys border with Syria. The leaked document, passed to the newspaper by Zaman al-Wasl, an independent Syrian news organisation opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and to ISIS, states that Raja crossed into Syria on July 10, 2015. Under a section that asks for his ISIS sponsor, Raja says that someone called Abu Hamza from Twitter helped to put him in touch with the terrorist organisation. The file also states that Raja left his British passport with an ISIS operative called Abu al-Walid in Turkey in effect leaving him trapped in Syria. Someone with the same alias has been identified by experts as one of ISIS most prolific propagandists on social media. He has resurfaced on Twitter at least 464 times after having his account suspended, the newspaper found. Raja, now 21, is an expert in computing and web design and his recruitment file emphasises this point. When most foreigners are simply asked if they want to be a fighter or a suicide bomber, Rajas entry lists his knowledge of graphics-related programmes, including Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. British police have searched Rajas possessions a couple of times and have advised his mother to alert them should her son make contact. The US government has advised its citizens to avoid one of Islamabads most prominent hotels on fears of a terror attack. The embassy is aware of a general but uncorroborated threat against the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, said a travel warning posted on the US embassys website on Saturday. US citizens are advised to avoid the area for the next several days to allow time to assess the situation, it said. The Marriott hotel was targeted in a suicide truck bombing on September 20, 2008 which killed more than 54 people and injured dozens. Several Americans were among the dead but most casualties were Pakistanis. The embassy reminded US citizens that there was an active travel warning for Pakistan issued on April 7, 2016 and a worldwide travel alert issued on November 23, 2015. US citizens are urged to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan. US citizens in Pakistan are strongly urged to avoid hotels that do not apply stringent security measures, the statement said. The Mission reminds those US citizens considering travel to or remaining in Pakistan despite this warning to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrolment Program, keep a trusted friend informed of your movements in country, maintain vigilant situational awareness, avoid large crowds, keep a low profile, and avoid visiting locations frequented by Westerners, it added. The message pointed out that official US Mission personnel and visitors were not allowed to use public transportation and were not authorised to stay overnight in hotels in Pakistan. US citizens should exercise caution when travelling in the country, keeping in mind the high security threat level, the advisory said. US travellers were also asked to vary their times and routes when travelling anywhere in Pakistan. A mountain in North Korea may be at risk of eruption. Scientists have taken a closer look at Mount Paektu, a volcano with a violent past, and have found that it may just be at risk of experiencing another eruption. Mount Paektu can be found hundreds of kilometers west of the Ring of Fire, which is actually nicknamed due to the fact that many of the world's monster volcanoes are forged from the collision of tectonic plates in this area. In this case, though, it appears as if this volcano has turned up in a rather abnormal location. This volcano was actually the source of one of the largest modern eruptions on our planet. More specifically, an eruption in 946 C.E. occurred that helped change the landscape forever. Since then, the volcano has quieted down, until recently. Swarms of tiny earthquakes occurred at the volcano between 2002 and 2005. While this was somewhat worrying, researchers believed that they could have been due to magma rising toward the surface. With that said, the volcano itself today is inactive, which raised the question of whether it was preparing to become active once more. In this latest study, the researchers stationed six broadband seismometers in an array extending east from Paektu in 2013. This allowed then to collect data over the course of two years as they looked at seismic waves from distant earthquakes rippling through the crust beneath the volcano. When researchers want to learn what's going on beneath the crust of our planet's surface, seismic waves can tell them a lot. Depending on how fast they move, researchers can tell what material they're moving through. This, in turn, shows researchers what composition lies beneath Earth's crust. So, what did the researchers find by studying the seismic waves? It turns out that alterations in wave energy and form revealed softer, and possibly melted, rock. This confirms that the volcano is actually active rather than dormant. With that said, the researchers still don't know whether this material could actually cause an eruption. It will take a bit more research before scientists can definitively say whether the mountain will erupt any time soon. The findings are published in the April 15 issue of the journal Science Advances. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Houston Education Foundation is participating in the Give Ozarks 24-hour day of giving on Tuesday, May 3. The organization will raise online donations from midnight to midnight that day as part of Give Ozarks Day. HEF plans to purchase 30 Chromebook computers and a charging station for the Houston Elementary School. In 2015, HEF raised funds for 90 Chromebooks for the new media/library center in the high school and 30 Chromebooks for the upper elementary. HEF wants to extend the opportunity for access to the Chromebook computers to more elementary students and will use funds donated on Give Ozarks 2016 to purchase them. A rally will take place 3 to 5 p.m. May 3 at the Lone Star Plaza pavilion. Persons can come by and make an online donation there or go to giveozarks.org at home. Cash donations can also be dropped off. How it works: Making a secure donation is simple. For 24 hours on May 3, donors can log onto giveozarks.org and enter Houston Education Foundation to complete a basic credit card donation. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by the IRS. This is the second year for Give Ozarks. In 2015, the first region-wide online giving day raised more than $1 million for about 150 non-profit agencies. HEF raised $10,000 for its endowment fund by participating in a dollar-for-dollar matching grant by Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Four local banks The Bank of Houston, Progressive Ozark Bank, Landmark Bank, Community Bank and the Durham Co. all donated $1,000 to help meet the match in 2015. Online and cash donations purchased the Chromebook computers. For more information about Houston Education Foundation, visit here. May 3 is Give Local America Day, where community foundations across the country will hold similar online fundraising events to boost resources for their local non-profits, encourage new donors and raise awareness of philanthropy in general. Online giving days, a growing movement in the philanthropy field, has raised millions of dollars for non-profit organizations in recent years. The Houston Education Foundation is a non-profit partner of Community Foundation of the Ozarks, which is hosting Give Ozarks. CFO is a regional public charitable foundation founded in 1973, which includes 49 affiliate foundations and about 600 non-profit partners and schools. Local sponsors for HEF for the 2016 Give Ozarks campaign are: Bob Burch, a Houston alumnus; Corner Express, Brad Rees; VIP Properties, Jan Watson; The Durham Co. and Susan and Dick Steckler, Edward Jones Investments. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. 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SHARE By Associated Press They're often pegged as the civic-minded, do-gooding generation. But while they're still optimistic about their own personal prospects, a new study finds that today's youth are often more skeptical of the country's institutions than the young generations that preceded them. The Millennials also are as mistrusting of other people as the gloomy "slackers" of Generation X were 20 years ago or even more so. Jean Twenge, lead author of the study that will be published early this month in the online edition of the journal Psychological Science, says the current atmosphere fed by the Great Recession, mass shootings, and everything from church sex abuse scandals and racial strife to the endless parade of publicly shamed politicians, athletes and celebrities may help explain why this young generation's trust levels hit an all-time low in 2012, the most recent data available. In the mid-1970s, when baby boomers were coming of age, about a third of high school seniors agreed that "most people can be trusted." That dropped to 18 percent in the early 1990s for Gen Xers and then, in 2012, to just 16 percent of Millennials. The researchers also found that Millennials' approval of major institutions from Congress and corporations to the news media and educational and religious institutions dropped more sharply than other generations in the decade that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Young people today feel disconnected and alienated," says Twenge, a psychologist and professor at San Diego State University, who wrote a book on Millennials called "Generation Me." She finds these outcomes "especially distressing" for a generation that had been expected to be more trusting of government. Young people, even those from differing backgrounds, say the findings ring true. "I do not trust the government as far I can throw a car, which is not very far at all," says Steve McGlinchey, a 21-year-old who lives in Burton, Michigan, outside Flint, and works for a company that installs industrial furnaces for auto companies and other businesses. Like a lot of young people, he says he's been disappointed by people in positions of power who've abused that power or seem to have forgotten about the little guy. That includes Wall Street. "All they think about is making their own wallets bigger," he says, noting that he doesn't trust other people to handle his money, "especially people who don't know my name." Erin Nwachukwu, a 16-year-old high school student who lives on Chicago's South Side, says she's felt mistrustful of authority figures, too, including the police. She also has doubts about her city's leaders, having watched them close dozens of public schools in low-income neighborhoods, even as they pour millions of dollars into flashy downtown parks and other projects. "They don't seem like they have our best interest at heart," Nwachukwu says. "It seems like it's about the money." Twenge and her co-authors at the University of Georgia based their study's findings on data from two major long-standing surveys of Americans the General Social Survey and the University of Michigan's annual "Monitoring the Future" survey of 12th graders, with nearly 140,000 participants in total. While Americans of all ages had growing trust issues in recent years, the researchers found that young people's trust dropped more steeply in several categories. For instance, in 2000-2002, 49 percent of 12th graders who were surveyed said Congress was doing a "good" or "very good" job, compared with just 22 percent who said the same in 2010-12. Thirty percent of young boomers were approving in the mid-1970s, and 33 percent of Gen Xers in early 1990s. The researchers used these figures in three-year blocks to assure they were comparing consistent trends. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point. In 2000-2002, 54 percent of 12th graders approved of the job large corporations were doing. That fell to 33 percent by 2010-12. Forty percent of boomers approved in the mid-1970s, and 48 percent of Gen Xers in the early 1990s. During that decade, Millennials also had notable drops in approval of colleges and universities, the news media, public schools and religious institutions. Because the study found that people of all age groups have trust and confidence issues, Twenge notes that the results are more likely tied to current events than the generation itself. Last year, an AP-GfK poll also found that only a third of all Americans said they trusted most people, compared with about half who said the same the early 1970s, according to the General Social Survey. But the survey also showed that each generation has started off adulthood less trusting than the previous one, a trend that would likely have to be reversed for the nation's overall mistrust to change. Katherine Vining, a 25-year-old graduate student in San Francisco, says that may be difficult to do in an age when news and information are readily accessible at any hour. "The more information you have, the more opportunity there is to be disappointed and disillusioned by the people and institutions in the world that are repeatedly acting unethically and taking advantage of individuals and communities," says Vining, who's studying sustainable management at the Presidio Graduate School. But, she adds, being more connected also makes it easier to find others "who are equally disheartened with the status quo." And with that, she and others say, comes empowerment to do something about it. That's what some experts find so interesting about this generation. They may be disillusioned by the powers that be. Yet so far, they've continued to vote in larger percentages than previous young generations, even after some concede that they've failed to see the "change" that President Barack Obama first promised in 2008. And despite their skepticism, they also continue to be a largely optimistic lot. A Pew Research Center survey done in 2012 found that 73 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds were optimistic that they would eventually achieve their life goals, or had already achieved them. Jon Rogowski, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, has worried that, given these findings about trust, some young people will tire and "turn inwards" and away from civic engagement. He's particularly concerned about black youth. A recent survey by the University of Chicago's Black Youth Project, to which Rogowski contributes, found that nearly 46 percent of black youth believe everyone has an equal chance to succeed in the United States, compared with 51 percent of white youth and about 58 percent of Hispanic youth. Nwachukwu, the 16-year-old Chicagoan, who is African-American, understands that concern, yet still feels hopeful. "Maybe it's my faith in other kids my age to step up to the challenge and change our system," says Nwachukwu, who traveled this summer to the Middle East to meet young people there with the nonprofit Qatar Foundation International. She says it was the type of experience that helps bolster her faith in people and her future. Gary Rudman, a California consultant who tracks youth trends, also suspects that this generation's personal optimism comes from their upbringing and the "you do anything" mantra. "Perhaps we have set them up for ultimate failure, or maybe they will make the situation work for them," Rudman says. "Only time will tell." Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas is visiting Bangladesh from 17 to 19 April, 2016. The visit is aimed at following up on the ambitious agenda set between India and Bangladesh during the visit of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to Bangladesh in June, 2015. is visiting Bangladesh from 17 to 19 April, 2016. The visit is aimed at following up on the ambitious agenda set between India and Bangladesh during the visit of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to Bangladesh in June, 2015. On arrival in Dhaka, Pradhan called on Prime Minister Ms Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh. He conveyed that the India-Bangladesh bilateral relationship has become pragmatic and mature over the last few years. He discussed all bilateral issues pertaining to hydrocarbon sector between the two countries. Pradhan referred to the supply of 2200 MT High Speed Diesel (HSD) to Bangladesh from Siliguri Marketing Terminal of Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) to Parbatipur Depot of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) in Bangladesh, and said that India was planning to continue supply of HSD in a sustainable manner. He noted the ongoing collaboration between companies from both countries in the hydrocarbon sector ranging from trade in petroleum products, exploration work and consultancy services. Sh Pradhan thanked Prime Minister Sheik Hasina for the encouraging support received from her government. He shared the details of Indian hydrocarbon infrastructure project proposals in Bangladesh, including setting up of LPG import terminal at Chittagong by IOCL and sought favourable consideration for creating win-win situation for both sides. Sh Pradhan also discussed the Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline and called it as an important project for both countries. During his stay in Bangladesh, Pradhan will meet Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, Adviser on Energy, Power and Mineral Resources to the Prime Minister and Mr Nasrul Hamid, Minister of State for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources of Bangladesh. On 18th April, Sh Pradhan will witness signing of an MoU on broad aspects of cooperation in downstream oil and gas sector opportunities in Bangladesh between Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) and BPC. He will also visit Chittagong on 19th April to witness award of contract by Eastern Refineries Ltd to Engineers India Limited (EIL) as Project Management and Consultant for its 3 MMTPA refinery expansion project. Pradhan is accompanied by CEOs of major Public Sector oil and gas companies and senior officials of his Ministry. There are very few filmmakers in Bollywood who have the courage to break the clutter of normalcy and present some bold stories on the silver screen. The success of Kapoor & Sons is a proof that audience has surely matured and is ready to accept stories that revolve around the idea of homosexuality. Dharma Productions Even though Fawad Khan managed to do justice to his role and he shined on the big screen as Rahul Kapoor, recent reports state than approximately six Bollywood stars had turned down the role of Rahul. In an interview with Bombay times, Head Honcho of Dharma Productions, Karan Johar revealed: "Kapoor and Sons' (Since 1921) was a tough film to cast. There was a point when we almost didn't make it. We kept it on the backburner for over a year. No one was willing to do Fawad Khan's role. We went to six actors and after six rejections, I told Shakun that we should drop the idea and he started developing another screenplay. Later, in a flash of thought Fawad came to my mind. I sent him the script, he loved it and said he would do it." According to Film-Critic Rajeev Masand, six actors who turned down the role include Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Shahid Kapoor, and Aditya Roy Kapoor. Indiatoday Im not a petty guy with a narrow-minded mentality. Im very liberal in my views and can look beyond things. Itd be amazing to have a gay character as one of the roles in my portfolio and I look forward to playing one. Its got nothing to do with being perceived as an alpha male, like your article argued, as I dont think I have a particularly macho image. At the time when Kapoor and Sons was offered to me, I didn't feel it was the right project for me to get into. Even though none of the actors have clearly stated their reasons, we can sense a slight hint of homophobia here for sure. Its rather sad, isnt it? The MP town rings with the legend of a 19th-century wolf boy whose tale inspired Kipling. Sunday Times goes searching in the jungle of The Jungle Book In Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, Mowgli the man-cub is said to be reared in 'Seeonee hills' by a pack of wolves. Now a burgeoning township in Madhya Pradesh, replete with schools, banks and markets, present-day Seoni bears no semblance of a jungle. Around 122 years ago when the book first came out, it's said, the area was part of one big forest. That has now been reduced to the Kanha and Pench sanctuaries connected by a fast depleting forest corridor. the hindu While Kipling's classic was a work of fiction, it's said to have been heavily inspired by Sir William Henry Sleeman's pamphlet, 'An Account of Wolves Nurturing Children in Their Dens', and book, 'Rambles and Recollections of an Indian official', which describe a wolf-boy captured in Seoni in 1831. Sleeman was a British soldier and administrator and is known for his work in suppressing thuggery in the area. Lieutenant John Moor is said to have camped for almost a month to capture the feral boy "who was caught eating human flesh with his pack". It is an intriguing story, one that inspires a trek to Mowgli-land, made even more famous by Disney's latest take on the classic. While Mowgli is a pervasive theme in the district from his caricatures on bus stands to an annual Mowgli Mahotsav and even a dedicated statue at the collector's office, few know of the wolf-boy's legend. The only clue is talk about a cave on the outskirts of Kanhiwada, a village that finds mention in the original tale. Sure enough, 3km from Kanhiwada, in a village called Chhui, there's an inconspicuous forest department board that points towards "Amodagadh, the karmasthali of the wolf-child Mowgli". Twelve kilometres of dirt track lie ahead. No wonder nobody bothers to find this "tourist spot". The track twists and turns amid fields, and ends up running straight into the forest corridor. bccl The search now feels like a Hardy Boys' unravelling of a mystery shrouded in urban legend. The road poetically ends in a fork. The path to the right, leads to the top of a hillock. A closer inspection reveals the jungle in The Jungle Book. "A hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred wolves could hide," Kipling wrote. We've reached Council Rock the meeting place of the wolf pack that adopted Mowgli. In the Jon Favreau film, Neel Sethi is not considered 'wolf' enough to join the meetings though he tries hard to be as fast and agile as the other cubs. Looking down from the spot where Akela held court, the Wainganga seems to split the mountain in two. Smooth rocks some the size of cars dot the ravine trapped between two almost-vertical cliff walls. Look closely, and one can see why Shere Khan couldn't escape the rampaging buffalo herd led by Mowgli that trampled him to death (in the book). This could be the gorge where it all ended. Could it also be the real wolf boy's den? Local legend says so, and PRO of Seoni, Babita Mishra, agrees fervently. "That's the spot where Mowgli was captured," she says, referring to the 1831 incident. Why wasn't it developed as a tourist spot then? There was a plan but it got caught in red tape, she says. bccl Although Kipling never visited Seoni, his book borrowed heavily from Robert Armitage Strendale's books Seonee, Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon, and Denizens of the Jungle. Subharanjan Sen, field director of Pench tiger reserve, believes the Amodagadh story is pure conjecture. In The Jungle Book, Mowgli may have been the target of Shere Khan, but today the tigers of Pench are the ones in danger. Ten tiger deaths have been reported in the past eight months, the last one as recent as March-end when a tigress and her two cubs were found poisoned to death. "Karakal has almost disappeared from this area; about 50 wild buffalo must be left, most of them in Naxal-controlled areas; a concerted effort has helped Barasingha numbers pick up in certain areas of Kanha since the 1960s, when they stooped to a mere 65," says Sen. Moreover, the corridor is thinning. A comparison of forest cover maps from a 1913-26 survey and recent years shows clear signs of deforestation, especially significant around the western edge of Kanha national park. We head back to the fork and take the left this time, 45 gigantic stone steps down to the river bank. Questions about Mowgli's den to the handful of people bathing there draw blanks. "But there is a cave of a Batekhari Baba here," says a fisherman. The famed Mowgli cave is now occupied by a self-proclaimed godman, who has covered the cliff walls with his preachings. He's been meditating there since 1977, the graffiti declares. Dressed in all-black, a white mask and goggles, this ascetic is keen to tell stories of his chardham yatra on foot, but the moment I ask him about the wolf boy, his 'inner peace' disappears. The choicest of expletives are used to describe Kipling's saga. "There never was a Mowgli," he spits. Whatever the baba's view, somewhere down the river bend, the legend of Mowgli rustles on the jungle floor. Some stories are so surreal that you have to pinch yourself often to check if you haven't slipped into a Bollywood-ish daydream on a slow work day. Jyotsna Dhawle's is one such. Spanning over 21 years, it begins with a tragedy at the age of 8, when she falls asleep on a train and wakes up in a strange city, all alone. Mercifully, it also ends with a reunion. Jyotsna told Mirror she left her home in Datta Nagar locality of Maharashtra's Chandrapur, about 1000 km from Bengaluru, when she was eight years old. She fell asleep inside a train while playing. bccl After a 20-hour journey, the little girl woke up in Mumbai. She boarded another train for home but de-boarded in Secunderabad."I realised I was nowhere near home. I begged for help to reach Chandrapur, but nobody had heard of the place," she recalls. She went to a small eatery asking for food. "The owner took pity on me and I worked as a domestic help till I was beaten and thrown out a year later," she said. Yet another attempt to return home landed her in Bangalore where a woman constable admitted her to a hospital and put her in a home for abandoned children. bangaloremirror Eventually, Jyotsna married a screen painting artist and had two children but never lost her hope of reaching Chandrapur. One day, she was able to get in touch with the Chandrapur police helpline where she spoke to woman constable Mamata Mandvi. Mandvi said: "On March 16 I received a call from Jyotsna," following which, Chandrapur district SP Sandip Diwan formed a team to help hunt her parents down and were able to locate her autorickshaw father through an old missing complaint report. She came to Chandrapur with her husband and children, and met her parents after two decades. Needless to say, it was an emotional reunion. The iconic Times Square got a taste of Sikh culture as thousands of community members flocked here to celebrate Vaisakhi, also educating fellow Americans about Sikhism. This, despite growing incidents of hate crimes and discrimination against the Sikh community in the US. twitter Legendary Indian sportsman Milkha Singh addressed one of the largest such celebrations in the US, calling on the Sikh community to educate the young generation about the significance of the Sikh culture. Hundreds of excited tourists and children queued up at the popular city destination to get turbans tied on their heads in bright colours by members of the Sikh community and took pictures and selfies wearing them as 'Turban Day' was also celebrated at the event. The participants jostled to get a picture clicked with the elderly 'Flying Sikh', who had travelled from Canada for the event. "Today if the Sikhs have a name, are known around the world, it is because of the turban. Milkha Singh is called a 'Flying Sikh' because I have the turban on my head and the beard on my face. My beard and turban are the reasons for the respect and recognition that I have across the world," Singh told. Non-profit organisation Sikhs of New York and New Jersey and the event's organisers Bobby Sidana, Kawaldeep Sahni, Chanpreet Singh and Gurmeet Sodhi said the event aimed at not only celebrating the festival marking the spring harvest but also educating Americans and thousands of tourists about the Sikh culture. They said it would also make them aware of the significance of the Sikh articles of faith like turban and beard and to address the misinformation about Sikhism that leads to profiling and backlash against members of the community, particularly after the 9/11 attack. twitter Lauding the organisers for putting together the event, Milkha Singh said such a celebration of Sikh culture will inspire and educate people across the city and country about Sikhism and its rich history. "People here should know that Sikhs are warriors, they have fought for other people and will do everything to help others. The event will inspire people here and educate them about the Sikh culture, they will get to know who Sikhs are," he said. In his message to the gathering, Singh said he would like to see "one more Milkha Singh" from the Sikh community spread across the US and the world. Lamenting that Sikh articles of faith such as the turban and beard are often still misconstrued and associated with terrorism, the organisers invited passers-by and those at the event to get a turban tied on their heads and to ask about the Sikh culture. First time I'm finding it hard to fit my experience in 140 words. Picture says it all! #TurbanDay #TimesSquare #NYC pic.twitter.com/Ymvqd5vU3q Jaswinder Pal Singh (@Jaswinder18688) 16 April 2016 The Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered plane is set to resume its record-breaking flight around the globe next month. It will leave from Hawaii under suitable weather conditions, a spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday. She added that location of the first stop on the US mainland is yet to be decided. Reuters In July last year, this experimental aircraft was grounded as its solar-powered batteries were facing problems only halfway through its 35,000-kilometer trip. It took the French crew several months to fix the damage from high tropical temperatures during the flight's final Pacific stage, which was a record journey of 5 days and 5 nights between Nagoya, Japan and Hawaii. It was in late February when the plane conducted its first successful test flight after the repairs. The next leg, which should take four days, may end in Los Angeles, San Francisco or Phoenix, Arizona, the spokeswoman said. The destinations in US mainland have not been confirmed yet and will be dependent on weather conditions. We know from experience that crossing the United States is challenging in terms of weather, she said. She added that the aim is to reach New York's JFK Airport before crossing the Atlantic, she added. Reuters In March, last year, Solar Impulse 2 left Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and since then has travelled almost 18,000 kilometres. Interestingly, its wings are covered with more than 17,000 photovoltaic cells that charge the batteries when the sun is shining during the day. Two Pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg are taking alternating turns flying at each stage because the aircraft can accommodate one at a time. Dubbed the paper plane, Solar Impulse 2 has a wingspan of 72 meters, larger than a Boeing 747's, and a weight of 2.3 tonnes, approximately that of a van. It flies at a maximum altitude of 8,634 meters and must withstand high temperature fluctuations, with the pilots using oxygen tanks to breathe inside the tiny cockpit. The project aims to demonstrate the possibilities of renewable solar energy. Watch the video here. (with inputs from AFP) Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga will not take part in this edition of the Indian Premier League as he has been ruled out due to a knee injury. AFP Mumbai Indians' medical team deemed him unfit for at least another four months. The bone bruise to his left knee is also expected to keep Malinga out of Sri Lanka's forthcoming tour of England, as well as the Caribbean Premier League. Doctors back home will now see if the fast bowler needs to undergo surgery. BCCI No replacement has been named yet, but it is a big blow to Mumbai as Malinga has been the mainstay of their attack in previous seasons. Malinga has played much of his career with a similar problem in his right knee. That injury - sustained in 2008 - kept him out of the national team for 16 months, and forced him to quit Tests at the age of 27. Poor G7 Just Cannot Disarm Yet! By Andre Vltchek April 17, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Counterpunch "- - They met in Hiroshima, Japan, in the first city on Earth that had been subjected to nuclear genocide. They were representing some of the mightiest nations on Earth: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States the so-called Group of Seven (G7). And at the end of their encounter, they called for a world without nuclear weapons. I am talking about the foreign ministers of seven countries with the largest economies on Earth. Read carefully the names of these countries, one by one! For decades and centuries, the world has been trembling imagining their armed forces and corporations. Lashes administered by their colonial rulers have scarred entire continents, tens of millions were enslaved, and hundreds of millions killed, billions robbed. Even now, if we all listen carefully, we can clearly hear the victims screaming, in agony: the native people of Canada and United States, the colonized people of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. For centuries, the entire world has been in shackles, on its knees, humiliated, plundered and destroyed. G7! How many billions of victims from all corners of the world, made those countries so grand? To ensure that the pillage could continue uninterrupted, the West together with those honorary whites (a term that the South African apartheid regime invented exclusively for the Japanese people) created several aggressive and belligerent pacts, including NATO, calling them, of course, defensive alliances. It came as no surprise: remember that in the lexicon of the Empire of Lies, war is called peace, while aggression is always defined as defense. But this I have already described in detail, in my 820-page book Exposing Lies of the Empire. Now foreign policy tsars of the G7 were standing shoulder to shoulder again, in Hiroshima, of all places, and only a few days after the 71st anniversary of the nuclear blast. Making predictable declarations and self-glorifying speeches. The weather was good, partly sunny, with excellent visibility. But was the world really able to see through the thick fog of Machiavellian cynicism and lies, dispersed all over the Planet by those grinning rulers of the world? On April 11, 2016, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) issued a written declaration on nuclear disarmament: We reaffirm our commitment to seeking a safer world for all and to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in a way that promotes international stability. Seriously? No one around those ministers fell; nobody was seen to be rolling on the floor, shaking from uncontrollable laughter. Obviously, a joke repeated thousands of times loses its luster. But that was not all. The text of the declaration continued: This task is made more complex by the deteriorating security environment in a number of regions, such as Syria and Ukraine, and, in particular by North Koreas repeated provocations. What exactly were we reading? What was between the lines? Were we being told that the United States needs all of its 6,970 nuclear weapons to antagonize Syria and North Korea, while sustaining the fascist regime in Ukraine? Just to put things into perspective: two Communist countries with nuclear capability have really negligible stockpiles of nuclear weapons, compared to the West and G7. China has 260 and North Korea (DPRK) approximately 15. In comparison, France has 300 and the U.K., 215. In 2016, the population of China stands at 1.382 million, while that of France is less than 65 million. China has more than 21 times more people to defend, but despite that, France has more nuclear weapons. The comparison gets even more ridiculous between North Korea and the U.K. The figures quoted above are the latest official statistics, taken from the World Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Report, updated as recently as on March 2, 2016. It would also be appropriate to recall that North Korea has never invaded any foreign country. Also China (PRC), apart from two brief border clashes, has never been involved in any large-scale military conflict. Not once has it colonized or destroyed a foreign land. Both France and the U.K. have been plundering on all of the planets continents, for centuries. Later, in the 20th Century, the United States took over the reigns of imperialism from the old and traditional European colonialist empires. One statement is actually correct: there is that deteriorating security environment in a number of regions, but only due to the covert as well as direct aggressions of NATO and the G7 countries. But it would be even more honest to declare: We are sorry, we really cannot disarm, because if we would, it would become much more difficult to loot and to control the world. Before dispersing, the G7 party did what its members enjoy doing the most: lashing at China. As Reuters reported: Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies said they strongly opposed provocation in the East and South China Seas, where China is locked in territorial disputes with nations including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan Earlier on Monday, the G7 foreign ministers said after meeting in the Japanese city of Hiroshima that they opposed any intimidating coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions. The US is habitually implementing that good old British divide and rule strategy. In Asia, it uses its client states, particularly the Philippines, Japan and South Korea to isolate and provoke both China and DPRK. This policy is so dangerous that many here believe that it could eventually trigger the Third World War. This time, China has fired back, almost immediately. At a news briefing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang declared: If the G7 wants to continue playing a major role in the world, it should take an attitude of seeking truth from the facts to handle the issues the international community is most concerned with at the moment. The Western military build-up in the Asia Pacific region, the military maneuvers conducted jointly by the US and South Korea, as well as the continuous militarization of Japan, are definitely some of the topics that are making most of the Asian continent both concerned and frightened. Predictably, the DPRK remained the main punch bag of the G7. The ministers never explained exactly why the world should be petrified of North Korea. Such fear should apparently be taken for granted, especially after the long decades of intensive and vicious Western and South Korean propaganda. But back to the statement of the ministers: We condemn in the strongest terms the nuclear test on January 6 and the launch using ballistic missile technology on February 7, March 10 and March 18 conducted by North Korea. It is profoundly deplorable that North Korea has conducted four nuclear tests in the 21st century. Of course, building defenses against the combined NATO and G7 aggressions is one of the most deplorable crimes, it calls for capital punishment! Shamelessly, after spreading verbal toxins, all seven ministers went to the grounds of the monument and museum dedicated to the victims of Hiroshima A-bomb. The Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida led the pack. Under the bizarre leadership of his government, Japan has been doing its absolute best to betray Asia, and to antagonize its neighbors. In the most servile and shameful way, it has fully accepted the Western dictates, increased the volume of its own hysterical propaganda campaign against China and DPRK, and has begun to bolster its military. Why? Just to please its masters, those noble and superior Westerners! By now, Japan is not even what its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants the world to believe that it is: a conservative nation governed by a nationalist government. Japan has no spine, just as it has no foreign policy. It fully takes orders from the United States. And as I was told repeatedly by one of the employees of the NHK: No major media outlet in Japan would dare to broadcast anything important, related to international affairs, that hasnt appeared previously on at least one of the major US networks. Looking at Japans past, conservative nationalists used to be, for instance, some of the greatest writers like Yukio Mishima, a man who ended his life in 1970 by committing a ritual suicide, protesting Japans unabashed submission to the West. Japans Prime Minister Abe is definitely a conservative, but is he really a Japanese nationalist? He is defending the interests of Washington much more than those of his own country. Perhaps, honorary white and one of G7 leaders would be the most fitting term to define him. Now, according to the official NATO website: Japan is the longest-standing of NATOs partners across the globe. It is also one of the nations that are shamelessly plundering the world through its brutal corporations. *** And so they stood there seven ministers from some of the most aggressive countries on Earth. They stood on the turf that was, more than 70 years ago, burned to ashes, in just a few seconds after the nuclear explosion. They said again and again how much they would like to disarm, how much they would like to see the world free of nuclear weapons. What they didnt say was that they never would disarm, voluntarily. And they never clarified how they actually made it to that exclusive G7 club: because of the unbridled plunder during their colonial history, and because of the modern-day global corporate pillage, as well as their mining and oil investments. And of course because of the world order, imposed by force and all sorts of weapons, nuclear and conventional, on the rest of the Planet. Instead of Group of Seven, this pack should be simply called GS the Group of Shame. The ministers stood for some time in front of the flame burning at the monument to Hiroshima A-bomb victims. They posed for the cameras. Then they went away, sat down at some table, and wrote the official declaration on nuclear disarmament, explaining why they cannot abandon their tools of coercion. And that declaration turned out to be nothing more than yet another monumental pile of lies! Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: Exposing Lies Of The Empire and Fighting Against Western Imperialism.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: Indonesia The Archipelago of Fear. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter. Trump and Clinton: Censoring The Unpalatable By John Pilger April 17, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - A virulent if familiar censorship is about to descend on the US election campaign. As the cartoon brute, Donald Trump, seems almost certain to win the Republican Party's nomination, Hillary Clinton is being ordained both as the "women's candidate" and the champion of American liberalism in its heroic struggle with the Evil One. This is drivel, of course; Hillary Clinton leaves a trail of blood and suffering around the world and a clear record of exploitation and greed in her own country. To say so, however, is becoming intolerable in the land of free speech. The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama should have alerted even the most dewy-eyed. Obama based his "hope" campaign almost entirely on the fact of an African-American aspiring to lead the land of slavery. He was also "anti-war". Obama was never anti-war. On the contrary, like all American presidents, he was pro-war. He had voted for George W. Bush's funding of the slaughter in Iraq and he was planning to escalate the invasion of Afghanistan. In the weeks before he took the presidential oath, he secretly approved an Israeli assault on Gaza, the massacre known as Operation Cast Lead. He promised to close the concentration camp at Guantanamo and did not. He pledged to help make the world "free from nuclear weapons" and did the opposite. As a new kind of marketing manager for the status quo, the unctuous Obama was an inspired choice. Even at the end of his blood-spattered presidency, with his signature drones spreading infinitely more terror and death around the world than that ignited by jihadists in Paris and Brussels, Obama is fawned on as "cool" (the Guardian). On March 23, Counterpunch published my article, "A World War has Begun: Break the Silence". As has been my practice for years, I then syndicated the piece across an international network, including Truthout.com, the liberal American website. Truthout publishes some important journalism, not least Dahr Jamail's outstanding corporate exposes. Truthout rejected the piece because, said an editor, it had appeared on Counterpunch and had broken "guidelines". I replied that this had never been a problem over many years and I knew of no guidelines. My recalcitrance was then given another meaning. The article was reprieved provided I submitted to a "review" and agreed to changes and deletions made by Truthout's "editorial committee". The result was the softening and censoring of my criticism of Hillary Clinton, and the distancing of her from Trump. The following was cut: Trump is a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism. Trump's views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama ... The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system... As presidential election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies - just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about "hope". The "editorial committee" clearly wanted me to water down my argument that Clinton represented a proven extreme danger to the world. Like all censorship, this was unacceptable. Maya Schenwar, who runs Truthout, wrote to me that my unwillingness to submit my work to a "process of revision" meant she had to take it off her "publication docket". Such is the gatekeeper's way with words. At the root of this episode is an enduring unsayable. This is the need, the compulsion, of many liberals in the United States to embrace a leader from within a system that is demonstrably imperial and violent. Like Obama's "hope", Clinton's gender is no more than a suitable facade. This is an historical urge. In his 1859 essay On Liberty, to which modern liberals seem to pay unflagging homage, John Stuart Mill described the power of empire. "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians," he wrote, "provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end." The "barbarians" were large sections of humanity of whom "implicit obedience" was required. "It's a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers," wrote the British historian Hywel Williams in 2001, "but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open ended nature - its conviction that it represents a superior form of life [while denying its] self righteous fanaticism." He had in mind a speech by Tony Blair in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in which Blair promised to "reorder this world around us" according to his "moral values". The carnage of a million dead in Iraq was the result. Blair's crimes are not unusual. Since 1945, some 69 countries - more than a third of the membership of the United Nations - have suffered some or all of the following. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted and their people bombed. The historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll in the millions. With the demise of the European empires, this has been the project of the liberal flame carrier, the "exceptional" United States, whose celebrated "progressive" president, John F Kennedy, according to new research, authorised the bombing of Moscow during the Cuban crisis in 1962. "If we have to use force," said Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state in the liberal administration of Bill Clinton and today a passionate campaigner for his wife, "it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future." One of Hillary Clinton's most searing crimes was the destruction of Libya in 2011. At her urging, and with American logistical support, NATO, launched 9,700 "strike sorties" against Libya, according to its own records, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. See the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. Read the UNICEF report on the children killed, "most [of them] under the age of ten". In Anglo-American scholarship, followed slavishly by the liberal media on both sides of the Atlantic, influential theorists known as "liberal realists" have long taught that liberal imperialists - a term they never use - are the world's peace brokers and crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. They have taken the humanity out of the study of nations and congealed it with a jargon that serves warmongering power. Laying out whole nations for autopsy, they have identified "failed states" (nations difficult to exploit) and "rogue states" (nations resistant to western dominance). Whether or not the targeted regime is a democracy or dictatorship is irrelevant. In the Middle East, western liberalism's collaborators have long been extremist Islamists, lately al-Qaeda, while cynical notions of democracy and human rights serve as rhetorical cover for conquest and mayhem - as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Honduras. See the public record of those good liberals Bill and Hillary Clinton. Theirs is a standard to which Trump can only aspire. Follow John Pilger on Twitter @johnpilger and on Facebook A World War Has Begun. Break the Silence. By John Pilger April 17, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, "Where is that?" If I offer a clue by referring to "Bikini", they say, "You mean the swimsuit." Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 -- the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years. Bikini is silent today, mutated and contaminated. Palm trees grow in a strange grid formation. Nothing moves. There are no birds. The headstones in the old cemetery are alive with radiation. My shoes registered "unsafe" on a Geiger counter. Standing on the beach, I watched the emerald green of the Pacific fall away into a vast black hole. This was the crater left by the hydrogen bomb they called "Bravo". The explosion poisoned people and their environment for hundreds of miles, perhaps forever. On my return journey, I stopped at Honolulu airport and noticed an American magazine called Women's Health. On the cover was a smiling woman in a bikini swimsuit, and the headline: "You, too, can have a bikini body." A few days earlier, in the Marshall Islands, I had interviewed women who had very different "bikini bodies"; each had suffered thyroid cancer and other life-threatening cancers. Unlike the smiling woman in the magazine, all of them were impoverished: the victims and guinea pigs of a rapacious superpower that is today more dangerous than ever. I relate this experience as a warning and to interrupt a distraction that has consumed so many of us. The founder of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays , described this phenomenon as "the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the habits and opinions" of democratic societies. He called it an "invisible government". How many people are aware that a world war has begun? At present, it is a war of propaganda, of lies and distraction, but this can change instantaneously with the first mistaken order, the first missile. In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make "the world free from nuclear weapons". People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all fake. He was lying. The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1 trillion. A mini nuclear bomb is planned. It is known as the B61 Model 12. There has never been anything like it. General James Cartwright, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, "Going smaller [makes using this nuclear] weapon more thinkable." In the last eighteen months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World War Two -- led by the United States -- is taking place along Russia's western frontier. Not since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union have foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat to Russia. Ukraine - once part of the Soviet Union - has become a CIA theme park. Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the political descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian speaking minority. This is seldom news in the West, or it is inverted to suppress the truth. In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- next door to Russia - the US military is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons. This extreme provocation of the world's second nuclear power is met with silence in the West. What makes the prospect of nuclear war even more dangerous is a parallel campaign against China. Seldom a day passes when China is not elevated to the status of a "threat". According to Admiral Harry Harris, the US Pacific commander, China is "building a great wall of sand in the South China Sea". What he is referring to is China building airstrips in the Spratly Islands, which are the subject of a dispute with the Philippines - a dispute without priority until Washington pressured and bribed the government in Manila and the Pentagon launched a propaganda campaign called "freedom of navigation". What does this really mean? It means freedom for American warships to patrol and dominate the coastal waters of China. Try to imagine the American reaction if Chinese warships did the same off the coast of California. I made a film called The War You Don't See , in which I interviewed distinguished journalists in America and Britain: reporters such as Dan Rather of CBS, Rageh Omar of the BBC, David Rose of the Observer. The War You Don't See from John Pilger on Vimeo. All of them said that had journalists and broadcasters done their job and questioned the propaganda that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction; had the lies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair not been amplified and echoed by journalists, the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not have happened, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today. The propaganda laying the ground for a war against Russia and/or China is no different in principle. To my knowledge, no journalist in the Western "mainstream" -- a Dan Rather equivalent, say --asks why China is building airstrips in the South China Sea. The answer ought to be glaringly obvious. The United States is encircling China with a network of bases, with ballistic missiles, battle groups, nuclear -armed bombers. This lethal arc extends from Australia to the islands of the Pacific, the Marianas and the Marshalls and Guam, to the Philippines, Thailand, Okinawa, Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India. America has hung a noose around the neck of China. This is not news. Silence by media; war by media. In 2015, in high secrecy, the US and Australia staged the biggest single air-sea military exercise in recent history, known as Talisman Sabre. Its aim was to rehearse an Air-Sea Battle Plan, blocking sea lanes, such as the Straits of Malacca and the Lombok Straits, that cut off China's access to oil, gas and other vital raw materials from the Middle East and Africa. In the circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism. Trump's views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. According to one prodigious liberal commentator, Trump is "unleashing the dark forces of violence" in the United States. Unleashing them? This is the country where toddlers shoot their mothers and the police wage a murderous war against black Americans. This is the country that has attacked and sought to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and bombed from Asia to the Middle East, causing the deaths and dispossession of millions of people. No country can equal this systemic record of violence. Most of America's wars (almost all of them against defenceless countries) have been launched not by Republican presidents but by liberal Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama. In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as "a world substantially made over in [America's] own image". The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. Heretics would be converted, subverted, bribed, smeared or crushed. Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn't want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted "exceptionalism" is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face. As presidential election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies - just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about "hope". And the drool goes on. Described by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones as "funny, charming, with a coolness that eludes practically every other politician", Obama the other day sent drones to slaughter 150 people in Somalia. He kills people usually on Tuesdays, according to the New York Times, when he is handed a list of candidates for death by drone. So cool. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran with nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State under Obama, she participated in the overthrow of the democratic government of Honduras. Her contribution to the destruction of Libya in 2011 was almost gleeful. When the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, was publicly sodomised with a knife - a murder made possible by American logistics - Clinton gloated over his death: "We came, we saw, he died." One of Clinton's closest allies is Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of State, who has attacked young women for not supporting "Hillary". This is the same Madeleine Albright who infamously celebrated on TV the death of half a million Iraqi children as "worth it". Among Clinton's biggest backers are the Israel lobby and the arms companies that fuel the violence in the Middle East. She and her husband have received a fortune from Wall Street. And yet, she is about to be ordained the women's candidate, to see off the evil Trump, the official demon. Her supporters include distinguished feminists: the likes of Gloria Steinem in the US and Anne Summers in Australia. A generation ago, a post-modern cult now known as "identity politics" stopped many intelligent, liberal-minded people examining the causes and individuals they supported -- such as the fakery of Obama and Clinton; such as bogus progressive movements like Syriza in Greece, which betrayed the people of that country and allied with their enemies. Self absorption, a kind of "me-ism", became the new zeitgeist in privileged western societies and signaled the demise of great collective movements against war, social injustice, inequality, racism and sexism. Today, the long sleep may be over. The young are stirring again. Gradually. The thousands in Britain who supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader are part of this awakening - as are those who rallied to support Senator Bernie Sanders. In Britain last week, Jeremy Corbyn's closest ally, his shadow treasurer John McDonnell, committed a Labour government to pay off the debts of piratical banks and, in effect, to continue so-called austerity. In the US, Bernie Sanders has promised to support Clinton if or when she's nominated. He, too, has voted for America's use of violence against countries when he thinks it's "right". He says Obama has done "a great job". In Australia, there is a kind of mortuary politics, in which tedious parliamentary games are played out in the media while refugees and Indigenous people are persecuted and inequality grows, along with the danger of war. The government of Malcolm Turnbull has just announced a so-called defence budget of $195 billion that is a drive to war. There was no debate. Silence. What has happened to the great tradition of popular direct action, unfettered to parties? Where is the courage, imagination and commitment required to begin the long journey to a better, just and peaceful world? Where are the dissidents in art, film, the theatre, literature? Where are those who will shatter the silence? Or do we wait until the first nuclear missile is fired? This is an edited version of an address by John Pilger at the University of Sydney, entitled A World War Has Begun. Follow John Pilger on Twitter @johnpilger US War Crimes in Iraq Fallujah Residents Starving, Murdered, Besieged by US Backed Government Forces and ISIS By Felicity Arbuthnot April 17, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " GR "- It is hard to imagine that anything worse could befall Fallujah after the war crimes and criminal assaults by the US military in 2004. At the time, one correspondent wrote: There has been nothing like the attack on Fallujah since the Nazi invasion and occupation of much of the European continent the shelling and bombing of Warsaw in September 1939, the terror bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940. (1) Seventy percent of houses and shops were reported destroyed, with those still standing damaged. Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, described a city: completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Fallujah used to be a modern city, now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didnt see a single building that was functioning.(City of Ghosts, The Guardian, January 11, 2005.) Nicholas J. Davies, author of Blood on our Hands the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, has written: The Fallujah Compensation Committee reported in March 2005 that the assault destroyed 36,000 homes, 9,000 shops, 65 mosques, 60 schools, both train stations, one of the two bridges, two power stations, three water treatment plants and the citys entire sanitation and telephone systems. Now, Human Rights Watch has written a Report (2) indicating that near unbelievably, twelve years on, all has deteriorated to the extent that: Residents of the besieged city of Fallujah are starving. Iraqi government forces should urgently allow aid to enter the city, and the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which captured the city in early 2014, should allow civilians to leave. Fallujah is now under siege by the US imposed Iraqi puppet government and ISIS as people demonstrate in thousands in protest at yet another American backed administration which has brought nothing but misery to the population. Incredibly US Vice President Joe Biden and Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani have come together: to make clear that no attempt should be made to unseat the current Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi. (US, Iran Keep Iraqi PM in Place, Reuters, 6 April 2016.) The people of Fallujah are besieged by the government, trapped by ISIS, and are starving, states HRW Deputy Middle East Director, Joe Stork. Since government forces recaptured nearby Ramadi, the capital of Anbar governorate, in late December 2015, and the al-Jazira desert area north of Fallujah in March 2016, they have cut off supply routes into the city, three Iraqi officials said. Tens of thousands of civilians from an original population of more than 300,000 remain inside the city. HRW obtained a list of one hundred and forty people, including young children, said to have died in the last few months from lack of food and medicine. The names have been withheld for fear that ISIS, which forbids the population making contact outside the city would punish the relatives of the dead. Residents are reported to be eating bread made from flour from ground date stones and soup made from grass. Food still available is sold at staggering prices. A 50-kilogram sack of flour goes for US$750, and a bag of sugar for $500. In Baghdad, just seventy kilometres away: the same amount of flour costs $15 and of sugar $40 each day starving children arrive at the local hospital most foodstuffs are no longer available at any price the hospital has run out of baby food. The World Food Programme has stated weakly that it is concerned about the food situation. In the annals of shamefully pathetic UN responses to tragedies of enormity this may be this 2016s winner. Sources told HRW that both Iraqi government troops and the Popular Mobilization Force, one of about forty militia forces under the Ministry of the Interior are preventing food and essential goods from reaching the city. Those trying to leave the city are in danger of being murdered by ISIS. On 22nd March, one man who went to one of their checkpoints saying he had to leave, he could not take the situation any longer, was taken back into the city and executed. In late February a family trying to leave were also killed. On 30th March it was reported that thirty five people trying to leave had also been executed. Moreover: Government aircraft and artillery have carried out numerous attacks, which Fallujah residents say have killed many civilians. Aircraft and artillery supplied by the US. Neighbors reported to one former resident that on November 27, 2015, bombings killed 12 people in his neighborhood, including nine children. On August 13 (2015) aerial bombs struck Fallujahs childrens hospital, killing several people A medical source in the city, whose information Human Rights Watch could not confirm, said that since January 2014, 5,769 combatants and civilians have been injured and 3,455 killed, roughly one-fourth of them women and children. It seems it is Iraqs plight to be starved and bombed as a result of US-UK policies. Thirteen years of the most draconian embargo ever administered by the UN, driven by the US and UK, with the UK heading the Sanctions Committee, the 1991 bombing, twelve subsequent years also of illegal US-UK bombing. Under Saddam there was a rationing system, ironically, commended by the UN for its efficiency although hugely restricted by the UN for lack of imports. Since liberation Fallujah is another symbol of the sheer Western driven wickedness and iniquity that has befallen Iraq since 2003. Perhaps it is time Tony Blair whose officials authored the dodgy dossiers that gave the excuse for the illegal invasion lived up to the farcical Global Legacy Award presented to him by Save the Children in November 2014 and pitched up in Fallujah with desperately needed aid from his multi-million charity and from his own multi million pocket. It would be trivial amends, but it would be a start. Perhaps Save the Children could also atone for awarding a man who many eminent legal minds argue should be accounting for himself at the International Criminal Court in The Hague by doing the same. I feel a petition coming on. Notes: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fallujah-us-marines-further-allegations-of-war-crimes-surface/5366163 https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/07/iraq-fallujah-siege-starving-population The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, 2016 Three years after it was closed due to the activities of Boko Harm Terrorists, the Damaturu-Biu road has been re-opened by the Nigeria Army. The 132km stretch of road is a major link between Yobe and southern Borno State, where most agricultural and economic activities in the area take place. It also connects Yobe, Gombe, Taraba and Adamawa states. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the event at Buni Yadi, one of the towns recaptured from Boko Haram, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen Tukur Buratai, said the road was re-opened due to improved security in the area, and its socio-economic importance to Yobe and Borno States. Buratai also said the road re-opening is another milestone in their collective resolve to end insurgency and fast-track the return of normalcy to the area. Few weeks ago, the Maiduguri-Damboa-Biu road was re-opened. Road re-opening will continue in all other affected areas to ensure that law-abiding citizens go about their legitimate businesses while encouraging socio-economic activities to go on unhindered in this axis without fear of molestation or harm. The road is vital to the economy of Yobe and Borno, considering the large scale economic activities taking place in the southern part of the state, he said. He said the Army will continue to protect lives and property of all law-abiding citizens plying the road, while urging returnees to provide timely information on Boko Haram elements to security agents. The army chief hailed the troops for their courage and untiring efforts towards securing the communities and nation even as he charged the state government to call on contractors handling the road project to resume work. Also speaking at the ceremony, Yobe State Governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, who was represented by his Commissioner for Works, Alhaji Mohammed Surajo Wakil, assured that the state government would mobilize the contractors back to work, while seeking collaboration with Army engineers to complete the road project. The governor was full of praise for the army for its commitment in ensuring that peace was restored in the area. He, however, noted that the state government is awaiting final clearance from the military to return IDPs back to their communities. Boko Haram Terrorists have been degraded to the extent that they can no longer seize and hold on to any territory in the country, President Muhammadu Buhari has said. This is just as he said government forces had taken over all the territories hitherto under the control of the insurgents, and destroyed their camps. The president made these assertions in a speech delivered on his behalf at the 13th summit of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkey by Education Minister, Adamu Adamu. According to Buhari, most Boko Haram leaders have been arrested while many others had surrendered to government forces. He commended Nigerias neighbours: Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin and the international community for their support in the fight against insurgency in the country. President Buhari also commended the OIC for its efforts in ensuring peace worldwide. On the theme of the summit: Unity and Solidarity for Justice and Peace, the Nigerian leader described the current precarious situation in the Muslim world as a source of great concern. A multiplicity of crises and conflicts litter the entire landscape of the Muslim World from West and North Africa through Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent; from Jammu and Kashmir to Jakarta, he said. And from the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East to the Balkans; many member-states are embroiled in conflicts threatening their very existence and taking an unacceptable toll in human lives and destruction of critical infrastructure. Muslim minorities in non-member-states like Myammar, Philippines, Thailand and China; and Muslim migrants in the West are still facing serious political, cultural and economic challenges or outright persecution. President Buhari, therefore, called on member-states of the organization to rededicate themselves to the struggle for peace and justice for Palestinians. He said that Nigeria stood in full solidarity with the Palestinians in their legitimate quest for an independent state. The situation in Palestine remains bleak; the scourge of terrorism and violent extremism remains unabated. The drums of Islamaphobia, especially in the countries with minority or migrant Muslims, are being beaten to achieve mischievous political objectives. Nigeria identifies with and fully supports the just struggle of the people of Palestine against the unjust occupation of their land and the oppression of their people by Israel, he said. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has blamed the nations economic woes on the major opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which 16 years reign he said, pauperized Nigerians. Ngige said it was the alleged massive plundering of the nations commonwealth by the PDP that forced President Muhammadu Buhari to resort to seeking foreign loans. He said This is because the Peoples Democratic Party, for 16 years, looted the nations treasury and pauperized Nigerians. The PDP during the oil windfall did not bother to save any kobo for this country. All (the money) they got, they squandered. That is why Nigerians are pauperized this way today. Whatever money we borrow today is not going to be used for recurrent expenditure. It is going to be invested in railroads, power, roads, providing infrastructure for agriculture and solid minerals. Wont you want to see the construction of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway? The minister made the assertion weekend during a programme organised by the National Directorate of Employment in Amawbia, Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State. While justifying the Buhari administrations decision to seek foreign loans to finance part of the 2016 budget deficit, Mr. Ngige said the only option under the circumstance is to look for loans to give Nigerians good governance because Section 14 of our Constitution says the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. He also promised that the All Progressives Congress-led federal government through agencies like the NDE, will make jobs available in the country. In the next two months, the second phase of this exercise would have been carried out and I want to assure you that over 2, 800 new businesses would have been generated across the country through the Resettlement Scheme of the NDE, Ngige said. Earlier, the Acting Director General of NDE, Kunle Obayan, said apart from the 30 persons that were empowered at the programme, 220 other persons previously trained in the state but not empowered were given lifelines from the Federal Government through the NDE, under the Artisans Resettlement and Mentoring Scheme. The bill seeking the amendment of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal by the Senate has been dismissed as an exercise in futility by Senator Kabiru Marafa. The senator representing Zamfara Central on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday described the move by some of his colleagues as dead on arrival. The bill sponsored by Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (PDP/Delta North), tagged, a bill for an Act to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, Cap C15,LFN,2004; and other related matters, passed through first and second reading in 48 hours. In an interview, Marafa described the move to amend the Act as a display of crass ignorance of legislative work and a waste of tax payers money. I am not surprised at all, I cautioned Nigerians against this. You can also recall my comments on DPO, Juicy Check Points and posting and lately my call on the leadership of the Senate to respect the ranking rules (order 3 (2 i-iv)) the chickens are now coming home to roost. What happened in the Senate last week was a combination of all of the above propelled by blind naked ambition! Why most senators walked out or refused to oppose the bill(s) is hinged on two factors; [Ike] Ekweremadu presiding and many senators didnt want to waste their time arguing none issues! All the three proposed bills fall under constitutional amendment and not act of the National Assembly, he said. According to the senator, an outspoken critic of the embattled Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, plans are also afoot to amend Section 308 which deals with immunity for public office holders of the constitution through a bill. The third bill is contemplating to enlarge the immunity clause. Section 308 (3) is very clear! So let no Nigerian lose sleep over this issue, it is dead on arrival, even though its unfortunate that an issue like this can even be listed and given accelerated hearing in the hallowed chamber presided over by a senior lawyer, he said. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, yesterday called on politicians to seek power from God only, as any political scheme to attain leadership position outside divine arrangement will not succeed. Politicians, he stressed, should rather put their trust in God because power comes from God, victory comes from God, no one, no matter how powerful he/she is, can give you power. Mr. Dogara said Nigerians have the burden to change their attitudes and re-orient themselves for the country to make progress. He spoke during a thanksgiving service organised by Rep Jagaba Adams Jagaba in Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna state. While Nigerians expect leaders to be role models, the followers must also know that leaders are recruited from among them, Dogara said in a statement by his media aide, Turaki Hassan. This nation can only make progress when all citizens resolve that in their daily undertakings they will maintain the best of standards, he said. Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, has shut down the clinic at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, Kaduna, and redeployed its medical personnel to public hospitals. In a statement issued on Sunday by his media aide, Samuel Aruwan, the governor explained that the decision to close the Government House clinic and redeploy its personnel to public hospitals was aimed at boosting the healthcare system in the state. The statement said all the drugs and medical equipment in the clinic have been moved to the Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital, Tudun Wada, Kaduna while Government House staff, who require medical services have also been directed to use the hospital or any other public healthcare facility closest to them. The statement reads in part: There are not yet enough doctors in the public health system in Kaduna State. Therefore it is not prudent to assign doctors, nurses and other medical staff to serve Government House alone. It is clearly more beneficial to the wider society if the services of these medical personnel were made available to the public in a general hospital. In addition, it is better that everyone working in the Government House uses the same health facilities as the general public. Medical personnel from the Government House Clinic have been redeployed to public hospitals in the state. All drugs and medical equipment in the Government House Clinic have also been evacuated and are being put to use at the Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital. From now on, all Government House staff requiring medical services will proceed to the nearest public hospital to the Government House like other citizens of the State. The governor expressed optimism that the management of the public hospitals will make good use of the medical personnel, drugs and equipment donated to them. Confirming receipt of the drugs and equipment, the medical director of the Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital, Dr. Muhammad Bello Armayau, thanked Mr. El-Rufai for the gesture, promising that the hospital will make judicious use of the extra capacity it has received. Gunmen from South Sudan have killed at least 140 civilians, including women and children, in a raid in Ethiopias Gambela region, the Ethiopian government has said. Getachew Reda, Ethiopias communications minister, said on Saturday that Fridays attack had been carried out by members of South Sudans Murle tribe. He added that Ethiopian forces have killed 60 of the assailants and may cross into neighbouring South Sudan to pursue them. They havent crossed the border [yet], but they will if thats what it takes, he told Al Jazeera. The minister, who said the latest attack is much larger than past skirmishes, also said that a number of children have been abducted from Ethiopia and taken into South Sudan, according to an Associated Press news agency report. The attack happened in Gambelas Jakawa area which straddles the Ethiopian-South Sudanese border, in a region that alongside a neighbouring province hosts more than 284,000 refugees from South Sudan who fled conflict in the worlds youngest nation. The attackers had no relation to South Sudans army or rebel forces who fought the government in Juba in a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people, a statement from the government communications office said. David Shinn, a professor of International Relations at George Washington University and former US ambassador to Ethiopia, said the region has a long history of ethnic conflict originating on both sides of the Ethiopia-South Sudan border. The border is porous and movement back and forth between South Sudan and Ethiopia is common, he told Al Jazeera. The conflict in South Sudan has resulted in refugees moving into Ethiopia. Rebel groups can also move across Gambela region. It is not surprising there are occasional local outbreaks of violence in this area. Aljazeera. Protesters have taken to the streets in Baghdad to demand a new government, after the Iraqi parliament cancelled its third session in a week to discuss political reforms. Saturdays session was scrapped because parliament couldnt be secured by security forces, said a statement from the office of the speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, whose position is under threat as some legislators are seeking to replace him. The political crisis centres around divisions over a plan by Haider al-Abadi, the prime minister, to bring technocrats into cabinet in a bid to check corruption. On March 31, Abadi presented a list of independent professionals who he hoped could free ministries from the grip of dominant political groups. But under pressure from leading politicians, he drafted a second list this week based on party links. The modified list, which Abadi had planned to present for a vote, prompted a sit-in by MPs who say it will allow corruption to continue to flourish. Al Jazeeras Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said if the reforms are actually put in place, it will be the most significant development in Iraqi politics since 2003. The political system created after Saddam Hussein was toppled distributed power among Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs. It has created a government that many Iraqis feel serves politicians but not the people, she said. The dissenting MPs, who accuse the speaker, Jabouri, of blocking reforms, said they would meet on Monday to elect a new assembly leader. The protesters include followers of influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Saturday issued a statement asking all the ministers to immediately resign, and even Abadis Dawa party. Your Excellency, Im convinced the time has come to write you this letter despite the fact that I have some measure of access to you. I decided to do this in order to tackle the mischief makers who believe Im your very close friend and as such must be a rabid supporter of yours. I have been accused of all sorts of garbage including being paid heavy sums of money from your bottomless pocket. Im aware that most of these guys can never believe that anyone could stand up for principle without pecuniary gains. But before I go into the meat of this letter, I need to state my background briefly as Im sure you dont even know me well enough to understand and appreciate my socio-political trajectory. I have read all sorts about you and I and it is necessary sometimes to put the records straight for the sake of doubting Thomases who can never see anything good in others. You were a Governor for eight years and I cant remember ever meeting you one on one. The only time I believe we exchanged physical pleasantries would have been at the 70th birthday dinner hosted in honour of your mother-in-law, Erelu Ojuolape Ojora at The Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos some years back. I remember seeing and greeting you and a few of the former and current Governors present including Olusegun Osoba, James Ibori, Babatunde Fashola and others. I would later see one of the pictures I took at the party and read many years after that I was busy drinking champagne with James Ibori who was being wanted for several cases of corruption and so on. I could not believe my eyes because the picture showed clearly that I was chatting with Chief Olusegun Osoba while Ibori minding his business behind me but someone needed to rubbish me for reasons I could never fathom. Not just that, Ibori was still a Governor and would I run away from a function or refuse to greet people so as not to be accused of hobnobbing with corrupt leaders? The next time I interfaced with you was after you employed Mr Bamikole Omishore who was my American campaign coordinator in Washington DC, when I joined the Presidential race from 2010-2011. I was happy that you got such a brilliant young man to manage your social media. But you and I got closer for only one reason in the past one year plus because we both campaigned vigorously for Major General Muhammadu Buhari and you and Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi were the best of pals and he has been my friend long before he became Governor of Rivers State. I loved the way you, Amaechi, Kwankwaso, Wamako, Tambuwal, Atiku Abubakar, and others took the bold decision that would change the course of Nigerian history for better or for worse when you abandoned PDP despite threats and harassments. I must have met you about twice in your Lagos home to strategise and was particularly impressed with your ability to rally the likes of Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola, Wale Tinubu and others who ordinarily would have felt a need to support the government in power. I was informed you were able to raise some stupendous amount of money during and after the APC primaries. We talked more on phone and you assured me constantly that everything was on course. The rest is history. However trouble started as soon as victory came. I knew you had only one ambition and that was to become the Senate President. I thought that was a legitimate dream but did not envisage that it would turn out to be your albatross. Politics in Africa, and probably elsewhere, is a deadly game. Youve fought several battles in your life but I doubt if you ever bargained for this one. It all started like a joke. Your party apparatchik was obviously opposed to your candidacy. You were equally determined to realise your life ambition. One of the rumours then was that you could not be trusted with power and that in the next four years you would have become unstoppable if you decide to go headlong for the Presidency. Im not a member of your party so I could not understand what the hullabaloo was all about. The manner you emerged caught everyone unawares. The biggest problem was the fact that you sought and got the unequivocal support of members of the PDP in the Senate and even did a deal that made it possible for one of them to become your deputy. That was the hara-kiri you committed and your enemies would never forgive you for that. One thing led to another, and things fell apart and the centre could no longer hold. You probably underestimated the resolve of your enemies to cut you down to size. The next we saw were allegations of impropriety levelled against you at the Code of Conduct Bureau. You were said to have been dodgy in your assets declaration forms. Anyway, it seemed you had touched the tiger by the tail and it remained to be seen how you would wriggle out of the monumental trouble you had inadvertently courted by your rebelliousness and bellicosity. I was personally irked that we were back to the Nuhu Ribadu days and I voiced my opinion openly. I was not defending you but defending the rights of man. I had thought naively that APC knew what it was getting into with an ill-assorted assemblage of different characters from varied backgrounds. I presumed there was an accord that all sinners became saints once they migrated and amalgamated with APC. The deluge of immigrants from PDP convinced me that President Buhari would have to sanctify the pollutants if any in the new party. Not once did I hear of any objection to the proliferation so I assumed all was well. I never said you should not be prosecuted but that we should discourage a situation where every successive government uses anti-corruption camouflage to punish its enemies. This position was not meant to protect you but to discourage a perpetuation of such tradition. I wrote copiously against the harassment of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he went on similar trial. I had demonstrated publicly against the YarAdua cabal when they tried to stop Dr Goodluck Jonathan from assuming power when his boss was terminally ill. I remember also when I wrote an open letter to Mallam Nuhu Ribadu in 2007 and how I was viciously attacked by his supporters. But what happened after? Nuhu himself was forced into exile as a victim of impunity. Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and The Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi, formerly known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, became veritable victims of impunity and I was vehemently opposed to their ordeals. I needed to state this background very well as a way of documenting my modest contribution to the discouragement of impunity as a former victim myself under the military regimes. Now that it seems many Nigerians are comfortable with setting fire to an entire village in order to catch some rats, I will not belabour the issue further. Please, permit me to now address the case at hand. I want you to know that no matter what you do henceforth, the case against you will go on. The earlier you resign yourself to fate the better. You have done all you can to prevent this from happening and the time has come for you to defend yourself as best as you can. I understand the psychological trauma you are under. You are in utter shock that a party you laboured with others to build and nurture has decided to treat you as a pariah. You are stupefied at the sudden turn of events. But let me advise you, the Judiciary is still the best arbiter and if youre truly innocent, you will be vindicated but if you are found guilty after exhausting all legal options available in the land you must take a bow and accept the judgment with equanimity. Even if the APC decides to sweep this under the carpet, someone may still bring it up tomorrow. It is in your best interest to face the bullet and hope for a miracle. Im not one of those who have written off the Nigerian Judiciary. I will also not join those who have already convicted you in the court of public opinion. Im a Christian and I know none of us can cast the first stone and we should be careful not to gloat over anyones misfortune. Please, note that you must do nothing to pervert the course of justice by enacting hurriedly-packaged laws ostensibly meant to block your trial. It will further diminish you and make your sympathisers recoil in shame. To whom much is given, much is expected. God has been very kind to you and as a Muslim you must submit yourself only to the will of Allah, the only one who can forgive our sins. Who knows what the outcome may be at the end of the day? I beg you in the name of God to take courage. Stand like a man and carry your heavy cross. Source: Thisday The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has arrested a mother of three, who faked pregnancy with 86 pellets of white powdery substances that tested positive to cocaine. Dorothy Onyekasi, 41, was nabbed by NDLEA officials at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, during the inward screening of passengers on an Emirates flight from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The narcotics agency in a statement on Saturday by its spokesperson, Mitchel Ofoyeju, said the cocaine, which weighed a total of 1.720 kilogrammes, has an estimated street value of N20.6 million. The statement quoted the NDLEA commander at the Lagos Airport, Ahmadu Garba, as saying that the way the woman hid the illicit drugs in a waist bag and tied it around her stomach, she could have been easily mistaken for pregnancy. It was discovered that the suspect kept 86 wraps of cocaine inside a waist bag which was tied to her stomach, said Mr. Garba. Unfortunately, the drug was detected by NDLEA officers on her arrival from Dubai. The drug was immediately packed and weighed in her presence. The suspect, who said shes an importer of female bags and shoes, said her involvement in drug trafficking was a mistake. I am separated from my husband who left me with three children. I used to import female bags and shoes from Dubai. My involvement in drug trafficking is a mistake and I take responsibility for my action. I travelled to Dubai to buy my goods. While I was preparing to return, I met a man in Dubai who gave me the drug and promised to give me enough money to expand my business. He also told me that when I get to Nigeria, he will call his partner to collect the drug and give me my money. Ms. Onyekasi said on arrival in Nigeria, officials of the NDLEA detected the drugs at the airport. It is all my fault, the suspect, a Junior Secondary School certificate holder and indigene of Enugu State, said. If only I was contented with the profit from the sales of my goods; I would not have been in this problem. Muhammed Abdallah, NDLEAs Chairman described recent drug seizures at the Lagos airport as a welcome development that is capable of forcing drug cartels to beat a retreat. In the past few days, the NDLEA has recorded numerous arrests and drug seizures at the Lagos airport, said Mr. Abdallah, a retired colonel. The drug cartels have also suffered huge losses from these operations. This particular suspect feigned pregnancy with wraps of cocaine but she was caught by vigilant narcotic agents. Some of the suspects recently apprehended concealed drugs in their socks and luggage while others ingested wraps of cocaine in disregard of the danger to their health. In spite of their craftiness, we are daily stopping them from perpetrating their criminal act and forcing them to a retreat. The Northern Elders Forum (NEF), yesterday decried the alleged marginalization of the North in the yet-to-be signed controversial 2016 budget. The group said going by the provisions of the document, the North was being shortchanged and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently address its concerns. In a letter dated March 16, 2016 endorsed by its chairman, elder statesman and former Nigerias Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Alhaji Maitama Sule, and addressed to the president, the NEF said it consulted a broad spectrum of opinion leaders in the North before deciding to express cry out over the purported marginalization of the region in the 2016 budget. The NEF, a group comprising notable personalities of northern extraction cutting across religious and ethnic backgrounds, argued that President Buhari ought to allocate massive projects to the North in the next three years to boost the economy of the area currently plagued by insurgency and massive destruction of lives and property. According to the Forum, Federal Governments allocation on recurrent expenditure in the budget was skewed against the North as 75 per cent of the civil service is made up of citizens from the three geopolitical zones in the South. It also described Buharis cabinet as weak and urged him to immediately establish an Economic Management Team to assist him in pulling Nigeria out of its present economic woes. The letter read: We have conducted some analysis on the 2016 Budget estimates which Mr. President submitted to the National Assembly. We are concerned over the absence of equity in the allocation of particularly capital spending. The three geopolitical zones in the North are severally shortchanged. For a region deserving greater resources and attention, as well as the political backbone of your administration, this situation will pose serious problems for your administration. We advise Mr. President to review the proposed allocations in consultation with the National Assembly. We wish to draw Mr. Presidents attention to the fact that over 75 per cent of all Federal Government public service employees are from the three geo-political zones in the South. This means that virtually the same percentage of recurrent spending will go to Nigerians from the South. They added, we urge Mr. President to establish an Economic Management Team and conclude appointments of key officers and Advisers. Where there are evident weaknesses and gaps in skills, competences, experience and integrity, we urge Mr. President to take steps to address them, they said. The NEF advised the president to make agriculture, water resources and the exploitation of the natural resources in the North as well as the rehabilitation of its infrastructure as priorities for the national budgets over the next three years. On the issue of insecurity and the activities of Boko Haram, the Northern Elders said, We advise that all avenues should be exploited to further cripple and isolate this insurgency as well as improving the quality of intelligence and integrity of the leadership of the Armed Forces. We advise Mr. President to look into allegations that Boko Haram still has a substantial presence in many areas near Maiduguri and in other towns and villages. Mr. President should also look into possible complicity of foreign nations in the fight against Boko Haram and take firmer steps to protect our nations security against subversion, the group said. On the increasing spate of kidnapping and cattle rustling, the forum appealed to the federal government to work towards major improvements in basic policing of the communities and investigate possible collusion of law enforcement agencies in these crimes. It also asked the president to deal squarely with the threat posed by the pro-Biafra group, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), by isolating members of the group from the rest of the people of the South-East geo-political zone. The Forum lamented the condition of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) scattered across camps in different states and asked Mr. Buhari to galvanize the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to manage the humanitarian crisis properly. On the power situation, the NEF urged the President to scrutinize all policies including the reforms taken by the last administration in the sector. The Northern economy is heavily dependent on power, particular small users who provide the backbone of the informal sector and rural economy. Costs which are being raised have the potential to cripple the economy further, and the North will be worse hit, with virtually no viable industries growing its economy. People of the North recognize that substantial amount of work has to be undertaken by themselves particularly in the area of improving our assets in the banking and finance sector and in industrializing the North. We appeal to Mr. President to remain sympathetic to initiatives which channel funding and expertise to the North from the country as well as from international financing and other support sources, they said. On the ongoing war against corruption, the NEF commended the president for his resolve to fight corruption but urged him to address institutional weaknesses that make corruption thrive. According to the Forum, President Buhari ought to broaden the scope of the impact of the anti-graft war so that the citizens would feel the impact of the economic policies of the administration. The elders also asked Buhari to monitor the ongoing constitutional amendment process by the National Assembly closely and pay close attention to issues such as cost of governance, the war against corruption and improving democratic processes. When the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major oil producers conclude their meeting on Sunday, analysts hope that an agreement to freeze output will reassure global energy markets that the recent recovery in prices is sustainable. The groups ability to deliver a deal, however, has been cast into doubt by infighting and conflicting statements in the run-up to Sundays gathering in Doha, Qatar. Uncertainty over the outcome has also added to market volatility, with some analysts sceptical that even if a freeze is agreed upon, it will have much impact on prices in the short-term. A decision to freeze production may not trigger an immediate upsurge in oil prices, [but] risks are on the upside as overcapacity would gradually start to normalise Last week, Kuwaits OPEC governor, Nawal al-Fuzaia, suggested in widely reported comments that the meeting would reach an initial agreement on freezing output. Fuzaias comments stand in contrast to remarks to Bloomberg by Saudi Arabias deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, that the kingdom would only lock production if Iran similarly agreed. This week, Saudi Arabias long-serving oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, also downplayed speculation over Sundays meeting. over the coming months, Apostolos Bantis, a credit analyst at Commerzbank, told Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia is OPECs most powerful member, but according to Alejandro Barbajosa, the vice president of crude and LPG for the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region at Argus, Iran is not about to compromise with its regional rival. Iran is by no means ready to agree to a production freeze just as it aims to recover lost market share because of recently lifted sanctions, Barbajosa said. As different interest groups and individuals battle for the soul of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, a former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Bode George, has advised the national chairman of the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, to abide by the party rules by stepping down on May 21. He gave the advice amid speculations that Mr. Sheriff, whose emergence as national chairman of the party almost buried whatever remained of the former ruling party, was angling to continue in office after his three-month tenure ends in May. Our correspondent reports that a new national chairman of the PDP is expected to be elected at the partys national convention scheduled for May 21 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. But it was learnt that high-wired political calculations by those who imposed the former Borno State governor on the party are ongoing to use the convention to ratify tenure elongation for Mr. Sheriff, multi-billionaire, who has reportedly been using his personal funds to run the party since his appointment in February. However, George in a statement titled, Our Party at the Crossroads, which he personally signed, asked the PDP chairman to step down on the agreed date. The leader of the PDP in Lagos State, who insisted that he was not eyeing any position in the party, said the only way the party could defeat the All Progressives Congress in 2019 was by getting things right. According to him, the PDP will remain in the opposition if it fails to get its act right. I want to believe the chairman is an honourable man. He must honour his word to handover to an elected chairman at the National Convention on May 21 this year. This is the only way he will be on the positive side of history, he said. George, who is a member of the partys Board of Trustees, said it was funny that all those who contributed to the partys defeat in the last elections had all fled the country. The Taraba State government has described the recent claim by the state chapter of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria that no fewer than 50 of its members have been killed in fresh outbreak of violence in the state as complete falsehood and a ploy to shield its members who are strongly believed to have carried out attacks. The Chairman of MACBAN in Taraba, Alhaji Sahabi Mahmud, had while speaking to reporters in Jalingo, the state capital last Wednesday, alleged that 50 members of his association were killed in the current crisis between herdsmen and Ndoro people in Gashaka Local Government Area of the state. While describing the fresh violence as a misunderstanding between resident herdsmen and farming communities, Mahmud decried the state police commands handling of the matter, saying it (police) took sides by persecuting the herdsmen, including the arrest of one Ardo Ayuba, who he noted was not even a resident of the affected area. But the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Darius Ishaku on Media and Publicity, Silvanus Giwa, who faulted the claim in Abuja yesterday in a statement, said: The claim by the leadership of Miyetti Allah was a mockery of the victims of the recent attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen who allegedly carried sophisticated weapons and used same to unleash terror on harmless and innocent people of Dori, Maisuma, Angai and Fali villages in Gashaka and parts of Kurmi Local Government Areas of the state. According to Giwa, the Miyetti Allah chairman failed to present evidence (photographs) of his members that were purportedly killed in the crisis. The police and the state government, on the other hand, presented gory photographs of the victims to buttress every point on the matter. Therefore looking at the scenario, one would know who is telling lies to cause more harm than good in this matter, the statement said. It further said it was disheartening for Mr. Mahmud, who is a civilian, to assume the position of a security chieftain by suggesting which measures should be adopted by the commissioner of police, Shaba Alkali, on how people believed to be culpable in the crisis should be treated simply because his Ayuba was arrested in connection with the crisis. According to intelligence gathered, the crisis started in the area when some suspected herdsmen killed a woman believed to be Ndoro by tribe when she resisted rape on her farm. This is contrary to what Miyetti Allah said, Giwas statement added. He said the Gov. Ishaku-led administration was determined to bring the perpetrators of the act to book, with a view to ensuring peace. Since he assumed office, Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku has continued to emphasise the need for harmony and peaceful coexistence among the various communities in the state, Giwa said. The United States has transferred nine Yemeni men to Saudi Arabia from the US military prison at Guantanamo, including an inmate who had been on a hunger strike since 2007, US officials said. The transfer marked the largest group of prisoners shipped out of the naval base in Cuba since President Barack Obama rolled out his plan to shut the controversial detention centre there before he leaves office. The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the Pentagon said in a statement on Saturday. The Saudis agreed, after lengthy negotiations, to take the nine Yemenis for resettlement and put them through a government-run rehabilitation programme that seeks to reintegrate them into society. They could not be sent back to their homeland because US officials fear that the instability there would enable them to resume the militant activities that landed them at Guantanamo in the first place. The most prominent of the transfers was Tariq Ba Odah, a 37-year-old Yemeni whom the military had been force-feeding daily since he went on a hunger strike in 2007. His legal team said he was down to 34kg, losing about half of his body weight. Ba Odahs lawyer, Omar Farah, said the US government had played Russian roulette with his clients life and that his transfer ends one of the most appalling chapters in Guantanamos sordid history. With the latest departures, there are now 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, most held without charge or trial for more than a decade, drawing international condemnation. The transfers took place as Obama prepared to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday for a summit with the Gulf Cooperation Council. Aljazeera. The United Kingdom (UK) yesterday reaffirmed its support for Nigeria in the ongoing war against Boko Haram Terrorists in the Northeast. UK Minister for International Development, Nick Hurd, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the UK had a very long cordial relationship with Nigeria. The very long partnership between UK and Nigeria matters a great deal to us; even my Prime Minister has made it very clear that we stand shoulder to shoulder with Nigeria in the battle against Boko Haram. We understand how many thousands and millions of peoples lives have been devastated by the atrocities in the North East. We are determined to help our own friend and partner to defeat that barbaric group, he said. Mr. Hurd said at the moment, the UKs support took the form of a big commitment to training and capacity building in the military. He said his country was pleased with the successes so far recorded by the military against Boko Haram insurgents recently. On the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, Mr. Hurd said UK was always supportive of the determination to ensure the safe return of the girls but challenged Nigeria to lead the girls rescue. My Prime Minister, the British Government and the British people are fully supportive of the determination to bring the girls home. They have empathy with that but this (rescue) needs to be led by the Nigerian government, there has to be a Nigerian solution to this. I made it clear to the Vice-President that we will help but we are going to follow a Nigerian lead, he said. On a report that the UK knew the whereabouts of the girls, Mr. Hurd said: My information is constrained by the fact that Im International Development Minister. Im not into greater deal into the military intelligence cooperation. I dont have a full answer to that question. On the humanitarian assistance, the envoy said the UK was increasing its commitment with another 33 million pounds. He said the increased fund was informed by the assessment that was carried out about the needs in the north eastern part of the country which were around nutrition, food and protection. He said the UK was interested about the stability and real development of the region and called on the international community to be more effective in its response. (NAN) UN Wanly Chides Gambia Crackdown, As Ban Evicts Press from UNHQ By Matthew Russell Lee UNITED NATIONS, April 17 Now that Gambia has killed three opposition figures in jail after locking up many more during an April 14 protest, on April 17 the US and Ban Ki-moon UN both issued statements. Tellingly, while the US statement cited the "United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," Ban Ki-moon's did not. This is because Ban's UN is lawless, as shown on Haiti cholera and, right at Headquarters, on April 16 when Ban had evicted the investigative Press without any process, video here. Ban's UN pretended to care about Gambia in late 2014 and early 2015, but never followed through. Back in late December 2014, the UN has said the coup attempt in Gambia was important to it, even as it was mis-reported. On February 4, the UN told Inner City Press its official Jeffrey Feltman was going to the country. On the morning of February 10, Inner City Press learned that the visit had not taken place, that by some accounts President Yahya Jammeh had canceled it, after publication of an article online. Inner City Press looked online and found an article that might have triggered this, calling the previous visit of the UN's Mohammed Chambas a failure, and saying "This time the UN is dispatching United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman to visit Banjul on 4 February 2015 for an audience with the countrys leader Yahya Jammeh, according to a press statement from the UNDP." So Inner City Press went to the website of the UN "country team" in Gambia, run by UNDP, but when one clicks "news" it leads to a message of "404." Failure. At the February 10 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq about all this. Video here. Back on February 4, having seen mention in the African press, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujaric: Inner City Press: Can you confirm that Mr. [Jeffrey] Feltman is going to Gambia on a follow-up to Mr. [Mohammed ibn] Chambas' visit? Spokesman Dujarric: I do believe he is in Gambia, and we will get more details. Inner City Press: And is there some reason that his schedule is not public? I mean, this was reported in the press there. It seems when he goes places, he's representing the Secretary-General. Spokesman: I think we try to share his schedules. Sometimes things fall through the cracks. But, we try to be as open and transparent as we can Inner City Press / FUNCA: Can you ask [the Department of Political Affairs] to put it online? Spokesman: Thousands of [Department of Political Affairs] staffers are probably watching this briefing. Inner City Press: Im sure. Not only are Feltman's schedules not made public, as now formally requested by the Free UN Coalition for Access - just after this exchange, Ban Ki-moon held a lunch with scribes the Q&A of which has not been released. Click here for that. The Gambia coup attempt was discussed for a second time in the UN Security Council on January 8, but discrepancies emerged. On December 31, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he encourages the establishment of a transparent investigation into the events of 30 December, in compliance with due process and respect for the rule of law. The call for a transparent investigation was missing from the January 8 briefing by UN official Chambas, who told the Security Council I am planning to visit Banjul on 14-15 January and meet with President Jammeh. I will reiterate our firm condemnation of any attempt to seize power by unconstitutional means, and encourage the Gambian authorities to work with the support of international partners, to ensure the credibility of judicial procedures and the respect of human rights. Afterward Inner City Press asked Chambas about the different, and on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access about radio station Taranga FM, shut down during the coup bid and now told to play only music. Chambas told Inner City Press he had not heard of the station -- Inner City Press in the hallway urged him to tune it in while he is in Bangui, to see if it is only music -- and spoke of trying to liberalize West Africa. We'll see. Before 10 am on December 31, Ban Ki-moon issued a 123 word statement calling for restraint and an investigation of the attempt in the The Gambia, albeit not mentioning the name of the target of the coup, Yahya Jammeh. After the Security Council's 45-minute meeting, Inner City Press asked the Council's president who is supposed to do the investigation Ban had called for before the meeting. He responded that UN official Chambas will go to Banjul; Inner City Press later learned and published that this will take place on January 2. Reuters however reported that "Following brief talks at the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a transparent investigation into the events and also urged restraint." This is false. Ban's statement was at 9:37 am; the Security Council meeting didn't start until 10 am, and didn't end until 10:45 am. (At that time, Inner City Press asked Ban's Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman for more detail; he replied that since Ban had issued a statement, he had nothing to add -- all too common at the UN, as pointed out and opposed by the Free UN Coalition for Access.) Reuters was not present at the UN Security Council stakeout before, during or after the meeting on Gambia (Tweeted photo here), and apparently not in the UN building either. The crediting on the above quoted story is "Reporting by David Lewis and Diadie Ba in Dakar, Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Louis Charbonneau in New York; Writing by David Lewis and Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Giles Elgood." Six journalists listed; one outright falsehood. What does Reuters do in these cases? We've asked management including Stephen J. Adler before, amid censorship, with no real answer. #ReutersFail. Since then, African Union commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has expressed "preoccupation" and rurged deepening "democracy and the respect for human rights." By the time of Ban's 9:37 am December 31 statement, later misrepresented by Reuters, the US had already issued a statement: The United States is aware of reports of a coup attempt on December 30 in The Gambia. We strongly condemn any attempt to seize power through extra-constitutional means. We regret the loss of life and call on all parties to refrain from further violence. Thirteen hours later when Ban Ki-moon issued his statement, he went a bit further and cited calm and called for an investigation, apparently by Jammeh's government itself: The Secretary-General is following closely developments in The Gambia. He reiterates the United Nations principled condemnation of all attempts to seize power through unconstitutional means. Referring to reports that indicate that the situation in Banjul is calm, he calls for all parties to exercise restraint and to refrain from further violence. Noting the seriousness of any attempt to overthrow governments by force, the Secretary-General encourages the establishment of a transparent investigation into the events of 30 December, in compliance with due process and respect for the rule of law. In that regard, he urges the Government of The Gambia, and its security and defense forces to act in full respect for human rights. The United Nations will continue to closely monitor the situation. When the UN Security Council meeting on the topic began at 10:10 am on December 31, there were tumbleweeds at the stakeout in front. Some may denounce The Gambia, but at the UN or at least in its press corp, there is not apparently much interest. When the meeting ended, in less than 45 minutes, Inner City Press asked Feltman about it. He said since the SG had issued a statement, he had nothing to add. In 2015, the Free UN Coalition for Access will be pressing for all UN Under Secretaries General to answer questions. Finally, the Security Council's president for December, from Chad, came and summarized the meeting, saying that UN official Chambas, previously the head of UNAMID in Darfur, will file a report. There have been problems with UNAMID's reporting. (Again in terms of micro-news, Inner City Press is exclusively told by sources that Chambas will go to Gambia on Friday, January 2. Since the UNSC President was asked on camera when Chambas would go and only said "soon," call it a coup scooplet.) Genres : Action, Thriller Starring : Yul Brynner Director : Sam Wanamaker Plot Synopsis A U.S. Treasury agent (Yul Brynner, Kings of the Sun) and Scotland Yard detective (Edward Woodward, The Wicker Man and TV s The Equalizer) go undercover to infiltrate and tackle a brutal counterfeit gang known as the Golden Goose, raking in millions with their illegal activities. From Liverpool, the two men trace the Owl (Charles Gray, Blofeld of Diamonds Are Forever) to London where they hope to meet up with the mysterious gang leader Mr. Big. Veteran screenwriters John C. Higgins (He Walked by Night) and Robert E. Kent (Where the Sidewalk Ends) wrote this suspenseful thriller directed by actor/director Sam Wanamaker (Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger) and co-starring Adrienne Corri (Vampire Circus, Madhouse). A giugno lIstat conferma la stima preliminare di un tasso di deflazione in accelerazione al 0,4% dallo 0,3% di maggio. Lindice nazionale dei prezzi al consumo per lintera collettivita, al lordo dei tabacchi, registra infatti una diminuzione su base annua pari a -0,4% e un aumento dello 0,1% su base mensile. La persistenza delle dinamiche deflazionistiche e in gran parte riconducibile allampio calo dei prezzi dei beni energetici (-7,5% rispetto a giugno 2015), sebbene meno intenso di quello registrato a maggio. Al netto di questi beni linflazione, anche se in lieve ridimensionamento, resta positiva e pari a +0,4% (era +0,5% a maggio). Al netto degli alimentari non lavorati e dei beni energetici l'inflazione di fondo, rallenta e si porta a +0,5% (da +0,6% di maggio). A guidare la classifica delle citta italiane in deflazione e Milano con un calo dei prezzi dell1%, ma sono 19 su 29 le metropoli dove linflazione e crollata a giugno. A maggio erano 18. Dopo Milano, le riduzioni maggiori dei prezzi riguardano Torino (-0,9%), Ancona (-0,8%), Firenze e Bari (-0,6% per tutti e due) e Roma (-5%). Linflazione raggiunge il livello piu alto a Venezia (+0,6%), e continua a correre anche a Trento e Livorno (+0,5%), Bolzano e Parma (+0,4%). Con cadenza annuale da novembre a gennaio le notti salernitane sono illuminate da gigantesche luminarie, vere e proprie opere darte luminose realizzate da famosi artisti della luce. Questanno, le installazioni luminose saranno inaugurate il 5 novembre alle 17.00 e resteranno accese fino al 22 gennaio 2017. Il tema delledizione 2016-17 sara Le Mille e Una Notte, infatti verra ricostruita lambientazione a tema in Piazza Flavio Gioia. Similmente, in Piazza SantAgostino ci saranno le Atmosfere dOriente. Inoltre, tutto il centro sara invaso da figure giganti molto suggestive. Il Corso Vittorio Emanuele vedra linstallazione di una cascata di luci, lampadari e globi illuminati per il tema Gli spazi infiniti. Nel Giardino Incantato nella Villa Comunale ci saranno le luci dedicate a fiabe nuove rispetto agli altri anni e nella nuova spiaggia di Santa Teresa ci saranno pinguini e palme luminose. I quattro percorsi delle Luci dArtista di Salerno, come lanno scorso saranno: il Mito, il Sogno, il Tempo, il Natale. Ognuno di questi temi interessera alcune strade e piazze con luminarie specifiche. Infine, il grande albero di Natale di circa 28 metri che sara montato in Piazza Portanova, sara inaugurato il 3 dicembre. La prima manifestazione Luci dArtista Luminarie Salerno parte nellanno 2006/2007 e per la precisione il giorno giovedi 30 novembre, lallora Sindaco di Salerno Vincenzo De Luca inauguro lilluminazione artistica predisposta dal Comune di Salerno per le festivita natalizie e di fine anno ed i vari allestimenti che in quelledizione furono le Palle di Neve, il Planetario e le Palme luminose. Dalledizione del 2009/2010 la manifestazione Luminarie Salerno invece e gemellata con quella delle Luci dArtista di Torino. Ed infatti moltissimi sono stati gli scambi delle installazioni luminose tra le due citta: le opere esposte a Salerno che hanno ricevuto maggior approvazione da parte del pubblico non solo italiano, ma anche europeo (molti infatti sono i turisti provenienti dallEuropa arrivati in citta per assistere allo spettacolo) sono state adottate anche dal comune di Torino. Lo stesso e successo per le opere torinesi, con la differenza che nel 2009 la citta di Salerno ha inserito, allinterno delle installazioni torinesi, altre opere appositamente commissionate. Le favolose (nel senso che portano grandi e bambini in sogni e favole) notti illuminate salernitane sono poi sempre arricchite da tantissime manifestazione culturali, eventi musicali, danza, teatro, performance che completano il programma di manifestazioni natalizie, rendono Salerno ancora piu bella per i cittadini ed accogliente per i visitatori e rappresentano una bella occasione per scoprire le bellezze monumentali ed artistiche della citta, il piacere dello shopping, la qualita dellartigianato e dellenogastronomia locale in un clima di festosa serenita. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Boeing Co. (BA), one of the world's leading aerospace companies, develops and manufactures commercial jets, military aircraft, weapons systems, and strategic defense and intelligence systems. The company offers services and support to customers globally and provides financing for orders and deliveries. One of Boeing's biggest customers is the U.S. government. One of Boeing's biggest rivals, especially for commercial aircraft, is the Europe-based aerospace firm Airbus SE (EADSY). Boeing also has aerospace rivals based in Russia, China, and Japan. Additionally, the company's defense and space business faces competition from major players like Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC), Raytheon Co. (RTX), General Dynamics Corp. (GD), U.K.-based BAE Systems PLC (BAESY), and Elon Musk's Space X. Key Takeaways Boeing produces commercial and military aircraft, weapons systems, strategic defense and intelligence systems, and related products and services. The Defense, Space and Security unit has overtaken Commercial Airplanes as Boeing's largest revenue source. The U.S. government is one of Boeing's largest customers. Boeing recorded a $3.5 billion pre-tax non-cash charge in Q4 FY 2021 related to work performed to bring its 787 aircraft up to the FAA's standards in order to resume deliveries. Boeing's Financials Boeing announced in late January financial results for Q4 of its 2021 fiscal year (FY), the three-month period ended Dec. 31, 2021. The company reported a net loss attributable to its shareholders of $4.1 billion, an improvement from the net loss of $8.4 billion in the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell 3.3% year over year (YOY) to $14.8 billion. Boeing uses earnings from operations as a profitability metric for its individual business segments. In the fourth quarter, the company reported a $4.2 billion loss from operations, narrower than the $8.0 billion loss from operations reported in the year-ago quarter. Boeing said in its quarterly earnings report that increased production and deliveries of its 737 MAX aircraft, which the company has returned to service in nearly all global markets. The 737 MAX was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in early 2019 after the aircraft was involved in two fatal accidents. In late 2020, the FAA lifted its grounding order, allowing the company to resume deliveries. Boeing has also had to pause deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner aircraft in May 2021 due to production quality issues. The company continues to work on the issues in order to resume deliveries of the aircraft. The COVID-19 pandemic's impact on demand for air travel has also adversely impacted demand for the company's commercial jets. But demand is beginning to pick up again amid vaccine rollouts and the easing of restrictions. Boeings Business Segments Boeing operates its business through four segments: Commercial Airplanes (BCA); Defense, Space & Security (BDS); Global Services (BGS): and Boeing Capital (BCC). The company provides a breakdown of revenue and earnings from operations for each of these segments. The pie chart for earnings from operations pictured above does not include segments that reported a loss for the period, such as Boeing's Commercial Airplanes segment. The company also includes an unallocated items, eliminations and other category, which reported revenue of -$173 million during the fourth quarter. Commercial Airplanes (BCA) Boeing's commercial airplane segment develops, produces, and markets commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, primarily for the global airline industry. The segment supplies jetliners to meet global airlines' varying requirements for transporting passengers and cargo. In Q4 FY 2021, the segment's loss from operations narrowed to $4.5 billion from $7.6 billion in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 0.5% YOY to $4.8 billion, comprising about 32% of Boeing's total revenue. BCA has been adversely impacted by issues related to its Max 737 and 787 aircrafts, as discussed above. Defense, Space and Security (BDS) Boeing's BDS segment researches, develops, produces, and modifies military aircraft and weapons systems for strike, surveillance, and mobility. The segment also researches, develops, produces, and modifies strategic defense and intelligence systems, as well as satellite systems. The segment's top customer is the U.S. Department of Defense. The BDS segment reported a loss from operations of $255 million in Q4 FY 2021, a deterioration from the $502 million in earnings from operations it generated in the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell 13.5% YOY to $5.9 billion, comprising 39% of the total for all segments. Global Services (BGS) Boeing's global services segment offers services to its commercial and defense customers around the globe. The segment provides a wide range of platforms, systems, products, and services. These include supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance and modifications, upgrades and conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, data analytics, and digital services. Earnings from operations were $401 million in Q4 FY 2021, up 180.4% YOY. It accounted for more than 98% of companywide earnings from operations during the quarter. Revenue rose 14.9% YOY to $4.3 billion, comprising nearly 29% of the total for all segments. Boeing Capital (BCC) Boeing Capital provides customers with financing to buy and take delivery of their orders, and manages the parent company's overall financing exposure. The segment's portfolio is comprised of equipment under operating leases, sales-type/finance leases, notes and other receivables, assets held for sale or re-lease, and investments. Earnings from operations were $7 million in Q4 FY 2021, down 56.3% YOY. Earnings from operations comprised about 2% of the total across all segments. Revenue rose 12.5% YOY to $63 million, comprising a tiny share of Boeing's total revenue. Boeings Recent Developments On Feb. 15, 2022, the FAA said that it will perform final inspections on new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircrafts and issue airworthiness certificates when it feels that the company's quality control and manufacturing processes are able to consistently produce aircraft that meet the administration's standards. The FAA also said that it would not allow the company to self-certify its jets. Boeing recorded a pre-tax non-cash charge of $3.5 billion in Q4 FY 2021 related to actions the company was performing in order to resume deliveries of the 787. Deliveries of the aircraft are expected to remain paused for a number of months longer. Jack Daniel McCullough, a Belfast native, 77, who was convicted of the murder of Maria Ridulph, a 7-year old who was abducted on Dec. 3, 1957 as she played near her home in Sycamore, Illinois, was freed in April 2016 after new evidence was revealed. The case was a sensation at the time with FBI Director J Edgar Hoover and President Eisenhower getting involved. A massive manhunt seeking the killer ended empty handed. The crime occurred as Ridulph and a friend were playing under a streetlight and were approached by a man the friend recalled as "Johnny," authorities said. The friend left the scene to get mittens, but Maria accepted a piggyback ride from the man. When Maria's friend returned, the two were gone, authorities said. The child's body was found almost five months later in a wooded area about 120 miles northwest of Sycamore. She had been stabbed to death. The case was never solved but in an extraordinary twist, the case was re-opened as a cold case in 2011 and McCullough who was living in Seattle was arrested. It was the oldest cold case murder ever investigated. McCullough was born in Belfast in 1939 and came to America when he was 7 years old with his mother Eileen McCullough from Belfast. They came over on the Queen Mary and the family settled in the Sycamore area. He was found guilty in the cold case trial 2012 and was down to serve life. The new evidence that freed him showed that McCullough had made a collect phone call home from Rockford, Illinois around the time of the murder and it would have been impossible for him to carry out the murder as Sycamore was 40 miles away. Investigators at the time of the murder examined McCullough, then a resident of the same Sycamore neighborhood as the Ridulphs. He was then known as John Tessier his mothers new marriage name. (he later took his Irish-born mothers maiden name McCullough) But police in 1957 believed he was in Rockford, Illinois at the time of the abduction and would have been unable to travel between there and Sycamore to commit the crime. However, the dead girls family continued to press the case and forced the re-opening and the 2012 conviction.But following the new evidence the 77-year-old McCullough, a night security guard at the Four Freedoms retirement community in Seattle where he lived, is now free and the case is expected to be dropped. According to the Chicago Tribune, records show his history includes years of military service as well as allegations he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and was forced from a police job for dating a prostitute. Neither accusation ended in a conviction. McCullough's stepdaughter, Janey O'Connor, drove him home from jail. His first request was a pizza dinner she said. O'Connor said she'd been convinced of her stepfather's innocence from the start "Jack was just a normal person doing his grandpa thing, and this happened to him. He told the Chicago Tribune he was innocent and that he wanted justice for Ridulph, who had lived a few blocks from his home. McCullough, who was born in Belfast in 1939, said his original surname was Cherry. His mother was a corporal in the Royal Air Force and met his stepfather at an air base. The same month of the girl's death, McCullough enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained until 1961. In 1962, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He changed his name to McCullough in 1994, records show. McCullough's stepdaughter, Janey O'Connor, has been steadfast in her support, saying she'd been alone with him many times; that he's helped raise her children and never acted inappropriately. * Originally published in April 2016. Genres : Comedy, Romance, Classic Starring : Doris Day, Rock Hudson Plot Synopsis Pillow Talk -- Rock Hudson and Doris Day, two of the screen's most popular and enduring stars, are together for the very first time! When Jan Marrow (Day), uptight interior decorator, is to share a party line with an carefree playboy Brad Allen (Hudson), there's no connection between them. But when the two accidentally meet, the smitten Brad pretends to be a wealthy Texan, wooing Jan with seductive late-night calls. Their phone line is sizzling until Jan discovers her caller's true identity and calls his bluff. Winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, this delicious romp co-stars Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter. Lover Come Back -- Rock Hudson and Doris Day are together again! Jerry Webster (Hudson) and Carol Templeton (Day) are rival Madison Avenue advertising executives who each dislike each other's methods. After he steals a client out from under her cute little nose, revenge prompts her to infiltrate his secret "VIP" campaign in order to persuade the mystery product's scientist to switch to her firm. Trouble is, the product is phony and the "scientist" is Jerry, who uses all his intelligence and charm to steal her heart in this outrageous comedy of mistaken identity, co-starring the ever-delightful Tony Randall. Send Me No Flowers - -- Screen legends Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall team up for this irresistible comedy gem from director Norman Jewison (Moonstruck). When he overhears a doctor discussing the imminent death of a patient, hypochondriac George (Hudson) believes the doc is referring to him. Convinced he's living on borrowed time, George enlists the aid of his best friend Arnold (Randall) to find a new husband for his soon-to-be-widowed wife Judy (Day). Already alarmed by her husband's increasingly strange behavior, Judy is even more bewildered when an old flame shows up - and George bends over backwards to encourage his advances! The third and final on-screen teaming of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, Send Me No Flowers positively sparkles with "top performers...in top form" (The Hollywood Reporter). Forty-seven years ago this week, acclaimed Irish American journalist Pete Hamill wrote an article for New York magazine. The headline read: The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class. It is imperative, Hamill wrote, that New York politicians begin to deal with the growing alienation and paranoia of these people. They cant wait much longer; its almost the point of no return. Ladies and gentleman, I believe we have reached that point. Hamill outlined for us the first act of a show decades in the making, and which will culminate in Donald Trumps nearly-guaranteed victory in the New York State Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, April 19. The only drama that remains is what will unfold at the Republican convention in the summer. But before we get there, its important to debunk the myth that the Trump phenomena is unprecedented in American politics. It is definitely strange, mainly because he is more of a celebrity than a politician. But that says more about the utter weakness of the field of Republican candidates. As for a loudmouth saying foolhardy things to exploit the anger of the populace, lets not forget a reactionary like George Wallace, who surely received a vote or two from Hamills subjects back when he ran for president in 1968. Indeed, the Trump train is not powered merely by good ol boys and other gun-totin, backward-thinkin, tooth-missin rednecks. For better or worse, Irish Americans and other Catholic ethnics have probably saved Trump from the GOP establishment that wants to dump him. Its well established that (Trump) fares best among less educated voters, Nate Cohn noted in The New York Times recently. Yet his strongest performance so far wasnt in Mississippi, where he got 47 percent of the Republican vote, but in Massachusetts, a famously liberal state, where he won 49 percent of Republican voters. Massachusetts is also a heavily Catholic state, with plenty of Irish Americans as well as other white ethnic Catholics. As the Times notes, in Massachusetts, Catholics made up a majority of the Republican electorate and provided Mr. Trump with a big primary victory. He drew 53 percent of Catholics in the Massachusetts GOP primary, while Mr. Kasich and Mr. Rubio combined for just 35 percent. Cohn concludes: (Trumps) appeal in historically Democratic areas is a reflection of strength among new Republicans -- whether they be white southerners or white Roman Catholics and working-class voters in the north who would have had no place in the Republican Party a half-century ago. Which brings us back to Hamills article. Those angry men throwing the n-word around were not straight outta Compton. Or even a racist backwater town in Alabama. They were drinking at an Irish bar named Mister Kellys in Brooklyn! And not just Brooklyn, but Park Slope. Back before the Whole Foods army invaded. Many observers have noted the conservative drift of the Catholic vote since the late 1960s. Richard Nixons famous southern strategy -- to exploit racial divisions but more subtly than an arch-segregationist like George Wallace -- had a strong northeastern component. Nixon did well with Irish Catholics and Italian Americans -- mainly former Democrats -- as did Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. But a word about that arch-segregationist. In 1968, Wallace ran a slash-and-burn campaign aimed at restoring racial apartheid in the south. How else do you think he won five states in the deep south, even though he ran on a third party line? But as Kevin Phillips notes in his landmark study The Emerging Republican Majority, Urban Catholic precincts also gave Wallace fair support in northern New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York City, Connecticut and Boston. Those Irish and Italian guys drinking at Mr. Kellys in Park Slope have long moved out of Brooklyn. They and their kids and grandkids moved to Long Island or suburban New Jersey or upstate New York. They may no longer even be members of what Hamill called the white lower middle class. But theyre still angry. And theyre voting for Trump. (Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan.blogspot.com) Records were set at this years New York City St. Patricks Day parade, according to the organizers. A press release reports that the 255th annual march up Fifth Avenue was the most successful ever from a viewership standpoint, with millions following it on social media and watching it live from around the world. There also were 1.1 million views on the official Facebook page of the largest celebration of Irish culture and values, facebook.com/nycstpatricksdayparade, the release noted. In addition to the Facebook views 10 times higher than last year there were 165,000 visits to www.nycstpatricksparade.org, the official website of the New York City St. Patricks Day parade, with continuous updates from the parade March 17. There also were four million Snapchats, 241,000 Twitter impressions and extensive activity on Periscope and other social media platforms. An estimated 200,000 people marched up Fifth Avenue on St. Patricks Day, continuing the tradition of New York City hosting the largest celebration of St. Patrick and of Irish values and culture in the world. More than one million people lined Fifth Avenue on March 17. WNBC-TV 4 reports 586,000 viewers watched the live parade broadcast from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and for the first time ever, millions of viewers in Ireland and the United Kingdom were able to watch the parade live on IRISH TV. Besides the live four-hour broadcast, millions of readers and viewers read, heard or saw media accounts of the historic parade, featuring Senator George Mitchell, the author of the historic Northern Ireland peace accord, as grand marshal. St. Patrick, our patron saint and someone who knew the importance of spreading the message, would be proud of our dedicated volunteers and the work they did updating our social media platforms, said St. Patricks Day Parade Board Chairman John Lahey said. The volunteers include Thomas Heaney, Virginia Byrne, Ken Kraetzer, David Altman, Bridget OBrien and Scott Prestopino. Thanks also to the hard work of the hundreds of volunteers who spent so many hours planning for the parade and them making sure it went off so smoothly and to the dedicated members of the parade Board of Directors, in particular our chief operating officers Hilary Beirne and Frank McGreal, Lahey added. The same week as the Easter Rising in 1916, more Irishmen were killed in France fighting in the British army than during the uprising. During the rebellion at home, 488 Irish died. In the Hulluch gas attacks in France, during the First World War, 532 died. Even by the ghastly standards of the first World War the ordeal of the 16th (Irish) Division between April 27th and 29th, 1916, was awful, writes author Ronan McGreevy, for the Irish Times. Those men who were not poisoned by chlorine gas were shelled, shot or bayoneted by the enemy, for whom this battle was equally bloody and futile. Heaps of bodies lay in the trenches or on the Irish lines. McGreevy, who is the author of the upcoming book Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front, writes: The 16th (Irish) Division was approved in September 1914, the same month that the Irish Republican Brotherhood sanctioned an armed rebellion against the British. During Easter Week 1916 both sets of armed Irishmen put their military acumen to the test, but only one would be celebrated and commemorated in the new Irish State. In late 1915, the division arrived in northern France and occupied an area of the front line where the British had suffered enormous losses that autumn during the Battle of Loos. When they arrived there, putrefied human remains were a common sight. McGreevy writes of the gas attack: The German attack began at 4.35am on April 27th, when its soldiers used machine guns and artillery against the Irish lines. The Germans knew the Irish would return fire: they would all approach the fire step to respond in kind, the front-line trenches packed with men. Ten minutes later, and to plan, the Germans released chlorine gas from 3,800 cylinders on to the Irish lines. A dense cloud of black gas and smoke between us and the sun drifted across the Irish lines, according to Lieut Col Edward Bellingham, from Co Louth, the commanding officer of the 8th Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He continues: Under cover of the gas the German assault troops entered the fusiliers front-line trenches. The soldiers on both sides dreaded hand-to-hand combat most. Shells and machine-gun bullets at least had a degree of anonymity. The dead and wounded lay together often in a congealed mass of blood amid the choking gas, which gave everything a greenish pallor. In two days, 368 men of the 8th Royal Dublin Fusiliers were killed, wounded or missing. Farther north, on the front of the 7th Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Germans infiltrated the trenches. In the ensuing outburst of savage hand-to-hand combat 66 men from the battalion were killed, but they held on and expelled the Germans. The Germans also suffered losses in the trench raids, with their own dean numbering in the hundreds. McGreevy writes of the last day of the attack on April 29th also the last, and bloodiest, day of the Easter Rising. The chlorine gas was carried over to the Irish lines on a light breeze; it took 45 minutes to drift across no-mans-land. British air reconnaissance noticed that the gas trail left a trail of dead vegetation down to the last blade of grass, he writes. On April 29th the 8th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers replaced the 7th. It was their turn to face the Germans. Their 214 casualties included 62 dead. McGreevy also tells the tragic story of a man and his wife Pte John Naylore of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who died on April 29th, and his wife Margaret who was shot that day in Dublin as she crossed Ringsend drawbridge. Margaret, who had gone out that day to get bread for her children, would leave three orphans when she died two days later. He says the Battle of Hulluch had been in vain. Perhaps 1,000 men died on both sides, but the 16th (Irish) Division had held the line at a terrible price. More than 2,200 men were killed, wounded or missing. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was outraged by the rebellion, given what has occurred in France. Is it not an additional horror that on the very day when we hear that the men of the Dublin Fusiliers have been killed by Irishmen on the streets of Dublin we receive the news of how the men of the 16th Division our own Irish Brigade, and of the same Dublin Fusiliers had dashed forward and by their unconquerable bravery retaken the trenches that the Germans had won at Hulluch, said Redmond. The Germans hung a sign in front of the 8th Royal Munster Fusiliers two days after the attack. It read: Irishmen! Heavy uproar in Ireland! English guns are firing at your wifes and children. Maj Larry Roche, second in command of the battalion, ordered the capture of the sign, which is now in the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks in Dublin. From May until August 1916, when it moved to Somme, the 16th (Irish) Division suffered 2,000 additional casualties. The only reminder of the divisions presence in that part of France is a marble statue in the Church of St Martin de Noeux-les-Mines. McGreevy writes that the church was destroyed by German shell minutes before Notre Dame de Victoires was due to be placed on her pedestal. It had to be installed after the church was rebuilt, after the war. The inscription reads: To the memory of the officers, subalterns and soldiers of the 16th (Irish) Division who died on the field of battle or who died of wounds or disease contracted during the war in France in 1916 RIP. Police in the US say a four-year-old girl has been shot dead by her five-year-old sibling in Philadelphia. Officers are looking for the boyfriend of the children's mother following the shooting yesterday afternoon. A LARGE wooded landscape which is attributed to the British-born artist Richard Wilson (1714-1782) and six Georgian Cork nine-bar chairs are among the art and furniture lots at Lynes and Lynes next Saturday at 11am. Viewing in Carrigtwohill for this sale of 400 lots from residences throughout Cork city and county is from 10am to 8pm next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. After a lifetime of Walkmans and iPods and computer speakers and all that, I thought: why don't I just get a standalone stereo like a normal person? To sit down and listen to music that isn't stereo-fielded inside my own head or competing with error messages on a screen. But I didn't want to spend any money, and certainly didn't want to obey that familiar, sinister calling to begin researching things. So I got some speakers from the thift store ($5), an old iPhone at the back of a drawer (free), a basic mini-amp I had lying around ($20 for the legendary Lepai will do). Voila! Works fine: the iPhone's in its dock; the headphone-out is connected to RCA stereo inputs on the amp. The original iPhones are slow! They play songs just fine, though, and the decent music apps will still install over wifi. But I'm really posting this because when I took a photo, it struck me that the tableaux thrifted vintage gear, an original iphone, a cult cheapo amp, on a metal cabinet against a whitewashed brick wall represents exactly the sort of minimalism that seems to really annoy people on the internet. So I pulled my MacBook (12-inch with Retina Display) out of my 1950s school satchel (inherited from Great Uncle Etsy) and decided to tell y'all about it. 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. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience the local community. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. Close Recent Oculus Rift news revealed that the console's shipment delay is caused by a component shortage. The company made the announcement to several media outlets. Tech Crunch reported that the Facebook-owned VR company confirmed that the delay is caused by a component shortage. No further details have been revealed by the startup, though. "The component shortage impacted our quantities more than we expected, and we've updated the shipment window to reflect these changes," Oculus said. "We apologize for the delay." "We're delivering Rifts to customers every day, and we're focused on getting Rifts out the door as fast as we can. We've taken steps to address the component shortage, and we'll continue shipping in higher volumes each week." The shipment for the device started last month. The company has not announced how many people have received their consoles or how many are still waiting for their orders to arrive. "We've also increased our manufacturing capacity to allow us to deliver in higher quantities, faster," the company added. "Many Rifts will ship less than four weeks from original estimates, and we hope to beat the new estimates we've provided." Previous Oculus Rift news reported that the backorders for the console have been pushed back by another month. Those who order the headset today will have to wait until August to receive their order. Meanwhile, Microsoft has denied allegations that the Oculus Rift shipment delay was their fault. Apparently, the tech giant was accused of failing to deliver enough Xbox One controllers. According to Venture Beat, a Reddit post accused Microsoft of being the cause of the VR console's shipment delay. Xbox One controllers are part of the Oculus Rift kit. "This is false," a spokesperson for the company told the publication. "And questions about Rift should be directed to Oculus VR." In other Oculus Rift news, the console was called out for its seemingly shade privacy policy. Senator Al Franken is pushing for more details on the extent to which the company may be collecting users' personal information. Apple has extended the reduced production for its iPhones for another quarter. The April-June period will continue to see a decline in the manufacturing of the devices. Nikkei reported that the poor performance of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus in the market has caused Apple to adjust its inventories. The company has already lowered production for the January-March period by around 30% from the last year. It was noted that Apple's iPhone sales continue to be sluggish. The company has announced to its parts suppliers in Japan and other locations that it will retain the reduced amount of output in the current quarter. Apparently, Apple will not be producing a large volume of the iPhone SE, which would have offset the failure of its flagship series. The 4-inch phone was released last month. The company may decide to give the iPhone 7 an earlier release date than the usual September launch, though. Parts production for the device could take off by the end of May. This production cut has already hurt Japanese parts suppliers such as liquid crystal display panel manufacturers Japan Display and Sharp, memory chip supplier Toshiba as well as Sony, which provides image sensors for cameras. Apple's extension of the iPhone's production cut could have serious repercussions for all companies involved. Meanwhile, Apple iPhone 7's design may have already been leaked according to Apple Insider. The upcoming flagship device will reportedly have a Smart Connector port. It is also believed to feature a dual camera module and will no longer have a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. There are claims that the company is working on a new pair of Bluetooth EarPods. The company will have to ensure that the Bluetooth earphones will function seamlessly with the device. iPhone SE users have complained about audio issues with Bluetooth phone calls. This comes when the phone is connected with a vehicle or wireless headset. For some users, the issue includes the GPS voice navigation feature. Fortunately, streaming music via Bluetooth does not seem to be affected. Recent Twitter news revealed that the social networking site has announced a new head for its operations in Greater China. This comes after the number of advertisers using the service has grown in the area. The South China Morning Post reported that Twitter has appointed a new head for its Greater China office. Moreover, the website had more than 300 percent growth in terms of its Chinese advertisers in the past year. Since 2009, Twitter has been blocked in mainland China. In March last year, the San Francisco-based company opened a Hong Kong office to invite Chinese companies to advertise with them. "We've seen a 340 per cent growth in the number of advertisers [using Twitter], and the types of advertisers are diverse," Twitter vice-president for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Emerging Markets Shailesh Rao said. The company has hired technology executive Kathy Chen as its new managing director for its Greater China office. "Because of the success we've seen, we want to expand the investment we're making in [the region]," Rao said. "Kathy Chen will be responsible for developing the strategy and running the business." Chen previously worked with Microsoft and Cisco. She will be taking over Peter Greenberger, who is now the sia-Pacific head of global brands and agencies at the company. Twitter's major Chinese advertisers include Lenovo, Huawei and state-owned media outlets such as Xinhua news as well as People's Daily. "Asia-Pacific is the largest region in the world for us in terms of total number of active users, and it is also the fastest-growing region in terms of active user growth," Rao added. "We view Greater China as a critical component [of the region]." According to FirstFT, the company would be focusing its resources on its enterprise offerings like advertising. "We will look to Kathy's leadership to help us identify ways in which Twitter's platform and technology assets can be utilised to create further value for enterprises, creators, influencers, partners and developers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan," Twitter said. Current Yahoo sale news alleged that the company may be hiding important financial information to its potential buyers. The web giant is still accepting bids. Silicon Beat reported that the company has been hesitating in providing details of its financial status to bidders. Moreover, there may be "far fewer suitors" gearing up for the Yahoo sale than what people have been led to believe. According to The New York Times, the company's executives have revealed "gloomy financial projections" but did not discuss their future plans for the next year. Potential buyers have even asked Yahoo what they actually were selling. Previous Yahoo sale news have revealed that the company will continue to accept offers until Monday, Apr. 18. Verizon Communications Inc. is believed to be making its first-round bid. Furthermore, Alphabet Inc.'s main division, Google, is believed to be considering a bid for Yahoo's core business. AT&T Inc. and Comcast are said to have decided against bidding as well as Microsoft Corp., which lost a bid for the company in 2008. Kpopstarz added that the Daily Mail is also interested in the Yahoo sale. The British website is said to be in early stages of discussions with other investors. Apparently, the Daily Mail has been meeting up with several private-equity firms to help with the financing of the bid. One company was said to be General Atlantic LLC. However, a spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. The New York Post noted that Verizon and SoftBank are going head-to-head for the Yahoo sale. The two companies are headed by two ex-Google employees, Tim Armstrong and Nikesh Arora, respectively. Verizon is considered as the best choice and appears to have a solid support from key investors. SoftBank, on the other hand, is said to be looking at acquiring Yahoo as a whole. He is also believed to be waiting for Verizon's offer before he makes a move. SHARE By of the We'll spotlight a favorite event each day of Milwaukee Beer Week. Today's pick is the Wisconsin Ovarian Cancer Alliance Crafts and Drafts, a spring beer festival at Serb Hall, 5101 W. Oklahoma Ave. It's a chance to sample more than 300 beers while raising funds for WOCA. VIP tickets are $75 at the door. That ticket gets you in the VIP for pours at 1 p.m. General admission tickets are $60 for entry at 2 p.m. See more events at milwaukeebeerweek.com. For a guide to beer news and more, see Tap Milwaukee's Beer Here page. Jason Reynolds is passing on his love of storytelling. SHARE By of the When Jason Reynolds, author of the popular young-adult novels "The Boy in the Black Suit" and "When I Was the Greatest," speaks Saturday at the Delta Memorial Endowment Fund luncheon in Milwaukee, he'll bring a positive message to some mothers of his readers. Despite grown-up fears about what social media might do to their teens, the youth of today "aren't a lost generation," he said during a telephone interview. He likes to remind adults that similar things were said about his generation, weaned on hip-hop, and his mother's generation, when her father complained that Martin Luther King Jr. was a rabble-rouser. Children today need opportunities to spread their wings and exercise their genius in their own way, he said. Reynolds, 32, said if he hadn't experienced his own immersion in the hip-hop music of Tupac, Biggie and early Jay-Z, he might never have become a writer. "I wanted to do what the rappers were doing, writing poems," he said of his early ambitions. Only later did he realize he could also use his voice in prose. But Reynolds has not forgot what he learned from music about storytelling. He raps Slick Rick's "Children's Story" at nearly every school visit he makes (and he makes a lot of them), to show students how Rick creates narrative. He's also not turned his back on poetry. This year, as he has done before, Reynolds is celebrating National Poetry Month in April by writing and posting a poem daily. Consider "On Spirit" from April 13: "why try to frame / and box in what's true / when boxes all somehow / make contents askew // why try to name / the beautiful glue / that thankfully somehow / connects me to you." Family and friends have inspired many of his stories. "The Boy in the Black Suit," about a teen who goes to work in the neighborhood funeral home after his mother dies of cancer, grew out of his own experience of having lost multiple family members early in life. "I realized nobody was actually talking to young people about how to grieve and how to cope and what to do with loss," he said. "As Brave As You," a novel for middle-grade readers that will be published May 3, riffs on his relationship with his older brother and a blind grandfather. "I try to create characters people want to sit with, even if nothing is happening," Reynolds said. Elsewhere, Reynolds has stated bluntly that his goal is to not write boring books. "My role, job, mission is to create literary documentation of the young people of today," he said. He remembers, growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, how little was published for young kids of color at that time about their experience, which he called "one of the most turbulent periods in American history when it came to communities of color." He hopes that his novels will give the youth of today "something to bite down on now," and that in 30 years they'll be able to point to those books and say, this is what it was like to be 16 in 2016. IF YOU GO Jason Reynolds will speak at the Delta Memorial Endowment Fund luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago St. For ticket info, call (414) 640-2654 or email dmeftickets@yahoo.com. A LONG LINE OF WRITERS Reynolds is speaking at the 40th annual Delta Memorial Endowment Fund luncheon, which raises money for nonprofit organizations and helps fund college scholarships for graduating high school seniors. Past luncheon speakers have included Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Octavia E. Butler, Alice E. Walker, E. Lynn Harris and Edward Kelsey Moore. "The Boy in the Black Suit" is dedicated to the late Walter Dean Myers, a pioneer in writing realistic young-adult fiction about African-American life, and one of Reynolds' heroes. Reynolds is a friend of writer-illustrator Christopher Myers, Walter's son. Reynolds only met the elder Myers in person once, but it left an impression. Walter came to the clothing store where Reynolds was employed, and encouraged him to keep going with his writing. "He basically told me as long as I kept working hard I wouldn't fail." Reynolds describes that moment today as a blessing, as Myers giving him both permission and confidence to write in his own voice. The scene of an arson fire April 17, 2015, that left Michea Sampson and Dontray Jones dead. Despite a $5,000 reward the case remains unsolved. Credit: Journal Sentinel files SHARE Michea Sampson Submitted photo Dontray Jones Submitted photo By of the A year ago, Michea Sampson and Dontray Jones were preparing to attend a funeral in Milwaukee. Sampson's brother had died, and she traveled from her hometown of Oklahoma City to pay her respects. Jones, a friend of her brother's from Milwaukee, was to serve as one of the pallbearers. The night before the service, flames tore through the house where they were staying. Sampson, 25, and Jones, 28, were killed. Authorities determined the fire had been set intentionally, but a year later, they still don't know who set it despite a $5,000 reward. The uncertainty has left their families in limbo. "We just want some closure," said Cassandra Jones, Dontray's mother. She said her son loved the Green Bay Packers, holiday gatherings his favorites were Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July and spending time with his 8-year-old daughter. Jones said she often still sees people wearing memorial T-shirts emblazoned with her son's photo. "He was well-loved," she said. For Sampson's family, it sometimes seems like the bubbly young woman who sang in her church's choir will walk through the door, back from her trip to Milwaukee. "It almost doesn't seem like it's real," said her aunt, Rosharon King of Fort Worth, Texas. Sampson's father, Kevin Moss, who lives in Oklahoma City, remembers how his daughter could sing at age 2, even before she could string together a sentence of conversation. As clear as he remembers her singing bits of TLC's hit "Waterfalls" when she was a toddler, he remembers getting a call in the morning of April 17, 2015. There was a fire. His daughter was missing. He called and texted her, hoping she would answer, but there was only silence. "She was just a beautiful young lady," said Moss, pastor at Antioch Fellowship Baptist Church. "I think it would be really fair for both families that we find out who did this." Milwaukee police have released few details about the case, citing the ongoing investigation. Here's what is known: The fire was reported about 3:15 a.m. April 17 at a home on N. 38th St. near W. Wright St. One person escaped by diving out a window, suffering numerous cuts. Fire crews initially were unable to enter the house because oxygen cylinders such as those used for medical purposes were exploding inside. Once authorities made it inside the house, they found Sampson and Jones, who were dead. Arsons by nature make locating evidence more difficult, as it could be charred, covered in ash or destroyed by fire, said Milwaukee police spokesman Sgt. Tim Gauerke, who offered general comments about such investigations. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Milwaukee Fire Department; the state fire marshal; and State Crime Laboratory are among the agencies that provide support with crime scene processing and investigation, Gauerke said. The victims' families urged anyone with information to come forward. "I don't think people really understand death until it happens to somebody that they love," said King, Sampson's aunt. "The perpetrator doesn't understand the people that he's affected." The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for the fire. Anyone with information is asked to call Milwaukee police at (414) 935-7360 or the Wisconsin Arson Hotline at (800) 362-3005. Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tangle during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Thursday. Credit: Associated Press SHARE By Primaries require candidates to play to their party's base, and it's easier to do so when your campaign depicts the world in black and white evil vs. good, wrong vs. right. The choices that elected officials actually have to make, however, aren't binary, so politicians who hold themselves out as realists have to sell the public on something more nuanced. Squishier. At the Democratic debate Thursday in Brooklyn, crusading Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders showed viewers just how squishy Hillary Clinton could be. He did so by pushing Clinton to give yes-no answers to questions about raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and shoring up the Social Security Trust Fund. And rather than sounding peevish by saying those topics defy simplistic approaches, Clinton tried to have it both ways, only to have Sanders call her on it. She insisted that she was an early supporter of the "fight for $15" in cities across the country, then had to admit that she backs a more modest proposal in Congress. And when asked if she would increase Social Security taxes on middle- and upper-income earners, she said she was in "vigorous agreement" with Sanders after saying the government should be looking at other ways to achieve the same goal. The maddening thing is, Clinton shouldn't be afraid to be less rigid than Sanders. Her position on the minimum wage, for example, aims lower but is a lot more reasonable. Anyone who cares about eliminating poverty knows how important it is to raise the incomes of low-wage workers. The question here, though, is whether that can be done with the wave of a wand, or whether it requires a much broader effort to increase job skills, eliminate barriers to full-time work and fire up the economy to intensify the competition for labor. There's also the risk that sharply raising the price of labor will make it harder for younger and less educated people to find work at all. Yet that risk is balanced against the prospect that a higher minimum wage will lead to more spending, higher demand and greater economic growth. Could Clinton have held the audience's attention long enough to explain these trade-offs and complexities, triggering a more useful discussion of anti-poverty programs? Probably not. Yet she didn't even try. She didn't fare much better on the Social Security question, which dealt with the cap on payroll taxes. Today, the Social Security portion of the payroll tax is collected on the first $118,500 in income only; that cap also limits the maximum benefits paid. Moderator Wolf Blitzer asked whether Clinton was "prepared to lift the cap on taxable earnings ...yes or no." But that's not what Sanders has advocated, because simply lifting the cap on taxes and benefits would raise taxes on a lot of middle-class households in high-cost areas. And while it would improve Social Security's solvency well into the future, it would not be a permanent solution because the program would still run into the red eventually. What Sanders has proposed is to remove the tax cap on those making more than $250,000 a year, while leaving the benefits cap in place an idea, he says, that Barack Obama championed in his 2008 campaign. Several analysts have projected that this change would close Social Security's funding gap for at least 75 years. But Sanders didn't acknowledge how the move would transform Social Security from an insurance program into a welfare program, transferring wealth explicitly from higher incomes to lower ones. In Sanders' view, that's a feature, not a bug. But it's fraught politically. One reason Social Security has withstood attack after attack over the years is the public's sense that it's a savings program what you receive in benefits is based on what you pay in. That sense would evaporate if benefits were capped but taxes were not. Again, it may be the right policy, but the change isn't nearly as simple as Sanders suggests. There's no reward in politics, it seems, for trying to explain how complex things are. Still, if you're going to offer policy prescriptions that acknowledge real-world trade-offs, you need a better answer to yes-no questions than Clinton offered Thursday night. Jon Healey is the Los Angeles Times deputy editorial page editor. Readers may send him email at jon.healey@latimes.com. SHARE More answers needed An article in the April 13 business section, "State lags in women-owned businesses," stated that "the sluggishness that has long marked Wisconsin's entrepreneurial scene is impervious to gender." In fact, business-ownership trends in Wisconsin differ markedly by gender. Male-owned businesses in the state outperform national growth rates while female-owned businesses lag behind the nation. According to the Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners, between 2007 and 2012 (the most recent year available), the number of male-owned business grew 7% nationally, and 11% in Wisconsin. However, the national rate of growth for female-owned businesses was 27%; the rate in Wisconsin was 19%. We know that start-up activity in Wisconsin is suffering. As the Journal Sentinel reported in June of last year, a publication by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation ranks Wisconsin last in a national index of start-up activity. The fact that our state ranks last in the entire nation is alarming, and signals that Wisconsin should implement policy to encourage small business owners, regardless of gender, as one way to revitalize the economy. We lag even further in female-owned businesses. We have to ask why. There's more to be explored here. Of course, the number of businesses is just one indicator; financial performance and job creation, for example, also must be considered. However, the purpose of the study cited in the paper's recent article is to highlight trends particularly among female-owned businesses. To reduce the study's findings to a generalization about start-ups in the state is an oversimplification that conceals real differences. We could miss the opportunity to try to understand why, and what we can do. Haley O'Donnell Milwaukee People are being taken In watching the presidential races unfold across both parties, it is obvious that "we the people" have been taken for a ride. Just look at how each party is doing it. Bernie Sanders is leading, yet Hillary Clinton will inevitably win. Donald Trump is leading, yet the party is openly hostile toward him and has put hundreds of millions of dollars into defeating him. As for Ted Cruz, he also gets zero support from his party. Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee, said, after a commentator asked if the people's votes mean anything, "We can do whatever we want. It's our party." Both sides reveal a ruling class, an oligarchy, lording over us. Therefore, to give money to either party is absolutely insane. They only want our money, not our votes. It's insulting, it's disrespectful and it's disingenuous. And one good thing that's come out of this fiasco, we now know: It's a joke. Jeff Klaiber Milwaukee Rethink bike lanes One of the most ill-conceived, not-thought-through projects in recent public works history is the institution of bike lanes on Roosevelt Drive between Fond du Lac Ave. and Burleigh St. What used to be an efficient thoroughfare has now become a slow, frustrating drive. Not once, in the many times I have driven the route, have I seen one cyclist on Roosevelt Drive. What I have seen are confused motorists traversing the bike lanes and near-misses as cars attempt to merge into the one traffic lane. Perhaps it's time to rethink the purpose and restore the needed two lanes of traffic in both directions. Mary Ann Beaumont Shorewood Gas prices and profits How easily it is for gas prices to increase profits without people noticing. It wasn't that long ago we in the Milwaukee area were paying $4.20 per gallon for gas. At that time, oil prices were at $160 per barrel. Oil is now at around $40 per barrel, and we are almost halfway back to that $4 mark. At the rate that gas prices are going, by the time oil were to reach $160 per barrel again, gasoline prices would rise to over $8 per gallon. We spend so much time celebrating the $2 per gallon gas prices that we fail to notice how oil companies, or should I say, local gas distributors' profits soar. How easily the general populous let's the wool get pulled over its eyes. Walter Unglaub Oak Creek At the end of March, more than one in five jobs stood vacant at the troubled Lincoln Hills School for Boys in Irma. That state prison for youth had more than 30 openings among the workers who guard inmates and work most closely with them. Credit: Mark Hoffman SHARE By of the Madison Almost one in five jobs stand vacant at the state's troubled Northwoods youth prison, leaving nearly 30 openings among those who guard residents and work most closely with them, new figures show. The job vacancies are one of the challenges facing Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher as the new head of state prisons seeks to improve conditions at a facility that has been under criminal investigation for more than a year. Twenty-eight youth counselor and advanced youth counselor jobs remain unfilled out of the 146 frontline positions at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls. The institutions share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau. Officials have said they're hiring more workers and in the meantime are handling the shortage in part by paying for hotel, meal and travel costs for officers who were recently hired to work at other Wisconsin prisons. But union officials say the situation is forcing the remaining workers at Lincoln Hills to routinely work 16-hour shifts and increasing risks for employees and inmates alike. "We've never (in the Department of Corrections) had vacancy rates like we do right now," said Troy Bauch, who represents workers for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 32. The worker shortage is a serious problem at other institutions as well, and one that can snowball, Bauch said. As employees are forced to work more overtime, more of them consider leaving the job, he said. "The staff, they just give up," Bauch said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Wisconsin Department of Justice are conducting a massive investigation of alleged abuses at the schools, including potential second-degree sexual assault, neglect of children and intimidation of victims and witnesses. Federal authorities are also reviewing whether there was a pattern of civil rights violations of residents. With roughly 300 employees in all, the work force at Lincoln Hills includes psychologists, teachers, nurses and social workers, all of whom are supposed to work together to reform, educate and care for teenagers with serious criminal records or other challenging problems. The youth counselors are at the core of the prison's operations, monitoring the residents in living quarters that are scattered across the campus. They are often the only staff present when fights break out or residents attempt suicide. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December reported that growth in staff at Lincoln Hills has not kept up with the sharp increase in inmates over the past four years as other state youth institutions have been shut down. As of Friday, about one in six youth counselor positions were vacant, as were nearly one in four jobs for advanced youth counselors, who serve as superiors for other counselors. Of 87 youth counselors positions, 14 were vacant, according to figures from Tristan Cook, a Department of Corrections spokesman. Of 59 advanced youth counselor positions, 14 were also open. In addition, one advanced youth counselor is on paid leave while an employment investigation is ongoing. To help relieve the shortage, nine people have recently been hired as youth counselors and are being trained, Cook said. Lincoln Hills officials are "working aggressively to fill all open positions," Cook said by email. Union officials and Democratic lawmakers argue that the problems at the prison can't be understood or fixed without giving more thought to how many people are working there and the long shifts they're often working. Since December, lawmakers such as Milwaukee Democrats Mandela Barnes and Evan Goyke have called for more workers at the prison, citing the example of one employee there who told them of working 16-hour shifts on three consecutive days. That drains staff of the vigilance and patience that they need to deal with serious offenders, the lawmakers say. "It's a huge concern," Barnes said Friday of the staff shortage. "It's why we see many of the problems we see. It leads to more overtime that's why you see the heightened level of stress you see." In the short-term, the criminal probe of Lincoln Hills appears to have exacerbated staffing problems because it's led to many workers being put on paid leave while they're investigated. It's also led to others resigning or being fired. Since November 2014, eight have been fired and 12 have retired or resigned before investigations were completed, Cook said Friday. Other cases are pending, but only one of the workers involved is a youth counselor or advanced counselor. To address the shortages in staff, the state has transferred newly hired correctional officers to work at Lincoln Hills instead of the prisons where they were originally assigned. The state is covering housing, meals and mileage for those employees, according to the Department of Corrections. It's similar to a system adopted earlier in which youth counselors in southeastern Wisconsin, who typically work with offenders in home confinement, were temporarily sent to Lincoln Hills. That practice ends Monday. The Department of Corrections has not provided figures on how much taxpayers are paying those workers to cover housing, mileage and meals. Other actions by Gov. Scott Walker's administration to address prison conditions include new leadership at Lincoln Hills, broad reviews of staff use of force against juvenile inmates, more training and rules for staff as well as additional video and body cameras for workers and the prison itself. But so far the Walker administration has stopped short of saying more permanent positions are needed at Lincoln Hills. The governor has said that Litscher, the new corrections secretary, is considering all options to improve conditions at the prison. Litscher took over after former secretary Ed Wall resigned in February to return to his former agency, the state Department of Justice. Wall, who is locked in an employment dispute with the state, was fired from the Justice Department on Friday. Packers on life support after another poor offensive performance Green Bay's inability to convert on third and fourth downs all day lead to questions about the direction of a stalling offense. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | Many Arab-Americans want the Jewish candidate to be president. The prominent Arabic-language newspaper for that community in Southern California, Watan (A Nation), has endorsed Bernie Sanders. This outcome is not as strange as it might appear. Arab-Americans (who include Christians and Muslims) had been split between the Democratic and Republican Parties until roughly 2003, when the Bush administration decided to invade and occupy a major Arab country. Then in 2006, the Republican Party decided to demonize Muslims by taking the religion of Islam with fascism and terrorism. The Muslim-Americans were stampeded into the Democratic Party, as were most Arab-Americans. It was an uneasy fit, since most Americans of both heritages are critics of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, whereas the Democratic Party has long been much more knee-jerk pro-Israel than the Realist Republicans (George H. W. Bush had a major tiff with Israel; Bill Clinton may as well have been an Israeli). But with the rise of the Evangelicals in the GOP, who are revealed by opinion polls to be the most negative toward Muslims of all American populations, and the strategy of the party of appealing to Angry White Men by denouncing immigrants and Muslims and Latinos, most Arab Americans and Muslim Americans felt they had no choice but to go Democratic. That choice has been reinforced by the hate speech against Muslims promulgated by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in this electoral campaign. Even Kasich is guilty of some pandering to white supremacists in this regard. Muslim Americans number only a few million; self-identified Arab-Americans are at least 5 million (it would be several times more except that many Lebanese, the largest such group, dont think of themselves as Arab if they are Christian, and they intermarried with US Catholics and so are often only one part Lebanese). But they have an outsized impact on US elections. They have communities of several hundred thousand each in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. The margins of victory for the two parties in several of those states is often very thin. So several tens of thousands of Arab or Muslim voters could actually help determine the outcome, both in the state and nationally! Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side have defended American Muslims and Arabs. Watan noted that Sanders lived in a kibbutz in his youth in what the paper calls Occupied Palestine (but it later spoke of Israeli kibbutzes). But it went on to praise Sanders for voting in 1991 to hold up aid for Israel because of its colonization of the Palestinian West Bank; and it praised him for voting in 1990 against the Gulf War (Sanders did not think the war would make the Middle East more stable). It then lauds him for his opposition to the Bush administrations USA PATRIOT Act (which weakened 4th amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure), and for his 2002 stance against the Iraq War. The paper carefully lays out his domestic policies, including his concern with growing wealth inequality and the impunity of Wall Street and the big banks. It notes that Sanderss demand for even-handedness in US policy toward Israel and Palestine is unusual in the Democratic Party. A major Arab-American leader and head of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, has also endorsed Sanders; his reasons for doing so are completely centered on the senators domestic policies. Related video added by Juan Cole: The Young Turks: How Bernie Sanders Is Inspiring Americans Of EVERY Religion Reddit Email 0 Shares By Michelle Bentley | (The Conversation) | Donald Trump has once again violated all mainstream thinking to advance a dangerous and deviant policy, this time on nuclear weapons. The wannabe Republican presidential nominee recently said the US needs a policy of unpredictability. This means the US would be able to use nuclear weapons wherever, whenever, and against whomever it wants no holds barred. Hes proposed using tactical nuclear strikes against Islamic State (IS), even if that means using nuclear weapons in Europe. Criticism has come thick and fast against this terrifying proposal. Hes been called a six-year-old with nuclear weapons and the single biggest threat to US security. Hillary Clinton is now leading the attack, castigating Trump for one of the most reckless statements on national security by any major presidential candidate in modern history. Its hard to disagree. Its true that unpredictability has long been part of nuclear policy. During the Cold War, nuclear leaders were keen to keep their options open (although China said it would never carry out a first strike). Were lucky JFKs first strike option wasnt used during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the reason that option was never used is because there were other controls in place. Policies such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which seeks to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether, kept the Cold War on ice. And anyway, unpredictability was largely defensive. It was a last resort. This principle is still at work in nuclear weapons policy today. While President Barack Obamas 2010 Nuclear Posture Review allows for a first strike, this is about defending the US only in a worst-case scenario. Even in the heyday of the War on Terror, the notoriously gung-ho Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld werent anywhere near as aggressive as Trump. Trump said he would have used nuclear weapons after 9/11. Famous Daisy Attack Ad from 1964 Presidential Election A different time: Cold War nuclear fearmongering Trumps impulsive embrace of unpredictability ignores the prospect that this would destroy the NPT an agreement some think is the only thing that stands between the world and nuclear war. Trump also doesnt seem to realise (or care) that the Cold War is over. The threats hes discussing have nothing in common with the old Eastern Bloc, and its widely accepted that nuclear weapons just arent applicable to the fight against enemies such as IS. For one, who do you attack? Terrorists often dont have fixed addresses. Yes, IS has its besieged caliphate, but even this isnt a clear enough target for a nuclear attack, not least given the scores of Syrian and Iraqi civilians whod be slaughtered in the process. Even if a President Trump never acted on this absurd threat, he could do untold damage to the global order just by issuing it. We have avoided nuclear conflict mainly thanks to commitments that no-one will use nukes. Trumps plan would encourage nuclear conflict, cause even more states to build these weapons, and undermine the diplomacy that currently keeps the nukes in check. And while it may be getting less certain that Trump will win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency, he cant throw threats like this around without serious consequences. Serious threats Trump says he will use nuclear weapons to win respect from Muslim communities, bolstered by waterboarding and spying on mosques. Even coming off his history of inflammatory comments in this vein, including his shocking proposal to ban all Muslims from travelling to the US, this is a new low, and its highly damaging to the USs relations with Muslim audiences everywhere. Even many in Trumps own party seem to be on the side of common sense, and the GOPs national security leadership has released an open letter condemning Trumps policy towards Muslims. But for all of the #nevertrump movements efforts to defeat him, the extremism of his statements may well already be encouraging extremism in turn and could even start to upset the worlds fragile nuclear balance. If you threaten someone with nuclear weapons, sincerely or otherwise, its not unlikely theyll build more weapons of their own and prepare to attack you back. As North Koreas exploits indicate, this a risk even when a rogue state perceives a threat, never mind when one is explicitly made. So Trumps words alone will cause instability and mistrust within the international system, even if he never gets anywhere near the nuclear codes. Obama is right to say Trump evidently doesnt understand nuclear policy in the slightest; hes hiding behind antediluvian policies that were meant to protect the US, but which will actually encourage nuclear war in his hands. Of course, some on the right have defended him. They are wrong. Even as a candidate, Trump poses a significant danger to global security. Michelle Bentley, Lecturer in International Relations, Royal Holloway This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Reddit Email 0 Shares Maan News Agency | GAZA (Maan) The Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists said on Saturday that Israel has detained 43 journalists in the occupied Palestinian territory since October 2015, including two foreign reporters. The New York-based committee said in a report that during detention and imprisonment, journalists have reported torture, medical negligence, and unreasonable and illegal rulings by the Israeli authorities. The committee condemned the increasing number of detentions of journalists, and called for their immediate release. At least four of the 43 journalists were released in February and March, while 20 others including a female journalist and a media student remain in Israeli prison, while others have been transferred to house arrest. The report also said that three journalists are suffering from medical conditions. Bassam al-Sayih is suffering from an advanced stage of cancer and administrative detainee Ali al-Ewawi is suffering from ulcerative colitis. The committee added that Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq is still recovering from his grueling 94-day hunger strike that brought him close to death, and is currently being treated in Israels HaEmek Medical Center in Afula. The journalists rights committee released Saturdays report marking Palestinian Prisoners Day, held on April 17 every year in solidarity with the approximately 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli prisons. The Israeli crackdown on media organizations and journalists in particular is part of a systematic policy that often designates outlets affiliated with Palestinian political parties as terrorist organizations, according to Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer. The practical implication of these broadly-defined offenses is the criminalization of many aspects of Palestinian civic life, Addameer stated. In a statement released in March, Palestinian media freedoms group MADA said it was highly concerned by recent Israeli resolutions targeting Palestinian media, saying it neglected the main reason for the whole conflict, which is the continuous occupation and all systematic violations against Palestinian people. The watchdog also released a report last month showing that 2015 had seen an unprecedented increase in Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists across the occupied Palestinian territory. Via Maan News Agency Related video added by Juan Cole: Reddit Email 442 Shares TeleSur | The Saudis threatened selling off almost a trillion dollars in U.S. assets if Congress makes it legal to hold Saudi citizens accountable for 9/11. Saudi Arabia has threatened the United States with economic reprisals should the U.S. pass a law allowing for its citizens to hold the oil-rich kingdom responsible for its alleged role in the 9/11 terror attack. The New York Times said that Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdoms message personally last month during a trip to Washington. He told lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts. The Saudis hold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of U.S. assets, and their sale would not only be a severe blow to the U.S., but also to the Saudis and the world economy. The threats come from a bipartisan bill currently being considered in the U.S. Congress that would allow victims and family members of the 9/11 attack to sue the Saudi kingdom. In 2002, a congressional commission investigated the events surrounding the attack, and how the 19 hijackers (many of whom were Saudi citizens) were able to operate without alerting U.S. intelligence agencies. The report was released in 2004, but 28 pages said to detail the Saudi governments involvement in the attack remain classified. It concluded that no senior level Saudi government officials were involved, but many have said that the wording leaves room for involvement of other members of the Saudi royal family or government. However, the New York Times quoted economists as saying that the sale of nearly a trillion dollars worth of assets would be too volatile an action for the Saudis. Saudi Arabias assets are strained with a global drop in oil prices, initiated largely by the Saudis refusal to lower production, and a governmental budget that consists of large welfare programs that are funded by oil revenue. On top of that, the move would destabilize world markets, something for which the Saudis would receive further blame. Many oil-dependent nations are feeling the pressure caused by Saudi Arabias consistent oil production. The threats signal a new low for Saudi-U.S. relations. The two nations are strong allies, but the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran and Saudi Arabias reported financing of terrorist groups in Syria have put a strain the historically amicable relations. The Obama administration has lobbied against the bill, saying it would put U.S. citizens abroad in danger. Via TeleSur Related video added by Juan Cole: CBS This Morning: Saudis respond to 60 Minutes report on possible 9/11 link [JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] announced [press release] the transfer of 9 Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainees to Saudi Arabia on Saturday as they continue their efforts to close the facility. They would have sent the prisoners back to their home country but the instability in Yemen made transfer to Saudi Arabia [AP report] inevitable. Eight of the 9 detainees had been cleared for release since 2009, after an extensive review, and 26 more detainees are also cleared and expected to be released this summer. At the end of March, a US government official said the DOD told Congress that it plans to transfer [JURIST report] as many as 12 prisoners from Guantanamo in the coming weeks. Eighty detainees remain at the facility. In February US President Obama delivered a plan to Congress to close Guantanamo Bay [JURIST report]. In November the US Senate passed [JURIST report] the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA), which prohibits Guantanamo detainees from being transferred into the US. Obama signed the bill into law, despite the fact that it could delay his plan to close the prison. In early April, The DOD announced the transfer [JURIST report] of two Guantanamo detainees to Senegal. Libyan nationals Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby, 55, and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour, about 44, were released after being held nearly 14 years without charges.The DOD said [JURIST report] last year they were sending teams to review three Colorado prisons as part of Obamas efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in October. The Guantanamo Review Task Force was created in response to a 2009 presidential executive order to review the status of all detainees. [JURIST] German Chancellor Angela Merkel [official website] announced on Friday she will allow a criminal inquiry to proceed against German comedian Jan Boehmermann after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a complaint. The comedian made sexual references to Erdogan on the public television station ZDF [official website] two weeks ago and could be prosecuted under a rarely used section of the German criminal code [text] which allows prosecution for defamation of officials of foreign state. The relevant section of the code states Whosoever insults a foreign head of state, or, with respect to his position, a member of a foreign government who is in Germany in his official capacity, or a head of a foreign diplomatic mission who is accredited in the Federal territory shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine, in case of a slanderous insult to imprisonment from three months to five years. Experts believe [BBC report] he may have a strong defense against the charges due to the fact that the sexual references were part of a long satirical poem. Merkel has said she will attempt to repeal the law in the coming year. Turkey has been accused of violating human rights freedoms on numerous recent occasions. In December the European Court of Human Rights ruled [JURIST report] unanimously that a Turkish court order blocking access to YouTube violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In April a prosecutor in Turkey ordered [JURIST report] Internet providers to block social networking sites including Twitter and YouTube. In September 2014 Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] reported [JURIST report] that Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party [party website] was taking steps to weaken the rule of law, control Internet and media and suppress critics and protesters. In April 2014 the Turkish government lifted a ban [JURIST report] on Twitter following a Constitutional Court ruling stating that the ban violated both individual rights as well as the freedom of expression. 533 Shares Share I dialed the number to return the call of the nursing home. The nurse who answered the phone was relieved to hear my voice on the other line: Dr. Mass, thank God you called back! She has been pacing since she woke up, and she refuses to take her meds. Weve kept her away from Catherine, so they dont get into another fistfight. But we cant handle her here anymore. We think we might have to send her to a psych unit, and we need you to come help. Ill be right there. The Alzheimers patient we were discussing was in prime physical shape for a woman her age, but cognitively she was in the worst shape of anyone on her unit. Since the degenerative disease began laying claim to her brain, we had witnessed her personality change drastically, as the once-dedicated altruist became more and more prone to violent outbursts. The woman didnt recognize any of her 5 kids who regularly visited, and though she hadnt been informed of the recent death of her husband of more than 5 decades (she couldnt process the information), I suspected that on some level she was aware, and her current behavior was the only way she could grieve. And this hurt me to my core. Because she wasnt just any patient, in fact, she wasnt my patient at all. She was my mother. By the time I arrived at the nursing home, the staff had contacted the only hospital in the area with an opening in their geriatric psych unit, which was over an hour away. As I helped the nurse calm down my mother, who was agitatedly pacing the room, I reflected on my mothers life. I need to stop to explain the pain that you have as a child in this situation. I had watched with bewilderment as my beloved, once the ultra-capable mom, who raised five kids and volunteered tirelessly for her community, became more and more crippled by the disease that had hit in her late 70s. As her only daughter, my mother and I had a sacred relationship, and she was once the closest woman on the planet to me. It is nearly impossible to describe the pain and anguish that I felt when I looked into those eyes that held so many happy memories for me, and saw only anger and fear. It was up to the staff to help prepare my mother for the trip to the hospital, but I knew that even under the best circumstances going to a new place would be a mini-horror for her. Alzheimers patients crave stability and routine. We had been incredibly lucky to find a stable, calming environment in the nursing home where the staff truly cared for her, and I was hopeful that she would continue to experience the same level of quality care and compassion at the accepting hospital. Following procedure, they first brought my mother to the ER of the accepting hospital, where she tried to beat up the large male nurse. She was quickly sedated by the ER staff who called the Geriatric-psych unit but the unit refused to accept her, telling us, It is our administrative policy to not take patients with any form of dementia. Medical breakdown #1: Hospitals have layers of administrators that do little to improve patient care and a lot to bog down the system. Since 1970, the number of physician caregivers has increased by 50 percent. During that same time, the number of health care administrators has grown by over 3,000 percent. Of course, we need administrators in the system, but I think most would agree that a 3,000 percent increase seems excessive. Aside from the financial burden of paying all those additional salaries, there is little evidence to show that this dramatic increase in administrators is actually improving patient care. If anything, it seems that superfluous hospital administrations could potentially corrode patient care by creating unnecessary rules and arbitrary bylaws: case in point, the administrative policy to exclude dementia patients from the geriatric psych unit. I knew that Mom needed her medication to be adjusted, so my siblings and I appealed to the hospital to admit her to a regular medical ward with a psych consult. Medical breakdown #2: Being a medical professional myself, I knew what to say to the hospital staff to ensure my mother would get appropriate treatment. Not all patients do. Had I not spoken up, she would have been sent back to her institution, likely gotten agitated again and required a second ambulance ride/ER visit, etc. That would have been wasteful of resources. Decisions like this end up costing us millions, but they continue to happen every single day. The next day I arrived at the hospital with coffee and chocolates in hand, knowing that Mom would get better care if her nurses and doctors were plied with caffeine. When I got to her room, my mother was wearing only a diaper and restraints. Her breakfast tray sat untouched. I left the room, sat in the hall and cried. Once I composed myself, I went to the nurses station where I found two medical students chatting between text messages. My Mom is in restraints. Can you help me move her so I can feed her breakfast? The students barely glanced up, stated its not our job and went back to their phones. Medical breakdown #3: Effective health care is almost always the result of a team working together to help a patient. Our current health system breeds the mentality that one can never, ever deviate from their individual job description even if it is in the best interest of the patient. Perhaps these two students would have incurred reprimanding for stepping outside the scope of their job, but at the very least they could have found someone to help. Following the rulebook has become more important than helping the patient. Luckily for me, a nurse overheard our conversation and came to help move my mother. After helping Mom finish her breakfast, I waited to speak with her physician. My mother had only ever been treated by people that knew and cared about her, so I wanted to tell the doctor about her in the hopes that they would see her as a person instead of just a patient. Medical breakdown #4: The best medical care, particularly in primary care, happens when doctors know their patients, because they truly care for them. This happens naturally when patients are able to see the same physicians and doctors have time to spend with those patients. Our current system has handicapped the patient-physician relationship, overwhelming physicians with far too many patients each day and reducing the amount of time spent with each one. Sadly, the doctors at this hospital were more interested in punching their time clock than they were in building relationships with patients, but given their highly regulated work environment, I can hardly blame them. I spoke with the doctors about my mothers medication adjustment and requested an x-ray of her hand, which was bruised and swollen (battle scar from her fight with the ER nurse). It took three days for them to get the x-ray. I was told that this delay was due to a problem with the computer order reaching radiology. Medical breakdown #5: The electronic health record (EHR) is a subject that could be written about in great length (in fact, it has been. Often.). In 2009 the federal government mandated all hospitals and offices to become computer compliant but as anyone who has ever used a computer can tell you, there are always glitches. How would you feel if you or a loved one missed a dose of important medication because of a glitch? For my mother, at least, this was not a fatal computer glitch. But even if computers operated perfectly, their omnipresence in patient care settings has further depersonalized medicine, as nurses and doctors no longer interact with the patient, but sit in front of a screen for hours, clicking on boxes. Three days later the hospital was ready to release my Mom, and my brother and I arrived at the hospital that Saturday to find our mother unresponsive. It didnt require a medical professional to guess why: dry lips, dry tongue, and skin tenting she was clearly suffering from the effects of dehydration. I immediately went to the nurses station and demanded to know how much fluid Mom had received in the past three days. The nurse wrestled with the computer for forty minutes to get the information (arent EHRs great?). After another forty minutes waiting for the nurse to get the printer working, I insisted on seeing the computer itself. Thirteen ounces. My mother had gotten thirteen ounces of fluid in three days. That amounts to a can of soda. Medical breakdown #6: Where do I even begin this was not a single mistake, but shift after shift of neglect from various staff members. Where was the care in this health care system? How could a prominent hospital forget to do the most basic thing; i.e., provide water for my Mom? I told the nurse to send the doctor and prepare paperwork for an against-medical-advice (AMA) discharge because I would be taking my Mom to a hospital we could trust, and from there back to the nursing home once we had her hydrated. The supervising physician and nurse were shocked and apologetic when I explained the situation, and offered to get an ambulance to transport my mom. My brother and I declined, and carried our mother tenderly into the backseat of our own car. Medical breakdown #7 avoided: For all intents and purposes, my mother my Mom was a terminal patient. We would be wasting a valuable and expensive resource by having a potentially lifesaving EMT crew spend three hours transporting her. So much time and money is wasted in medicine in instances where common sense should rule. We drove our mother back to her local ER, at the hospital where she had been going for 35 years and where she was well-known. As I told the staff there of our experience at the previous hospital, they looked as shocked as I felt. They cared for her kindly and respectfully, and we got her tucked into the memory unit that had become home. It took about a week before she was awake, and a month before she regained what was about 75 percent of her former strength. Two days after we took our mother back to the nursing home I received an apologetic call from the hospital administrators, who I could tell were squirming with fear of a possible lawsuit even over the phone. I said very little. I had no desire to feed the parasitic beast of malpractice litigation. The lawsuit itself would have cost tens of thousands of dollars, and even a cash-filled victory would have brought little comfort or sense of justice to my family. Personally, we cannot comprehend equating money with quality of life. But I couldnt do nothing. I contacted the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Joint Commission and launched investigations and inspections upon the hospital, giving them detailed accounts of what had happened. After several months, we were again contacted by the hospitals administrators and assured that they had implemented changes to prevent such problems to future patients. It was a small comfort that we enacted some changes. That comfort was short-lived. About a year later I got a call from a friend whose Alzheimers-ridden mother had been hospitalized with pneumonia. She was concerned about her mothers level of care, who had started developing bed sores and whose condition seemed to be declining every day. She was dismayed watching her mother deteriorate under the care of the hospital staff, who were reluctant to give any clear answers and gave her trouble when she tried to reach the physicians. I gave my friend some suggestions and asked what hospital her mother was at. Can you guess what her answer was? It was the same hospital where my mother had been so mistreated, the same one where two government agencies had investigated, the same hospital that had supposedly changed their ways. This is only one story of the sad state of todays health system. Moms substandard level of care happened in a setting of good resources, at a highly regarded institution, with a physician daughter advocating on her behalf. Imagine what happens to the advocate-less indigent in poorly funded hospitals. If we do not change our current trajectory to fix our health care system, scenarios like my mothers will become commonplace, the quality of care will implode, and the financial burden on our country will wreck us. I fear for the future. Last April, my mother suffered a bad fall and fractured her vertebrae and ribs. She developed pneumonia and cried piteously in pain. Our family elected to place her on hospice at the nursing home, with comfort meds only. My brothers and I sat at her bedside while all the nurses who had treated her not just as a patient, but cared for her as a person, came in and wept over her impending death. It made us feel grateful beyond imagination to witness firsthand the personal loving care she had been receiving. All of our collective hands cared for her in her final days, and I was at her side for her final breath, just as she was with me for my first. Marion Mass is a pediatrician. This article originally appeared in Medelita. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 108 Shares Share Fidgeting in my seat, I waited nervously in one of the most crowded waiting rooms I had ever been in. Suddenly, I felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped down my back; my legal name was being called over the dozens of waiting room sniffles. My instinct was to remain glued to my seat, not to let anyone know that I was the person attached to that name. I might have done just that, if not for the reason for my visit: a prescription for testosterone. I was greeted by a nurse, who, while aware of the reason for my visit, seemed oblivious to the fact that a transgender patient may not want their legal name called across a crowded waiting room. Dont worry, she reassured me on the walk back to the examination room, we see lots of patients with gender dysphoria here. Uh, thats nice, I responded, trying to hide my discomfort with how casually she broached a vulnerable subject. When the doctor came in, I noted his imperial and commanding demeanor as he sat down across from me. So, he started, youd like to appear male; tell me what you are hoping for. I explained that while I was hoping to masculinize physically, I identified as genderqueer and gender nonconforming (GNC), and wasnt looking to pass as male. Id like to discuss a lower dose of testosterone, if thats an option, I said. His brow furrowed, and there was a long period of silence. Do you see many genderqueer patients in your clinic? I asked. He paused. No, he finally responded. In my professional opinion, people will eventually decide to be either male or female, but not something in between. If you want testosterone, Ill need to know that you intend to live as a man. If you arent sure, then that could be a sign that you are really happy as a woman. Ive just told you how I identify, and it isnt as a woman. If I were happy as a woman, I wouldnt be here in your office seeking hormones, now would I? I left the office, shaking. This is why so many trans people dont see doctors, I thought. I felt completely invalidated, and irate that a provider who claimed to care for trans patients had a professional opinion that people like me couldnt (or shouldnt) actually exist; and if they did, then they shouldnt be allowed to define themselves, to assert their desires for their own bodies, or to have access to hormones that could alleviate their gender dysphoria. I wasnt alone in what I experienced in that clinic in rural New Hampshire. According to a Lambda Legal study, roughly 70 percent of transgender patients report experiencing discrimination when accessing medical care. That same study showed that nearly 90 percent of trans respondents believe not enough medical personnel are properly trained to provide culturally aware care for them. It is important that health care providers be able to provide informed and sensitive care to trans individuals, who are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, substance abuse, depression and anxiety, partner violence, sexually transmitted infections, youth homelessness, and harassment. In order to provide quality patient care to trans populations, all health care providers must be familiar with trans health issues, population-specific needs, and use of affirming language. Chances are, if you arent used to using gender neutral pronouns or conversing with non-binary or GNC folks, this will quickly become obvious to your patient; you may act more hesitant, uncomfortable, or stumble over your words. This can compound feelings of vulnerability or fear for your patient. Employing binary language and assumptions, or using incorrect pronouns, a legal name, or identifiers (maybe you are really happy as a woman) in clinical settings can be extremely triggering for trans and GNC individuals. It should be no surprise that triggering encounters lead trans folks to access health care less frequently, compounding the health disparities that we already face. *** Fast forward two years. I am now a first-year medical student, and have been invited, along with other students throughout New England, to attend a networking dinner for future medical professionals interested in LGBT health. I straightened my tie and looked down across the sparkling Boston skyline from the 10th floor of Fenway Health, the nations largest federally-funded LGBT health center, serving over 24,000 patients. A glass of wine in hand, I mingled with national leaders in LGBT health before sitting down for the networking dinner. The conversations drifted from the latest trans research funded by the NIH and the newest training modules available through the Fenway Institute (their interdisciplinary center for education and LGBT policy development), to the clinical experiences of some of the 700 staff providing care to hundreds of transgender patients in the greater Boston area. We set a goal: To create a medical culture where transgender and GNC patients, peers, and colleagues feel respected and affirmed, and where pronouns are volunteered (and asked), rather than assumed. If we, as a society, normalize sharing our pronouns during introductions and in day-to-day encounters, we can help to relieve the burden placed on trans and GNC individuals who are painfully called by the wrong pronouns. The following morning, I attended the second annual summit for the Northeast Medical Student Queer Alliance (NMSQA), an organization that students from the University of Vermont College of Medicine helped to found. The summit brought members from ten medical schools throughout New England together to exchange presentations on the current work of our respective LGBTQ student groups. We discussed our schools recent efforts in LGBTQ curriculum enhancement, trans-friendly policies and structural improvements, and future goals of the group. It was thrilling to find queer comradery within the world of medicine. After many hours with our heads together and adrenaline pumping, the idea for a national social media campaign around personal pronouns emerged. The starting point of the campaign is simple: Ask people to put their personal pronouns in their email signature. With a hashtag in hand, we decided to launch #pushforpronouns during National LGBTQ Health Week, which coincides with the International Day of Transgender Visibility. Just prior to the campaign launch, House Bill 2 an unprecedented anti-LGBT bill passed in my home state of North Carolina. HB2 overturns all current LGBT anti-discrimination protections, and bans cities from passing any future LGBT protections. In addition, the bill requires that transgender individuals use the bathroom of the sex they were assigned at birth, regardless of their current gender identity or presentation. There is no better time to raise awareness of trans and GNC issues within medicine, with the hope of spreading that awareness throughout society. I am hopeful that this campaign will help bring trans and GNC health into the spotlight, increase awareness of non-binary identities, and blaze a trail toward trans-inclusive and culturally sensitive health care. By building a national movement, we can create empowered physicians who are leaders in their communities, reduce trans health care discrimination, and create more inclusive and affirming spaces for everyone. Its just the first step, but its an important one. Confused? Start here: TransWhat? Follow the Northeast Medical Student Queer Alliance on social media: @queermed On Facebook: Queer Med Al York is a medical student. This article originally appeared in uvm medicine. Image credit: Shutterstock.com SHARE Grant Holdcroft of the Kitsap Public Health District looks over the trash strewed Gorst Creek stream bed at the Gorst Landfill on Thursday, April 7, 2016. (MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP SUN) Water cascades over a towering trash pile in Gorst Greek. A former landfill, the three-story heap dams the creek during high winter flows, eventually leading to floods, landslides and culverts clogged with trash. (PHOTO COURTESY Department of Fish and Wildlife) An old phone sticks out of the grass on top of the Gorst Landfill on Thursday, April 7, 2016. (MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP SUN) A vehicle tipped on its side atop the Gorst Landfill on Thursday, April 7, 2016. (MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP SUN) By Tristan Baurick of the Kitsap Sun GORST During the fall's heavy rains, this deep ravine roars with dozens of waterfalls. The white water tumbles into pools where spawning salmon swim, and where their springtime descendants hatch and begin their trek out to sea. It's a stretch of Gorst Creek that would be quite beautiful if the waterfalls weren't actually pouring from mounds of trash, and if the salmon weren't swimming alongside rusty car parts, paint cans, batteries and shredded heaps of plastic sheeting. "This hillside it's all landfill right in the middle of the creek," said Grant Holdcroft, a Kitsap Public Health District environmental health specialist. "And it keeps sloughing off, bringing garbage down just cascades of it." After decades of use as a Navy dump and a few more decades of indecision over who should deal with it, the ravine is finally being cleaned up. This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began driving in the heavy equipment that will remove about 8,000 truckloads of waste and debris from the 6-acre site just off Highway 3, between Gorst and Belfair. Known by many names the Ames Auto Wrecking Landfill, the Bremerton Auto Wrecking Landfill, the Gorst Creek dump the site will take a year and almost $30 million to clean up. The Navy recently agreed to pay for the project after years of legal wrangling with the EPA. "Oh boy, the legal stuff was easy compared to finalizing the financial stuff," said Jeffry Rodin, the EPA's on-site cleanup coordinator. "We issued an enforcement order years ago, but enforcement isn't easy between federal agencies." The Navy is deferring comment about the landfill to the EPA. Legal documents filed by the EPA indicates that the Navy acknowledged it disposed of waste at the landfill but disputed the EPA's claim that the trash is contaminating the creek. In 1964, the landfill's first operator Ames Auto Wrecking installed a 24-inch-wide culvert in the creek floor and began covering it with garbage, including material from the Navy. In the late '60s, the Navy contracted with Ames, which no longer exists, to dispose of 125,000 cubic yards of waste from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The EPA contends that the landfill violated a number of county and city codes during the time it was accepting trash from the Navy. Garbage from local residents started flowing in around 1970. "Back then, as long as it wasn't exploding, they'd take it," Holdcroft. It's unclear what exactly went into the dump, but there are large amounts of scrap metal, sawdust, lumber, tires and plastic sheeting. A great deal of material from demolished buildings probably naval housing has been tumbling out of the heap. Oils, tars and chemicals have seeped from the site for years. Soil and water tests at and near the site have shown elevated levels of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were banned in the '70s, as well as mercury, lead and other heavy metals all of which is harmful to humans and wildlife. By 1989, when the dump was closed, garbage covered about 800 feet of the creek. Dirt poured on top of the trash filled the ravine to its brim. Trees and brush grew, forming a natural-looking toupee atop a 45-foot-high mound of dirt and garbage. The weight of it all crushed the culvert, blocking fish passage. During heavy rains, the dump acts as a dam. The lake that forms behind it is deep enough to submerge a three-story house. Eventually, the lake spills over, causing garbage-laden waterfalls and landslides on the downstream side. "Sometimes you see fish spawning right in the garbage," said state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Gina Piazza. "It's a disgusting site." The flow of trash regularly clogs a large culvert under Highway 3. A well-worn excavator path to the culvert hints at how regularly the state Department of Transportation must clean out the clog. Allowing the water to build could blow out the highway. From the highway culvert, the trash flows through a section of Gorst Creek that supplied drinking water to the city of Bremerton until the 1980s. "The garbage washes down and gets on the city property, and that has to be cleaned up," said Kathleen Cahall, Bremerton's water resources specialist. "And we've seen more of it the past dozen years." The Gorst Creek trash flow runs near but does not taint the Union River watershed where the city currently draws its water, Cahall stressed. The creek eventually flows through Gorst and into Sinclair Inlet. It's unknown how much trash and other contaminants flow into marine waters. The cleanup will do wonders for salmon, Piazza said. She estimates it will reopen more than 150,000 square feet of fish habitat upstream from Highway 3 and boost the creek's spawning grounds by 12,170 square feet. The EPA plans to recycle some of the concrete and scrap metal, but much of the estimated 150,000 cubic yards of waste and debris will go to a landfill, probably in southwest Washington. Once the trash is out, the EPA will begin a large-scale habitat restoration project. Holdcroft has been working to get the site cleaned up for 16 years. He joked he can retire now. "It's been a huge thorn in my side. It's been a huge thorn in the side of the health district and the people of Kitsap County, he said. "To see this progress is really important. It's a huge plus for the health of the people in this county." Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Windy with a few showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. Tonight Windy with a few showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph. Last week's column about the correlation between a president's political party and stock returns during his term of office generated quite a bit of reader response. Most offered their explanation as to why the S&P 500 has historically performed much better when a Democrat was president. One reader suggested that stocks perform better when a Democrat is president because Wall Street prefers Republicans. I hope this guy gets some help. The most commonly suggested explanation is that the U.S. economy is stronger under Democrat presidents. That assumption is correct, but the conclusion doesn't follow from it. Since 1929, average annual GDP growth when a Democrat was president was 4.57 percent annually. Republican GDP was 2.78 percent. The economy has, on average, been stronger when Democrats were in the White House. The problem in assuming that this GDP growth differential is responsible for higher stock returns during Democrat administrations is that stock prices and GDP growth are not coincident data series. Annual changes in one do not predict or cause that year's change in the other. The best predictor of stock returns during a president's term of office isn't his political party, but rather the starting point from which we begin measuring. If asked how much weight you've gained or loss, your answer would depend on whether you begin measuring from the day after Thanksgiving, immediately following a monthlong fight with flu, or since your birth. Likewise, stock market gains or losses depends on the level of the index at the beginning of the measurement period. The average price-to-earnings ratio at the beginning of each new presidential term of the S&P 500 since 1929 is 16. When a president's term began with a P/E ratio higher than 16, the subsequent four-year annualized return was 6.4 percent, compared with 14.8 percent when the term began at a P/E less than 16. The market has performed better when measured from a point of relatively low stock prices. This observation leads to another question: is there some correlation between P/E ratio and a president's political party? The average P/E of the S&P 500 at the beginning of new Republican administrations has been 17.3, compared with a P/E of 15 when the office has shifted to a Democrat. The stock market should have performed better when a Democrat occupied the White House; they have generally come into power at times when stock prices were, relative to historic norms, low. So why have Republicans come into office when P/E ratios are higher than average? And why have Democrats tended to come into office when P/E ratios were lower? Simple: because stock returns have been higher when a Democrat has been president. Which, of course, circuitously returns us to the original conclusion, effectively arguing that something is true because it is true. Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE By Joey Garrison, USA TODAY NETWORK, The Tennessean Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam has asked an Alabama judge to reconsider, amend or vacate a deposition order that could force him to testify in court for the first time regarding the rebate scheme plaguing the $31 billion family truck stop chain. Attorney Joseph McCorkle Jr., representing Haslam, filed the motion to reconsider late Friday in the civil case of Wright Transportation v. Pilot Flying J after the judges order came earlier in the day. Among several claims, the defendants motion argues that Circuit Court Judge Sarah Hicks Stewart granted the petition to depose Haslam less than 42 hours after it was filed without scheduling a hearing or allowing Haslam a reasonable opportunity to respond. Continue reading at The Tennessean. The Y-12 National Security Complex is seen on May 23, 2007, in Oak Ridge. Bechtel and Lockheed Martin have been selected to manage Y-12 and another nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Tex. The new contractor will be called Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC.(B&W Y-12) SHARE Feds call selected bid 'best value' By Frank Munger of the Knoxville News Sentinel A team headed by government contracting veterans Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin has been chosen to manage two of the nation's key nuclear weapons facilities, Y-12 in Oak Ridge and Pantex near Amarillo, Texas. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which announced the award Tuesday, said the new contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC has vowed to save more than $3.2 billion in taxpayer dollars over the next decade by eliminating redundancies in the combined organizations and taking other steps to improve efficiency and cut unnecessary spending. The base contract is for five years, with options that could extend it another five years. If the contract is carried out for 10 years, with all its options, the work is valued at more than $22 billion. Federal officials praised the proposal submitted by the Bechtel/Lockheed team, saying it offered the "overall best value" in a number of categories. The contracting team, which also includes ATK, an aerospace and defense form, and SOC, a security specialist, will take over the management of Y-12 and Pantex over the next four months. The new contract is supposed to take effect on May 1. At both Y-12 and Pantex, Consolidated Nuclear Security will replace contractor teams headed by Babcock & Wilcox. Jim Haynes, a Bechtel veteran who currently serves as Y-12's deputy general manager and senior vice president of B&W Y-12, is president and CEO of Consolidated Nuclear Security. The rest of the leadership team has not been revealed. The two plants are located in different states, 1,000 miles apart, but NNSA officials in a conference call with reporters said combining contracts is a way to help control costs while maintaining safety and security of facilities that are critical to the nation. At the end of the first year, there is an option to expand the contract to include the tritium operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Y-12/Pantex contracting strategy took more than four years to develop and carry out, and it didn't enjoy broad support at either site especially among union workers, who feared that the fever to cut costs would lead to large-scale layoffs. Details of the cost-cutting plans are not yet available, but Michael Lempke, a high-ranking official at the National Nuclear Security Administration, addressed the concerns in the teleconference. "CNS expects to offer jobs to over 95 percent of the existing employees, which is an extremely important number," Lempke said. He indicated savings would come from reducing duplicate support functions at the two sites, such as information technology, human resources, purchasing, and finance. Those reductions could actually free up funds to invest in highly skilled crafts or white-collar engineering jobs at Y-12 and Pantex, which is located northeast of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. If the work is expanded to include the tritium work at Savannah River, the total fee available to the Consolidated Nuclear Security over 10 years could reach $446 million. CNS also has a chance to earn additional money up to $226 million as its share of the government cost savings if those are carried out as proposed. The new contractor has a ton of experience in Department of Energy contracting, and both Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin have deep roots in Oak Ridge. Bechtel currently shares the management role at Y-12 in a partnership with Babcock & Wilcox, and the company also plays a similar role at Pantex, where nuclear warheads undergo their final assembly and their initial disassembly after being retired from the arsenal. Bechtel also headed the Bechtel Jacobs Co. partnership that managed the Department of Energy's environmental cleanup program in Oak Ridge from 1998 until 2011. Lockheed Martin (or its predecessor Martin Marietta) managed Y-12 for 16 years, 1984-2000. The other teams that competed for the multibillion-dollar contract were headed by Fluor and Babcock & Wilcox. It's not clear whether either or both teams will file protests on the contract award. Fluor declined to comment, while B&W said it would explore all its options. Lempke said the combined contract includes two major area, with one being management of the two sites and finishing the design of the Uranium Processing Facility, the multibillion-dollar production center planned for Y-12. The second involves the construction of UPF, and Consolidated Nuclear Security has been designated as the construction manager for that project although it's not yet clear who will actually build the UPF. Some observers believed the B&W-led team was the early favorite, but it may have been hurt by the July 28 security breach at Y-12. Lempke, however, said the incident or past performance in general were not the deciding factor in the award. SHARE Sarah Shebaro, an art history professor at Pellissippi State Community College and co-owner of Striped Light, works on a poster for an exhibition in May. Shebaro's studio at the Striped Light on Bearden Place was one of 28 participating in the Dogwood Art Festival's annual "Art DeTour" on Saturday, April 16. Sarah Moore works on a painting at Broadway Studios and Gallery on Saturday, April 16. Moore, who has been an artist her entire life, moved to Knoxville three months ago. "Painting is like meditation. You just staring at nice colors for a long time," she said. Artist and musician W. James Taylor reflects on his piece built around a score of Marvin Gaye's song, "Mercy Mercy Me" on Saturday, April 16. Taylor's studio at The Emporium Center on South Gay Street is just one of 28 in the region that is open to the public this weekend for Dogwood Arts annual two-day event, "Dogwood Art DeTour." By Travis Dorman, travis.dorman@knoxnews.com W. James Taylor drew some early inspiration for his art career from an unlikely source. The gallery of the 67-year-old artist's studio named Geneva after his mother at the Emporium Center on South Gay Street is adorned with abstract art, a hand-drawn portrait of President Barack Obama and landscapes full of birch trees. He said he was inspired to sell his paintings after meeting Anna Sandhu Ray the wife of James Earl Ray, assassin of civil-rights pioneer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Taylor's studio is one of 28 in the region open to the public this weekend for Dogwood Arts' annual two-day event, the Dogwood Art DeTour. The event allows the general public to experience the creative processes of artists of various media as they work in their everyday environments. Taylor said his art is ultimately about black history. The core of his artistic exploration is a three-part abstract piece called "Vicissitude," which depicts the past, present and future as he understood it as a young black man growing up in a racially-charged Knoxville in the 1960s. "Change is beautiful, but like vicissitude, it hurts. Change hurts, but it's essential, baby," Taylor said before picking up his guitar and playing "Mercy, Mercy Me" by Marvin Gaye. He incorporated the score of that song into an art piece that he sold for $5,000. Taylor said he began to sell his paintings after becoming friends with Anna Sandhu Ray, a sketch artist and painter, and seeing her sell landscape paintings. He hadn't realized before that he could make a living from his art. "That's when I saw people making money. I said, 'She's bringing this in? I can do this,' " Taylor said. Another participating business is Striped Light, a letterpress studio and Knoxville-centric record label that offers classes so patrons can learn about letterpress production and walk away with products they made themselves. Sarah Shebaro, an art history professor at Pellissippi State Community College, owns Striped Light with Bryan Baker and Jason Boardman. "I'm really excited about where this place is going to be in five years," Shebaro said. Shebaro's passion for letterpress stems from the inherent limitations of the medium, which force her to think creatively. "If you give me a few tools and put me in front of one of these presses with a couple cans of ink, I will never run out of ideas," she said. The Dogwood Art DeTour continues today from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. A full list of participating studios and their locations can be found online at www.dogwoodarts.com/dogwood-art-detour. SHARE Martha Buchanan, Director, Knox County Health Department. FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2016 file photo, samples of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, responsible for transmitting dengue and Zika, sit in a petri dish at the Fiocruz Institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. Zika may keep some foreign tourists from going to the Olympics, and it also poses a risk for young athletes. There is strong evidence the virus is to blame for an increase in birth defects. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, an Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. A new study suggests the worrisome Zika virus apparently has been in Brazil at least a year longer than experts previously thought. Some experts have speculated the virus first came to the Americas sometime in 2014. But the new study, led by Brazilian researchers, concludes Zika landed in Brazil a year earlier. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) By Michael Collins of the Knoxville News Sentinel WASHINGTON Dr. Tim Jones isn't looking to cause alarm. He just wants everyone to be ready. Public health officials in Tennessee are preparing for more cases of Zika virus to be reported in the state with summer and mosquito season approaching. Of the 346 cases of Zika confirmed in the continental U.S., only two have been reported in Tennessee and, like all the others, both involved people who had recently traveled to other countries or territories where the virus is prevalent. But with federal health officials warning last week that a Zika outbreak could affect much of the United States and potentially overwhelm federal resources, states like Tennessee are stepping up their preparations for whatever may come. "We know we're going to have more cases" in Tennessee, said Jones, the state epidemiologist. "With what we know now or what we reasonably expect to happen in the coming months, I think we are doing everything that can be done." The state recently updated its testing lab so that, within hours, it is capable of confirming suspected cases of Zika, Jones said. Confirming the two previously reported cases took weeks because the state relied on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do the lab work. "They obviously have a huge backlog, and it was taking three weeks or a month once we sent a sample down there for them to get the results out," Jones said. With the changes to the state lab, "we would be getting results back in a day," he said. The state also has begun requiring cases of microcephaly a birth defect linked to Zika be reported to public health officials. A state registry has been put in place to enable public health officials to closely track pregnant women with Zika throughout their pregnancies. State officials also are starting to hold regional training sessions for mayors, public works departments and other local officials to educate them about Zika and prevention efforts. In addition, the state is reaching out to faith-based groups who may be conducting missionary trips and students who may be spending spring break in high-risk areas to advise them on the proper use of mosquito repellent, protective clothing and other precautions they should take to avoid contracting the virus. At a White House briefing last week, federal health officials stressed that while states have made progress in preparing for an outbreak of Zika, "they really have a lot of homework to do," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC. "It's not just the health department this is an all-of-government, all-of-community effort," Schuchat said. "People need to take personal responsibility, as well as what the community is doing." Zika is spread primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito, but also can be transmitted through sexual contact. Officials initially thought the mosquito that can carry the virus was limited to a dozen states but acknowledged last week it is present in at least 30 states, including Tennessee, and reaches much farther northward than anticipated. While much about the virus is still unknown, Zika has been linked to various birth defects, including premature birth, blindness and smaller brain size caused by microcephaly, Schuchat said. "The more we learn, the more concerned actually we get in some respects with regard to what this virus can do," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The first testing on humans for a Zika vaccine probably won't begin until September, Fauci said. In Shelby County, where one of the two Tennessee cases has been confirmed, public health officials have been working closely with the state to keep on top of the latest developments about Zika, said Alisa Haushalter, director of the county health department. While there is no statewide mosquito-eradication program in Tennessee, Shelby County has a robust program that has been in place for years because of the region's history with yellow fever epidemics. The county spends $2.5 million per year on mosquito control. Funding for the program comes from a 75-cent tax on monthly utility bills. Mosquitos and larvae are captured and tested for different diseases, such as West Nile virus. The county is buying additional equipment that will allow it to capture the type of mosquito that can spread Zika, Haushalter said. Because of the area's geography and climate, mosquito season in the Memphis area starts around mid-April and can run all the way through October. Spraying is done only in targeted areas, but property owners can assist in mosquito eradication by emptying birdbaths or outdoor water bowls and getting rid of other pools of standing water that might be a mosquito breeding ground, Haushalter said. Knox County also is preparing to step up its mosquito elimination program as needed, said Dr. Martha Buchanan, director of the county health department. In addition, she said, the county is working to educate businesses and other groups on Zika and is planning to post signs in the airport advising travelers to recognize the symptoms, which include a fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis (red eyes). The best defense is for Tennesseans to educate themselves about Zika and know how to protect themselves from contracting the virus, Jones said. "We don't want them to stay up at night, being afraid or canceling picnics," he said. "That is not warranted." For more information on Zika, see http://tn.gov/health/topic/zika-virus. SHARE There's something mesmerizing about a billionaire leading in the GOP presidential race whining in public about not being treated fairly. "It's unfair. It's unfair," says Donald Trump. "Our Republican system is absolutely rigged. It's a phony deal. They wanted to keep people out. This is a dirty trick." Oh, the pathos. The real estate mogul is upset that Ted Cruz is outwitting him when it comes to counting actual delegates in a few states such as Colorado even though he, Trump, has "millions and millions more votes than anybody else." A Trump presidency would be exhausting. It's always, always, always all about Trump. If he's not the center of attention, the corpse at the funeral, he's not happy. And he lets everyone know it. This is what's unfair, Mr. Trump: A single mom gets her son a job at her workplace. They compare paychecks. He gets a dollar an hour more than she does. Women who work full time get only 78 cents for every dollar that men earn. That is $10,600 less every year on average. Trump's response: "I love the women." Here's what unfair, Mr. Trump: Worried about displaced workers, President Barack Obama proposed the American Jobs Act, a $447 billion package of economic actions, including construction jobs to improve crumbling infrastructure and cuts in payroll taxes. Your Republican Party, Mr. Trump, of which you so desperately want to be the standard-bearer, killed it. The president then proposed help for working parents through higher tax credits for child care. Republicans killed it. As economist and Wall Street executive Steven Rattner points out, the Republicans then systematically killed plans for expansion of the earned income tax credit, new rules to let retirement plans be portable, tax credits for manufacturing communities and community college investments. In other words, every proposal the administration came up with to help the struggling middle class was shot down, with venom, by Republicans. Trump promises to be the "best jobs creator that God ever made." He does not say how he would do this. Providing pie-in-the-sky promises to frustrated Americans who just want to have good jobs and take care of their families that's unfair. Some states have expanded Medicaid payments to take care of the poor and working poor who need operations and medicine and treatment for illness. But 19 states have refused federal money to help impoverished residents. To be denied proper health because of the state you live in that's unfair. It's totally unfair that we have to waste our time listening to Trump spout nonsense and complaining about how unfairly he is being treated by people he despises and who, increasingly, don't care much for him. Ann McFeatters is a columnist for Tribune News Service. She may be reached at amcfeatters@nationalpress.com. Local news filled the Feb. 2, 1887, edition of The Knoxville Sentinel, the earliest surviving copy of the newspaper founded a few months earlier. Some stories dealt with the city's progress. F.C. Beamon was developing a "pleasure resort" on his farm outside of town, and a company was subdividing land on Dale Avenue for "handsome cottages." Other news dealt with community problems, including an article on the apparent suicide of a well-known doctor from an overdose of morphine. Some 40 years later, the Sentinel merged with the Knoxville News, an upstart launched by the Scripps-Howard company. The News-Sentinel announced its birth on Nov. 22, 1926, and also reported that Scripps had acquired five other newspapers, bringing its total to 25, "the largest number of daily newspapers under one ownership in the world." So, the more things change, the more they stay the same? Last week, the News Sentinel announced it had become part of Gannett, now the nation's largest newspaper company with 107 local dailies and USA Today. The combined company is a journalism powerhouse that has won 66 Pulitzer Prizes and employs 3,800 journalists across the United States. Then our newsroom immediately went back to work reporting local news. As in 1887, stories last week documented progress from completion of a dog park in Maryville to plans for nuclear generators in Oak Ridge and highlighted problems women dealing with opiate addiction and suicides at the Gatlinburg Space Needle and the James White Parkway. But history is not simply repeating itself. As part of Gannett, the News Sentinel becomes something it never has been before, a partner of a nationwide news network. The USA TODAY NETWORK is a new and unique enterprise designed for today's news environment. It links USA Today, the nation's No. 1 newspaper, with community news operations in 34 states and Guam, and it lets journalists collaborate across multiple platforms that reach more than 100 million digital users a month. "That means we operate as one focused organization where local stories feed national news, and national news connects with local relevance," explained Bob Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett. A recent example was an investigation of teachers who were fired for wrongdoing in one state then hired again in others states. The project prompted a nationwide audit of teacher misconduct and further probes in eight states, including Tennessee. The potential for working together is especially rich in this state, where news operations in Memphis, Nashville, Jackson, Clarksville, Murfreesboro and smaller communities join the News Sentinel as part of the USA TODAY NETWORK. Already statewide collaborations are in the works, and results will begin appearing as early as this week. Job 1 for the News Sentinel remains serving the greater Knoxville community just as it has been for 129 years. Gannett shares that commitment unequivocally. But as part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, our reach and resources now are greater than ever before. House Speaker Beth Harwell left Democrats howling and some fellow Republicans scratching their heads with the announcement last week that she has set up a task force to contemplate how to deal with health care coverage for poor Tennesseans. Of course, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam proposed in late 2014 his idea on how to deal with those folks after more than a year of contemplation and compromising. It was called Insure Tennessee and was summarily shot down last year by the Republican supermajority, with Harwell waffling, refusing to either support or oppose a plan denounced as part of GOP-despised Obamacare by critics and defended by Haslam as an innovative way to expand Medicaid. The governor, who has created dozens of task forces to study stuff while avoiding a decision on various matters, was on hand at the announcement of Harwell's "3-Star Healthy Project" to praise participants for taking a "political risk" in being willing to even talk about such things. Actually, there doesn't seem to be much political risk here. Harwell waited until after the qualifying deadline for legislative candidates had passed before setting up the task force. She and all four Republican representatives appointed to the panel now have no opposition in GOP primaries. It may be worth noting, though, that all four and Harwell do have Democratic opponents waiting in November. Ergo, any political risk they face is from underdog Democrats. So the task force is arguably more akin to a political insurance policy being taken out just in case something extremely unlikely but conceivable should occur comparable, say, to the average homeowner thinking about the house getting hit by a tornado. And there has been some stormy political weather lately. Why, at the Legislative Plaza last week, one could even hear speculation that Harwell herself could be at risk for re-election to her Nashville House seat. In 2014 she won re-election with 14,839 votes to 8,601 for an unknown and underfunded Democrat. Since then, Harwell has been specifically targeted by Insure Tennessee proponents for criticism while polls show that most Tennesseans even many Republicans support the governor's plan. Democrats do so unanimously and will make it a central campaign issue. The speaker has also endured a fair amount of criticism over her handling of allegations that Rep. Jeremy Durham engaged in sexual harassment. Throw in the possibility that the 2016 Republican presidential nominee will be someone not really popular with all Republicans Donald Trump, say, or Ted Cruz and, well, it's still not likely that Harwell could lose. But Tennessee does have tornados on occasion, political or otherwise. Democrats' reaction to the Harwell task force it's a "charade," a political gimmick, they say was both predictable and understandable. Republican head-scratching, meanwhile, was especially notable over in the Senate. No senators and no Democrats are included in the task force membership. One Republican senator dubbed the proposal Insure Harwell. A Democrat predicted the resulting recommendations will be known as Harwellcare. Rep. Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, who will chair the "3-Star Healthy Project," insists this is not a political stunt. The idea, he says, is to come up with a "pilot project" maybe incorporating some aspects of Insure Tennessee that could be sold to both federal officials and the supermajority as an experiment, theoretically forming the basis for a long-term solution that could become permanent sometime during the next president's administration. That's an admirable goal, of course, albeit one that seems unlikely to succeed in the present political environment at both the state and federal level, as indicated by the widespread lack of acclaim received with last week's rollout of the Harwellian experiment. The chances are perhaps about the same as dramatic Democratic gains in this fall's legislative elections. Still, if the real goal is to provide a little political insurance coverage, maybe it will help a bit even if there are some gaping holes there. After all, some insurance is surely better than none, right? Most of the 280,000 or so Tennesseans who would benefit from Insure Tennessee would surely agree. Even if it's just Harwellcare. Read more from Tom Humphrey on "Humphrey on the Hill:" SHARE House Speaker Beth Harwell announced on Wednesday the formation of a task force to study expanding health insurance coverage to more low-income Tennesseans. Though the proposal has some puzzling dimensions, it represents a welcome step toward providing more people in our state access to health care. Tennessee is one of 19 states that have opted not to expand their Medicaid programs as allowed under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Last year, after 18 months of planning in consultation with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Gov. Bill Haslam pushed Insure Tennessee as an alternative to simply expanding TennCare, the state's Medicaid program. The bill died in Senate committees, leaving an estimated 280,000 low-income Tennesseans without access to insurance coverage and placing rural hospitals at financial risk. Conceived as a two-year pilot program, Insure Tennessee consists of two plans. One would provide financial assistance to people with access to employer-provided insurance but who cannot afford coverage. The other would feature a combination of TennCare benefits and health care accounts containing credits that could be applied to copays and premiums. Participants could earn additional credits for healthy life choices such as quitting smoking. Importantly, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already given provisional approval of the plan and the Tennessee Hospital Association pledged to cover any costs not borne by the federal government. The state could opt out if the federal government or the hospital association back out of their commitments. With Haslam at her side, Harwell said on Wednesday her "3-Star Healthy Project" task force would apply "conservative Tennessee principles" to come up with a plan to take to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in June. She envisions the plan would largely consist of experimental pilot programs, with limited enrollment and features like health savings accounts, premiums and incentives for healthy behaviors by enrollees and "circuit breakers" that would halt the programs if costs exceed projections. In other words, it would be a remixed and hopefully politically palatable version of Insure Tennessee. The task force members either opposed Insure Tennessee or hold key House committee positions. They are Cameron Sexton of Crossville, the task force chairman, who chairs the House Health Committee; Steve McManus of Memphis, who chairs the Insurance and Banking Committee; Roger Kane of Knoxville, who is in the insurance industry; and Matthew Hill of Jonesborough. All are Republicans. There are no senators on the task force. Coming just after the qualifying deadline for the August primary, the timing of the announcement seemed based on election-year politics. All the task force members are unopposed in the primary and now are safe from challengers who could count on an avalanche of negative advertising from ultra-conservative groups opposed to any type of Medicaid expansion. Democrats, who by and large supported Insure Tennessee, were unimpressed with Harwell's effort. "What a sad political joke. What a political charade," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Stewart of Nashville. Harwell's proposal could be seen as an indication GOP lawmakers are looking for a politically acceptable way to overcome their aversion to anything connected to the Affordable Care Act. Polls show a solid bipartisan majority of Tennesseans support Insure Tennessee. The task force is charged with achieving in two months what the Haslam administration spent a year and a half doing arriving at a plan the federal government would approve that would not cost the state a single additional penny. Task force members would be wise use the governor's sound, fiscally and socially responsible plan as the centerpiece of their effort. 1:17 p.m. April 17, 2016 Face of Defense: Marine Aids Victims of Ambulance Crash By Marine Corps Cpl. Neysa Huertas Quinones Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point Marine Corps Cpl. Joseph Currey, left, salutes Lt. Col. Jeremy Winters, right, during an award ceremony at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., March 1, 2016. Currey was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for his actions after witnessing an ambulance wreck. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Austin Lewis. MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C., April 14, 2016 On a recent early morning while heading here for work, Marine Corps Cpl. Joseph Currey found himself rushing to aid the victims of a crashed ambulance on the side of a busy road. Currey joined others at the scene as they quickly reacted to the crash and provided medical aid to the injured patient and paramedics. Before Currey arrived, an ambulance took a sharp turn after a collision with a truck and flipped into a ditch. The ambulance was transporting a heart attack patient to a local hospital. Currey, certified at the time, performed CPR on the patient and helped injured emergency response personnel out of the ambulance. Fast-Moving Events It all happened so fast, Currey recalled. I realized the ambulance was on its side, and the first thing that dawned to me was, Well, their lights are on, so they must be transporting someone or they are going somewhere. He added, I automatically assumed they were transporting someone, because they were headed in the direction of the nearest hospital. I thought to myself, If there was someone in there, it must have been serious, and this situation only made it worse. Currey is an air support operations operator with Marine Aviation Support Squadron 1 and will be shortly deploying with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for serving others as he placed the well-being of the injured personnel above his own. Helping Others I joined the Marine Corps so I did not have to look back 70 years from now and regret not becoming a Marine and being part of something greater, Currey said. My favorite thing about the Corps is getting to help others. Its a trait that was instilled in me while I was growing. My mother always went out of her way to help others in any way she could. If you help someone out, it all pays off in the long run. Currey joined the Marine Corps alongside his step-brother after working with his family in a telephone company after high school. He said he decided joining the Corps would allow him to serve his country and provide a title he would carry for the rest of his life. Being a Marine allows me to not only serve my country, but it also gives me many opportunities that being a civilian would not have given me, he said, whether its a crash on the side of the road or giving a fellow Marine a hand. We all come together for one another regardless of where we come from, he continued. The day of the crash, I knew some of the people helping with the crash were Marines, even in civilian clothes. We all might not have known each other, or even know each others names now, but we all came together for something bigger than ourselves that day, and to me thats what being a Marine means. Published April 17, 2016 The South Korean government is considering allowing local retailers to open as many as four more duty free shops in Seoul in a bid to capitalize on an influx of Chinese tourists, informed sources said Sunday. Competition is heating up among retail giants here to win the licenses to enter the lucrative market amid sluggish domestic spending. The Korea Customs Service plans to make its final decision within this month on whether to issue additional licenses, according to the finance and culture ministries. The number of foreign tourists in Seoul rose by 15.7 million on-year in 2014, official data showed. Especially, South Korea's mega-hit drama "Descendants of the Sun" has added fuel to the so-called Korea Wave in China, attracting travelers from the neighboring country. "There is a view that it's right to increase the number of duty free shops in Seoul to the maximum in order to ride on this opportunity," said an official on the government's task force on improving the duty free shop system. Some call for four additional duty free shops, but relevant authorities are in consultations on ways to grant up to four more licenses, according to the source. Government officials said they will put the top priority on promoting the tourism industry and boosting the economy. "Nothing has been decided yet," an official said. "The duty free shop business is not an industry subject to regulations on protecting small and medium-sized firms. Although competition among relevant firms needs to be considered, what's more important is to promote tourism." Another government official also pointed out that it does not matter "if the cat is black or white" should it help draw foreign tourists. Last year, the government gave out new licenses to HDC Shilla Duty Free, Hanwha Galleria and SM Duty Free to open outlets in Seoul. Lotte Duty Free and SK Networks lost out in their bids to renew their licenses to Doosan and Shinsegae. (Yonhap) South Korea's top economic policymaker said the government will speed up its push for corporate restructuring this year, especially in the shipbuilding and shipping sectors. Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho underscored the urgency of restructuring in such troubled industries, saying the government won't sit back. "We can't defer the restructuring of those oversupplied and susceptible industries anymore. We should hurry up," he told reporters Friday, while visiting Washington for a G-20 forum. "Let me handle the issue in person." Prime targets will likely include beleaguered shipbuilding and shipping firms, such as Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. and Hanjin Shipping Co., in case their self-restructuring efforts end in failure. "The government has no other choice but to take action if shipping firms' restructuring is not carried out as planned," Yoo said. He stressed the importance of timing following last week's general elections and ahead of the presidential polls late next year. The remainder of this year is opportune, in that sense, as the current administration is relatively free from political burdens, industry watchers agreed. (Yonhap) Paper for India's 50 rupee banknote is produced at a factory of the Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) in Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province. The state-run company exports its banknote paper to countries including India, Indonesia and Peru. / Courtesy of KOMSCO By Kim Jae-won BUYEO, South Chungcheong Province If you look at the left side of the 10,000 won banknote under the light, you may see a portrait of King Sejong and the number 10,000 hidden in the space. They are sealed in the paper even before the note is printed to prevent it from being copied. "That is one of three secrets hidden in the banknote," said Park Kyoung-taig, a director at the Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corporation (KOMSCO), during a tour of the company's factory in this old city, last week. KOMSCO is a state-run company specialized in manufacturing banknotes and coins. The trip was offered by the company to 30 correspondents covering the Bank of Korea. Park said that the 50,000 won note has two more secrets: a silver line and colored threads. In the left side of the 50,000 note, a 4-milimeter silver line is drawn on the paper, a sign guaranteeing that it is real. Part of the line is hidden inside the paper. And small colored threads are scattered inside the paper, which are visible only under ultraviolet light, another technique to thwart counterfeits. Thanks to the technologies, the company exports its banknote paper to countries, including India, Indonesia and Peru. It had provided banknotes to China before, but the country stopped ordering them after developing its own technology. "About 10 countries in the world have such technologies. We are one of top five players in the market, along with those from the U.S., Italy and Russia," said the director. At the company's factory, workers were making paper for India's 50 rupee notes where a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi is hidden in the same way as King Sejong is concealed. Buyeo was the capital of the Baekje Kingdom which governed the southwestern part of the Korean Peninsula for centuries until it was conquered by the neighboring Silla in 660. Workers were proud that the factory is offering "the rice of the financial market" to overseas countries. Most of them are graduates of vocational high schools with excellent records. "Many of them gave up chances to go to college to make money for their family," said Park. "They are skilled workers and are proud of producing the banknotes." The banknotes are made of cotton paper manufactured at KOMSCO's subsidiary in Uzbekistan, a key producer of cotton. As they are made of soft fiber, banknotes can regain their form after getting wet if they are dried properly, the company said. Kim Hwa-dong, CEO of the state-run company, said that he is seeking new revenue sources to cope with the low local demand for banknotes as more and more people use credit and debit cards for payments. The demand for hard currency is dwindling further as consumers also pay with their smartphones through mobile payment systems, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. He said the company is applying its copy-preventing technologies to making identification cards and passports. Developing security software programs is another business that the company is running. "KOMSCO is focusing on developing information protection services and security technologies in the public sector, using our excellent digital security technologies," said Kim. "We aim to contribute to strengthening the country's competitiveness by making Korean society more trustworthy." By Kim Jae-won Korea's dependence on trade fell to an eight-year low last year, as the nation's exports and imports dropped sharply amid the global economic slowdown, according to the central bank Sunday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) said the country's trade dependency ratio marked 88.1 percent in 2015, down from 98.6 percent in 2014. The trade dependency ratio is the ratio of exports and imports to gross national income. Analysts attributed the drop to the declining trade volume of Asia's fourth-largest economy. The nation's exports in goods dropped 10.5 percent to $548.8 billion last year from the year before, while imports tumbled 18.2 percent to $428.5 billion, according to BOK data. The announcement came after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its growth forecast for the country earlier this month to 2.7 percent, citing the downturn in China's imports. The Washington, D.C.-based organization said Korea is one of Asia's advanced economies experiencing weakening growth due to sluggish exports to China. BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol also expected the country's gross domestic product to increase less than 3 percent this year, as Korea struggles to cope with uncertainties in the global market as well as low domestic demand. Economists said Korea's swiftly declining exports are worrisome because that leads to slow economic growth. They advised stimulating domestic consumption and foreign trade. Market watchers said the ratio will fall further this year based on first-quarter trade data, which dropped sharply. According to customs data, Korea's exports tumbled 13.1 percent to $116 billion during the January-March period from the same period a year earlier. Imports plunged 16.3 percent to $93.6 billion. The trade dependency ratio was the lowest since 2007, when it slumped to 81.6 percent. The next year, it spiked to 104.5 percent as exports drove growth while domestic demand plunged due to the global financial crisis. But the ratio decreased to 94.6 percent in 2009 and 99.8 percent in 2010. It rebounded to 112.8 percent in 2012 and 106.1 percent in 2013, before falling to 98.6 percent in 2014 and 88.1 percent last year. By Kim Jae-kyoung DBS CEO Piyush Gupta SINGAPORE Korea needs to improve its regulatory and tax system to become a leading financial center in Asia, according to Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) CEO Piyush Gupta. In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Gupta said that Korea should take a cue from Singapore in four key areas regulations, taxation, the legal system and business environment to transform the country into a place attractive to foreign investors. "Singapore built a reputation as a global financial hub because it is open but also well-regulated. It is well-known for its transparent and robust regulatory infrastructure, strong legal system, and supportive tax regime," he said. "At the same time, the city has a sizeable talent corps, and has over the years, transformed itself into a dynamic, vibrant and fun city which has made it an attractive place to live, work and play," he added. "These are some strengths Korea can emulate." Despite the government's efforts to make Seoul a financial hub in Asia, Korea has been losing attractiveness as a financial center. This year, Barclays Capital decided to withdraw its investment banking division; following Citigroup (consumer finance) and Royal Bank of Scotland last year, and HSBC (retail banking) in 2013. UBS has also returned its banking license. Gupta, who served as Citigroup's CEO for Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand prior to joining DBS in late 2009, said that Korean banks need to better understand the dynamics of markets where they enter when pursuing globalization. "Korean banks should have a clear, well-defined strategy, know the geographies and businesses you want to be in, and focus accordingly," he said. "An understanding of local markets is important, which is why we believe in hiring locally in all the geographic areas we are in," he added. "It is also important to have a common set of processes, policies and a one-bank culture across the markets." Korean banks need to cope with the rapidly changing business circumstances through two major tasks globalization and digitization. Seen are headquarters of Korea's major banks. / Korea Times DBS CEO says digitalization will be game changer By Kim Jae-kyoung SINGAPORE For Korean banks, there are two key urgent issues to address for sustainable growth globalization and digitalization. Over the past few years, Korean lenders have been striving to expand their global presence and to develop digital strategies but their efforts came to little fruition and they are still lagging behind global leaders. The Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), considered a leading Asian bank both in globalization and digitalization, is a good example that shows how Korean players must reinvent themselves to become a leading player. In an interview with The Korea Times, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta cited five key success factors that have set DBS apart from other lenders in Asia innovation, Asian focus, disciplined execution, a clear strategy and an engaged workforce. He said that banks should be well aware of how technology disruption is reshaping the banking industry, while developing new strategies to stay competitive against new competitors equipped with innovations in digital payment and data. "Banking is being disrupted by technology and to stay relevant, banks like ourselves need to re-imagine banking, and make it simpler, easier and smarter for customers," he said. "By focusing on the innovation and customer agenda, we've been able to improve customer satisfaction and gain market share." Gupta, who served as Citigroup's CEO for Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand prior to joining DBS, said that its strong focus on Asia in globalization has made DBS more competitive and adaptive to new changes. "Our regional expansion, through both organic and inorganic growth, stems from the belief that it is possible to have an Asian niche, and to occupy the sweet spot between a local and global bank," he said. "At the same time, we benefit from the fact that despite our growth, we are what I call a Goldilocks size small enough to be nimble, big enough to matter," he added. "This has allowed us to move quickly to capitalize on business opportunities as they arise." DBS acquired Dao Heng Bank in Hong Kong in 2001, the "good bank" assets of Bowa Bank in Taiwan in 2008, and more recently, the private banking assets of SocGen in Singapore and Hong Kong. The veteran banker said that it is important to have a clear strategy that prescribes areas of priority, citing a strategic roadmap he unveiled in early 2010 after he took the helm of the lender in late 2009. "The first set of priorities was geographic, which highlighted what the bank needed to achieve in Singapore, Hong Kong and other key Asian markets," he said. "The second set of priorities was centered on businesses which DBS wanted to build regionally, namely, wealth, SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises), transaction banking and the customer component of treasury and markets." He also stressed that disciplined execution against strategy is a must for a bank to achieve sustainable growth. "Having a good strategy is only the start. Over the past six years, our performance has been catalyzed by aligning an entire organization of 22,000 people behind common goals," he said. Finally, the chief executive said that banks should seek ways to create a highly engaged workforce by establishing a fun culture and sharing core values. Song Joong-ki, left, and Song Hye-kyo in a scene from "Descendants of the Sun" / Courtesy of KBS Song Joong-ki speaks at a media meeting, Friday. / Courtesy of Blossom Entertainment By Park Jin-hai The megahit drama "Descendants of the Sun" that has swept Asia, creating a new fandom for the past two months, hit its grand finale Thursday. Song Joong-ki, featured as Yoo Si-jin, the captain of a South Korean special forces unit in the military romance drama, has been at the center of attention all along. He said that he is pretty much satisfied with his performance despite controversies over excessive nationalism and product placement in the drama. "I've heard diverse opinions and criticisms. But, I would like to say that I am satisfied with playing the role," said Song during an interview at the Grand Hyatt Seoul, Friday. "Many of the controversies are beyond my control and if I comment on them it would bring more misunderstandings to the drama. Since drama belongs to the viewers and I think whatever their thoughts are is right." As for the implication of nationalism, Song made it clear that he had not intended to feature the role in that sense. "While I was playing the scene where Capt. Yoo salutes the national flag on an overseas mission, I was not acting in that mind. I thought that moment is the time that Yoo pledges to his family and loved ones that he is well and he will return home safe so don't worry." Below is an excerpt from the interview with the 30-year-old actor. Q: You came back from a promotional tour of "Descendants" in Hong Kong. Did you feel the popularity there? A: I've read about the drama's popularity overseas, but it was the first time that I witnessed for myself how many fans there were. After the promotion, I went out to the street for a magazine photo shoot, and there I really felt that so many people had seen the drama. It was so surprising and I felt much joy. Q: The drama has been a huge hit, changing your life a lot. You've grown from a rookie to the most-sought-after celebrity. Do you struggle to keep the same determinations you had when you started out? A: That's a question that I ask myself a lot these days. I try to stay the same but I also think that change is inevitable. What I mean is, if you stay the same as in your rookie days, you can't deal with all the new responsibilities you are faced with. It means that I feel responsibility to all the staff members and my fans and that I will not let them down. All things aside, though, I try to stay true to myself. People say I'm a hallyu celebrity now, but I don't really feel that way. My recognition has risen for a moment following the drama. I learn a lot from people like Song Hye-kyo, heroine of the "Descendants," and Lee Kwang-soo, a cast member of variety show "Running Man." They are the ones that are really hallyu stars. Q: Haven't you feel some kind of repulsion with the too-cheesy lines that screenwriter Kim Eun-sook wrote? A: While I was acting, I didn't feel that way. Even the lines some might think so, I had confidence that I could deliver them my own style, buffering the part that might sound slightly cheesy. When I work with other people, I try to make up for their shortcomings with my strengths, and I let others make up for my flaws with their strengths. I think my job is an art of coordination. Q: Capt. Yoo has been a diehard and immortal character, surviving gunshots. Didn't you think that he was unrealistic? A: He comes back to life after whatever happens. That was actually what I liked about him. I regard the "Descendants" as a melodrama and all scenes have been the trappings to increase the element of romance, I thought. In that sense, I am very satisfied and have great respect for the decisions of the writers. Q: You are strong in acting "melo" scenes. Is there a secret recipe? A: Whether it be melo or not, I think the import thing is to play by the book. I refer to the book and script all the time. I try to think why the writer wrote the particular scene at that time. If I had to say the secret recipe for acting melodrama, I think it comes from myself in real life. I have a belief that when I do melo scenes, I try to make them less cheesy. Q: Do you in real life resemble Capt. Yoo? A: I think I am a conservative, not-so-cool kind of guy. But acting out Yoon, I learned a lot about how women love to be treated. The character explains why female fans are so into this character. I particularly learned a lot about what women want to hear from their men. By Jhoo Dong-chan Mount Baekdu, located on the border between China and North Korea, has recently shown signs that it could erupt, according to a geologist. Readings from a Russian satellite show that the mountain's surface temperature has risen significantly since before October 2006. The temperature of Chonji, the 850-meter-deep crater caldera lake on top of Mount Baekdu, has constantly increased by a few degrees since 1999, according to a Chinese volcanic observatory. Public concern has grown over a possible eruption of the volcanic mountain especially after a series of small earthquakes in the region occurred between 2002 and 2005. "It would be a catastrophic disaster if Mount Baekdu had a full scale eruption," Yoon Seong-hyo, a geology professor at Pusan National University told the Korea Times. "Historical records show that a full-scale eruption of Mount Baekdu took place about 1,100 years ago. It recorded over VEI (Volcanic explosivity index) 7 magnitude." The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which is considered to be the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century after the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Alaska, recorded a VEI of 6, according to Yoon. The National Institute of Korean History announced Monday that 47 authors will write government-led history textbooks for middle and high school students, but will not disclose their names until a later date. / Yonhap By Kim Se-jeong A total of 47 authors will participate in writing government-sponsored history textbooks for middle and high school students, but their names will continue to be kept secret, the National Institute of Korean History said Monday, fueling outrage among opponents of the project. The institute in charge of the new textbooks said it put the authors' privacy and independence ahead of the public's right to know, because the authors need to concentrate on writing without disruption. The government initially planned to recruit 25 authors and directly invite 11 more for a total of 36 members. But the final number was 47 26 will author two textbooks for middle schools, while 21 will work on one high school textbook. The government also said 17 of the writers were selected through an open contest, which received applications from 56 schoolteachers, professors and researchers. Another 30 have been invited by the government. "We are confident that these authors will write textbooks that are fair, fun and easy to read," an institute official said. Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union members demand immediate cancellation of the government's move for state-authored history textbooks, during a press conference at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul, Wednesday. / Yonhap By Jhoo Dong-chan More than 16,000 teachers have expressed their opposition to the government's move for state-authored history textbooks, the second collective action by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union (KTU). Despite the Ministry of Education's threat to take disciplinary action against them, the unionized teachers pushed ahead with their plan to issue a second statement, Wednesday. "The government is trying to distort our national history and destroy democracy with the state-compiled textbooks," the KTU said during a press conference at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul. "It is a dictatorial regime that makes history regress, makes education a slave to power, and ignores people's desperate voices," it said. The union claimed that the government is attempting to manipulate the people's historical consciousness and criminalize teachers who refuse to comply with the misguided policy. "It is a shame that our future generations will not be able to learn our true history and will be deprived of various viewpoints." A total of 16,318 teachers from 3,532 schools nationwide endorsed the second statement, while 21,379 teachers from 3,904 schools participated in signing the first statement on Oct. 29. The union said non-KTU members also took part, but did not say how many. By Kim Se-jeong Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a civic group consisting of progressive lawyers, said Friday that it will file a lawsuit against the government, demanding the release of identities of 47 authors recruited to write the state-authored history textbooks for middle and high schools. "The writers and compilation editors are involved in the making of the textbooks for middle and high schools," the group said. "The necessity of releasing the list is big for the public interest to secure transparency and justification." The move came after one of the 47 writers recently resigned from authorship amid a controversy over his qualifications, as he has taught history for only nine months. He had been a commerce teacher for nine years. Also, Choi Mong-ryong, professor emeritus of Seoul National University, quit from the writing team over a sexual harassment allegation in November. Choi was one of the two leading authors. The group also pointed out that even in 1973 the Park Chung-hee regime made public the identities of history textbook writers. A South Korean rapid response team arrived in Japan on Sunday to help any possible South Korean victims in the wake of deadly earthquakes that struck Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture last week. After arriving in Japan, the four-member team will look into whether any South Koreans have been affected by the quakes although no South Korean casualties have so far been reported. If any damage is found, the team will provide assistance to South Koreans who need help, according to the foreign ministry in charge of the dispatch. A 7.3-magnitude temblor hit Kumamoto Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu at around 1:25 a.m. Saturday, less than two days after a 6.5-magnitude quake struck the same region. The quakes killed 34 people and injured some 2,000 others, according to Japanese media. Kumamoto Prefecture is home to about 1,000 South Koreans. The South Korean Consulate General in Fukuoka established an emergency response team following the earthquakes, which is constantly contacting the Japanese government and South Korean communities to see if there are any South Korean casualties. South Koreans staying in Kumamoto and its broader Kyushu area have also been told to be on alert, according to the foreign ministry. (Yonhap) President Park faces call to change governing style By Kim Hyo-jin Two opposition parties the Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) and the People's Party have agreed to join forces in an effort to block the Park Geun-hye administration's plan to introduce a state-authored history textbook, party officials said Sunday. The move presents the first grave challenge to the conservative government, following the ruling Saenuri Party's heavy losses in Wednesday's general election. The MPK and the People's Party won 123 and 38 of 300 seats, respectively, while Saenuri secured 122 seats after previously holding a majority of 157 seats. "We will push for a resolution to block a move to introduce the state-authored history textbook along with the Minjoo Party," said Lee Sang-don, a lawmaker-elect and former co-chairman of the election planning committee of the People's Party. Lee said the government's plan to introduce the state textbook represents the arrogance and self-righteousness of the Park administration. "The MPK and the People's Party can secure a majority of seats if they work together. The passage of the resolution will come smoothly," he said, adding a motion to dismiss the education minister will be endorsed easily once filed by the party. The MPK welcomed the proposal of the People's Party. "There's no reason to oppose such move as we've already promised to scrap the state-authored textbook if we had become the largest party," said Kim Sung-soo, the MPK's spokesperson and a lawmaker-elect. "The floor leaders will soon begin to discuss its proceeding." The proposed opposition coalition against the state textbook came amid increasing calls for President Park to change her style of governance to avoid political conflicts following her party's election defeat. Park is now being asked to communicate more with opposition parties in dealing with state affairs. Dump Park's textbooks Foreign historians cry foul against textbook plan Lawyers to file suit for release of identities of textbook writers Teachers issue another statement against state-authored textbook 47 selected to write state-led history textbooks The opposition camp has been against the move to reinstate the state-published history textbook for secondary school students, last year. Despite intensified criticism by civic groups and the opposition bloc, the Park administration pushed ahead with the plan with support of the ruling party, and now the Ministry of Education is working on re-writing the textbook to distribute it in 2017. The MPK proposed a bill to ban the government from writing textbooks in protest in December but it's pending in the related-committee. The move is regarded as indicative that the opposition bloc, which outnumbers the ruling party, will join forces on sensitive issues, say observers. "Considering a resolution is not legally-binding, the parties' move is likely to end up as a symbolic muscle-flexing gesture against the Park administration," Kim Soo-jin, a politics professor at Ewha Womans University. "But if they move onto an anti-government textbook bill, the ruling party will be put in a difficult position while the Park administration loses momentum in the remaining term." Lee commented that the People's Party is taking a detour with a resolution because pushing for a bill is likely to be blocked by the Saenuri Party. Under the current Assembly Law, 60 percent of 300 lawmakers should agree to put up a bill for a vote. He still hinted that pushing for the bill remains the next step and the MPK has also adopted a positive stance on this. "We should seek any type of attempt as long as it can stop the implementation of the state-issued history textbook," said MPK's lawmaker Do Jong-hwan. "We will join hands with the People's Party either it is for the pending bill or a resolution." "The partisan conflicts will be exacerbated surrounding the issue now that the opposition bloc can exert power with the election victory," Kim Wook, a politics professor of Pai Chai University. "Park is now required to change her unilateral and high-handed attitude in working with the legislature. The only way to survive her lame duck period is with an open mind for negotiation and meeting half way with the opposition bloc." Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairman of the minority opposition People's Party, speaks to reporters during a visit to the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju, Sunday. Ahn thanked voters in the Jeolla region for their overwhelming support in the general election. / Yonhap By Kim Hyo-jin Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairman of the splinter opposition People's Party, visited the southwest Jeolla provinces, Sunday, and thanked voters for their overwhelming support of the party in Wednesday's general election. The People's Party emerged as a strong third party, winning 23 out of 28 seats up for grabs in the region. It won 38 of 300 parliamentary seats, which was much higher than expected. The result provided a springboard for Ahn to increase his political influence, with the party now holding a "casting vote" between the two major parties _ the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK). It was Ahn's first visit to the region after the election. Observers view that the attention to the region will continue in the run-up to the 2017 presidential election while both the MPK and the People's Party are competing to attract voters of the tradition opposition stronghold. "We are determined to change the government. Voters gave us an opportunity with their overwhelming support," Ahn said after paying tribute at the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju. "We'll lead the legislature, rather than remaining as a casting vote," he said, underlining the three-party system will bring a change in the assembly deadlocked by partisan wrangling. Ahn raised his voice against the possibility of forming an alliance with the MPK during the 2017 presidential race, saying, "It will be rude to the public if we only care about political interest. The priority is showing a productive party mechanism in the Assembly." "The strong support of Jeolla voters cleared Ahn a path toward the presidential bid. He is expected to form his own political vision," Lee Jun-han, a professor at Incheon National University, said. By Kim Da-hee The Korea Foundation for Women (KFW) will select migrant wives from Vietnam who will get free travel to their hometown under the organization's sponsorship. This is an annual event the KFW, a NGO for women, has organized since 2007 with Samsung Life Insurance and the Life Insurance Social Contribution Committee. The exact number of beneficiaries remains undecided. Eligible applicants are those who have school-age children and their parents' house is in or near Hanoi. The KFW will receive applications until May 13. Applicants are required to submit eight documents, including three application forms, a recommendation letter and a document of family relationships. Preferential treatment will be given to those who have not visited Vietnam since their marriage and have children aged between seven and nine. Successful applicants will be able to visit Vietnam for a week after August 20. A merchant sells fish at her shop at the Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market in southern Seoul, April 11, amid rising tensions between shop owners and the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative over a relocation project. Many shop owners are refusing to move to a new building nearby, citing less space and higher rent. / Korea Times photo by Kim Se-jeong By Kim Se-jeong Seoul's Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market is on the verge of losing its charm and reputation as one of the city's iconic places because shop owners have to move their premises to a new building as part of a relocation project. But the merchants are at odds with the market operator over the project. Many do not want to move to the new building nearby, completed last October to modernize the traditional market built 49 years ago. The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives (NFFC), the manager of the nation's biggest fish market, initiated the modernization project. The market facilitates a daily trade in thousands of tons of fish and fish products. There are also 680 shops that attract visitors who want to get a feel and taste of Seoul's urban life. The shops were supposed to move to the new building, which opened in January, according to the NFFC. But only 200 moved and the other 480 insist that they want to stay where they are. The merchants say the new shops are smaller and the rent two to three times higher. "The NFFC is asking a lot more money for rent," said Yu Ji-tae, a merchant who has run a dried fishery products shop for three decades. "Also, in the new building, I will be located on the second floor. For me, the second floor means my profits will be halved. I can't accept that." But the NFFC said the merchants agreed to the conditions well before the building was completed. "We had countless meetings with merchant representatives before and during the project and altered the plan to accommodate their demands," Kim Duck-ho, an NFFC official, told The Korea Times. Kim showed a copy of an agreement on the rent and relocation, signed in July 2015, by a merchants' representative, Lee Seung-ki. Lee was unavailable for comment. "It's out of the question that we would go ahead with a project like this without dialogue with the merchants," Kim said, adding that the building cost more than 200 billion won. Kim said the NFCC will push ahead with the original plan to destroy the old market building for the new project. "They are illegally occupying the place." With little room for compromise, conflicts are becoming violent. Earlier in April, one merchant allegedly threatened two NFFC employees with a knife, who sustained injuries to a thigh and shoulder. The merchant is in police custody. On April 11, the NFFC began cutting electricity and seawater supplies to some shops, prompting tough resistance from shop owners. Some are continuing to operate by candlelight. Shop owners have sued the NFFC for obstructing business. The NFCC says it would consider terminating contracts with the recalcitrant shops and ban them in the new facility. Kim said negotiations with the merchants are deadlocked because of a handful of merchant representatives, whose current shops are near the market's entrances and make a lot of money. He said they are representing their personal interest, not the interests of the 480 shops. "A tax record showed they make as much as 1.7 billion won per year," he said. Those who have moved to the new building also are not happy, because most customers still go to the old market, which has more shops and retains the image of a traditional market. "What we want is dialogue," Kim said. "We want to move forward." By Kim Se-jeong Mt. Taebaek in Gangwon Province has become the country's 22nd national park. According to the Ministry of Environment, a 20-member national park committee decided on Friday to designate the mountain, located in the interior of the province, as a national park. The designation means that the mountain will come under the care of the national government, granting free access to the public. Currently, each adult visitor to Mt. Taebaek must pay an entrance fee of 2,000 won which goes to the provincial government responsible for conservation and facility management. The official national park opening is set for Aug. 22. The mountain with a 1,567-meter-high peak is home to 2,637 wildlife species, among which 26 are endangered, including the fox and marten. The ministry said it will reinforce conservation efforts for the mountain by putting more human resources in place. Mt. Jiri was the first national park, designated in December 1967. It was followed by Mt. Seorak and Mt. Halla in 1970. National parks which are not based on mountains include Hallyeohaesang National Park, a marine ecosystem which stretches from Geoje Island, South Gyeongsang Province, to Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, and the ancient city of Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province. French Ambassador to Korea Fabien Penone, right, poses with with Deagu Mayor Kwon Young-jin, center, and French-Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman David-Pierre Jalicon during a signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding on April 11. / Courtesy of French Embassy By Rachel Lee French Ambassador to Korea Fabien Penone signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Daegu, Korea's fourth-largest city in North Gyeongsang Province, on April 11. With French-Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman David-Pierre Jalicon, the ambassador met Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin and discussed further business cooperation and opportunities for French firms. "We are in a very positive moment for the development of our bilateral relations, " the French ambassador said. He said the political dialogue between France and Korea is very strong, shown by high-level visits including French President Francois Hollande in November and Foreign Affairs and International Development Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault last month. With the agreement signed, the ambassador expressed his wish to develop economic cooperation with Korea, as well as links in culture, education, science and tourism. According to the French Embassy, automotive supplier Valeo and 3D experience company Dassault Systemes operate in Korea. Technological cooperation has become stronger, in particular. France's Ministry of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs launched a Korean version of French technology hub "La French Tech" in December to improve the French startup sector and develop its international attractiveness. "La French Tech" refers to all people working for, or with, French startups in France or abroad. At the "French Tech Seoul" launch in December, seven French startup companies including Cedexis, Kerlink and Kinomap introduced their technologies. The ambassador also visited the Daegu National Museum, where "Home Cinema" will be held as part of celebrations for the France-Korea Year 2015-2016 and 130 years of friendship between the two countries. The Year of France in Korea events run until December. Last month, the new and exclusive creation of Jose Montalvo with the National Dance Company of Korea was showcased. Several other events will show the best of France's creativity in fields including economics, education, science, gastronomy and tourism. March 24 also was the official day of Korea in French schools. French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's installation "King of Signs" surrounding the statue of King Sejong the Great in Jongno-gu, Seoul, was unveiled last month. During the year, Koreans will be able to discover France's new talents: electronic music producers and DJs, graphic and furniture designers, young architects and comedy writers. Beyond culture, the embassy will present top French entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and scholars. The Korean Year in France began in September. Events included the traditional ceremony of Jongmyo Jeryeak in the Theatre National de Chaillot and lighting of the Eiffel Tower in the colors of the Taegeukgi. There also have been exhibitions Korea Now! and Seoul Vite Vite! and a Korean street-food festival in Paris. Visitors look around the exhibition "Glimpse of Oman," which was held at the Cheonggyecheon Gwanggyo Gallery on April 11-17. / Courtesy of the Embassy of Oman By Rachel Lee More than 50 photographs have arrived in Seoul for an exhibition depicting Oman's diverse nature and environment. Omani Ambassador to Korea Mohamed AlHarthy is holding the exhibition at the Cheonggyecheon Gwanggyo Gallery on April 11-17. Titled "Glimpse of Oman," the snaps embody scenes of mountains, caves, valleys and deserts. They also show aspects of culture and heritage, reflecting a modern renaissance in the country. The exhibition is part of the annual "Welcome to Oman," program, organized by the Omani Embassy to "introduce the nation's history, culture, civilization and the modern renaissance, which aims to promote tourism in the Sultanate of Oman and strengthen the cooperation between the Sultanate of Oman and Korea." "The idea of hosting the exhibition at the open Gallery of Cheonggyecheon allows the public to know the Sultanate of Oman," an embassy spokesperson said. Oman-Korea relations date back more than a thousand years, when Omani merchants met their Korean counterparts on the way to China during the Silla Dynasty (57 BC-935 AD). In modern times, diplomatic relations were established in 1974. Since then, relations have experience remarkable development in various fields and the trade volume is expected to double in coming years due to investment opportunities and partnerships between Oman and Korea. By Rachel Lee Representatives from Korea and the United States will meet in Washington D.C. today to discuss the challenge of North Korea, the Korea Foundation (KF) said. The meeting, organized by the KF and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will feature 17 experts from both countries who will discuss "The ROK-U.S. Alliance: Strength and Resilience in the Face of Challenges." U.S. attendees include Mark Lambert, director at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Korean Affairs; Robert Gallucci, professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia at the U.S. Department of Defense. Korean presenters include Kim Hyoung-zhin, deputy minister for planning and coordination at Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs; KF President Yu Hyun-seok and Kim Sung-hwan, a professor at Korea University. The meeting's first session will focus on the "challenges ahead in managing North Korea" under the subject "North Korea's Challenge," the KF said. Participants will talk about sanctions coordination, prospects for trilateral cooperation, the opportunity for diplomacy and contingency planning. The second session, the "U.S.-ROK alliance and regional context," will deal with "alliance issues and domestic politics in both countries, including the U.S. presidential campaign and the ROK national elections." The KF was founded in 1992 for international exchange and public diplomacy initiatives. By Park Chang-seokYes, one! There's only one thing about which they think in a same way a concern about possible eruption of Mt. Baekdu. The two Koreas remain at odds in everything. But they are one in voicing how to counter the possible volcanic explosion of the highest mountain in the Korean PeninsulaInter-Korean anxiety is mounting, with growing apocalyptic predictions on the dormant volcano. A South Korean geological expert has warned that the volcano could erupt sometime around 2014 and 2015.Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly said people in some regions of Yanggang and North Hamgyeong Provinces were feeling anxiety over a volcanic eruption of Mt. Baekdu. Kim called for quick countermeasures by the North Korean authorities.If a volcano, located on the border between North Korea and China erupts, damage could be 10 to 100 times greater than that caused by the April 2010 eruptions in Iceland. Experts predict that the ashes would not only hit the neighboring area but damage agriculture and cause serious disruptions in industrial activities and air flights. The Korean Peninsula, China, Japan and Russia would be severely damaged.A volcanic eruption begins when pressure on a magma chamber forces magma up through the conduit and out the volcano's vents. When the magma chamber is completely filled, the type of eruption partly depends on the amount of gas and silica in the magma. The amount of silica determines how sticky (level of viscosity) the magma is and water provides the explosive potential of steam.The 2010 Iceland eruption caused enormous disruption to air travel across Western and Northern Europe, although relatively small in size for volcanic eruptions. About 20 countries closed their airspace and it affected hundreds of thousands of travelers. A very high proportion of flights within, to, and from Europe were cancelled, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the World War II.Fears of a Mt. Baekdu eruption loom large with ensuing warnings based on a series of geological studies from experts. A growing number of scholars have not ruled out the possibility of another eruption, linking the collapse of Korea's ancient kingdom, Balhae, with the previous one.One theory comes from professor Hiroshi Machida of Tokyo Metropolitan University. Machida first presented a view in 1992 that the eruption of Mt. Baekdu (Mt. Changbai in Chinese) led to the fall of Balhae, which had expanded its sovereignty to the vast Manchuria territory. His theory was based on volcanic ash found in Tomakomai, a port city in southern Hokkaido, in 1981. The ash was named "Baekdu-Tomakomai volcanic ash" (B-Tm) after Mt. Baekdu and Tomakakomi city where it was found, according to So Won-ju who wrote the book "Secret of Mt. Baekdu's Great Eruption."Machida's theory has gained momentum as an increasing number of geologists and climate change researchers have presented views that the ash was produced in the eruption of the highest mountain in the Korean Peninsula in the 10th century. The eruption of the 2,744 meter-high mountain was billed as the largest in the history of mankind and was about 50 times stronger than that of Mt. Vesuvius of Italy in 79 A.D. which led to the burying and destruction of the Roman city Pompeii.Balhae (Bohai in Chinese) was established by Dae Jo-yeong, a former Goguryeo general, in 698 after the fall of Goguryeo. Dae Jo-yeong took the helm of Jin (Zhen in Chinese), founded by his father Dae Jung-sang in 696, and renamed the country Balhae, declaring it as the successor state of Goguryeo (37 B.C. - 668 A.D.).Balhae occupied the southern parts of Manchuria and Primorsky Krai (now Russia's Far East), and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. It was defeated by the Khitans in 926, and most of its northern territories were absorbed into the Liao Dynasty, also known as the Khitan Empire, founded in 907 while the southern parts were absorbed into Goryeo Kingdom (918-1392).A dominant view related to Balhae's decline had been Khitans' 926 invasion. Some conventional historians believed that the rampancy of ethnic conflicts between the ruling Koreans and underclass Mohe (Malgal) caused its fall. But some refute these allegations, giving more weight on the catastrophic explosion of Mt. Baekdu as a primary cause for Balhae's ruin rather than Khitans' attack.Balhae had been engaged in a war with the Khitans for about two weeks and then collapsed immediately. How could Balhae with a long 200-year history fall so easily in such a short period of battle? Some historians raised doubts about the early collapse, pointing to Mt. Baekdu erupting as a cause for Balhae's ruin.The massive explosion was believed to have created a tremendous amount of volcanic ash, damaging agriculture and even societal integrity. The Khitans were believed to have taken advantage of this natural disaster in putting the volcano-stricken Balhae under their complete control. The eruption might have prevented Balhae survivors from rebuilding their nation in consideration of the catastrophe.A variety of indicators, suggested by geologists and Balhae dynasty researchers who have monitored the change of Baekdu's geographical features, are backing a scenario of the recurrence of the Mt. Baekdu eruption. Some experts say that an eruption is imminent. Geologist Yoon Sung-hyo at Pusan National University strongly believes Mt. Baekdu could erupt anytime soon."According to historical records, major activity on the mountain in the 940s created a caldera on its peak, whose circumference is nearly 14 kilometers with an average depth of 213 meters and a maximum of 384 meters. Atop the mountain is Cheonji, literally meaning "heavenly lake," the largest caldera in the world.Volcanic ash from Mt. Baekdu eruption has been found as far away as the southern part of Hokkaido, Japan. Geologists predict the occurrence of great Mt. Baekdu eruptions every 1,000 years and that of minor ones every 200 to 300 years. Minor eruptions were recorded in 1413, 1597, 1668 and 1702 with the last activity being recorded in 1903.Among other indicators backing the scenario of a future eruption is the height of Mt. Baekdu, which has grown nearly 10 centimeters since 2002. Experts say an expanding magma pool, a precondition for an eruption, is gradually pushing up the height of the mountain as well as the temperature on the surface. On Oct. 1, 2006, a Russian satellite found the surface temperature of the mountain notably higher than before. The finding came just days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in its northern territory, which could have been a catalyst reactivating magma flows, according to analysts.Mt. Baekdu has been carefully observed since 1999 when a volcanic observatory was built in China, and since 2002, there have been some symptoms of an eruption. Seismic activity near the mountain has increased dramatically, and the concentration of hydrogen and helium emissions, both of which are volcanic gases have risen 10-fold. And there's ample possibility that Mt. Baekdu may erupt in the near future.If Mt. Baekdu erupts, it would no doubt bring about grave consequences for the two Koreas as well as the surrounding states, including China, Japan and Russia. The biggest immediate threat is the 2 billion tons of water in the lake on top of the crater. An eruption would likely cause severe flood damage, engulfing roads and homes within a 30-kilometer radius in just 3 hours and 20 minutes, a geological report found recently.The greatest victim of a Mt. Baekdu explosion may be North Korea, especially Yanggang and Hamgyeong Provinces. The two regions, located on the tip of the Korean Peninsula, may be covered with ash in just two hours.In about eight hours, ash may reach Ulleungdo and Dokdo, two far eastern islands of South Korea, and in 12 hours, land on Tottori Prefecture, Japan. After 18 hours, volcanic ash would likely spread beyond Japan.The National Institute for Disaster Prevention conducted a simulation in 2010 to test how far volcanic ash can spread if Mt. Baekdu erupts. According to the results, the effects can be different depending on the timing. If it happens in winter, Japan is expected to be more affected due to the northwest monsoon. On the other hand, a summer eruption would affect South Korea more.Mt. Baekdu's caldera has nearly two billion tons of water. If volcanic heat evaporates the water and is mixed suddenly with volcanic ashes, it would be strong enough to engulf even Vladivostok in Russia and Hokkaido in northern Japan, according to experts. The construction of nuclear power plants by North Korea and China in the neighborhood may certainly pose a grave threat to all Northeast Asians, with the view that Mt. Baekdu's explosion would for sure cause subsequent nuclear catastrophes, as seen in Japan's 2011 tsunami disaster. A volcanic explosion is the most terrible natural disaster which cannot be easily avoided by human wisdom and knowledge.With unrelenting outbreaks of record-breaking natural disasters around the world and especially in the wake of Japan's massive earthquake that is now estimated to have killed nearly 10,000, the world's eyes are drawn to Mt. Baekdu. Multinational and regional cooperative monitoring systems are needed beyond ideological barriers to take preemptive measures against a possible eruption.By all indications, Mt. Baekdu is a real danger and it's not clear how long it will stay inactive. A Mt. Baekdu eruption, if it takes place, will not be a matter for a certain country but a global concern to determine the future of Northeast Asian civilization.An important measure of eruptive strength is the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), a magnitudic scale ranging from 0 to 8 that often correlates to eruptive types.During a volcanic eruption, lava, tephra (ash, lapilli tuff, volcanic bombs and blocks), and various gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure.Several types of volcanic eruptions have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior has been observed.Some volcanoes may exhibit only one characteristic type of eruption during a period of activity, while others may display an entire sequence of types all in one eruptive series.Park Chang-seok is currently a resident research fellow of the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA). Park, a former Korea Times managing editor and a Kyung Hee University media professor, is the author of "The History of Korean English Newspaper" and "News English." He is the editor of KIPA's two English books "Korea: From Rags to Riches" and "Discover Korea in Public Administration." In this Aug. 30, 2014 photo, a North Korean woman walks along the Taedong River in Pyongyang, North Korea./AP-Yonhap By Lee Jin-a North Korea is putting its people under tighter control before the 7th Congress of the Workers' Party next month. Authorities recently launched a nationwide crackdown on those who have piercings and wear Westernized clothing or hairstyles, the vernacular daily Chosun Ilbo, citing Japanese media outlet Asia Press, said. The clampdown focuses on North Hamgyong Province and Yanggang Province, which are close to China, where residents have relatively easy access to information from the outside world. In North Korea, those who wear Westernized fashion or hairstyles are considered "spoiled" by capitalism and subject to punishment. "A growing number of North Korean people are infatuated with Western culture," Japanese journalist Ishimaru Jiro was quoted as saying in the report. "The crackdown will continue until the end of the upcoming gathering." North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is expected to tighten his grip on the country through the event. By Yi Whan-woo Activity at North Korea's main nuclear test site in Punggye-ri appears to be increasing, adding to speculation that Pyongyang may conduct its fifth nuclear test soon. "We've detected more people and vehicles moving into and out of the site recently," a source, on condition of anonymity, said Sunday. "The activity is a couple of times larger than what we saw in February. "We suspect the vehicles carry nuclear scientists into the underground test tunnel and such activities could be a sign of North Korea's preparations for a new nuclear test." Speculation has been rising that the military state may carry out its fifth nuclear test to coincide with the seventh Workers' Party Congress. The congressional meeting, the first since 1980, is expected early next month. Any nuclear test will be in violation of a string of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, including Resolution 2270, imposed on March 2 in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The secretive state then claimed it successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb, a fusion-powered weapon that is more destructive than fission-powered uranium and plutonium bombs. Some military intelligence officials said North Korea this time may test a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be mounted on the tip of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Pyongyang has stepped up efforts to develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM that ultimately could strike the U.S. mainland. On March 15, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country "in a short time" will carry out nuclear warhead tests and also test launch several types of rockets that use ballistic missile technology. "North Korea is likely to insist on the successful explosion of a nuclear warhead if it goes ahead with a new nuclear test," a Ministry of Defense official said, asking not to be named. "It's possible Pyongyang will secretly transport the warhead into the underground tunnel at night to avoid being detected by U.S. reconnaissance satellites. "It should be noted that additional nuclear tests will only deepen the UNSC's sanctions against North Korea." A U.S. website that monitors North Korea's nuclear-related activities, 38 North, also added to speculation over the regime's fifth nuclear test. Citing satellite imagery, the website said Friday that North Korea could be using tanks or casks on railway flatcars at its main radiochemical laboratory complex in Yongbyon to separate weapons-grade plutonium from nuclear reactor waste. In a report a week earlier, 38 North also said exhaust plumes have been seen two or three times at the Yongbyon complex. It said such plumes have rarely been seen there, hinting that reprocessing maybe separating additional plutonium for weapons. By Chang Se-moon On April 7, one male manager and 12 waitresses, who worked at overseas restaurants owned and operated by North Korea, defected and arrived in Seoul, This is the first time that North Korean employees from a state-run restaurant overseas defected as a group. Interestingly, the 13 North Koreans are middle-class people with a good education. This may be a good time to think about the life of women in general who are fleeing North Korea. Human rights violations in North Korea, especially relating to women, are one of those issues that most of us would rather not think about, because it makes us feel uncomfortable as there is really not that much we can do about them. I still feel that we should face the problem and search for ways to minimize the cruel treatment that many women in North Korea are going through. For those of us who care about the issue, outstanding organizations such as the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and the New Korea Women's Union (NKWU) continue to gather valuable information so that we can be aware of the problem. I can think of two publications by the Committee on human rights violations relating to North Korean women. One is the October 1, 2009 report, "Lives for Sale: Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to China," written by Lee Hae Young, and the other is one in September 18, 2015, "The Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression and Prisoner Disappearances," written by David Hawk. Both reports are based on personal interviews of real victims. According to Lee Hae Young, women fleeing North Korea to China are so desperately poor in the North that they often turn to strangers and become victims of traffickers. Most of the women interviewed by Lee came from the northeastern provinces of North Korea that are close to the Chinese border. The severity of the famine in the area left these women without husbands and fathers. "In North Korea, after the death of their fathers or spouses, many of these women became homeless itinerant peddlers or scavengers until they crossed the border into China, risking their lives in the process." According to Lee, there are many more men than women of marrying age in northeast China near North Korea. Chinese men thus pay large sums of money to purchase North Korean women. "As women are a commodity with a high price, they fall prey to traffickers," while "The price the women bring becomes a bounty for their acquisition. Traffickers seek out the hapless victims of the North Korean regime's neglect and entrap them into abuse and exploitation in China." One problem, according to Lee, is that the Chinese government treats North Korean women as illegal economic migrants, and "sometimes sends them back to North Korea where they are punished because their homeland views them as traitors and criminals." One woman Lee interviewed stated that she lost both of her parents and had a difficult time making a living. One day in 2003, she was told by a North Korean woman who later turned out to be a trafficker that she would find a decent job in China. They crossed the border together and one week later, she was sold to a Chinese male. Lee also found out that many North Korean women in China were working as sex slaves with customers that included "South Korean and Japanese businessmen working in the district." The 2015 report by Hawk explains in detail the hardships that many North Korean women have to endure after being interned in labor camps. Many stories in Hawk's report center around Kyo-hwa-so No. 12, located near the Chinese border, to which a women's section was added sometime after 2008. About 80 percent of roughly 1,000 women prisoners out of a total 3,000 to 4,000 inmates in Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 are women who fled to China but were forcibly sent back to North Korea. One former female prisoner at Jongo-ri who was interviewed in April of 2015 by Hawk was a Ms. Choi who fled to China in 1998. She lived in Yanbian, China, for ten years but was sent back to North Korea by the Chinese police in 2008. Eventually Ms. Choi was sent to Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 to serve a three-year sentence. Ms. Choi weighed 125 pounds when repatriated. Because of severe malnutrition, her weight decreased to 59.5 pounds by the time the prison authorities "sent for her family to come get her once she lost consciousness when they believed she was near death." Eventually, she fled to China and on to South Korea. I do not know what can be done to help these hapless North Korean women. I am grateful to many NGO's and such organizations as Human Rights in North Korea and the New Korea Women's Union that continue to do the hard work of finding out the truth about the cruel life that many North Korean women have to go through. Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies. Write to her at: changsemoon@yahoo.com. /Courtesy of Korea University Anam Hospital By Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chul Imagine hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees are crossing the border into South Korea after their regime suddenly collapses. What would be the most urgent issue for the unified Korea? Surveys show that most South Koreans believe the cost of unification is the biggest concern. However, according to Kim Young-hoon, former president of Korea University Anam Hospital, money may just be a secondary issue. "President Park Geun-hye said unification would bring a bonanza, but it could instead bring a health crisis, if we are unprepared," Kim said. "Unification could bring along many lethal, infectious diseases that we are not ready to cope with. The worst part is that we know very little about such risks." Some health risks are obvious, he said. For example, North Korea has about 110,000 tuberculosis (TB) patients, 5,000 of whom died in 2014 alone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). "More worryingly, many of TB cases in North Korea are multi-drug resistant. This means we don't have any way to cure the highly contagious infection," Kim said. Even today, South Korea, the fourth-largest economy in Asia, is struggling with its own fight against TB. According to the WHO, the country has the highest TB incidence rate among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "So if you think that South Korea is capable of coping effectively with a huge influx of TB patients from the North, you may be mistaken," Kim said. "Look at how one patient infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome last year shook the entire nation." "And TB is just one of the many health risk factors of unification." The health risks of unification may be even bigger for North Koreans, who have lived behind the walls of the world's most isolated state for more than 60 years. Most of them may not be immune to the diseases that would not affect people in the rest of the world. "For now, we just don't know much," he said. Kim Young-hoon, who served as the president of Korea University Anam Hospital, now leads the Arrhythmia Center at the hospital. He is one of the most renowned arrhythmia experts in the country. /Courtesy of Korea University Anam Hospital The poor overall health status of North Koreans may also bring down that of South Koreans altogether after unification. According to a report published in 2014 by the state-run Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the average lifespan of North Koreans is 69.5 years, much shorter than the 81 years for South Koreans. In terms of medical standards, experts believe the rich South is 30 to 50 years ahead of the impoverished North. During his 2014-2015 term at Korea University Anam Hospital, Kim thought the health risks of unification are a serious issue to be addressed. Thus, he created a graduate program to study the health and medical implications of Korean unification, making Korea University the first college to have such a program in Korea. The program will launch in September. "Some of the program lectures will be open to the public, and I also plan to financially support students in the program as much as possible," he said. He also created the Inter-Korea Foundation for Health and Medical Education last year under the Ministry of Unification, which will support professors and students in the program. The foundation has already begun to review medical journals and data from North Korea in an attempt to understand the diagnosis and treatment of different kinds of diseases there in comparison with South Korea. "We are trying to find out, for example, what types of cardiac disorders are common in the state and how they are treated with very limited resources," Kim said. The foundation will also collaborate with experts to study the health of North Korean refugees in South Korea. "The foundation and experts are documenting the health status and determinants of North Korean refugees. By doing so, they can try to understand how their health status changes as they adapt to the Westernized lifestyle of South Korea," he said. Through a cohort study involving about 1,000 North Koreans, researchers at the foundation have already produced some meaningful results. For instance, he noted, the researchers found that North Koreans have a higher risk of developing diabetes, as they will take in much more nutrition when they settle in the South. One of the courses of the program aims to unify the medical terms of the two states. Many terms used in the North are Korean and Russian, while those used in the South are mainly English. "Many South Korean organizations have tried to improve the health of North Koreans by giving them medical devices and drugs, but there has been no solid system that can be helpful in the long term," Kim said. "Not just as preparation for unification. I also hope that our effort can contribute to bringing the two sides closer on their way to the ultimate unification." Fixing hearts that have lost their rhythm Arrhythmia is a condition in which the heart beats either too fast, too slow, too early or irregularly. It occurs when the electrical impulses to the heart that coordinate heartbeats are not working properly. Arrhythmia is the cause of most sudden cardiac deaths. Atrial fibrillation, which can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications, is the most common type of arrhythmia. Arrhythmia affects millions of people worldwide, including about 2 to 3 percent of the total population of Europe and North America, and according to the Korean Society of Cardiology, 800,000 to 1 million in Korea as well. Kim, who now leads the Arrhythmia Center at Korea University Anam Hospital, is one of the most renowned arrhythmia experts in the country. In 1998, when atrial fibrillation was largely considered impossible to treat, Kim implemented radiofrequency catheter ablation, a minimally invasive procedure, in which thin wires called catheters are inserted into a vein to destroy the heart tissues that signal abnormal electrical impulses. Since then, he has successfully performed the procedure on more than 2,500 patients, dispelling initial concerns about the method's efficacy and safety. Kim said none of his patients has died as a result of the procedure. "About 95 percent of atrial fibrillation cases can be cured completely with the procedure," he said. "After that, patients just have to take medications." Having published more than 140 articles about arrhythmia in reputable journals in Korea and abroad, Kim has become well-respected among many experts in the field. Dailian University in China is one of the many institutions that have asked him to share his know-how about arrhythmia treatment, especially about radiofrequency catheter ablation. In 2012, he agreed to do so at the school for five years. Some doctors from Japan, Hong Kong and Indonesia have also visited his hospital in Korea to learn from him. His research team is now working to develop better ways to treat arrhythmia, in cooperation with experts at world-renowned medical institutions, including Harvard Medical School. Remembering Rosetta Sherwood Hall The alumnus of Korea University College of Medicine expressed his affection for his school during the interview, saying his last goal is to revive the spirit of Rosetta Sherwood Hall, an American medical missionary who established the Joseon Women's Medical Training Institute, the predecessor of the medical college, in 1928. "About a hundred years ago, she risked her life to come here to deliver one message: the importance of helping those in need. I think everyone here needs to take that message seriously and act accordingly. When we do, I have no doubt that the school will change in remarkable ways," Kim said. By Nam Sang-so Captain Harry Turner called the dispatch office of Pan American Airlines in San Francisco and reported that he would be about 20 minutes late. He wanted to attend his daughter's piano recital. He was scheduled to fly a seaplane from the Pan Am berth in San Francisco Bay and arrive at Honolulu at 08:00, December 7, Hawaii Time. Turner was assigned on that day in 1941 to fly an Anzac Clipper with 37 passengers aboard on the first leg of a flight to Singapore. His attendance at his daughter's piano recital and the subsequent traffic jam on the Oakland streets had delayed the seaplane's departure by 40 minutes, such that when he flew the plane over the Golden Gate Bridge it was 5:40 p.m., December 6, Pacific Time. "It's a 14 hour flight to Hawaii and the plane will slide down on the water of Pearl Harbor when the sun rises on the 7th," thought Turner and didn't concern himself much about the late departure. He knew that the U.S. Pacific Fleet had been relocated from Long Beach to Pearl Harbor where a Pan Am seaplane berth was located and he was more concerned that he would need to exercise a careful splash down among the crowded battleships moored in the harbor. The night flight was uneventful. When the first rays of dawn crept over the east horizon, a broadcast of sweet Hawaiian music by a Honolulu station filled the cockpit. "We are almost there," exclaimed the navigator. Captain Turner flew the plane in the direction of the radio wave coming from Hawaii. In the same dawning sky north of Oahu Island, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida was doing the same by setting his flying course into the direction of the Hawaiian melody in leading the formations of 183 fighter and bomber planes that had just departed from the decks of the six aircraft carriers of the Japanese Naval Strike Force. The music popped off in the Pan Am seaplane and was replaced by man's alarmed voice. "Japanese fighter planes are bombing Pearl Harbor. Hawaii is being attacked!" said the announcer breathing hard. "Oh, my God!" said Turner aloud, then looked out the windshield in search of Hilo Island, another of the Hawaiian Islands. He knew Hilo had a calm inlet. Now, thankful for the beautiful piano melody his daughter had played the afternoon before, which eventually saved his and the passengers' lives, Captain Turner calmly splashed his seaplane down near Hilo. He told the passengers why he couldn't go to Pearl Harbor. There were two VIPs on board; His Imperial Majesty of Iran Mohammed RezaShah Pahlavi, who was on his way home after visiting President Roosevelt promising that he would cooperate with the United States. The other distinguished guest was U Saw, the Premier of Burma (now Myanmar). He too was on his way home also after visiting that same president and was disappointed by Roosevelt's refusal to honor his plea for the independence of Burma from Britain. As the western globe route back to Rangoon was blocked by the Japanese fleet, he had to take the eastward route home, stopping at the Japanese Embassy in Lisbon and secretly informing the ambassador that Burma would help Japan in the war against America. The confidential Japanese message sent to Tokyo was decoded by the U.S. Navy. He later played a major role in the assassination of Burma's national hero Aung San in 1947 and U Saw was later executed by his own people. Observing Japan's valiant surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor, Saw thought that Japan would win the war while Pahlavi predicted otherwise. The writer is a Japanese-English-Korean translator. His email address is sangsonam@gmail.com. South Korea should be on full alert to deal with North Korea's additional nuclear testing and other possible provocations after a failed missile test last week. The likelihood that North Korea is preparing for a fifth nuclear test has increased, particularly ahead of the country's ruling Workers' Party congress in May. According to the latest reports, a surge in activity at North Korea's atomic test site in Punggye-ri suggests it is finalizing preparations for a fifth nuclear test. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pyongyang attempted to launch a Musudan medium-range missile off the east coast last Friday, but failed. The missile, with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, could one day be capable of reaching far-off U.S. military bases in Asia and the Pacific. The White House said the U.S. strongly condemns this provocative act and called it a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that explicitly prohibit North Korea's use of ballistic missile technology. The attempted missile launch coincided with the birthday of North Korean founding leader Kim Il-sung. His grandson, Kim Jong-un, the current leader, will be eager to arrive at the congress on the back of a show of military strength rather than a failed rocket launch. The launch is the latest in a series of provocations. The North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which resulted in the strongest international sanctions yet against Pyongyang. Kim will want to convey a message of defiance toward the international community through additional provocations before the congress. But he must realize that Pyongyang will face more devastating economic and political isolation from the international community unless he abandons his nuclear ambitions. Assembly needs to deter state control of history The opposition parties have reached a much needed agreement and joined hands to deter President Park Geun-hye's plan to rewrite a single history textbook for high schools' use starting in 2017. The Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) and the splinter People's Party will move toward passing a resolution that calls for abolishing the government's scheme to replace the current system of multiple textbooks with a single textbook published by the government. The plan has come under much criticism because she is reviving a similar state textbook policy used during her late father Park Chung-hee's presidency. The resolution against the state monopoly of history textbooks is meaningful because it will be the first example of the post-election cooperation between the MPK and the new People's Party. The parties should keep in mind that the people are expecting more such cooperation in the 20th Assembly. The opposition parties should also work together and produce the most workable alternatives for some urgent national issues, such as high youth unemployment and the low birthrate crisis. With the opposition parties' firm stance against state textbooks, they will continue to trigger confrontation in the 20th National Assembly. It is uncertain whether the resolution will have a real effect in changing the fate of the state textbooks. The government has already started the publication process. But at least it should leave a positive precedence of non-partisan cooperation, which was glaringly absent in the 19th National Assembly. With a subservient party to President Park holding the parliamentary majority, it was impossible for the outgoing Assembly to do something about the Park administration's authoritarian policy-making, best exemplified by the state textbooks. Last week's general election resulted in sweeping changes at the National Assembly, such as the shift of power to the opposition and a three-party system for the first time in 20 years. Park's Saenuri Party has been relegated to a second rank in parliament after the MPK. Therefore, the 20th Assembly must show that it will not be as ineffective as before in holding the government in check. By Andrei Lankov On the 15th of April, North Korea had lavish celebrations for Kim Il Sung's birthday, officially known as "Day of the Sun". These celebrations can be seen as an embodiment of the personality cult going mad, but one should not think that all this official pomp is completely fake. For many North Koreans the founding father of their state is, indeed, a person worthy of respect. It is not incidental that polls confirm that the late Generalissimo and Sun of the Nation still enjoys much support among his former subjects and even among defectors. Why do North Koreans tend to love the long-deceased dictator? One can argue that his popularity is based to a large extent on outright lies, misinterpretations, and myths but does it really matter? After all, the same can be said about many other historical figures that are widely admired across the world. To start with, Kim Il Sung is seen as an authentic hero of the anti-Japanese resistance, the proud symbol of Korean nationalism. This reputation is much exaggerated, but not completely unfounded. Kim Il Sung indeed joined the anti-Japanese guerrillas in 1932 and by the late 1930s became a reasonably successful field commander in the wilderness of Manchuria. During his guerilla exploits, Kim Il Sung actually demonstrated remarkable bravery, commitment and a spirit of self-sacrifice. As far as we know, he was respected by his guerrillas as an able and caring commander even though, admittedly, there were other commanders of equal prominence. On the other hand, the North Koreans are largely unaware that, contrary to the oft-repeated lies of the official propaganda, the founding father of their state never led an independent Korean guerilla force. He spent all his guerilla career as, first, a soldier of the Chinese communist forces and then, in 1941-45, as a junior officer of the Soviet army. Of course, the significance of his operations has been grossly exaggerated. The armed Manchurian resistance was heroic and even important politically as one of many symbols of Koreans' willingness to fight, but in purely strategic terms the minor skirmishes in the Manchurian forests were a sideshow and had little if any impact even on the local military operations. Second, Kim Il Sung is seen by the North Koreans as a person who won the Korean War against mighty America. Nearly all North Koreans buy the official story which holds that the Korean War began in June 1950 as an act of aggression, committed by the South Koreans and the Americans. For a brief while that idea was popular with radical historians in South Korea and the United States, but in the 1990s publication of once top secret Soviet and Chinese documents demonstrated that the war was actually instigated at Kim Il Sung's initiative and reluctantly approved by Stalin and Mao. However, this is not what the common North Koreans are aware of. For them, the picture is simple: their country was invaded, but Kim Il Sung managed to repel the invasion, so the war ended where it began. For them it looks like a victory (logically enough). The third and the most important reasons of Kim Il Sung's resilient popularity is, as one should expect, the state of the economy. Actually, his policies were pretty insane and made the collapse of North Korean industries and agriculture merely a question of time. However, the collapse happened only when the old dictator was safely dead, under the watch of his son, Kim Jong Il, who is now blamed by the majority of the North Koreans for the famine and dislocation of the 1990s. On the contrary, the days of Kim Il Sung are remembered by the North Koreans as the time of stability and modest affluence. Everybody was issued a daily ration usually, some 700 grams of rice or corn for a working adult, for a token price. The major consumption goods were distributed as well. The officials were probably rich, but their affluence was not easily noticeable, so people also remember Kim Il Sung's decades as the time of material equality. There are good reasons to expect that this reverence for Kim the First will outlive the Kim Family Regime. The popular myth insists that Kim Il Sung, the wise old man, got (more or less) everything right, but then his son ruined everything. This is not true, but it seems that the founder of the North Korean state will be long seen as, so to say, a "controversial historical personality" and will have his fans. Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Bookman University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com. Kim Seong-han, right, SK Telecom's device planning division chief, poses with Taisei Express CEO Hwang Kyung-ho, after signing a 3.1 billion won deal to export smart beam projectors to the Japanese retailer, at this year's Hong Kong Electronics Fair, Saturday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom By Lee Min-hyung SK Telecom has clinched a 3.1 billion won deal with a Tokyo-based retailer to export its smart beam portable projectors, the mobile carrier said Sunday. The company will supply the UO smart beam laser projectors to Taisei Express for a year from the end of April. The contract came on the sidelines of this year's Hong Kong Electronics Fair, held over four days from Wednesday. The value of the deal is 300 million yen (3.15 billion won), according to the company. It will help SK Telecom diversify its revenue channels into the relatively untapped territory dominated by electrical-device makers such as Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba. Taisei is a retail giant that deals with portable smart devices. The company plans to sell the projectors through major retailers including Amazon and Yahoo Japan. "The latest contract will be the first step of our global penetration strategy," said Kim Seong-han, SK Telecom's device planning division chief. "Expectations are also that this will pave the way for our UO-branded products to gain more popularity in Japan." In April last year, SK Telecom unveiled a blueprint to turn the company into a converged platform service provider through the Internet of Things (IoT). The company then launched its "United Object (UO)" brand in a bid to generate new revenue sources to tackle the saturation of the traditional telecom business. The mobile carrier has since launched a series of smart devices, including the UO beam projectors and a UO smart band. In particular, the high-definition beam projector has had stronger-than-expected sales in 15 markets, including the United States, China, Germany and Malaysia, since its launch in 2013, according to the company. The smart device received an innovation award at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for features such as wireless connection to smartphones and cubic design. The device is 5.5 centimeters cubed. SK Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China Telecom last year for co-marketing the UO products in Asia's largest market. Residents survey destroyed housing follwoing an earthquake, April 16, 2016 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. At least 28 people were killed by a strong 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck northwestern Ecuador, the country's Vice President Jorge Glas said. / AFP-Yonhap By Kim Da-hee A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador's central coast Saturday (local time), killing at least 41 people and injuring hundreds of others. At least one house and an overpass collapsed in the port city of Guayaquil, The Associated Press, citing local media, said. The U.S. Geological Survey issued a tsunami warning for coasts within 300 kilometers of the earthquake's epicenter. Ecuadorian authorities said the death toll is expected to rise because many people are feared trapped in the collapsed buildings. The quake happened about 173 kilometers northwest of the capital, Quito, and 28 kilometers southeast of Muisne, at a depth of 10 kilometers, the U.S. agency said. The powerful quake came after two big earthquakes hit southern Japan on Friday and Saturday, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more. A growing number of Chinese people are canceling their planned travels to Japan's earthquake-hit areas, as China's tour industry and the Hong Kong government have issued a travel warning for Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by deadly earthquakes last week, China's media reported Sunday. A 7.3-magnitude temblor hit Kumamoto Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu at around 1:25 a.m. Saturday, less than two days after a 6.5-magnitude quake struck the same region. The quakes killed 34 people and injured some 2,000 others, according to Japanese media. In the wake of the quakes, the Hong Kong government issued a yellow travel warning, the lowest of the three-stage alert system, for the Kumamoto region, the South China Morning Post and other newspapers reported. The Hong Kong government advised those who are planning to visit the region or are already staying there to be on alert and stay away from the quake-stricken area. China's major tourist agencies have also suspended their tour programs to the disaster-battered Japanese areas for one month until May 16. The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more The aging of the U.S. population is, well, a fact of life that gets mentioned often in political and economic discussions but seldom is communicated in an understandable way. Stephen Holzman, who appears to be something of a data visualization whiz, decided to pull together the statistics and animate them via the gif below. Stephen Holzman's gif depicts the aging of the U.S. population. Changes after 2010 are shown in red and blue bands to signify the range of uncertainty. (Stephen Holzman) The most striking element of the graphic, unsurprisingly, is the movement of baby-boomers through the population, seen as a very distinctive bulge appearing in the mid-1940s and moving up in age through about 2040, at which point it begins to fade. But the most important point is that the population as a whole is aging. (The red and blue bands on the graphic reflect the uncertainties of population statistics starting in 2010.) The World Economic Forum reproduced Holzman's graphic for a discussion of the implications of the trend, which roughly parallels that in the rest of the world. "The potential consequences of an aging population," observes the WEF, "include economic pressure on healthcare and other welfare systems and a much smaller working-age population relative to the elderly." The potential consequences of an aging population...includeeconomic pressureon healthcare and other welfare systems and a much smaller working-age population relative to the elderly. --World Economic Forum The trend will be most pronounced in less-developed countries, according to U.N. population surveys. "The worlds least developed countries will go from having around 16 working age people for every older person to around 4 by the end of this century," the WEF says. "The developed world by contrast...currently has 3.7 people of working age for every older person and this is expected to fall to 1.9 by the end of the period." Yet the social and economic prospects are not as dire as they appear on the surface. Improvements in healthcare mean that "what it meant to be 65 in 1916 (or 1933) is no longer the same as what it means to be 65 today." Indeed, our measurements of aging itself are themselves aging, for they fail to accommodate the improvement in the ability of people to keep working into later years--generally, that is, for vast and widening gaps have appeared in life expectancies among ethnic and socio-economic categories. Population economists Warren Sanderson and Sergei Scherbov propose recalibrating measures such as old-age dependency ratios to recognize such emerging trends. "The old-age dependency ratio in the U.S. is forecast to increase by 61% from 2013 to 2030," they observe. "But using our economic dependency ratio, the ratio of adults in the labor force to adults not in the labor force increases by just 3% over that period. Clearly, doom-and-gloom stories about U.S. workers having to support so many more nonworkers in the future may need to be reconsidered." That has implications for the fiscal stability of Social Security. Among other things, many workers will continue contributing to the program for years after they were formerly assumed to transition to beneficiary status, and many more may defer collecting until they approach the age of 70. The impact on healthcare costs of aging populations may also become more moderate. Existing projections assume "that health care costs rise dramatically on peoples 65th birthdays," they write. But the prospects are that the heaviest costs, which occur in the last few years of life, may occur at later ages than currently expected. In Japan, for example, when the burden of the healthcare costs of people aged 65 and up on those 20 to 64 years old is assessed using only the conventional old-age dependency ratio, that burden is forecast to increase 32% from 2013 to 2030," write Sanderson and Scherbov. "When we compute healthcare costs based on whether people are in the last few years of their lives, the burden increases only 14%. Immigration can moderate the cost of an aging population by reducing the average age and producing more income to cover the costs of the elderly. (WEF) (Test) In Japan, for example, when the burden of the health care costs of people aged 65 and up on those 20-64 years old is assessed using only the conventional old-age dependency ratio, that burden is forecast to increase 32 percent from 2013 to 2030," write Sanderson and Scherbov. "When we compute health care costs based on whether people are in the last few years of their lives, the burden increases only 14 percent. One lesson drawn from the reality of aging populations in the developed world involves the value of immigration. "Migrant workers are typically of working age which means they help to boost the labour supply and contribute to economic growth and tax revenues," the WEF observes. The accompanying chart from Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility shows that by the mid-2060s, low immigration could result in debts rising to over 100% of GDP; higher immigration would reduce the ratio to only 70%. Understanding of the policy dimensions of aging demographics have lagged far behind the reality. For the most part, they're stuck in the past. It's time to bring them up to date and strip them of ideological bluster. Seeing how the population ages is a good first step, and for that we should thank Mr. Holzman. Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Return to Michael Hiltzik's blog. Question: Ive been attending my homeowner associations monthly board meetings for 30 years. Because the board doesnt report everything in the minutes, these meetings are important to me. There have been times Ive been ill or away and asked the board if my sister could attend the meeting on my behalf. They said if I got a power of attorney she could attend. I hired a lawyer and paid for the power of attorney, but when my sister went to the meeting the board denied her entry and said they didnt care that she had the document. Im not the only one this has happened to. My neighbors son has been staying with her for the past several weeks because she just had major surgery. She asked him to attend last nights board meeting but the board would not allow it because her son is also an attorney. The associations attorney who was present said, No attorneys can attend, then told her son to leave or he would call the police and have him removed. Now theres a new rule: Owners have to give 72 hours notice if were bringing someone to a meeting. I think this is outrageous. We should be able to have someone accompany us or attend on our behalf if we are unable to be present. What can we do to protect our interests and what can we do about this? Advertisement Answer: Access to board meetings has been a long-standing complaint by owners, who have tried to address this issue by closing loopholes in the common interest development act. With or without a valid power of attorney, titleholders wanting to bring a caretaker, interpreter, family member, friend, support person or their attorney to board meetings have been summarily denied entry. The hoops and machinations employed by boards, management and association attorneys effectively slam the door shut on a titleholders ability to protect his or her interests and assets. As most board meetings occur every 30 days, owners complain they are waylaid and put off to each subsequent next meeting. Boards devise these juggling acts for the purpose of frustrating owners so they give up trying or, in the case of the elderly, they perish trying. Even though it is not always possible to give prior notice, some associations still require 72 hours to 30 days written notice to request permission to bring a guest to a meeting. Neither may be practical. Just the logistics of delivering notice may defeat any semblance of so-called fairness in allowing an owner to bring a guest. Owners need an additional layer of protection by having at least two addresses on file where the association sends notices, perhaps to another family member in case the owner is on vacation or incapacitated. By written request an owner can add a second address for delivery of individual notices and the association shall deliver an additional copy of those notices to that secondary address identified in the request, according to Civil Code section 4040(b). Currently, the board may have an attorney present but it may prohibit a titleholder from being represented by an attorney at a board meeting. A bill that would rectify that situation is making its way through Californias Legislature. Assembly Bill 1720 by Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner (R-Irvine) would permit any person to attend a board meeting on behalf of the owner, whether or not the owner attends at the same time. In other words, it would allow the owners attorney to stand in the shoes of that titleholder during that board meeting. At least 48 hours advance written notice would have to be given to the board that a person representing the owner will be attending the meeting. The bill is supported by the Conference of California Bar Associations and opposed by the HOA management industry, which contends that it would promote costly, disruptive litigation from owners who already have adequate avenues to pursue disputes. Weigh in by contacting Wagners office or check on the bills status by visiting https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/ and click on Bill Information. Zachary Levine, a partner at Wolk & Levine, a business and intellectual property law firm, co-wrote this column. Vanitzian is an arbitrator and mediator. Send questions to Donie Vanitzian, JD, P.O. Box 10490, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 or noexit@mindspring.com. ALSO Will Yahoo find a buyer? Bids are due Delta eliminates a booking fee but dont expect others to follow Supreme Court rejects challenge to Googles online library of books Dear Liz: You frequently suggest consulting a fee-only financial planner, such as those who are members of the Garrett Planning Network, which seems like great advice. Can you provide any guidance on how much one should expect to pay for the services of this type of planner? We are a couple living in Los Angeles looking for a pre-retirement evaluation. That would probably include evaluation of existing investments, insurance needs, Social Security, long-term care, etc. How should we evaluate a quote of $3,000 for a full review estimated at 10 hours or $300 an hour? Answer: The cost for a comprehensive financial plan varies depending on where you live and the planners experience level, among other factors. Nationally, the range is typically from $150 to $300 an hour, so $3,000 for 10 hours in Los Angeles is at the high (but not unreasonable) end of the scale, assuming the planner has several years experience. Another way to get a feel for going rates is by interviewing a couple of other fee-only planners in your area. If the cost youre quoted is dramatically lower, though, make sure the planner isnt accepting commissions as well. Some planners are fee based, which means they accept both fees from clients and commissions on the products they recommend. You can ask for the planners Form ADV, a form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Part II of this form contains information about how the planner is compensated. Advertisement Options for paying a big IRS bill Dear Liz: I sold one mutual fund to invest in another fund with the same company. The tax statement shows this as a capital gain so large that I cannot afford to pay it all in one payment to the IRS. This is a disaster. Is there anything I can do? Answer: Absolutely. File your tax return on time, since the failure-to-file penalty is much higher than the failure-to-pay penalty. Pay as much as you can when you file the return, and then consider your options. If you can come up with the remainder within 120 days, then do so. Theres no need to arrange a formal payment plan, but you will owe interest and penalties on the balance until its repaid. If you cant pay within 120 days, you can ask for an installment agreement. Youll find an application in most tax software or you can find Form 9465 on the Internal Revenue Service website. You also can try calling the IRS at (800) 829-1040, but prepare for a long time listening to hold music. Budget cuts have left the agency severely short-handed and wait times are considerable. You also should consider borrowing the money from another source, such as a low-cost personal loan. Another option is to charge what you owe to a low-rate credit card. Youll pay a small fee for the privilege, but ultimately it may be cheaper than paying interest and penalties to the IRS. Fixing a wounded credit score Dear Liz: My wife and I co-signed on our daughters mortgage, then the home went into foreclosure. My wife and I have no debt and a net worth that exceeds $1 million. We purchased our cars with cash and the single credit card we have with a $35,000 limit is paid off in full each month. Since the foreclosure, our FICO score has been in the fair range. We have no plans to take out a loan for anything and plan to continue our cash and carry lifestyle. However, the low FICO is a little disconcerting. It appears the only cure is time (measured in years). We welcome any additional guidance. Answer: You cant fix your wounded FICO scores overnight, but you could speed up your credit score rehabilitation by adding one or two more credit accounts to your mix. At least one of those accounts should be an installment loan, since scoring formulas want evidence you can handle different types of credit. If you dont want an auto or personal loan, then consider a credit builder loan that puts your payments into a certificate of deposit that you claim when all the payments have been made. Credit builder loans are offered by credit unions and some online lenders. Is it worth the effort, even though you dont plan to borrow? In most states (although not California), credit scores heavily influence what you pay for auto and homeowners insurance. People who dont have the best scores can pay hundreds of dollars more each year for coverage. Credit scores also may be used to determine deposits for utilities and wireless service. If you need to rent an apartment, your credit scores matter as well. If none of those are a concern, you can continue to take the slow road to rebuilding your credit, since the foreclosure will fall off your credit reports after seven years. If you want to speed things along, though, another credit account or two should help. Liz Weston is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the Contact form at asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc. Reaction to O.J. Simpson verdict Regarding O.J. Stirs Actors Feelings as Well [April 10]. I have been intrigued by the resurgence of the O.J. trial in all its forms, from the FX series to reality shows covering the double homicide and the succeeding televised trial. It was an alarming incident that captivated our interest. Equally alarming is Cuba Gooding Jr. stating he held a party at his home when the verdict was read and not caring if O.J. did it or not, that it was a victory for them. There are no victors when a murder occurs. We are all victims. Kurt Bonzell Northridge :: O.J. stirred a lot of feelings but not all for reasons people think. Advertisement I was teaching high school when the verdict came in and one of my 10th grade boys said, I wanted to go to Compton and riot tonight. Doreen Lorand Downey :: Cuba Gooding Jr. said he had a gathering at his home when the verdict was rendered back in 1995 and We were excited, screaming, we didnt care if he did it or not. It felt like a victory for us. Please tell me this is a misprint. Gary Calame Burbank :: Cuba Gooding Jr. stated he and the gathered people at his home cheered when the O.J. verdict was announced. This country has come a long way in bringing races together and granted we still have work to do but this kind of incendiary comment certainly adds fuel to the fire rather than putting out any flames. David L. Hardison Murrieta A refresher on criminal law Regarding: A Voice for the Defense [April 5]. I owe Marcia Clark a debt of gratitude. After practicing criminal defense law for over 40 years, 32 of which were spent as a deputy public defender in Los Angeles, I now know that I am morally ambiguous. I have more creative freedom than the prosecutors, and all I need is a defense that works. It doesnt have to be the truth. Perhaps Clark should dust off her constitutional law book and take a look at the fundamental rights afforded anyone charged with a criminal offense. There is also the concept known as the presumption of innocence, which puts the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution doesnt win, it merely meets its burden of proof. And defendants dont lose, they are found guilty if and only if the prosecution meets its burden of proof. But how would I know? I am morally ambiguous and given to not telling the truth. David Carleton Burbank More notes on Trek debate Its been an interesting chain of letters. First, Nicholas Meyer wrote [Feedback, April 3] suggesting that Alexander Courages Star Trek theme (1966) was borrowed from Robert Farnons title music for the 1952 film Captain Horatio Hornblower. Then, the following week [Feedback, April 10] Richard Arnold correctly pointed out that only three or four notes are the same, thereby dismissing any suggestion of plagiarism or derivative writing. Meyer referred to Robert Farnon as an Englishman. Actually, Farnon was born in Canada and moved to England in his middle years where he had a very successful career as a first rate arranger. Richard R. McCurdy Burbank A pipe organ show to catch I was stunned that Mark Sweds article [Super Sonics, April 12] did not mention the largest church pipe organ in the United States, at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. The half hour concert by Christopher Bull before Sundays service is a joy, and he plays classic as well as modern pieces. Meg Quinn Coulter Los Angeles Not taking this coarse Detour Regarding the review of the The Detour on TBS [April 12]. Robert Lloyd generally seemed to like the premiere, albeit with some mixed feelings. I did not see the show, nor will I ever. According to Lloyd, The Detour has some of the best vomit scenes ever and some humor about diarrhea and urine. I guess you cant go wrong with jokes about hilarious bodily discharges. Of course, there are the obligatory sexual references by precocious tweeners, in this case 11-year-old twins. Such is the writing served up in much of todays TV. Are the people who like this fare the same ones who complain about the coarseness of Donald Trump? Just asking. Ken Grow Newbury Park People across the world are accustomed to seeing figures such as President Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing the the United Nations. But on a recent afternoon, the woman in a pale gray suit standing at the podium in the iconic General Assembly hall was not a world leader she just plays one on TV. In character as Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord, the lead character in the CBS drama Madam Secretary, Tea Leoni was delivering an urgent address about the need for the United Nations to fight Hizb al-Shahid, a fictional terrorist group reminiscent of Islamic State, for an episode airing Sunday. Advertisement Im here today to ask for your solidarity and your resolve in condemning this poisonous organization and everything it stands for, said Leoni, looking out at a crowd of extras dressed in an array of international costumes. As the 50-year-old actress, seated between takes at the desk assigned to Morocco noted, its a major moment for the CBS drama, granted a rare opportunity to film inside the United Nations. Were being very careful about our Cokes and crumbs and the walls that we will not scratch, said Leoni, who also has personal ties to the organization. Her grandmother, Helenka Pantaleoni, was the founding director of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF Its also a highly personal moment for the shows lead character, whose husband, Henry (Tim Daly), suffered radiation poisoning from a dirty bomb set off by Hizb al-Shahid. This conflating of the personal and the professional is typical of the series, which finds Elizabeth juggling high-stakes international diplomacy with the demands of being a wife and mother. A recent episode found Elizabeth awkwardly trying to ingratiate herself to her daughters new boyfriend while negotiating the release of hundreds of kidnapped girls and working to control a deadly outbreak of hemorrhagic fever. All in a days work, right? I like the idea that I could be unleashed to be as steely and strong as I needed to be professionally because I could come home and make mistakes, burn eggs, give the wrong advice to my child and be human, Leoni said of her character. I think thats a fun ride, and its interesting to watch. I get offended by this idea that if youre a strong woman then youve lost your femininity. Madam Secretary is one of a growing number of television series focused on women in politics, including The Good Wife, Veep, House of Cards and Scandal. But unlike those shows, Madam Secretary, created by former Homeland writer Barbara Hall, takes a more optimistic view of both politics and personal relationships. Amid a noxious presidential campaign already marred by jaw-dropping sexism, it also offers a hopeful version of politics happily removed the deeply partisan reality. Like the protagonist in a Frank Capra film, Elizabeth was thrust into a position of power almost by accident and, the show seems to suggest, is a better leader for it. A former CIA analyst turned professor, she was asked to become secretary of State after her predecessor died in a plane crash. Its a little less cynical without trying to be too sugar-coated, said Hall, who also serves as show runner. Were trying to find something in the middle that feels more like what wed hope Washington would be. The series about a powerful woman also boasts women in key creative positions. In addition to Hall, theres executive producer Lori McCreary, who is also president of the Producers Guild of America. And in a rarity for the industry in which, according to the WGA West, women account for 29% of television writing jobs, more than half the shows writing staff is female. The series also employs a higher than average number of female directors. In an unplanned but apt coincidence, the episode filmed at the United Nations was both directed and written by women (Charlotte Brandstrom and Moira Kirland, respectively). This gender parity makes a difference in writers room, explained Kirland. I have worked on shows where there is this culture of 20 to 30 minutes talking about the big game last night. There are lots of women who care about sports; Im not one of them. You find that less in rooms where there equal numbers of women. Of course, it also makes a difference in the writing. Daly, whod stopped by the U.N. to observe the action, suggested that having more women on staff means he gets to play a confident, competent man whos neither threatened nor turned off by his wifes success. Its so unusual on television, he said. Theres this fantasy that men can remain frat boys and have some hot chick come along and love you and take care of them. I think women writing the show are like, we dont want an indolent drunken frat boy for a husband. We want a man whos got his own thing, and can make breakfast for the kids. The show also tacitly acknowledges the delicate dance required of women in powerful positions. Though Elizabeth is able to make the cold, clear-eyed decisions required of her job, she is also, generally speaking, a warm, well-liked and supportive boss who talks to her employees and colleagues about their personal lives. Look, if all women had to do is get ahead in these positions is be hard all the time then it wouldnt be that much of a challenge, Hall said. Its all about the compartmentalization that women have to learn how to do. That to me is whats interesting about a female secretary of State because you cant be tough all the time. For a relative newcomer to the world stage, Elizabeth has had a remarkably blemish-free record, managing to quell major crises while avoiding the kind of blunders that lead to congressional investigations. Using a colorful expletive, Leoni said shes been pushing the writers for Elizabeth to mess up more often. I feel like thats the real test of the character, she said. It isnt that you messed up, its how did you clean it up? What I think is a mistake that we could be making with our politicians is that were holding them some of them more than others to these standards. Lets encourage them to own their mistakes. Lets encourage them to sit down and have a conversation about what went wrong. When CBS announced in 2014 that it was making Madam Secretary, some conservatives were quick to assume Leoni would be playing a thinly veiled version of Hillary Clinton and that the series would serve as a kind of advertisement for her inevitable presidential campaign. And though those criticisms were quickly put to rest by Madam Secretarys assiduous nonpartisanship I think the most brilliant thing about this show is never saying Democrat or Republican, because we are forced to listen to what people are actually saying, Daly observed Leoni is happy if her role has played a small part in making the public more comfortable with women in power. Thats something I didnt see coming, she said, and Id be proud. Follow @MeredithBlake on Twitter. Her foods waiting sizzling onion steak and fragrant catfish but the woman on a mission does not pause between back-to-back interviews. Shes done nine since leaving Vietnam and landing in Los Angeles last week, rushing to Orange Countys Little Saigon, fiercely staying on message, softly sharing a plea for her husbands freedom. Vu Minh Khanh, wife of famed human rights activist Nguyen Van Dai beaten and imprisoned by the communist government in Hanoi is determined that the American public and others outside our community ... know his work, his cause. Advertisement Now that Im here in this country, I realize even more how much people suffer in my country, Vu said. How else can you describe it when you dont have basic rights? Nguyen, a lawyer and blogger, left his Hanoi home in December to meet with European Union representatives in the country to research human rights issues. Now that Im here in this country, I realize even more how much people suffer in my country. Vu Minh Khanh, wife of human rights activist Nguyen Van Dai Plainclothes officers stopped him and took him back to the house, where a police camera facing the front door monitors all who enter and exit. They confiscated three computers and USB sticks, Vu said. Nguyen was later charged with conducting propaganda against the state. Four months later, authorities have not allowed Vu, other family members or friends to see or contact him, his wife said, adding that they also declined his requests for a lawyer. International human rights groups, along with elected officials worldwide, have condemned his arrest, attacking Vietnam for its poor record of religious persecution, lack of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Nguyen is the founder of the Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam, which trains human rights attorneys and promotes legal education. He has traveled from city to city, teaching young people how to report human rights violations and handle police interrogations. In 2013, he launched the Brotherhood for Democracy with former jailed dissidents to coordinate human rights activities across Vietnam and to host forums in Hanoi and Saigon to mark International Human Rights Day. Hes one of the people who can do things. Hes organized. His activities back up his beliefs, says Nancy Nguyen, a restaurant owner from Anaheim who reached out to help Vu, scheduling her Southern California meet-and-greets. She is assisting VOICE, the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment, a global nongovernmental organization that helped set up Vus visit. Hoi Trinh, VOICEs founder, said Nguyen has done nothing wrong. In any democracy, what he accomplished would be encouraged, commended and honored. Not thrown in jail without trial to this day. Brandon Hoang, a programmer from Santa Ana, is an ardent Nguyen admirer. I follow what he does online, Hoang said. Even though he is oceans away, I respect what he stands for, and I hope that here in America, others will also respect that and spread his gospel. Vu received a heros welcome after managing to sneak out of her country to rally supporters in the nations largest Vietnamese American community. In her loneliest, darkest hours, the church volunteer said she relies on her faith. I think and believe in the powers of God. If I become frail, it weakens the purpose, she said of her resolve, as she prepared to field questions from a journalist with the BBC. She planned to follow that interview with a trip to Washington to try to persuade lawmakers familiar with the expatriate push for human rights and religious freedom to intervene in her husbands case. Late in the week, Vu sat with immigrant fans in a popular French-Vietnamese restaurant in Little Saigon, where a waitress approached, holding a Vietnamese-language newspaper with her picture on the front page. She struggled to maintain energy while the others ate lunch the 15-hour time difference between her homeland and California had left her with little sleep the night earlier. This is the second time officials have jailed her husband. Authorities tried Nguyen in May 2008, sentencing him to five years in prison under the same propaganda charges. In 2011, he was released to house arrest for an additional four years and barred from practicing law. Before leaving Southern California, Vu expected to be the featured guest at a Little Saigon town hall meeting, promoting her husbands activism. Dai always tells me: We want to live a life with meaning not just for us but for those around us. Thats why we continue to do what we do. anh.do@latimes.com Twitter: @newsterrier ALSO Sport Chalet will close all stores and stop online sales U.S. agents find 140-foot tunnel under U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico Non-Muslim woman caned in Indonesia chose the punishment over jail time It was a day every bit as eclectic as the man it was commemorating. At Saturdays celebration of the late City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, there were Native American singers, off-season carolers in polka dots, and a rendition of David Bowies All the Young Dudes performed by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles. There was a photo booth, seed planting, laughter, music and a little dancing too. And, of course, chickens. Politicians, beekeepers and Venice boardwalk hustlers all converged on a Mar Vista park on a radiant Saturday afternoon to pay tribute to the cable TV host-turned-councilman, who died last month after a four-year battle with cancer. Advertisement They described the larger-than-life spirit of the man who listened to Christmas carols year-round, gave away eggs hatched by his backyard chickens and seemed to befriend everybody he encountered. It really paid tribute to his spirit, said his longtime partner, book publisher Hedi el Kholti. All these different people brought together, with no hierarchy thats the beauty of Bills energy. Councilman Mike Bonin, who was Rosendahls chief of staff and succeeded him in his Westside district after he retired in 2013, said much of the celebration was orchestrated by the late councilman himself. Except all his ideas couldnt be squeezed into one afternoon. Bills plan wouldve been a four-day Billstock, Bonin said. Rosendahl lived every moment to the fullest, Bonin said. That meant every task had a sense of urgency whether it was back-seat driving or an initiative for the homeless. He recounted a story he said was told at Rosendahls funeral, of how his former boss of eight years bristled when he was instructed to wear gloves and not touch anybody during a visit to skid row. Bill walked around, got on his knees. He touched and hugged everybody, he said. Bill was not the kind of guy who got sympathetic with others he got empathetic. Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke of a man who had a way of winning people over to his liberal causes. Before there was Bernie [Sanders], there was Bill, he said. He was like a cult leader you couldnt say no to. Garcetti said Rosendahl, who was raised Catholic but was influenced later in life by Judaism and Eastern religions, was probably in a post-heaven, transcendental semi-Buddhist, Hindu place and working hard to fix things there, as he did in Los Angeles. Kim Selbert, who lives just blocks from the park, added a tribute to a large poster: You made such a difference in so many lives. She said Rosendahl was a visible, approachable presence in the district, whether it was at a cancer walk or a protest against a tall condominium development. Next to the poster, Rob Kadota was collecting signatures on an empty white beehive box. Kadota said the councilman turned him on to raising chickens, and then to beekeeping. (Rosendahl introduced the City Council motion that ultimately legalized backyard beekeeping in Los Angeles.) He changed for me the face of city government, said Kadota, who inherited half of Rosendahls hive and said he plans on relocating the bees to the signed box. Running the photo booth was Alex Stowell, who used to peddle photo key chains on the Venice boardwalk and now runs a photography business called Venice Paparazzi. Stowell recalled working with the councilman on a lottery system for boardwalk vendors. He had a contagious positive energy, said Stowell, who photographed the weddings of two of Rosendahls staff members. His smile was probably three miles wide, he said. Under a tree on one side of the stage, 14-year-old Logan Fischer tended to a flock of chickens, one of which laid an egg during the event. The birds werent from Rosendahls flock but from Goodrich Family Farms, a regular at the Mar Vista farmers market, which Rosendahl had championed. Logan said he was wearing his blue Hawaiian shirt in honor of Rosendahl, who sported vibrant colors when he spoke at his school. Everybodys life is like a hotel room, he recalled the late councilman saying during one of those visits. You eventually have to check out. victoria.kim@latimes.com Twitter: @vicjkim ALSO L.A.'s effort to equip officers with body cameras stalls Pint-size surfer girl goes viral as she catches her first solo wave in Dana Point This L.A. County panel is facing scrutiny for reinstating a social worker later charged in a boys death A Woodland Hills charter school recently made an unusual offer to its veteran teachers: Well give you $30,000 if you return to the Los Angeles Unified School District before you retire. It wasnt the teachers that El Camino Real Charter High School wanted to get rid of. It was the cost of their retirement benefits. The schools cost-shifting strategy is one of many flashpoints between traditional public schools and the independent charters they compete with for students and money. Advertisement In this case, its a battle over who should pay for an employees health benefits after retirement the charter school or the larger school district. Financial challenges are all-but-universal in the education world, and retiree benefits are particularly costly. L.A. Unifieds unfunded liability for employee benefits has escalated to $13.6 billion. The El Camino plan would add from $2.5 million to $4.2 million to that deficit, based on district estimates. The idea is that teachers would spend their careers in the charter school, but later transfer to LAUSD to qualify for the huge institutions retirement benefits. Except the district has decided not to play ball. Teachers who return to the district, simply to retire, are not entitled to district retirement benefits, general counsel David Holmquist said. This would be an obligation that in my view would be the charters responsibility, Holmquist said. Officials reached that determination Friday, and, if that decision holds, then the recent retirees would have to turn to El Camino for retirement benefits after all. The dispute is notable in part because of an effort by advocates to sharply increase the number of charter schools in Los Angeles. Under that proposal, at least 260 additional charters would open over the next eight years, resulting in about half of L.A. Unified School District students being enrolled in these independently managed public schools. These backers argue that more charters will give parents more choices and improve education in the city. But opponents say a huge increase in the number of charters could push the district to the brink of insolvency by draining resources and leaving behind students who are the most difficult and expensive to educate. Charters are independently operated public schools and exempt from some rules that govern traditional, district-run campuses. Most charters are nonunion, and are not bound to match district benefits. But El Camino did not want its teachers to feel as though they were giving up something when the campus left district control five years ago. So teachers retained their union representation. L.A. Unified and the teachers union also agreed to give El Camino teachers up to five years to return to the district. This is a charter school that did at least try to do right by teachers, said Monique Morrissey, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which is based in Washington. It did put a premium from the get-go on retaining unionized, professional teachers rather than taking the low road using low-paid, unprofessional, nonunionized teachers and churning through them. As the teachers five-year window to return to the district drew near, El Camino administrators concluded that it was now or never to lighten its retirement burden. Teachers with 17 or more years of experience could get $30,000 if they left and retired through L.A. Unified rather than El Camino. Teachers with fewer years of service qualified for reduced amounts. According to L.A. Unified, 10 individuals with teaching credentials have submitted paperwork to return to L.A. Unified. Eight of those also indicated that they plan to retire. Other employees also were eligible for smaller buyouts. Two administrators and two nonteaching staff members took advantage, according to El Camino. Whatever happens, El Camino remains on the hook for most of its workers, a potential liability of more than $40 million, said Chief Business Officer Marshall Mayotte. For health and life sciences teacher Evalyn Kallman, the timing of the buyout was right. She started teaching in her 20s and has worked well over 30 years. Even if I work another few years, she said, it wont make a significant difference in the amount of retirement I get. The district already is paying $1 billion a year from a $7.1-billion budget for benefits to both current and retired employees. This number is expected to rise sharply with an older, longer-living workforce. And money to pay for these costs has been limited by shrinking enrollment in large measure because of the growth of charters. I do think its unfair the idea that we are saddled with this obligation when another employer is benefiting from the services, Holmquist said of El Caminos plan. Which is not to say the strategys wisdom is lost on him. I think its a smart business decision on their part, he said. howard.blume@latimes.com Twitter: @howardblume Editors note: Education Matters receives funding from a number of foundations, including one or more mentioned in this article. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Baxter Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the California Endowment and the Wasserman Foundation. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content. ALSO Sport Chalet will close all stores and stop online sales U.S. agents find 140-foot tunnel under U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico Non-Muslim woman caned in Indonesia chose the punishment over jail time Opposition is forming for the release of Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, whom a state board last week recommended for parole. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey has vowed to fight against the release of Van Houten, and several family members of her victim, Rosemary LaBianca, have also spoken out. Van Houten has repeatedly sought release from prison, arguing she was a model prisoner and expressing remorse for the 1969 killing. Advertisement In recommending release, one parole board member said: Your behavior in prison speaks for itself. Forty-six years and not a single serious rule violation. The ruling will be reviewed by the parole boards legal team. If upheld, it will be forwarded to Gov. Jerry Brown, who could decide to block Van Houtens release. Last summer, a review board recommended parole for Manson associate Bruce Davis, who was convicted in the 1969 slayings of Gary Hinman and Donald Shorty Shea. He was not involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders. In January, Brown rejected parole for the 73-year-old, stating that Davis own actions demonstrate that he had fully bought into the depraved Manson family beliefs. LaBiancas family members hope Brown will make the same decision in Van Houtens case. Rosemary LaBianca was killed alongside her husband, Leno LaBianca, in their Los Feliz home. Maybe Leslie Van Houten has been a model prisoner, said Cory LaBianca, Rosemary LaBiancas stepdaughter. But you know what? We still suffer our loss. My father will never be paroled. My stepmother will never get her life back. Theres no way I can agree with the ruling today. What type of decision has the parole board actually made? Theyre making a decision to allow a murderer to come back into your neighborhood, my neighborhood. Last time they were in my neighborhood, they killed my family, the LaBiancas grandson, Tony LaMontagne, told CBS News. Louis Smaldino, another family member, echoed that view. The Manson family are terrorists, albeit homegrown, he told the Associated Press. Theyre long before their time. What were seeing today, these people were back in the 60s. In 1971, Van Houten spoke in chilling detail about the killings during her trial. She was not involved in the first of the two Manson murder rampages, in which Sharon Tate and her friends were killed in Bel Air. But the then 19-year-old was one of the Manson family members who invaded the Leno and Rosemary LaBiancas home. Van Houten testified that she held down Rosemary LaBianca as Charles Tex Watson stabbed her husband. After Watson stabbed Rosemary LaBianca in her bedroom, he handed Van Houten a knife. She testified to stabbing the woman at least 14 more times. And I took one of the knives, and Patricia had one knife, and we started stabbing and cutting up the lady, Van Houten testified in 1971. (Patricia Krenwinkle was a co-defendant and a Manson family member). Van Houten described the killing of Rosemary LaBianca, who offered anything to have her life spared. She said she got into a fight with LaBianca, prompting Krenwinkle to go the kitchen and return to the bedroom with a whole bunch of kitchen utensils, including knives. She said LaBianca kept promising not to call the police and pleaded for her life. And it seemed like the more she said police, the more panicked I got, Van Houten testified. Supporters describe Van Houten as a misguided teen under the influence of LSD on the night of the killings. They also say she was a victim of Mansons mind control. At a 2002 parole board hearing, Van Houten said she was deeply ashamed of what she had done, adding: I take very seriously not just the murders, but what made me make myself available to someone like Manson. Join the conversation on Facebook >> Van Houtens attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, has said his client was long overdue for release, listing her accomplishments behind bars: earning bachelors and masters degrees, running self-help groups and facilitating victim-offender reconciliation sessions. ALSO Charles Manson marriage license to expire: Hes still single Susan Atkins dies at 61; imprisoned Charles Manson follower There was much more to Vincent Bugliosi than the Charles Manson case For the third time, Brown rejects parole of Manson follower Bruce Davis, 73 Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi: Read the 1974 L.A. Times book review The Supreme Courts last great case of the Obama era comes before the justices Monday when the administrations lawyers defend his plan to offer work permits to as many as 4 million immigrants who have been living here illegally for years. Once again, lawyers for Republican leaders from Congress and the states will be challenging the actions of the Democratic president. And as with past battles over healthcare and same-sex marriage, Obama administration lawyers will need to win over at least one of the courts more conservative justices. If the justices split 4 to 4 a possibility since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia the tie vote would keep in place a Texas judges order that has blocked President Obamas deportation relief plan from taking effect. Advertisement At issue is whether the president has the power to extend a temporary reprieve from the threat of deportation and a work permit to immigrant parents of U.S. citizens or lawful residents. More than one-fourth of those who stand to benefit live in California, according to immigration experts. The two sides disagree not only on what is the right outcome, but on what the case is about. One side sees a great constitutional clash over the rule of law in a democracy, while the other sees a narrow regulatory dispute. The Republicans, in written briefs, portray Obamas order as a profound threat to the constitutional system. If the president can defy Congress and change the law on his own, the nation has abandoned a bedrock constitutional principle, they say. This would be one of the largest changes in immigration policy in the nations history, say lawyers for Texas and 25 other Republican-led states. They note that the presidents action arose after Congress refused to change the law in line with his wishes, so the order rests on an unprecedented, sweeping assertion of executive power, they say. The House Republicans joined the case on the side of Texas, and if anything, raised the stakes even higher. They described Obamas immigration order as the most aggressive of executive power claims and a threat to the separation of powers that underpins our very constitutional structure. Meanwhile, U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the administrations top lawyer, sought to play down the significance of Obamas order and defuse the constitutional clash. He said the immigrants who qualify would be offered a temporary relief from deportation that does not confer any form of legal status. He cited instances in which Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush gave similar relief to large groups of immigrants who were fleeing wars or despotic regimes. Verrilli spent part of his written brief walking back from the 2014 guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which said the applicants who qualified would be lawfully present in the United States. That phrase is purely descriptive and has no operative, legal effect, he wrote. Lawful presence thus might be better called tolerated presence. Even with deferred action, the aliens lack lawful status, are actually present in violation of the law, are subject to enforcement at the governments discretion and gain no defense to removal, he wrote. Moreover, the presidents order is not a binding regulation for U.S. immigration agents, he argued, but merely a general statement of policy. In a separate 2012 program, Obama announced an action that offered relief to young adults who had been brought to this country illegally when they were children. About 700,000 Dreamers, as theyre known, have come forward and qualified for work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That order went largely unchallenged. But in 2014, lawyers for Texas and the other states filed suit in Brownsville, near the Mexican border, shortly after Obama announced the larger Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. A federal judge there ruled that the president failed to seek the required notice and comment before issuing the new rules, and on that basis, put the plan on hold nationwide. Last year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order on a 2-1 vote. Administration lawyers appealed, and in mid-January, the Supreme Court said it would decide the case of United States vs. Texas. The justices said they would also consider whether the president violated his constitutional duty to take care to see that the laws are faithfully executed. Scalia had once raised such a question in a separate immigration case, and he was seen as the most likely to support that view. But without the conservative justice on the bench, it is hard to see how the court would hand down a broad constitutional ruling rebuking the president. Advocates for immigrants see two ways the administration can prevail. The justices might say Texas lacks standing to sue because there is no clear proof the order will hurt the state or impose costs. In the past, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been skeptical of granting states the right to sue the federal government over disputed policies. The justices, led perhaps by Anthony M. Kennedy, could also say the U.S. immigration laws give the chief executive broad power to decide on deportations, including by shielding large groups from being arrested and removed. david.savage@latimes.com The official rock of Tennessee is limestone. Tennessees official wild animal: the rascally raccoon. The official book? The Volunteer State doesnt have one yet, and a Christian governor and Christian lawmakers are locked in a battle over whether it should be the Bible. On Thursday, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam vetoed a bill that would have added Christianitys holy book to Tennessees list of official state symbols, and lawmakers have already threatened to override his decision. Advertisement Haslam likes the Bible perfectly fine. On his Facebook page, he lists his favorite books as anything by Eugene Peterson or Philip Yancey, two best-selling Christian authors. In Haslams veto message to the Republican lawmakers who sponsored the bill, he wrote in defense of Christian beliefs, noting, I strongly disagree with those who are trying to drive religion out of the public square. However, Haslam said, theres that matter of constitutional law the separation of church and state. If we are recognizing the Bible as a sacred text, then we are violating the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee by designating it as the official book, Haslam wrote. Our founders recognized that when the church and state were combined, it was the church that suffered in the long run. (Haslams veto came a little more than a week after Idaho Republican Gov. C.L. Butch Otter vetoed a bill that would have allowed the Bible to be used in public schools for instruction, also citing constitutional concerns.) In Tennessee, all it takes to override a veto are majority votes in both chambers of the Legislature, and the bills two Republican sponsors already signaled their intent to go around the governor. Eighty-one percent of Tennessees adults are Christians, according to the Pew Research Center, and the state is familiar with battles over church and state. It was home to the legendary 1925 Scopes trial of a teacher on charges of illegally teaching evolution in school. He was convicted. The Bible bill was introduced in 2015 but stalled in the Legislature. The attorney general issued an opinion saying it would be unconstitutional. The bill reemerged this March and was approved 55 to 38 in the House and 19 to 8 in the Senate. An amendment suggested a preamble for the bill, which states that the Bible has great historical and cultural significance in Tennessee. A series of whereas statements extols the Bibles importance to the state, as in whereas, printing the Bible is a multimillion-dollar industry for the state with many top Bible publishers headquartered in Nashville, including Thomas Nelson, Gideons International and United Methodist Publishing House. The amendment even alludes to this newspapers coverage: whereas, even the Los Angeles Times has acknowledged the economic impact of the Bible in Tennessee. Conservative religious groups such as the Family Action Council of Tennessee supported the bill. If the state cannot recognize its religious heritage without supposedly violating the Constitution, then our heritage will be lost and hostility toward religion will have replaced tolerance, President David Fowler said in a statement. The measure drew opposition based on spiritual grounds as well as constitutional ones. Haslam said that if the book is embraced as a cultural item rather than as a holy one, my personal feeling is that this bill trivializes the Bible. (If the Bible is approved as a state symbol, it would be added to a list that includes the Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle, the official state gun.) The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee also objected. Our position has always been that religion thrives when its left in the hands of families and faith communities, said executive director Hedy Weinberg. But if not the Bible, what tome would be appropriate for Tennessees state book? The Los Angeles Times asked some Tennessee literary figures for some recommendations. Randy Mackin, director of the Tennessee Literary Project, suggested classics from Tennessee natives, including James Agees A Death in the Family, T.S. Striblings The Store, or something by poet Charles Wright. All three men won Pulitzers. Niki Coffman, director of events and marketing at the independent bookstore Parnassus Books in Nashville, had a suggestion that all Tennessee might be able to embrace: King of the Wild Frontier: An Autobiography by Davy Crockett. He was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee and brought acclaim to the state, Coffman said of the legendary congressman and frontiersman, who died at the Battle of the Alamo. Davy Crockett. Thats the answer. matt.pearce@latimes.com Twitter: @mattdpearce Hillary Clinton may have set up her headquarters in the new Brooklyn, that place of plentiful thrift shops, artisan craft brews and unkempt facial hair, but the denizens at the center of this laboratory of hipster culture are still keeping their distance. On the streets of Williamsburg, Clinton supporters are a rare breed. This is Bernie country. Even the elevated pathway into the neighborhood from Manhattan is marked as such, with expertly drawn portraits of Clinton along with the damning words 100% Wall Street stamped all over it. Clintons mere act of planting the flag in Brooklyn irritates some voters in this lefty enclave a few miles from the office she set up across from Borough Hall, on that side of the new Brooklyn so gentrified by now it lacks even the ironic kind of grit that hipsters prize. Advertisement The irony of the borough this election, though, is that while Clinton is well-positioned to win the day in the old Brooklyn of immigrants and Hasidic Jews and middle-class workers from which Bernie Sanders hails and which still controls the bulk of the vote the urban pioneers she has worked hardest to court are unimpressed. Election 2016 | Live coverage on Trail Guide | Track the delegate race | Sign up for the newsletter This is territory rich in millennials, and these days when Clinton is asked, yet again, why she fares so poorly with the group, she does the equivalent of throwing her hands up. Young people have been really caught up in Sen. Sanders campaign, and I think that is terrific, she said on NBC this month when asked why so few of them are voting for her. Because the more young people we can bring into the process, particularly into the Democratic primary process, the better. Over the course of a few hours on a corner of Bedford Avenue that is home to two vintage clothing stores, a bicycle rack crammed with one-speeds and a building wall emblazoned with a portrait of young Muhammad Ali in the ring, residents interviewed were almost unanimously fond of the 74-year-old socialist, Sanders. Hes not trying to pull any stunts, said Michelle Yazvac, who found it particularly annoying when Clinton made a cameo appearance on Broad City, the Comedy Central cult hit about two millennial women navigating life in New York. She is on all these pop culture shows trying to draw in the crowd. She is trying to appeal to a younger crowd. But, really, where does she truly stand? Bernie is not trying too hard. You just feel it. Yazvac, a 24-year-old acting student, was walking down the street with her friend Edward Rivera, who pulled open his stylish black leather jacket to reveal a Bernie sticker attached to the inner lining. She just sounds so contrived, Rivera, a 29-year-old sound engineer, said of Clinton. Like a game show host. Even foreign nationals who inhabit this cosmopolitan burg but are ineligible to vote were eager to talk at length about why it is Bernies turn. She should be the No. 1 Democratic choice, but [times have changed] and the mood of the country has changed, particularly the under-35s, said Jon Connell, who is British. She is no longer acceptable. If I were her, I would just be gutted. But life isnt fair. His wife, 35-year-old Brantlee Connell, said the 13-year-old me the one who rooted for Clinton as a glass-ceiling breaker is disappointed I am not more excited about her running. But she said Sanders has purer motives, a more inspired message and, unlike other politicians, isnt making everything so complicated that you dont know what they are talking about. Earlier this month, Brantlee Connell attended a Sanders rally in Brooklyns Greenpoint neighborhood. And all the Twitter buzz about a mainstream media blackout of such events? Its true, she said. Connell is unswayed by the national studies that find Clinton and Sanders receive roughly the same amount of media coverage. ------------ FOR THE RECORD April 18, 11:44 a.m.: An earlier version of this article stated that Brooklyn resident Brantlee Connell attended a campaign rally for Bernie Sanders in the Bronx. The rally she attended was in Brooklyn. ------------ Soon after, another Sanders enthusiast who went to a rally for the candidate in the Bronx along with 18,000 others came strolling down the street. Thomas Whidden, a full-bearded location scout for production companies, talked about the Bronx event like it was Woodstock. He got in just before the crowd hit capacity hours before the events start, and attendees were diverted to an overflow area. There is only one real New Yorker in the Democratic race in Whiddens eyes, and it is not the candidate who represented the state in the Senate for eight years and headquartered her massive presidential campaign operation in walking distance to several subway lines. This is her false home, he said of Clinton. She is not from here. She saw an open seat in the Senate and she took it. She took advantage. After Whidden strolled down the street, a band of colorfully dressed, singing skateboarders with cases of the retro-favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon cradled under their arms flew by. Later, a man wearing little more than a transparent rain suit and a giant pair of flippers would also come through the neighborhood, also by skateboard. Another skateboarder followed behind, movie camera in hand. There were no such high jinks back over on the other side of new Brooklyn, under the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, on a sparkling scrubbed block full of baby strollers and tourists and Clinton fans. Some were lining up for treats at the local One Girl Cookies, perhaps before taking a spin on the local carousel. Others streamed into a lofty bookstore to await Chelsea Clinton. One Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn houses Hillary Clintons presidential campaign headquarters. (Mark Lennihan / Associated Press ) The campaign event had all the energy of a baby shower. There was a very pregnant host expressing equal measures gratitude and uneasiness with all the attention, a small cross-generational group of polite and attentive listeners, and a lot of talk about children. There was no danger of mistaking it with the millennial-driven political revolution that had taken root back in Williamsburg. Yet Hillary Clinton herself also reminded on that same day why she has the edge in old Brooklyn, which is what could matter most on election day. The candidate was across the river in East Harlem, where she became the first person in the race to campaign at a New York public housing facility. That included sitting down for a game of dominoes with residents. At her daughters bookstore event, allies of Clinton, undeniably frustrated by all the enthusiasm Sanders has drawn for himself in their backyard, urged neighbors to reexamine the Clinton political baggage that is giving voters pause. When you are on the front lines, you are going to get the batterers and the bricks thrown at you, said City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo. Sen. Sanders has not been as visible on the front line and he has the luxury of not having the same battle scars, or as some call, it baggage. Times staff writer Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report. Twitter: @evanhalper ALSO Obama likely to sit out Democratic primary altogether, White House aides say Wall Streets view of itself in Bernie Sanders campaign: Maligned, marginalized, misunderstood Analysis: In brawling Brooklyn debate, Clinton and Sanders define big differences There may have been just one place that could draw Hillary Clinton away this weekend from the electoral brawl in New York, where the Democratic front-runner faces a defining moment in just a few days when voters there decide whether to clear the path for her nomination or send her campaign a destabilizing jolt. But California is that place. The states wealth, as well as its wealth of delegates, were too hard for Clinton to pass up. So she took the cross-country detour to join George Clooney in toasting some of Californias most well-heeled Democratic donors and collect copious amounts of their cash as well as to stir up voter enthusiasm with a Los Angeles rally. The amount of money Clinton stands to rake in on the visit is well into the millions of dollars. A pair of seats at her table with Clooney cost donors more than $353,000 Friday night in San Francisco, the most expensive tickets at an event attended by 70 people and hosted by venture capitalist and early Uber investor Shervin Pishevar. Another event was to be held at Clooneys home in Los Angeles, where the priciest tickets cost $100,000 per couple. The events underscore the states outsize role as a money tree for Democratic candidates. Advertisement Election 2016 | Live coverage on Trail Guide | Track the delegate race | Sign up for the newsletter And Clinton will need that money to make a strong showing in the state, which is an especially expensive place to run. Her advisors had initially hoped to avoid a protracted fight in California, one of the last states to vote in the presidential primary, and a place where the race was expected to be over by the time voters cast ballots June 7. But they are confronting the reality that rival Bernie Sanders is not going away, regardless of what happens in New York and the states that immediately follow. The well-funded insurgent, whose money comes not in increments of hundreds of thousands of dollars but in tens of dollars from a vast number of donors, has the resources and the determination to inflict considerable pain on Clinton in California. Her oddly timed visit can be explained simply in dollar signs, said Jack Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College. Its all about amassing cash, because its expensive to run in California. From San Diego to San Francisco, the state has several major media markets where Clinton and Sanders will need to dole out staggering sums on television advertising. There is only so much door-to-door campaigning the candidates can do to have an impact in a state so massive. This is a large state, and advertising will be critical, Pitney said. The risks involved with heading west while it is crunch time in New York were diminished for Clinton because Sanders left New York, too. He jetted off to the Vatican to address the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and met with Pope Francis, whom he has frequently invoked on the campaign trail. Both candidates were expected back in New York on Sunday, when they have major rallies planned. But the Sanders campaign also made itself present in California, announcing it would run its first television advertisements in the state just as Secretary Clintons wealthy donors are sitting down for dinner. The spots highlight the $27 average contribution to Sanders campaign and come a day after the senator released his tax return for 2014, which his campaign used to highlight the vast wealth gap between the two candidates. He and his wife reported income of just over $200,000, while Clinton and her husband took in about $28 million the same year. The Clinton campaign emphasized that money raised in California this weekend was not just for her, but also to be used to help Democrats up and down the ticket win in November. In between the fundraisers, Clinton also did some campaigning. Lets take California values and New York values and put them to work for American values, she said at a rally at Los Angeles Southwest College, inserting the West Coast into her well-rehearsed play on comments from Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who has assailed New York values as those of liberal politicians. She made several nods to Californias primary, noting that she will be here often. I love coming to California. ... We need to get to work for a big victory in California, said Clinton, who has the backing of such prominent local Democrats as Rep. Maxine Waters and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Clinton also jabbed at Sanders for supporting a bill that gave gun makers and sellers immunity from liability. No matter how often hes asked by family members of those who have been murdered, he sticks to his talking points, Clinton said. Despite Clintons losing pattern in the West, where she so far has lost many more states than she has won, the diverse California electorate offers far more promising terrain for her than the other, generally far whiter states have. The landscape is very Clinton-friendly. She has had the upper hand with minorities, and thats likely not to change here in California, Pitney said. A recent Field Poll showed Clinton leading with black voters, for example, by a margin of well over 2 to 1. She also leads, by a much smaller though still comfortable margin, with Latinos, who accounted for almost a third of the Democratic electorate in 2008. But the state does pose risks at a time when Sanders continues to crush Clinton with the youth vote. While California has a large share of Latino registered voters in the Democratic primary, they tend to also be young, which may mean they are equally compelled by Sanders, said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at UCLA. Whatever the outcome in California, Clinton is so far ahead in the delegate count that it is unlikely to cost her the nomination unless it is compounded by some unexpectedly catastrophic electoral setbacks in the coming weeks. But a loss in the state would be a demoralizing, if not humiliating, blow heading into the national convention in Philadelphia in July. So much so that some Clinton supporters at the rally Saturday expressed resentment that Sanders plans to continue fighting regardless of how far behind he is by the time California votes. He needs to leave the race, said Linda Slauson, a 63-year-old marriage and family therapist from Long Beach. Its over for him. Its about math, and its not on his side. Lee reported from Los Angeles and Halper from New York. Twitter: @kurtisalee, @evanhalper ALSO: Obama likely to sit out Democratic primary altogether, White House aides say Wall Streets view of itself in Bernie Sanders campaign: Maligned, marginalized, misunderstood Analysis: In brawling Brooklyn debate, Clinton and Sanders define big differences Beyond the contentious backbiting of the presidential contest, the nations major political parties are undergoing a dramatic and potentially long-lasting cultural shift. Both of the outsider challengers Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are campaigning in part against the parties they hope to lead. Both have gained much of their success from confounding what has been mainstream party thought for decades. As the nominating battles move into their final phase, Sanders has yanked his party leftward or, at a minimum, greatly hastened a change that was already underway. Trump has pushed against the Republican Party on issues as small as delegate selection and as large as foreign policy and brought with him ground troops to enforce his views. The second-place Republican, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has made a career of defying Republican leaders, even if Trump is now attacking him as part of the establishment. Advertisement The redefinition is occurring on a political landscape shaking from the continued aftershocks of the 2008 economic collapse. That territory has proved inhospitable, to different degrees, to more traditional politicians like Hillary Clinton and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, extending her nomination battle and blunting his candidacy. All things being equal, if youd showed up from Mars you would think Hillary Clinton would have this wrapped up, said Lee Miringoff, a pollster at Marist College with long experience in presidential politics. And you would have thought Kasich on paper would be stronger. But hes 1 for 30, and that was Ohio. The lasting effect of the Great Recession is not the only force that has propelled the parties movement. So, too, has the changing face of America. Among Democrats, a more youthful electorate has contributed to the success of Sanders effort; among Republicans, blue-collar whites who in many cases feel threatened by the rise of other groups have powered Trumps campaign. Tellingly, the outsider candidacies are in some cases sounding similar themes. Both Trump and Sanders, coming at it from opposite ideological sides, have pressed to reverse trade deals they say have gutted American manufacturing jobs. Both have called for other countries to begin paying more for the NATO military alliance. Both have criticized their respective parties for the way delegates, who will determine the nominations, are selected. Im not a fan of Bernie Sanders, but its a rigged system, Trump said Friday in Plattsburgh, N.Y. The Republican system is rigged. Its a rigged system. Both parties have changed over the years, usually when successive losses opened their eyes to the need. Republican leaders set out after the 2012 election to ensure that the next presidential nominee was more attractive to women, Latinos and young voters, believing that to be the route to success. Democrats lurched from the left to the center in 1992 after losing five of six previous presidential contests. Both moves have been confounded this year by the surprisingly successful guerrilla candidacies of Trump and Sanders. For Democrats, the repudiation is fed by the partys growing liberalism. In exit polls during the 2008 Ohio primary, 41% of Democratic voters described themselves as liberal. By last months Ohio primary, that figure had jumped by nearly half, to 59%. National surveys show Americans elsewhere also are increasingly gravitating to the political poles. Sanders is relentless in his criticism of the more centrist Democratic era and of Hillary Clintons role in it. Central to his constellation of issues is her receipt of campaign money from Wall Street firms, a particular target of animosity since the 2008 financial collapse. Its a system held in place by corrupt politics, where Wall Street banks and billionaires buy elections, says a Sanders ad airing in New York. The truth is, you cant change a corrupt system by taking its money. Other issues Sanders has emphasized in his call for political revolution are highly popular among younger, more diverse and more liberal Democrats: universal healthcare, a minimum-wage hike, environmental protections, free public college and university tuition, and an end to those international trade deals. Neither Sanders, a longtime political independent, nor his supporters are necessarily steeped in Democratic loyalty. In Thursday nights debate, he seemed to slight the Southern states as outposts of conservatism, even though their Democrats are mostly African American and among the partys most dependable voters. It is those traditional Democrats whom Clinton is appealing to with a venerable, if liberal, Democratic message. She speaks to persistent concerns about jobs and the economy, particularly among the blue-collar voters who long formed the partys base, but in more cautious and typical rhetoric than Sanders deploys. A real plan to create new jobs in the industries of the future, Clinton promises in one ad airing in New York. Clinton came into the race expecting to benefit from a rosy glow surrounding her husbands tenure, when the economy was soaring. But many of the voters drawn to Sanders message dont remember the Clinton years. And the former first lady has been on defense on topics taken up in that era like welfare reform, tough criminal justice measures and trade that she did not have to confront nearly as profoundly in her 2008 campaign for president. Clinton has sharpened her own rhetoric on those issues, but there are limits to how far she can go without seeming hypocritical. That has led to an oddity in New York: Among all of the candidates, it is Republican Kasich who more than anyone is touting Bill Clintons presidential years as a template for office. In a speech last week to Republican women in Manhattan, Kasich praised the 1990s, when he served in Congress, and criticized the outsider Republicans as purveyors of darkness. But Kasichs approach isnt selling to most Republicans this year. That is because voters have largely rejected two elements that have defined Republicans for two generations: traditional views on issues like trade and U.S. military engagement abroad, and the sunny approach used by past party idols like Ronald Reagan. Trumps attack on the Republican Party has been overt. Last week, he used the GOP-friendly op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to scorn the party. I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people, Trumps op-ed said. Members of the club the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated. Trumps rhetoric plays on his supporters grievances about a raft of issues the economy, President Obamas healthcare law, the Supreme Courts acceptance of gay marriage. They think their own party has not been standing up for them, said James Campbell, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo. Its issue after issue.... Theres a buildup of anger, and frustration thats boiled over into anger. Its not just directed at Democrats but at Republicans as well. The changes afoot in the Republican and Democratic parties seem destined to extend past this election, regardless of who wins the nominations and the White House. If nothing else, Trumps success at castigating those in the country illegally has doomed establishment Republicans effort to soften their approach on immigration in order to attract Latino voters. Keeping the support of the blue-collar whites he has attracted a necessity given that young and diverse Americans are going with the Democrats also will lead to second-guessing of the GOPs long-standing trade policies. The campaign is also certain to extend what has been an internal Republican battle since the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan under former President George W. Bush over how involved the U.S. should be overseas, and how much it should focus on domestic needs. For Democrats, Sanders success presages a move toward a bigger role for government in establishing healthcare for all, free public college tuition and an expansive jobs program that runs counter to the more centrist views that have propelled Democratic presidential success for decades. Older Democrats who remember the failures of the past are more skeptical of the political impact of expanding government, particularly in an era of caustically partisan divisions. But there is no doubt where the younger, more diverse and rising Democrats stand, as they have gravitated to Sanders in lopsided numbers. Conflicts over each partys core beliefs have been rumbling under the surface for a while. Now, with the assistance of a New York billionaire and a Vermont socialist, both of whom see their candidacies as outside the bounds of party politics, they are fully out in the open, with a visibility that promises changes ahead. Twitter: @cathleendecker Ted Cruz scoops up delegates from Donald Trump in weekend contests Republican Ted Cruz continued his romp through the delegate selection races, sweeping Wyoming and bolstering his showing elsewhere as rival Donald Trump struggles to catch up. Trumps team was expecting a rough weekend heading into Saturdays wonky contests in several states, including those where Trump, the GOP front-runner, had already won the popular primary vote. But maneuvering by the Cruz crew shows just how hard it will be for Trumps retooled delegate-hunt operation to clinch the 1,237 needed for nomination this summer in Cleveland. Trump got shut out, said Scott Johnson, a Cruz organizer in Georgia who won a delegate spot from a district that the Texas senator lost back in March. In Wyoming, Cruz picked up 14 delegates after he dashed West for an appearance, much the way he he peeled off the campaign trail earlier this month to lock up votes in North Dakota. On Saturday, South Carolinas first congressional district awarded its three delegates, and put Cruz backers in each spot -- even though Trump swept that states primary. And in Georgia, Trump started the day entitled to 26 congressional district delegates, but finished finished with supporters in about half those spots, GOP operatives in the state said. Cruz, meanwhile, stacked his supporters in about 20 spots in Georgia, essentially doubling his haul. It makes no sense, said Trump backer Lori Pesta, a longtime GOP activist in Georgia, who was voted off a spot in favor of Cruz ally Bob Barr, the areas former congressman and 2008 libertarian candidate for president. Scenes from #GOP #delegate selection at one district this weekend in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/LQqoKIRkzi Lisa Mascaro (@LisaMascaro) April 17, 2016 Under the rules, most delegates will be bound in Cleveland to vote on a first ballot for their states presidential preference -- which for many will be Trump. But with Trumps ability to reach 1,237 on the first vote in question, Cruz has methodically been stacking his supporters in the delegate spots for the subsequent ballots. Trump has called the whole process rigged. This is a very insider-driven process, which empowers well-connected elites at the expense of people who cast their votes during the primary, said Brian Jack, Trumps national delegate director. The campaign was investigating concerns of voter suppression in some districts in Georgia, he said. We want to be sure everyone was treated fairly. Here in Marietta, at a district convention that consumed most of Saturday, party officials emphasized a call for unity. Even though we dont agree on everything, we agree we need to elect Republicans, said Brad Carver, the district chairman who is uncommitted and won a delegate spot. This is not about Cruz versus Trump. This is about electing our delegates to the national convention. Read More This years raucous and often bizarre campaign for president and other public offices has for most Californians remained a spectator sport, played out in other states, remarked on and marveled at from a distance, viewed here online and on television as if it were a series of Super Bowls or Final Fours. Spectator season now nears its end and voters are about to pour onto the field for the June 7 California primary for which balloting actually begins in just three weeks, for the growing percentage of voters who weigh in by mail. At The Times we call on voters to vote, and we practice what we preach by making recommendations in the form of endorsements and backing them up to the best of our ability with reasoning that we offer up for scrutiny, engagement, discussion, agreement and dissent. Look for the first of those endorsements in coming days, and continuing as ballots and campaign materials arrive in the mailbox. In the process of vetting candidates in the current primary and listening to the concerns of voters (and of those who could and should be voters, but currently are not), it is impossible to miss two contrary but tightly interwoven strands of thought and emotion. Advertisement One is a sort of quiescence a disengagement from electoral politics and a weary acknowledgment, if perhaps not an acceptance, of the political status quo and a belief that there is little of importance an election can change. That fatalism may help explain abysmal voter turnouts in non-presidential election years, and may even play a role today in the oddly sleepy campaigns by candidates who are vying to succeed Barbara Boxer for what ought to be a coveted seat in the U.S. Senate. The competing strand is an angry rebellion by voters who believe that for too long, political parties and big-money donors have tried to limit their choice of candidates or preordain election outcomes. That rebellion is at play in Republican primaries and particularly in the front-runner status of Donald Trump, who is hardly an exemplar of the shrinking middle class or the workers left behind by the new economy but is nevertheless embraced by many voters precisely because of his open contempt for the political establishment and traditional campaign decorum. And it is evident on the Democratic side, where many voters believed they were being presented an already crowned Hillary Clinton and an accompanying set of policies and positions, pre-selected for them by party elites. Those voters have responded by handing Bernie Sanders victories in 17 primaries and caucuses (so far). The Times endorses in these races out of a conviction that ... making a choice -- and doing our best to justify that choice in writing -- can help voters [make] their own decision. The contest between the establishment and the upstarts may play out in curious ways all the way up and down the ballot. In the Senate race, for example, which of the two leading Democrats state Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez represents the Empire and which is the Rebel Alliance? Or are they both the establishment Empire, challenged by several astonishingly low-profile Republican rebels? And does it make any difference for now, given that Californias shrinking Republican electorate and its top-two primary system may very well serve only to eliminate the Republicans and pit Harris and Sanchez against each other, all over again, in November? Even on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors the little-watched panel with more life-changing impact on more lives (10 million people, 2 million in each district) than any mayor or city council, and often any senator which candidate best embodies the departure from the status quo, if anyone does? In one race the candidates include the termed-out supervisors aide and the daughter of a former supervisor whose name adorns the building from which the board governs. In another, the incumbents chief of staff, a mayor, a councilman, a state senator and several others are trying to succeed a supervisor who already has a courthouse, two parks and a trail named for him. In what for many is the ballots most obscure territory the races for Los Angeles Superior Court judge why have three lawyers challenged sitting judges? In the other three judicial races, why are so many prosecutors running against each other? And how are voters to decide? Who should succeed Janice Hahn in Congress? And what on earth is Proposition 50? The Times endorses in these races out of a conviction that the process of studying the candidates, their records, their values, their quirks and their positions and then making a choice and doing our best to justify that choice in writing can help voters as they go through their own decision-making process. Of course we try to be persuasive. But the days are long past in which newspaper endorsements had the king-making (or queen-making) power of the sort against which so many voters now chafe. The Times news pages provide voters with the raw materials of voter decisions in the form of news and political analysis. The editorial page is an effort to put those materials to use, and an invitation to our readers to do the same, by engaging in thoughtful debate, weighing our reasoning against theirs, and making deliberate, well-considered choices. The Times will endorse candidates in the primary for Boxers Senate seat, Hahns House seat, the state ballot measure, the Superior Court, district attorney and the three Board of Supervisors seats on the ballot. And we will make recommendations for president in both the Democratic and Republican Party primaries. Our pages are not blank slates. We have made it clear what we think of Trump as a presidential candidate (a reminder: we are not fans). We express our values and policy choices through editorials. In recent elections we have endorsed Republicans, but we tend more often to endorse Democrats because their positions on important issues more often align with ours. As we recommend one of each in this years California presidential primary, our goal is to clearly lay out the reasons we believe those choices are the best ones. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook President Obamas standing in the eyes of the American people has recovered after a three-year slump and thats good news for Hillary Clinton. Obamas job approval rating the percentage of voters who say hes doing a decent job has reached an average of about 50% over the last two months. A 50-50 split may not look like a historic achievement, but its a better number than Obama has seen since 2013. And its not a mirage; the presidents standing has been on a gradual upswing for the last four months. Advertisement Thats been enough to make Obama aides throw their hats in the air, figuratively speaking. Five points makes a huge difference, one of them told me last week. Politicians routinely pretend that they dont pay attention to the polls, but theres no question Obama pays attention to his. During his years in the polling wilderness, he often sounded frustrated that he wasnt getting credit for his accomplishments. Now, though, Obama sounds more confident that he might be able to end his presidency on a high note. I feel greatly encouraged, he told Democrats in Texas last month. I think when people step back and get some perspective, theyll say we did good. And he sounds eager to campaign for a Democratic successor who can continue the legacy that we built especially if its Hillary Clinton, who has embraced his record more fervently than Bernie Sanders. A popular president, even one on the way out, is naturally a bigger asset to his party than an unpopular one. Alan Abramowitz of Emory University has found that when a two-term president leaves office, his party is likely to win the next election if his job approval is over 50%, but lose if the number is below 50%. But theres a quirk inside Obamas improved poll numbers. The president and his aides would like to think his standing has improved mostly because Americans have finally recognized that the economy is on the upswing, and acknowledge the presidents role in making that happen. But most of the available evidence doesnt support that theory. The Gallup Polls economic confidence index, a measure of how Americans feel about the economy, is the same now as it was late last year, when the president was less popular. Theres no clear correlation with presidential approval, Democratic pollster Mark Mellman noted. Instead, Obamas numbers appear to have gone up in large part because the Republican campaign in particular, GOP front-runner Donald Trump have reminded many voters why they chose Obama in the first place. [Obama] and his aides ... know that an economic reversal (which they consider unlikely) or a terrorist attack (entirely possible) could blow a hole in his job approval. The public image of the Republican Party has fallen as the presidents has risen. During the last three months, the CNN-ORC poll found that the share of voters with an unfavorable view of the GOP swelled from 50% to 61%. In the same period, Trump impressed increasing numbers of American voters in the wrong direction. In the CNN-ORC poll, 67% of adults said they had an unfavorable impression of the real estate magnate, the highest negative rating ever recorded for a major partys presidential candidate. The Trump hypothesis is bolstered by other surveys showing that much of Obamas increased support has come from younger voters and Latinos, two groups that have reacted strongly against the Republican front-runner. Both groups are strongly opposed to more restrictive immigration policies, Trumps signature issue. Obama has tried quite bluntly to capitalize on the vulnerabilities of the GOP field as he has tuned up his message for the fall campaign. I actually think that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have done us a favor, he said at a Democratic fundraising event in San Francisco on April 9. The favor, he explained in Los Angeles, is laying bare, unvarnished, some of the nonsense that weve been dealing with in Congress on a daily basis. People act as if these folks are outliers. But theyre not. We should thank Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz for just being honest. Thats a partisan argument, of course, aimed at rallying Democrats around their president and, eventually, their new nominee. But thats what a presidential campaign is mostly about: making sure a partys voters come home and vote for their side or against the other side, which is just as effective. Thats pretty much what Obama did in 2012, when he succeeded in painting Mitt Romney as a heartless plutocrat. Obamas standing is still fragile. He and his aides would feel better if he were over the 50% mark. They know that an economic reversal (which they consider unlikely) or a terrorist attack (entirely possible) could blow a hole in his job approval. But for the moment, their prospects for securing the Obama legacy with a third Democratic term have been improved thanks to the unlikely assistance of Donald Trump. doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com Twitter: @doylemcmanus Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook The rumors ricocheting through Istanbul reached us on March 16, when a close Turkish friend urged us to leave the city for the weekend. The next day, my Turkish teacher, as well as the lifeguard at my gym, offered similar warnings. Three days later, at 9:30 a.m., the easygoing young man who delivers hefty plastic jugs of fresh water walked into my kitchen with a weeks supply. Will there be trouble in the city today? I asked him. Yes, he instantly replied. There will be bombs. Stay home. Two hours later a suicide bomber killed four people and injured 36 others in a blast on Istiklal Street, Istanbuls main shopping corridor. The Turkish government blamed a young Islamic State member for the attack. My wife and I, after many years in New York City, moved to Istanbul in August 2014. For a year we savored the manifold pleasures of this magnificent, relatively affordable city the ferry rides across the Bosphorus; the maze-like back streets of Kadikoy, packed with bakeries, spice shops, bookstores, cafes and atmospheric fish restaurants; the grandeur of the 16th century mosques designed by Mimar Sinan; and the excursions to the nearby islands of Heybeliada and Buyukada, where the principal mode of transport is the horse-drawn carriage. Advertisement As a result of all this turmoil, the mood in Istanbul has turned funereal. During that exuberant first year, we did see things that made us queasy: We noticed that citizens were prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; and we observed that peaceful protesters were often treated aggressively by police in full riot gear. Everyone is afraid, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk declared in December 2014. Freedom of expression has fallen to a very low level. Despite all this, some of our close Turkish friends felt the country was gradually, albeit precariously, inching in the right direction. That progress was halted on July 20, 2015, when a suicide bomber struck a group of young Turkish leftists on their way to a humanitarian mission in the Syrian border town of Kobani. Thirty-two people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Although Turkish officials blamed Islamic State, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, suspected government involvement and understood the incident as an attack on the Kurdish cause. After it retaliated by killing two police officers, a fragile two-and-a-half-year cease-fire between the government and the PKK collapsed, and a war resumed one that resembles the ghastly conflicts that, in recent decades, have torn apart Sri Lanka, Peru and Colombia. (This war is mostly confined to the southeastern part of the country.) As a result of all this turmoil, the mood in Istanbul has turned funereal. Tourists usually descend upon the city in March and April, but many have chosen to stay home or go elsewhere. Quite a few of the hundreds of bars, cafes and restaurants that surround Istiklal Street are deserted. The young manager of an elegant hotel in the city center told me that circumstances have forced him to drop his daily rate by 100 euros. Like many educated, secular Turks in their 20s and 30s, he doesnt see a future in this country. He and his wife are trying to relocate to Amsterdam. Shopkeepers, too, are feeling the strain. Forty percent of the shops in Istanbuls leather-exporting district have closed this year, leaving 3,000 people jobless. The dream is over here, a leather industry spokesman told the English-language Hurriyet Daily News. A few days ago I went to Lale Plak, a famed record store on Istiklal Street that was founded in 1957 and that embodies Istanbuls deep-rooted cosmopolitanism. I fell into conversation with a stylish Turkish musician in her 40s who had lived in Paris for many years but returned to Istanbul in 2012. I asked her if she had made the right decision by coming back to Turkey. Im not happy about it, she replied. I dont like the situation. Many Turks express an acute sense of deja vu: They feel trapped in the circularity of modern Turkish history. I dont expect things to change any time soon violence breeds violence, says a Turkish friend in her late 20s. Another Turkish friend, who owns a small shop, remarked to me last week: We believe that this is just the beginning by which he means the onset of a downward spiral of violence and instability. Two recent blasts in the heart of the capital, Ankara, undertaken by a Kurdish radical group, have left the entire country anxious and fearful. Some Istanbul activists who participated in the Gezi Park protests of 2013 are now reluctant to attend political demonstrations they worry about terrorism. Many people here have reduced their use of public transportation. Each day, an interminable chorus of gloom rises from the lively op-ed pages of the Hurriyet Daily News. (Another English-language newspaper, Todays Zaman, was just liquidated by the government; its online archive was reportedly destroyed.) Expats are edgy, and some have already purchased one-way plane tickets. Turkey seems to be moving in just one direction, sighed a British man who, after a satisfying couple of years in the downtown bohemian enclave of Cihangir, recently decided to make his home in London. Two days after the bombing on Istiklal Street, I went to the site of the attack. Police cars flanked the locked gates of nearby foreign consulates, and the citys most bustling shopping corridor imparted a ghostly atmosphere. A crowd of 50 people was tightly clustered around a makeshift shrine to the dead and wounded. There were flowers, photographs and hand-written signs, but what I mainly remember is the thick black pistol that protruded from the breast pocket of a plainclothes policeman who, on this radiant early spring afternoon, was grinning and chatting with his friends. Scott Sherman, a contributing writer to the Nation, is the author of Patience and Fortitude: Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Normally, Daniel Nava would have appeared as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning Friday, with the score tied, Craig Gentry due to bat and a right-hander on the mound. But Nava, a left-handed hitter, stayed on the bench, providing a clue that he was not right. He batted one inning later, feeling uncomfortable, and struck out. On Saturday morning, the Angels placed the 33-year-old left fielder on the 15-day disabled list with left patellar tendinitis. We need to take a step back, Manager Mike Scioscia said. Nava first felt pain in the knee in 2013, felt it again last season and again toward the end of spring training this year. It flared up when he hit the outfield wall late in Tuesdays win in Oakland. He said it has slowly gotten worse through the years. Advertisement Thats why were being cautious with it right now, Scioscia said. Nava expects to return to the majors at the start of May, as soon as he is eligible. To replace him until then, the Angels called up Rafael Ortega from triple-A Salt Lake. He found out during the Bees game Friday night in Sacramento, took a 10:50 p.m. flight out, and arrived in Minneapolis roughly four hours before Saturdays 1 p.m. CDT game. Ortega, 24, had not appeared in the majors since September 2012. He starred in the spring for the Angels after signing as a free agent in the off-season, and then hit well for the first week of the triple-A season. He was the only outfielder on the 40-man roster not on the major league team. Ive been working for this, Ortega said. He batted second Saturday, where Nava would have been against right-hander Ricky Nolasco. He reached base twice and stole a base. Short hops Scioscia said he conveyed misinformation Friday when he said left-hander Tyler Skaggs was scheduled to throw four innings for Salt Lake. He was planning to throw only three, which is what he did. Hes scheduled to throw four innings Wednesday as the Angels slowly ramp up his workload. There is a conservation issue, Scioscia said. We want to make sure when he gets here he has enough to go out there and finish strong for as long as our season will be. . . . On his 411-foot, 113-mph drive that banged off the center-field wall in the fifth inning Saturday, Mike Trout missed first base and had to circle back to touch it, lest the Twins notice and get him out on the technicality. That turned an extra-base hit into a single. Follow Pedro Moura on Twitter: @pedromoura EUROPE Workshop Susan Hickman, Distant Lands travel agent and rail specialist, will discuss train travel in Europe, including planning an itinerary and choosing individual tickets or rail passes. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220. MOUNTAIN BIKING Workshop Experts will offer tips on gear, local mountain bike resources and favorite places to ride in Southern California. Advertisement When, where: 7 p.m. Tuesday at the REI store in Northridge, 18605 Devonshire St. Admission, info: Free. (818) 831-5555 NEW ZEALAND Workshop Learn about the natural scenery, Maori culture and outdoor adventures. When, where: 7 p.m. Friday at the Adventure 16 store, 11161 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles Admission, info: Free. (310) 473-4574 JOSHUA TREE Night sky photography In this two-day workshop, learn tips for setting up and shooting the night sky, followed by a session in Joshua Tree National Park. When, where: 1-9:30 p.m Saturday and 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. April 24. Oasis Visitor Center. Admission, info: $120. Class size is limited. (760) 367-5535 Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com. A hipperVancouver I enjoyed Margo Pfeiffs article on the three older districts of Vancouver, Canada [Hip-storic, April 3]. It brought back memories of growing up in Vancouver. In the early 70s my parents and I would frequent a restaurant in Chinatown that specialized in Peking duck. This restaurant didnt have a liquor license but allowed customers to bring their favorite adult beverage as long as it was in a brown paper bag and kept under the table. Advertisement The restaurant would provide glasses and ice (if required). I must admit that Scotch certainly paired well with Peking duck. David Patterson Palm Springs Voluntourism The article Giving Back While Traveling [by Rosemary McClure, April 3] is disappointing in that it promotes voluntourism in Cambodia and ignores problems associated with it, thus undermining the work the Cambodian government and other organizations are doing to address this issue. Orphanage tourism or voluntourism is problematic in Cambodia. A couple of good resources on this issue are a 2011 UNICEF report, With the Best Intentions, and Friends-Internationals Children Are Not Tourist Attractions. When visiting a country such as Cambodia, what can you do to help protect children and support families to stay together? Spread the message. Most children in Cambodias orphanages are not orphans. They have living parents or family members to care for them. These families are poor, so they give their children to an orphanage. The orphanages are run as businesses, relying on donations from tourists. Many do not operate in the best interests of the child, and some are rife with abuse. The 49,000 children living in Cambodias orphanages are commodities in an industry partly fueled by tourists and foreign donors. These children can live with their families, with support from many organizations that provide high-quality social work and community services. Unvetted tourists also pose a risk to these children. It is also unacceptable for these children to have to perform and dance to generate income from tourists, often at the expense of their education. Would it be acceptable for random tourists to visit childrens homes and schools in America? No, so why is this acceptable in Cambodia? Ross Layton Battambang, Cambodia Flying with kids Regarding Getting Seats With the Kids on Flights, by Catharine Hamm, Feb. 21: All the airlines need is gutsy parents who are willing to leave their children next to strangers for a part of a flight to see how ridiculous this marketing scheme is. My children screamed through landings in Salt Lake and fussed on nonstops to Chicago. As parents we came up with many strategies to keep the kids calm and happy. Lets see if a stranger can do that for two to three hours, let alone four or five. I would have loved to hand my 2-year-old his bag of toys and to have said, Mommy is six rows up. What enjoyable flights I might have had. Christina Booth Camarillo No fan of LAX As much as I love your beautiful country, I dont always want to visit the U.S., especially when transiting LAX on international flights between Mexico and Vancouver, Canada. However, on arriving at LAX, I am forced to join the slow-moving queues at the Tom Bradley terminal and at times am frustrated waiting for more than an hour to be processed. I then collect my bag, move through the public domain to the appropriate terminal, queue to remove my shoes, notebook and get screened etc. all over again and then (hopefully) catch my connecting flight. I cannot understand the logic of this process; it seems contradictory to your efforts to keep out undesirables. Why not just facilitate the transfers between flights as they do in many other countries by keeping those passengers in transit air-side, thereby avoiding the possibility of the unwanted entering the U.S. when supposedly in transit and then not taking their connecting flight? The freeing up of passenger pressure in the immigration hall would, no doubt, result in more effective screening and processing of those whose final destination is the U.S. John Malian Bondi, Australia Elite Afghan troops battled Sunday to clear Taliban fighters from a highway outside a strategic northern city as residents fled their homes under threat of further violence. Afghan security officials say special forces have so far repelled a Taliban advance that began Thursday outside the city of Kunduz, which the Taliban took over for two weeks last fall, sparking a major crisis of confidence in the government. Residents say the Taliban have made inroads in several districts surrounding Kunduz, the countrys fifth-largest city. Inside Kunduz, families were trying to leave the city, and in several villages within two miles of the city, residents said the Taliban ordered them to flee their homes immediately or they will be stuck inside war zones, one said. Advertisement The renewed fighting comes less than a week after the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive, which will once again test the ability of Afghanistans 350,000-strong security forces to hold on to strategic territory across northern and southern Afghanistan. Local media have reported fighting in at least 10 of the nations 34 provinces in recent days, including three in the north Kunduz, Badakhshan and Baghlan. Residents said the offensive in Kunduz began late Thursday evening when Taliban fighters took control of several checkpoints along the highway connecting Kunduz with the district of Khanabad, about 12 miles to the east. Afghan forces responded with ground operations and airstrikes, according to residents. By Sunday afternoon, Afghan special forces began operations to clear the highway, with security officials saying government troops had killed at least 40 Taliban fighters. Reportedly among the dead were two prominent Taliban commanders in the area known as Mullah Habib and Mullah Mansoor. The Taliban did not immediately confirm the reports. In the village of Alchin, on the outskirts of Kunduz, a witness said he said he saw two dead Taliban fighters near an army outpost. Residents in the nearby village of Hazarat-e Sultan, four miles from Kunduz, reported seeing U.S. special forces soldiers in the area in recent days. A small contingent of U.S. troops deployed to Kunduz last year to help Afghan forces retake the city, part of the smaller NATO mission focused on training and advising Afghan troops. NATO officials did not immediately respond to questions about the reported U.S. involvement. Mullah Akhtar, a commander of the Afghan Local Police, a U.S.-backed government militia, said U.S. soldiers were in Kunduz recently but did not engage in combat. They were here for a few days, but they left suddenly, without any notable achievement or success, Akhtar said. As in previous battles in Kunduz, militias loyal to local warlords assisted the security forces in the fighting, especially in Khanabad. The return of the militias which are not under the formal control of the government has reignited fear in residents, who accuse the irregular fighters of extortion, illegal land grabs, rape and assault. One commander, Mir Alam Khan, leads a militia that was described in a leaked 2009 State Department cable as being connected to the Afghan intelligence service but seemingly operating without government guidance, command or control. More than 2,000 families from the villages have been displaced as they seek shelter from the fighting. Many paid their way through Taliban checkpoints along the highway to reach Kunduz, and some said they would try to travel farther, to the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif or Kabul. Last years Taliban takeover of Kunduz left thousands of families without electricity or mobile phone access, stuck in their homes with little information as Taliban militants reportedly went door to door searching for people suspected of having government connections. One resident of Kunduz, who did not give his name because of security concerns, said areas outside the city were the most susceptible in the latest clashes. Even a few kilometers outside the city, people are not hopeful, the resident said. They fear the situation will only get worse in the days and weeks ahead. Latifi and Ehsan are special correspondents. Latifi reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Stephen Hawking had a cosmically good week in China. Greetings to my friends in China! It has been too long! the 74-year-old British astrophysicist wrote in his first post on Sina Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter, last week. In my physical travels, I have only been able to touch the surface of your fascinating history and culture. But now I can communicate with you through social media. A Chinese translation followed. The post immediately went viral, racking up nearly 400,000 reposts and 900,000 likes. I feel like Im connected to the whole universe by following you, wrote one user. Advertisement I learned about Hawking from Chinese language textbooks when I was a pupil, another user 23-year-old He Shan, a restaurant owner in central Hunan province said in an online chat. His greatness is inexpressible. Chinas obsession with the author of A Brief History of Time may trace back to its obsession with outer space. Beijings space program began in the 1950s under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung who once lamented that China couldnt even send a potato into space but stalled under his disastrous political campaigns of the 60s and 70s. [Hawking has] acquired a cult status among Chinese youngsters much like that of Tom Cruise. New China News Agency China launched its manned space flight plan in 1992 and 11 years later became the third country in the world to send a human being into outer space. Now, it intends to forge a space program that can rival that of the United States. Then theres the popularity of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which has boosted Hawkings fame among the younger generation. The shows main character, Sheldon Cooper, is a fervent Hawking admirer, and Hawking once played himself on the show. I only saw Dr. Hawking in a textbook before, but I got to [see] Hawkings real persona in the show. Hes so lovely! said a 32-year-old fan whose Weibo user name is Captain Sheldon. Hawking last visited China in 2006, when he spoke at an international conference on string theory. He has acquired a cult status among Chinese youngsters much like that of Tom Cruise, the state-run New China News Agency reported at the time. For anybody keeping score, Cruise has about 5 million followers on Weibo, which has become popular among Western celebrities and politicians as a marketing tool. Kobe Bryant has 4.4 million, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has 830,000 and Ivanka Trump has 14,000. Stephen Hawking has 3 million, but he collected them in two days last week, with two posts. It was the second post that blasted him into orbit. He was announcing the Starshot project, an effort to send nano crafts traveling at 20% of the speed of light into the star system Alpha Centauri. The project is co-directed by Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and supported by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Greetings to everybody in China from NYC, Hawking wrote. If we are successful, a flyby mission could reach Alpha Centauri about 20 years after launch, and send back images of any planets discovered in the system. It is exciting to be involved in such an ambitious project, pushing the boundaries of ingenuity and engineering, he continued. The post has amassed more than 130,000 replies and 500,000 likes, even though many commenters confessed to confusion about the project. Im so happy that I can read such wonderful information when I just woke up, one follower wrote. Though I cant understand it completely, it is obvious that itll be a great breakthrough. Hawkings Weibo account is run by Stradella Road, a Santa Monica-based digital creative and social agency. In an email, the companys chief executive, Gordon Paddison, said that all posts are written personally by Hawking. Employees who speak Mandarin translate his messages, manage his profile and give him translated comments. Professor Hawking [has] great respect for the Chinese people and he knows there are many people in China who are interested in science and the work he has been conducting, Paddison said. Hawkings two posts contain 171 and 350 words respectively, much longer than the standard Weibo posts of 140 words. In the future, some of Professor Hawkings thoughts involve principles that may require a longer format than micro-posts, Paddison said, and we hope that his fans will be understanding. jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com Yang is a special correspondent. ALSO Sport Chalet will close all stores and stop online sales U.S. agents find 140-foot tunnel under U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico Non-Muslim woman caned in Indonesia chose the punishment over jail time A 60-year-old Christian woman convicted of selling alcohol was given a choice for her punishment: jail time or caning. She chose caning, and in doing so last week became the first non-Muslim in Indonesia to receive the punishment under sharia law. Remita Sinaga, a Protestant, received 28 lashes from a rattan cane Tuesday in the town of Takengon in Aceh province. Advertisement Pictures posted online show Sinaga standing in a purple head scarf, her head downcast; beside her a person veiled in black extends the cane, as if preparing to administer a blow. A few onlookers watch in the background. Sinaga was found guilty by a Central Aceh Islamic court of selling alcohol, after police seized 50 bottles of alcoholic beverages from her stall. Sinaga had been given a sentence of 30 lashes, but it was reduced to take into account time she spent in detention. The head of Acehs Sharia Department, Syahrizal Abbas, said qanun jinayat an Islamic criminal code in place in Aceh is reserved only for Muslims, but non-Muslims could choose to submit to it if they desire. The woman voluntarily submitted to the punishment because she thought the alternative was worse: a jail time under the national law, Abbas said in a phone interview Friday. She didnt want to spend time in prison because were all aware that prison conditions are bad and theres little welfare there. In 2015, the Indonesian government banned sales of alcohol in small shops. The central government granted Aceh, a devoutly Muslim province of 4.7 million people, special autonomy in 2002 to mollify desires for independence, allowing the province to impose its version of sharia, or Islamic law. The Indonesian government and separatist rebels signed a peace pact in 2005, ending decades of conflict that killed 15,000 people, mostly civilians. The deal was spurred by the Indian Ocean tsunami a year earlier that killed more than 170,000 people in Aceh. The new Islamic criminal code was passed in 2014 to replace a more limited collection of Islamic bylaws, but only came into force in on Oct. 10, 2015, following a yearlong public information campaign. Under the code, sex out of wedlock and same-sex sexual acts are punishable by 100 lashes of the cane, or 100 months in prison. Consuming or selling alcohol is punishable by up to 40 lashes, gambling 12 lashes, and mixing between the opposite sexes while unmarried 12 lashes. Officials have insisted that the punishment is not intended to hurt offenders physically, but to humiliate them to deter them from committing similar offenses in the future. Canings are usually done in a public square in the presence of hundreds of onlookers and officials. Haris Azhar, coordinator for the Kontras human rights group, said the application of sharia in the case of a non-Muslim set a bad precedent. Caning itself is inhuman and a form of torture, and this form of punishment should never be implemented anywhere in Indonesia, he said. From the non-Muslim perspective, its something frightening, he added. It will only damage the image of Muslim society. Pathoni is a special correspondent. ALSO Chinas military has a new enemy: Disneys Zootopia Pope visits Lesbos, brings 12 Muslim refugees back to the Vatican 41 killed as 7.8 quake rocks Ecuadors coast, collapsing homes and spreading panic WASHINGTON Many paths led to the international agreement to temporarily curb Irans nuclear program: secret meetings in Oman, formal negotiations in Geneva, and a quiet encounter in New York involving two diplomats and an exquisite silver chalice in the shape of a mythical winged creature. The latter session led in September to the return of the chalice to Iran, where officials hailed it as a gesture of friendship by the United States. The move was orchestrated by a mid-level diplomat at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations who devised a way to work around a 30-year absence in formal relations. I wasnt sure we could pull it off, he said. They dont talk to us. We dont talk to them. Advertisement The diplomat has operated under rules that barred most contact with Iranian officials for his entire career. Even now, because of the sensitivity of relations between the two countries, he was allowed to discuss the exchange only on condition that he and others involved not be identified. The episode began during the summer, when the Obama administrations Middle East experts met to debate a delicate matter of diplomacy: how to acknowledge the election of Irans moderate new president, Hassan Rouhani, in a way that might convey goodwill and show respect to the Iranian people. One expert suggested that President Obama shake Rouhanis hand at the fall summit of the United Nations. Another posed the idea of a video message from Obama to Iranians. But an Iran specialist came up with another possibility; returning the silver ceremonial chalice. Officials believe it was looted from an Iranian cave and imported illegally. It was seized by U.S. customs in 2003 and stored ever since in a shroud of cotton in a federal warehouse in Queens. For a decade, Iran had sought return of the chalice, which officials there regarded as part of the countrys cultural heritage. Meeting that demand, the Americans thought, could build goodwill for the U.S. and thereby strengthen Rouhani, who had won the presidency in part by promising to improve relations. Bolstering Rouhani, they thought, would be key to reaching any deal on the nuclear program, which hard-liners in both Iran and the United States were sure to oppose. This wouldnt just be a gesture for government officials, said a senior administration official who took part in the meeting. This would be a gesture with meaning for the people of Iran. Some experts believe the vessel, known as a rhyton, was crafted in the 7th century BC in what later became the Persian Empire, now Iran. It features three trumpet-shaped cups that sprout from the body of a griffin, a fabled creature that typically has the head and wings of a bird and the body of a lion. On the chalice, the eyes are deep-set and wide open, like those of a bird of prey. The object was allegedly part of a cache of antiquities found in a cave near the Iraqi border in the 1980s, shortly after Irans Islamic Revolution. These were great treasures from a great civilization, said Fariborz Ghadar, an Iranian scholar who served as a deputy economic minister to Irans shah. Their discovery was of great significance to those who consider themselves Persians, who honor that period in history. In 2003, the chalice surfaced in the hands of a well-known antiquities dealer, Hicham Aboutaam, who ran a firm based in Geneva. As he passed through U.S. customs at Newark International Airport, Aboutaam presented a certificate indicating the vessel was from Syria. He was waved through. Aboutaam then set out to document the objects value. Three experts he consulted determined it was from Iran; two concluded it was consistent with the antiquities taken from the cave. An art collector was prepared to pay $1 million, but federal investigators caught wind of it. They charged that the object had been taken from Iran illicitly, making its importation to the U.S. illegal. The dealer was prosecuted and paid a $5,000 fine. The chalice was then placed in a climate-controlled storage unit. The value of the chalice remains uncertain. Some have maintained that it is not 2,700 years old at all, but a modern fake. But Iranian officials have insisted it is genuine and demanded its return. In Iran, Ghadar said, seizure of any of the nations antiquities by the West was a sign of great disrespect. When Rouhani announced plans to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September, Obamas advisors decided the moment was right for a gesture. A day after Obama delivered his annual address to the world body, the American diplomat received an email from Washington, which he read at his desk three blocks from U.N. headquarters. He was instructed to find a way to return the griffin chalice to the Iranians with no fanfare before Rouhani left in two days. A courier from the Department of Homeland Security, of which customs is a division, took the griffin in a dusty brown box from Queens to the Manhattan offices of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. The diplomat signed for it in the lobby, then set in motion a plan he had been devising. U.S. and Iranian diplomats can talk with one another on a short list of issues, such as helping the Iranians set up a bank account or get diplomatic license plates. The U.S. diplomat called the Iranian contact for such matters and said he had something to deliver before Rouhani left. The Iranian agreed to meet. Quickly, the diplomat took a photo of the griffin and printed a card explaining its history and why it was in U.S. hands. The Iranian contact might not recognize the object, he worried. Thinking a cardboard box was no way to present a precious object, he bought a white gift bag at Hallmark, choosing that color so as not to imply it was a gift. Plain white gift bags are actually kind of hard to find, he said in a recent interview. Clutching the bag as he walked to the meeting, he was relieved that the place he had chosen was outside the security perimeter in a section of U.N. headquarters that was mostly vacant due to renovations. I didnt know how I was going to explain this if it went through security screening, he said. When he took his seat, he slid the bag across the conference table. He said the United States wanted to give the griffin to Rouhani. The Iranian diplomat looked inside. His eyes grew wide. The Iranian stood, looked at the American and thanked him. In the U.S. diplomats 10 years in the foreign service, he had never had a one-on-one meeting, let alone extended eye contact, with an Iranian peer. He gave this lovely speech, telling me how much this meant to the Iranian people, and to him personally, the U.S. diplomat said. It was an important moment. I know Ill never forget it. Two days later, Rouhani accepted a telephone call from Obama, the first such high-level contact since 1979, when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking hostages they held for 444 days. In the United States, the diplomatic handoff, which the State Department revealed in a Twitter message, drew mixed reactions. There is a thin line between gestures of friendship and gestures that display desperation to negotiate, said Elliott Abrams, a foreign policy advisor to Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush. I think a gesture like moving carriers into the [Persian] Gulf is more likely to get us a successful negotiation. But Ghadar said the griffins return sent an important message to Iranians. The Iranians kept saying, We want you to show us respect, he said. This says, With respect to the Iranian people, we are sending this back. In Tehran, Rouhani spoke to the news media after returning from the U.N. Reclining in an armchair in a wood-paneled conference room, he said the return of the griffin took place with due ceremony. A day later, Mohammad Ali Najafi, the head of Iranian cultural heritage and tourism, summoned reporters to his office. Beaming, he gently held the griffin aloft and called it a sign of goodwill from the U.S.A. Photos appeared in pro-reform newspapers, while hard-liners, angered by Rouhanis overtures to the West, dismissed the chalice as fraudulent. We do not look a gift horse in the mouth, Najafi said. Even if it is fake, it is worthy. christi.parsons@latimes.com Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report. At first, it seemed normal, like the dozens of earthquakes that strike every year in Guayaquil, a coastal city on the seismically active zone known as the Ring of Fire. But then things started to fall, the doors slammed and windows broke. The tremor never seemed to stop, and we started hearing screams, said Caroll Cedeno, 33, who lives in a fourth-floor apartment in the city of 3 million, Ecuadors largest. We ran out of the apartment and all our neighbors were already outside. Cedenos apartment building withstood the magnitude 7.8 quake, which struck just before 7 p.m. Saturday. But others in cities on Ecuadors Pacific coast werent as lucky. The temblor destroyed hundreds of buildings, killed at least 238 people and injured more than 1,500. Advertisement Rescue workers search for survivors in Gauyaquil, Ecuador, on Sunday after a massive earthquake (Luis Acosta / AFP/Getty Images) On Sunday, as emergency officials assessed the damage and rescue teams raced against time, television images showed pancaked apartment buildings, crumbled roads and the bodies of victims left on sidewalks. After walls of a prison in the town of Portoviejo collapsed, 100 prisoners escaped, authorities told news media. Cedeno and her daughter slept outside under a tent in a park Saturday night, fearful that the tremors would continue. My daughter didnt sleep at all, she said in a telephone interview. We felt many aftershocks and were afraid that our building would collapse. Although Guayaquil sustained significant damage, the hardest-hit cities were along the coast farther north. In Pedernales, population 48,000, local media reported that 80% of the buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. A majority of the deaths from the quake were reported to have occurred there, although officials had not released specific locations of deaths as of Sunday afternoon. Pedernales is devastated, Mayor Gabriel Alcivar told one TV reporter. Every building of two stories or more has been destroyed. There are survivors still under the rubble. In Manta, the countrys second-largest port city after Guayaquil, the airport control tower collapsed. In Chone, a hospital floor collapsed. A hospital in the coastal city of Caraquez reported that it ran out of room and medical supplies for the injured. In Guayaquil, the quake caused several deaths and the collapse or ruin of apartment buildings and bridges. Chaos reigned in much of the city as communications and traffic came to a near standstill. Ecuadorean officials were still assessing the damage, but repairs are expected to cost in the billions of dollars. Government officials said 10 coastal roads had been closed, with resulting congestion made more acute by relatives from the interior of Ecuador clogging highways to try to reach loved ones. A building is toppled in Portoviejo, Ecuador, on Sunday after an earthquake the day before. (Juan Cevallos / AFP/Getty Images) The government announced early Sunday that it was sending 10,000 soldiers to the zone to assist in rescue and security operations. Scattered instances of looting were being reported. Vice President Jorge Glas arrived in Manta to direct rescue efforts, and President Rafael Correa cut short a trip to the Vatican and was expected to arrive in Manta late Sunday. Before leaving Rome, Correa declared a state of emergency in six states. Glas told reporters that untold numbers of Ecuadoreans were still trapped in collapsed buildings. We havent been able to use heavy equipment because it could have tragic consequences for the injured buried in the rubble, he said. Were here first to attend to the injured and then will come reconstruction. Comrades, I urge unity, strength and prayer, Glas said. The quake had its most devastating effects in a 100-mile stretch of coastline that runs north from Pedernales to Esmeraldas. The area is popular with foreign tourists and surfers, as well as being a weekend getaway for Ecuadoreans from Quito and other cities in the interior. There was no word on whether foreign tourists were among the victims. The quake, the most powerful to strike Ecuador since the late 1970s, was also felt in the capital, Quito, and in the southern city of Cuenca, home to many U.S. retirees, but officials reported only minor damage there. I thought the world was coming to an end. But luckily God continues to still love us, said Portoviejo resident Luis Alcivar, no relation to the Pedernales mayor. But a Pedernales resident, Vanessa Santos, was more frantic, telling reporters that several family members had died in their house, which collapsed during the quake. My sisters, my brother-in-law, my nephews all are buried and no one is doing anything about it, she said. Neighboring countries, including Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico, pledged to send emergency supplies and personnel to Ecuador to assist in the recovery efforts. The earthquake came just hours after a magnitude 7.0 temblor killed eat least 41 people in Japan, which is on the western rim of the Ring of Fire. The Pacific coastal region of South and Central America is highly active seismically and has suffered devastating quakes in recent years. In addition to a 2010 quake and tsunami in Chile, which killed 550, Perus central coast suffered a quake in 2007 that killed 519. Special correspondents Viteri and Kraul reported from Quito and Bogota, Colombia, respectively. ALSO 9 injured, including 3 children, in North Hills crash Are you an independent voter? You arent if you checked this box Lives are in limbo after a series of devastating earthquakes in Japan Mexicos defense secretary formally apologized to the country for a video-recorded incident of torture involving two soldiers and a federal police officer. Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda addressed a sea of green-uniformed soldiers in a televised address Saturday that illustrated just how damaging the graphic torture video has been. In the name of all who make up this great institution, I offer a sincere apology to all of society offended by this unacceptable event, Cienfuegos said. He urged soldiers and citizens to come forward to report other abuses. Advertisement Torture by police and armed forces has long been criticized as a far too common technique for extracting information or confessions from suspects. But the video of a young woman having a rifle muzzle pressed to her head by a female military police officer and having a plastic bag placed over her head by a female federal police officer has stirred outrage. The incident occurred Feb. 5, 2015, in Ajuchitlan del Progreso in the southern state of Guerrero. The state has seen a massive deployment of soldiers and federal police to battle the drug cartels. Cienfuegos said such acts not only denigrate us as soldiers but also betray the confidence that this institution has earned day by day. Let it be clear: We must not, nor can we confront illegality with more illegality, he said. In the past, the military has assumed a much more defensive position when confronting allegations of abuse. The widely circulated video made that impossible. Unfortunately they only give these apologies when they have no choice, when there is no alternative because the images are irrefutably captured in a video, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. The usual reaction is to deny and even cover up incidents, he said. The lesson that these soldiers and officers take away is not to take photographs, much less leave evidence like a video. Since then-President Felipe Calderon stepped up the countrys battle with drug cartels in December 2006, the military has assumed a more active role in internal security and that has continued under his successor, President Enrique Pena Nieto. In some areas soldiers took over policing duties as corrupt local police forces were disarmed and disbanded. International and domestic human rights organizations have been highly critical of this role and the abuses they say it brought. In February, Mexicos Navy announced that it was investigating several marines for allegedly torturing and sexually abusing six female suspects in the state of Veracruz in 2012. Mexico National Human Rights Commission had recommended the investigation. In December 2014, the U.N.s Special Rapporteur on Torture published a report that concluded, Torture is generalized in Mexico. It occurs especially from the moment when a person is detained until he or she is brought before a judge, and is used as punishment and as a means of investigation. On Thursday, two federal security officials told the Associated Press that the suspect in the video has been in prison for more than a year on weapons charges. One of the sources, who both requested anonymity because they werent authorized to speak about the case, said the federal police officer in the video had been identified and was being held at a federal police installation. She had not been charged. The two soldiers are being held in a military prison, and Cienfuegos said Saturday that in addition to facing military justice, they will be investigated by federal prosecutors for crimes against a civilian. The attorney generals office said Thursday it had opened a torture investigation. ALSO Sport Chalet will close all stores and stop online sales U.S. agents find 140-foot tunnel under U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico Non-Muslim woman caned in Indonesia chose the punishment over jail time A version of the drug fentanyl, described as "200 times more powerful than heroin," is now rumored to be sweeping metropolitan cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. Authorities report fentanyl has long been abused by addicts in tandem with heroin, but the new synthetic version of the liquid form that has now hit the market is reported to have triggered an uptick in overdose related deaths across the region. "It's monumental," Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil recently told reporters. "I have never seen anything like it." Drug Related Deaths on the Rise Across the Area Over this year alone, the area neighboring Cook County has seen 53 overdoses and 18 deaths. O'Neil is among those of the belief some of the victim's felled prey after they thought they were buying regular heroin, only to end up with the far more powerful synthetic version of the drug. Fentanyl is one of the most powerful pain killers on the market and is regularly given to cancer patients to help ease their level of suffering. Side Effects Side effects of the drugs include respiratory depression, fever, vomiting, nausea and diaphoresis. DEA officials speculate that the form of the drug now hitting the streets is flowing into the U.S. from China, or is being produced in small-time labs across the country. The National Forensic Laboratory Information System reports 5,217 seizures related to fentanyl were reported by law enforcement in 2014, with that number jumping to 8,511 by 2015. Has Drug hit L.A. Area? Indeed, overdose deaths believed related to the drug in the Los Angeles are also on the rise. More and more, authorities report the drug, also billed as 100 times more powerful than morphine, has been found to be connected to overdose victims. The L.A. County Department of Public Health recently revealed that white fentanyl-related deaths jumped to 62 in 2014 after hovering around roughly 4o over a two-year period beginning in 2011. In addition, some 51 overdoses, 11 of them fatal, have been reported in the Sacramento County area over the last month. "Obviously it's been big on the East Coast and Midwest, it's possible that it could be coming this way," said John Martin, special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco. The two girls charged in Slenderman stabbing awaiting on trial were denied of reducing their bail. A Wisconsin judge announced his decision not to reduce the girls' bail for trying to murder their friend by stabbing her repeatedly to please a fictional horror character called Slenderman. Judge Michael Bohren denied the defense lawyer's request to reduce the bail set from $500,000 to $5,000. The families of the accused said they cannot afford to post the bond. The Wisconsin girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser were in custody for two years now after they were convicted of first-degree homicide in May 2014, NY Post reports. Weier, Geyser and the victim were all 12 when the Slenderman stabbing took place. "The $500,000 bail is certainly adequate and reasonable and appropriate based upon protection of the public, based on the risk of flight and ... based on the nature of the case," Bohren said at a hearing. In 2014, the girls tried to entice their friend, Payton Leutner into the woods, and there, stabbed her to death. According to CBS News, the girls believed that they would earn a home in Slederman's residence. The investigators added that the girls wanted to kill to prove that Slenderman is truly existing. Lawyers for the girls appealed that their bond would be reduced, release them and put them on electronic monitoring while the decision is still pending if the proceedings would be placed in adult court. In August, Judge Bohren ordered the accused in the Slenderman stabbing to be tried in adult court. However, a request from the girls' attorneys to move it to the juvenile court has placed the hearing on hold. If the girls would be convicted as adults, they could be imprisoned for up to 65 years. On the other hand, if they would be tried in the juvenile court, they could be sentenced up to the age of 25, Reuters has learned. It was not the first time that the attorney for the girls, Maura McMahon, requested a bail reduction in behalf of her clients. Defense Attorney Anthony Cotton initially filed an appeal to reduce the bond, but it was earlier denied. The defense lawyers argued that their clients must be tried in juvenile court because they are suffering from mental illness. Payton, the victim in the Slenderman stabbing, miraculously survived the attack. The contentious gun rights bill was officially signed by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Friday. According to him, the bill will secure worshippers inside churches against possible assailants. However, the approved gun rights bill created disapproval from the National Gun Control Advocates. The Mississippi Church Protection Act allows church members to undergo firearms training in order to protect the congregation. It also permits the designated members to bring firearms inside the church premises to give other members protection. However, the gun rights bill would also make it easier for other residents to bring guns without licenses. The new signed bill gathered major criticisms from the gun control advocates, reported by Reuters. "Churches deserve protection from those who would harm worshippers," said Bryant, a Republican, in a Twitter post explaining his decision to sign the measure into law. Mississippi is the 9th state to approve the gun rights bill. The Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police had expressed their opinion about the gun rights bill, claiming the legislation only ruins the state's licensing system. It would be difficult to trace violent criminals because even common people can now secure guns, Yahoo claims. Gun control supporters said the gun rights bill would only place people's lives in greater danger as more untrained people can have firearms. "I think in the South people have a certain familiarity with guns and are also strong in their religious beliefs," Pastor Pat Ward, who leads The Orchard Church in Oxford, said. "But we don't always think about the relationship between them. What does our familiarity with guns say about us as people who claim to be following God, who preach about peace and love?" The gun rights bill was passed after nine black worshippers were gunned down by a shooter in Charleston, South Carolina. The blacks were on a bible study when the gunman fired gunshots. The attack was allegedly racially-motivated. Killings in black congregation in West Jackson are also common. Rev. Ervin Ricks claimed that about 1,200 of his black congregation lost most of their family members to gun attack, according to SLTRIB. The gun rights bill was authored by Baptist pastor and state Rep. Andy Gipson. With the approval of the bill, only two states, Georgia and North Dakota, were left banning all firearms in places of worships. It may be called the Bi-State Shad Fishing Contest, but you don't have to be from Pennsylvania or New Jersey to fish. "We got a guy from Florida. We got a guy from California," said Eric Fistler, who founded the contest. "I just got (an application) out of the mailbox from Connecticut. We never had that before." Eric Fistler, of Williams Township, sits in his boat at the Phillipsburg boat launch, headquarters of the Bi-State Shad Fishing Tournament he organized. His tournament, in its sixth year, came on as the Forks of the Delaware Shad Fishing Tournament faded out after more than 30 years. Each year, Fistler's tournament gets bigger and better. He had 250 anglers sign up last year and registrations are already at 260 for this year. "We're looking for between 300 and 350," said the 53-year-old from Williams Township. The contest runs April 21-24. The weather has been up and down so far this spring. But when the conditions have cooperated, the shad are there for the catching. Fistler said he and a friend pulled 76 shad out of the Delaware River on April 1. When the warm weather settles in, Fistler is ready "for it to really break loose again." Register for the tournament on Fistler's website. The fee is $30, but first place takes home $5,000. Each prize pays out more than it did last year, Fistler said. Fistler has lived along the Delaware his entire life and fishes the waterway year round. Tournament time for him now hearkens back to the annual visit from Santa Claus when Fistler was a child. "This is like Christmas for the adults," he said. FISH ON For more information about the Bi-State Shad Fishing Contest, see shadfishingcontest.com or call Eric Fistler at 610-762-0440. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. TRENTON -- In 2003, Gov. Chris Christie's state Supreme Court nominee Walter Timpone was an attorney in private practice who occasionally did work for Essex County. Walter Timpone has been nominated to New Jersey's Supreme Court. His nephew had just graduated from college and, interested in politics, needed a job. So Timpone asked Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Jr. for help, and the powerful Democratic leader came through: Timpone's nephew became a field representative in the Essex County Citizen Service Office at $45,000 a year. A dozen years later, Timpone, by then a member of the Election Law Enforcement Commission, cited this favor when he recused himself from voting on whether or not DiVincenzo misused and failed to report campaign funds. His decision to stay on the sidelines, however, prompted ELEC's investigation into DiVincenzo, an ally of Christie and some Democratic lawmakers with gubernatorial hopes, to ground to a halt. Now that Timpone, a Democrat, is Christie's choice to join the state Supreme Court, his role in ELEC's attempt to investigate DiVincenzo is under renewed scrutiny as the state Senate Judiciary Committee begins reviewing the nomination. State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D- Bergen) said the favor will be addressed in depth during Timpone's confirmation hearings. "I plan to give Mr. Timpone a thorough interrogation on this topic and several others," Weinberg told NJ Advance Media. William Schluter, a former Republican state senator and vice chairmen of the State Ethics Commission who wrote the law that established ELEC, said Timpone's recusal "doesn't pass the smell test." Timpone, a friend of the governor, handled public corruption cases as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in the 1990s, and was appointed by Christie to serve as a member of ELEC in 2010. In October 2013, the ELEC charged that DiVincenzo failed to disclose nearly $72,000 in campaign spending and misappropriated or misused more than $16,000 in campaign funds during the two years earlier. Trips to Puerto Rico, a gym membership and a pricey tuxedo were among the expenditures allegedly made with DiVincenzo's campaign funds. If found guilty, the county executive would face hefty monetary penalties and fines. State law requires the commission to have four members -- two from each political party -- appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate. But there are only two: Timpone, and Ronald DeFilippis, the chairman, who is a Republican. Christie has not filled the Democratic slot for five years since Lawrence Weiss, a Superior Court Judge, died in November 2011. Democrats, in turn, have declined to act on Christie's nominee for the Republican slot, Eric Jaso. But while the two-person panel can still investigate, a judge recently ruled that members of one political party alone cannot rule on campaign enforcement on someone from another party. Thus, with Democrat Timpone's recusal, ELEC does not have jurisdiction to act on the complaint against Democrat DiVincenzo. An administrative law judge has recommended the case be dismissed because ELEC cannot act. Joseph Donohue, deputy director of ELEC, said ELEC has "challenged the administrative law judge's recommendation to dismiss" before a state appeals court. That court has not yet acted. Schluter said Timpone's recusal, when taken with the governor's longtime refusal to appoint another Democratic member to the commission, suggests Christie and DiVincenzo have a marriage of political convenience designed to protect the county executive from investigation. "(Timpone) knows you have to have a quorum to do anything -- he'd obviously be aware of that," said Schluter, "I don't think it's Timpone's fault, this (ELEC) deadlock, but it certainly suits the purposes of the Christie administration quite well: It seems the real reason is that they don't want a quorum there to adjudicate on DiVincenzo." Schluter, who is working on a book about corruption in New Jersey politics, added that if Timpone joins the state Supreme Court, "there's going to be another vacancy on the Election Law (Enforcement) Commission, and they won't be able to do anything at all." Brigid Harrison, a professor of law and political science at Montclair State University said that with his recusal from the DiVincenzo case, a broader conflict of interest may be perceived. "He judged himself to be indebted to one of the most important political operatives in the state," said Harrison. "Those behaviors beg the question: Can that individual be a neutral arbiter of the law?" Timpone did not return calls and emails seeking comment. An assistant to DiVincenzo said the executive declined to comment on the two men's relationship and the favor, and DiVincenzo's attorney, Angelo Genova, did not return a phone call seeking comment. In an email he sent to Harrison after she published a November 2015 op-ed about the ELEC investigation in The Record, Timpone acknowledged he had "asked the Executive if there was a job" for his nephew, and that the nephew was "in that position for 2 years" nearly a decade ago. But Timpone also wrote that "I have no personal relationship with the executive," having only seen him "at 2 or 3 events over that time" and that when they did, "we did nothing more than exchange pleasantries." His recusal on the D'Vincenzo investigation, he wrote, was made "in an abundance of caution." Timpone also noted in the email that he's defended election law at the expense of his own private interests, citing a case in which the ELEC refused to allow former Newark Mayor Sharpe James to use his campaign funds to pay for his criminal representation -- an action that would not benefit a criminal defense attorney such as Timpone. Christie's nomination of Timpone broke a six-year logjam between the governor and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) over Supreme Court appointments. The nomination has support from both political parties. As to staffing ELEC, Christie told reporters Monday that "I haven't spent any time talking about that yet" but added "I'll get to that" after Timpone is confirmed. "Then the Senate President and I will have to turn our attentions to ELEC and see what we can do there," said Christie. "I'm sure we'll be having lots of conversations about nominations that could be confirmed between now and June 30." Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Pennsylvania Budget The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted, along with the Senate, to postpone a ballot question on the retirement age for judges, from this month's primary election to the general election in November. (The Associated Press) Here's a question for Pennsylvania voters to ponder, as they head to the polls April 26 to have a say in nominating presidential candidates: What would you do with $1.3 million? New home? New car? Pay off debt? Stash it in a retirement fund? One thing you probably wouldn't do is order something under a no-refund contract, then cancel it -- knowing full well that you're going to have to shell out the same amount, for the same expense, later this year. That essentially is what Republicans in the Pennsylvania Legislature did last week, with Gov. Tom Wolf's concurrence, yanking a judge retirement age question from the primary ballot, rescheduling it for the Nov. 8 general election. GOP leaders in the House and Senate said the referendum -- a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow judges to work until 75 instead of 70 -- was too long, vaguely worded, loaded with legalese. And besides, they said, more people would get to vote on it in the general election, when the presidential choice will be on the ballot. Well, let's concede this much: Somebody goofed on the front end in thinking this question needed to be resolved in April instead of November. Even though the Republican and Democratic presidential spectacles are likely to generate a big turnout on April 26 -- there are important nominations to be decided for state offices, too -- Pennsylvania's closed primaries are off-limits to anyone not registered with either of the two big parties. That means as many as 1 million independents, third-party registrants and others are left out -- even though they are permitted to vote on ballot questions. If they're aware of them, that is. What should have dissuaded legislative Republicans on this delaying tactic, however, is the $1.3 million in taxpayer money already spent to advertise the judge referendum. That amount will now be spent again in the autumn to do the same thing. Also, the 11th-hour timing of the switch comes too late to change absentee ballots already sent out, which include the judge question. Some counties won't be able to adjust in time for the election, either, so they'll be required to post signs at polling places telling people to ignore the judge referendum. A million dollars is a lot of money to burn on nothing -- it's firewood sucked up the flue without heating the house. Still, it's mere kindling compared to other election-related blunders. Pennsylvania spent $6 million to advertise its ill-conceived voter ID law before the courts tossed it. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ordered a special election in October 2013 to fill a vacant Senate seat, costing an additional $12 million just weeks before a general election in which he was on the ballot. A million here, a million there. On a question so important that Pennsylvania will pay to ask it twice. This morning I headed into Edinburgh at the crack of dawn to take part in a panel on Radio Scotland show Good Morning Scotland. I got a bit of a shock at the station as there was hardly anywhere to park, which I hadnt expected for that hour. The reason became clear when I got to the platform and saw lots of people in running gear, heading into town for the Great Edinburgh Run. I have to say it is much easier to be discussing your election campaign when your leader is on the form of your life and when voters are repeating your campaign messages back to you on the doorsteps and you are winning the campaign with fantastic events involving seals, planes, canoes and happy children in a soft play area. You can listen to what I had to say here from about 1 hour 41 minutes in. People like the optimism, boldness and fun of our campaign. They like the penny on tax for education, investing from nursery to college. They like the investment in mental health that wed bring. They like Willie Rennie. He had people in Alloa, not the most ardent Lib Dem stronghold, come up to him yesterday and tell him they were voting for us for the first time. It feels better out there than it has for a long time. Im not going to make any wild predications, but I think it is reasonable to think that it is possible for us to send a bigger contingent to Holyrood than we currently have. We need to build on the early success of the campaign over the next three weeks. I wanted to concentrate on us and the good things about our campaign, but if I had had the chance to talk about the others, Id have taken the SNP to task on their utter timidity. They have been going on about getting more powers for Scotland forever. Now they have them, they are barely using them. Its like giving them a Ferrari that they wont ever get out of second gear. As far as Labour are concerned, all I get from them is resignation and defeat. Do they actually want to do well anywhere? In places like Edinburgh Northern and Leith, for example, where they currently hold the seat, they should be going after every Liberal Democrat and Tory supporter and asking for their votes to beat the SNP but nobody I know in that seat has had any such approach. Theyve already lost out this week as the first votes have already been cast as postal ballots arrive. They just dont seem to be trying and they need to get a grip before it all slips away from them. Yes, they are under a lot of pressure but they have a good, credible leader with her heart in the right place and they need to reignite that fire in their belly and not just stumble into electoral meltdown. And as for the Tories, where do you start? Probably with the fact that they are about as hand in glove with George Osborne and his tax rises for the rich and cuts to welfare as its possible to get. They have done more to destabilise the UK than the SNP and thats saying something. We also shouldnt forget that they have a whole load of stealth taxes in their plans, including reinstating prescription charges. The Tories kept the SNP minority government going between 2007-11, getting them out of trouble most of the time. In this Parliament, they have not won any major policy battles with three times as many MSPs as we have. Remember we have stopped the SNP in its tracks on armed police, industrial scale stop and search and forced them to expand childcare, put more money into colleges and expand feee school meals. We have been in their face the whole time. I saw a post on Facebook this morning from a friend of mine who said that her 4 year old saw a picture of Willie Rennie and said That man wants to make Scotland the best again. My own very cynical teenager, wholl be voting for the first time, looked at the news reports from the manifesto launch with delight. Our campaign is the brightest, boldest, most positive and warmest. We are really going for it. If you like what youve seen so far, why not help us out? * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings All the parties in Wales have been asked to write a blog for the Tenovus Cancer Care charitys website. This is what Kirsty Williams had to say: Cancer is something that will touch the life of everyone in Wales at some point. So when it does, the system needs to be ready to step up and give the treatment and care patients, and their families, need. Yesterday the Welsh Liberal Democrats launched our manifesto for the next Welsh Government which contained a number of commitments that would transform cancer care. Cancer causes more than one in four deaths, yet Wales is the only UK nation without a cancer awareness campaign and there are huge variations in cancer outcomes within Wales, we must address this. In government we would develop an all-Wales Individual Patient Funding Requests panel and remove the exceptionality hurdle which prevents many patients access to drugs that their clinician thinks could help them. Your clinician should choose your medication, not your postcode. We have a national cancer plan which health professionals tell us would be fantastic if it was implemented but there is a lack of leadership, with Welsh Ministers all too quick to pass off the blame for a lack of its delivery to others. We need to appoint a National Cancer Director so that there is someone accountable for the delivery of that plan. The existing Health Technologies Fund was my partys policy, implemented as a result of budget negotiations with the Welsh Government. It has already brought lots of cutting edge medical equipment to our NHS. We want to take it further, and put the Welsh NHS at the forefront of medical advances, in particular into stratified medicines, by extending the Health Technologies Fund to support the take up of new medicines and by establishing a new Office of Life Sciences. Something my constituents frequently raise with me is the financial cost of cancer. Travelling to and from chemotherapy is expensive, especially in rural areas. We need to try to bring that cost down by making chemotherapy available closer to peoples homes. For too long services have been centralised, there is no clinical reason why chemotherapy cant be done in community hospitals and in mobile units, we want to make that a reality. Finally, I want Wales to be world leaders in end of life care. We must do more to respect peoples wishes and help them to plan better for their own palliative care. Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 455th 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 (10 -,16 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. Lib Dems deliver by-election double whammy by Dawud Islam on LibDemHame . On that brilliant win in Cornwall and strong hold in Somerset. 2. If the Daily Mail wrote this headline, wed be outraged, why is it ok for the Indy? by Ben Rathe, on the Gripes of Rathe . It isnt. And while there might be an issue about Samantha Cameron having a SpAd, its not about fashion. 3. A stunning victory for Karen in Wadebridge West by Jeremy Rowe on Jeremy Rowe. The inside story of a fantastic result. 4. Cameron will probably survive the tax scandal because of Labour and its supporters by Nick Tyrone on Nick Tyrone.com. Labour miss an open goal again. 5. Conservatives nominate two different candidates for same council vacancy by Mark Pack on Mark Pack. And one appears to be the incumbent Conservative councillor. One to file under you couldnt make it up. 6. Labour leaflet cock up by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace. The mistake we hope we will never make getting the date of the election wrong. Using last years template, maybe? 7. The way the right of centre press have responded to the spectre of Brexit has been extraordinary by Nick Tyrone on nicktyrone.com. The right are choosing their moment to kill the Cameron project. 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. What is an ever closer union? by Millicent Ragnhild Scott on LinkedIn. The statement is intended to draw attention to the similarities of the peoples of Europe, rather than to the divisions, falsely created and magnified by wartime. 9. The EU an the UK explained in bananas by Millicent Ragnhild Scott on LinkedIn. This is my favourite analogy ever. 10. Voters are estranged from politicians as the Brexit vote nears and thats good for everyone by Daisy Benson on Independent Voices . Contrasting a set piece debate and the openness and thirst for information by visitors to a street stall. 11. Want to be a Liberal Democrat candidate for the 2019 European elections? Not on the approved candidates list? You need to move fast by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy. A useful reminder from Mark if in doubt get yourself approved NOW. 12. The Welsh Lib Dem battle for survival by Energlyn Churchill on Towards Gunfire. An analysis of our prospects in Wales and how we can make sure that that hearse stays empty. 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
HOMELESS people struggling to find short-term accommodation are sleeping in tents by the Westfields Wetlands, close by one of Limerick citys most affluent areas, the North Circular Road.
On Tuesday afternoon, Christopher McNamara, 30, spoke to the Limerick Leader about his struggle with homelessness, following his eviction from McGarry House a week ago.
He had been sleeping in a tent, alone, for five days, and was waiting on an appeal to return to the 70-unit facility, which is run by Novas Initiatives on St Alphonsus Street.
He said that he was evicted for breaching the rules while staying with his partner.
This is through my own mistake. Once you are evicted for breaching the rules, its hard to get help anywhere else. So, now, I am waiting on an appeal and hoping to get back in. McGarry House is a good hostel, so I really hope to get back in, Christopher said.
On Tuesday morning, he left to get food at the local soup kitchen, but when he returned, he found that the 60 tent was completely burnt. He said that he could not afford to buy a replacement.
He is not the only homeless person who has resorted to setting up camp by the Wetlands.
On Tuesday afternoon, Christopher was joined by a homeless couple, who did not wish to be named. They told the Limerick Leader that they were also going to set up a tent for the night in the area.
I got the idea from somebody else, because they told me that they did this and that it wasnt that bad, once you had a few blankets. But even if I had 100 blankets, it is still bad. It is not a place to be living. Tenting is something you want to do with your family over the weekend it is not something you live in.
It was Sunday morning, and there was really bad weather, and I thought the whole thing was going to blow up into the air. Thats how dreadful it was. I woke up this morning, feeling sick, it was so cold, he explained.
On December 29, 2015, the Limerick Leader published an article about a homeless couple who had spent Christmas Day in a tent in the same area.
This prompted anger on social media, which resulted in a successful campaign to temporarily shelter the two in a B&B.
A spokesperson for Novas Initiatives said that anyone sleeping in the streets is intolerable. When evictions happen in McGarry House, its usually for quite serious behaviour. We support people with very complex needs, including significant addiction issues, mental health issues and challenging behaviour.
We give people lots of chances, and anybody who is evicted for any reason is entitled to an appeals process. Very often, there would be extenuating circumstances that cause some of these actions, and we are very tolerant of that. We accept that. Once they are listened to, they are very often accepted back into the project, once another bed becomes available they can move back in.
The spokesperson said that there have been difficulties accommodating homeless people on the waiting list, as every facility is full. Those who are evicted and are successful in their appeal may not immediately secure accommodation due to unavailable space.
From November 1 to April 8, all homeless facilities increased their capacity with four fold-out beds to cater for those during cold and treacherous weather conditions, as part a winter initiative programme. The Novas spokesperson said that it reached full capacity every night during the Easter weekend.
Novas Initiative is working on a Housing First policy, where they intend to support around 20 people over the next year to move into their own accommodation, and to provide wrap-around supports within their home, the spokesperson confirmed.
AROUND 40 people, who undergo hip revision surgery at Croom Orthopaedic Hospital, benefit from bone donated by patients every year.
This is according to Crooms Bone Bank co-ordinator and theatre nurse, Anne McCormack, who has been involved in the initiative since its inception in 2000.
Bone donations are received by those who undergo hip replacements, and each are managed by the Croom Retrieval Centre, which also supplies the rest of Ireland, via the Bank Bank at Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital.
The Bone Bank imports and stores femoral strut grafts (grafts from the thigh bone) from the United States, which are used for complex surgeries, where a persons prosthesis fractures through the thigh bone, after they have had a hip replacement.
Trauma patients at University Hospital Limerick, in Dooradoyle, also receive bone from Croom.
Ms McCormack said that when the hospital previously needed bone, it required it to be ordered from the Bone Bank in Dublin, which was then transported by a specialist courier, at 40 minus degrees Celsius.
Each femoral head, according to a spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group, would cost in the region of 1,500 to buy in.
Ms McCormack said that people can require revision surgery from 5 to 20 years after having their first hip replacement complete.
This is through wear and tear and when the femoral head part of the prosthesis goes up through the acetabulum. This can create quite a large hole and we need to fill that gap.
In the past we would have used cement to fill it, which you would need a lot of, which was not a natural product and which could come loose. Then we started using bone. Using your own bone is the ideal for any graft but a person would not themselves have enough bone to fill that gap in the acetabulum. And so when people come in to have their primary hips done, we ask them to donate the femoral head which they no longer need.
When doing revisions, we would sometimes use two large femoral heads. They are ground down and look a little like mincemeat but they are in fact minced bone. They are packed into place. If we grafted today and brought you back six months later for X-ray, you would not see the graft because it will have been incorporated into your own bone. It is a much more natural process whereas you would still see the cement there 10 years later, she explained.
After patients give consent, blood and microbiology tests are done, and are repeated six months later to avoid any complications. The bone is then stored at around minus 80 degrees, with a shelf life of five years. There are currently 120 femoral heads at the Bone Bank.
The Bone Bank is a member of the American Association of Tissue Banks.
LIMERICK senator James Heffernan has launched a social media campaign to create awareness of the current overcrowding crisis at University Hospital Limerick.
The Social Democrats representative took to Facebook and Twitter to highlight the issue, after he met with an elderly woman, who was allegedly waiting to see a doctor in the emergency department for hours, on Monday evening.
He said that the campaign will involve people highlighting their experiences of the health service, using the hashtag #LimerickLivesMatter.
Sen Heffernan has also called on the INMO to organise a demonstration in which the public may get involved, to show support for A&E nurses, doctors and staff.
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Dooradoyle hospital had the highest overcrowding in the country, on Monday morning, as 36 patients were being treated on A&E trolleys and additional beds or trolleys in the wards.
Monthly figures also show that UHL had 710 patients being treated on trolleys in March, which was 152 more than March 2015. According to INMO, it was the worst March for overcrowding, since records began in 2006.
Sen Heffernan stated that, at 10pm on Monday, the woman, who is in her mid-70s, was admitted at 4.30pm and had yet to be seen by a doctor.
He claimed that the woman was not given as much as a cup of tea or a sandwich in all of that time.
I raised this with an orderly and was told that someone with a trolley would be around in a few hours. Our elderly citizens are being treated with total indignity by our health service.
He told the Limerick Leader that since he was elected in 2007, the situation has gotten worse. According to INMO figures, there were only 42 people being treated on trolleys in March 2007.
We dont have a modern day healthcare system that we can be proud of, he added.
A spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group said it would like to apologise to any patient who has faced long waits during this busy period and is making every effort to minimise the numbers waiting and the length of time they wait. UL Hospitals Group has long acknowledged that it is not acceptable for any admitted patient to wait on a trolley.
According to the spokesperson, there were seven people waiting to be admitted to a bed, at the A&E at 3pm, Monday. The spokesperson added that they cannot comment on individual cases.
A UNIQUE GP service in Limerick has reached a milestone in conducting over 1,000 consultations with homeless people, drug addicts, migrants, sex workers and others who feel marginalised in society.
When Dr Patrick ODonnell undertook a Masters in global health at Trinity College Dublin some years ago to examine the needs of the health system and design programmes to help remedy whats needed, he never thought I'd be using it here in Ireland, or here in Limerick.
From the outset he met with over 40 groups and individuals who work with marginalised groups, including clients of Ana Liffey, North Star, Saoirse, Slainte.
I went pretty much everywhere I could think of, asking if something (was) needed, and a lot of the same issues kept coming up, he told the Limerick Leader.
This pilot primary healthcare clinic for marginalised groups opened in April 2014 in Limerick city and now marks two years in operation, with clinics run at Ana Liffey on Ballysimon Road and at St Vincent de Paul on Hartstonge Street.
"I come here because over being homeless, a drug addict, things like that, said one patient.
Other GPs would have their mind made up before they even see you; rush you in, rush you out. That's my main reason for coming here. There's a stigma attached to homeless people and drugs addicts - they don't want them in their surgeries.
"Automatically when you come in here you don't feel like you're different, don't feel out of place, don't feel like it's them and us. Just thanks for being here."
This clinic has been established by the Partnership for Health Equity and is co funded by the University of Limerick, the North Dublin City General Practice Training Programme and the HSE.
The clinic, Patrick said, is now busier than ever, and it was also recently highly commended by the selection panel for the HSE Health Service Excellence Awards 2016.
Some 60 medical students from the university now sit in on the Limerick doctor's clinics as part of their practical learning modules.
They [the students] had never sat down with someone who slept rough last night, injected heroin this morning or travelled half the world as a refugee and ended up in Limerick. Its removed from the medicine bit its trying to understand why a person is the way they are, he explained.
Mental health is nearly an aspect of every consultation and thats not surprising when youre working with marginalised groups depression, self harm, threats to suicide, psychosis, bipolar and schizophrenia, you see it all.
Patients come in with 10 things on a list because they havent seen a doctor in so long, and then I see another 10 things.
It can be very difficult to pick apart addiction from mental health, theres an element dual diagnosis. Which came first?
Im very proud of the work. I've learned a huge amount from it, and a lot of patients Ive got to know very well. Limerick is a hard place to start fresh for a lot of people. It's not as simple as writing a prescription and sending someone on their way."
It is not their intention, he said, to set up a parallel health system and take marginalised people away from that system. Its about working with people when their lives are chaotic, trying to stabilise the situation, reintroducing them back into the system.
The availability of the medical card to some people is a huge issue for some patients who dont generally see a GP. Then there are challenges with literacy, filling out a form, having a permanent address when lives are in such a state of flux.
A lot of the struggles I see in my patient are outside my control such as private rented accommodation. Thats affecting their health, but Ive no solution to it, thats where others, such as in SVP can help in tandem.
You worry a lot about people coming back. Some people dont know where theyre going to be tomorrow, not to mind in two weeks, so youre trying to balance doing a lot without overburdening people or scaring them, when it may have taken them a lot of time and courage to come and ask for a blood test for hepititis.
Many others present to him who are very much under the radar, undocumented migrants, who are terrified of authority and forms because theyre worried theyll be traceable.
They came when the boom was here, then the tide went out and theyre still here but they dont qualify for medical cards or habitual residency. Theyre tipping away under the radar quite quietly, but theyre a very vulnerable group.
Sex workers also avail of his clinics, and are often directed by Doras Luimni, the local support group for all migrants.
People will never some in and say Im a sex worker, but they will ask for certain tests.
Building up confidence and trust in the health care system is another issue, especially when people have had bad experiences in the past.
One of the questions Im frequently asked is How long are you going to be here?, added Dr O'Donnell.
According to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), one in four people will need a blood transfusion at some point in their lives, with over 1,000 people receiving transfusions every week in Ireland. Yet, only 3% of the population donate blood.
With that in mind, the Leader popped down to the blood donation clinic run by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, which was based in the Longford Arms Hotel on Wednesday and Thursday, March 30 and 31, to see how the process goes.
Arriving at the Longford Arms Hotel at approximately 5pm (the clinic ran from 4.30pm until 8pm to allow for potential donors to call in after work), we were met by a busy, transformed ballroom.
At the door, there was some information on reasons why people may be unable to donate and the period that they will be excluded from doing so - for example, those under eighteen years of age cannot donate until they turn eighteen, while those who have had a body piercing or tattoo should wait for at least four months before giving blood.
Inside, we were met by the Nurse in charge, Theola Finnegan and Team Leader Mary Stewart, the latter of whom showed us around the room.
Once you come through the door, you register with one of the registration clerks, Ms Stewart explained, pointing to the first station in the room. There you get your health and lifestyle questionnaire.
You get one of these every time you come in and you fill it each time you come in so we can catch up with your recent medical history, Ms Stewart continued, adding that the main focus of the team is on the safety of the product being given to the recipient.
Those who register then get a folder full of information on the donation process and anything that may occur before, during or after the donation.
The second step, Ms Stewart explained, is a station to check haemoglobin levels, which people often refer to as iron levels. A fingerprick blood test is carried out and donors must have a certain haemoglobin level to continue with their donation.
The next person, Ms Stewart said, moving on to the next station, goes through the questionnaire with you to make sure youve understood the questions. First-time donors have one extra step to the process, in that they undergo an interview with one of the medical team to go through everything in fine detail.
Once youre cleared that the questionnaire is okay and the haemoglobin level is okay, the next step is to hop onto a bed, she continued, gesturing to the centre of the room, where several locals were in the process of having their blood taken.
The actual giving of blood is quite quick, Ms Stewart affirmed, before adding; Once the donation process is complete and were happy the donor is well, we take them off the bed and bring them to the refreshment area.
Just under a pint of blood is taken from each donor, and while there are some occasional cases of slight bruising, or people feeling slightly unwell after the process, its rare, and theres always help at hand if this occurs.
Getting into the more technical side of things, Ms Stewart revealed that every bag of blood donated is carefully labelled and bar coded, with machines working in the background to mix the blood with an anti-coagulant,which stops the blood from clotting.
At the back of the room, the blood already taken was carefully stored, awaiting the temperature-controlled van, which would later transport it to the National Blood Centre at St James Hospital in Dublin to be processed.
Ms Stewart told the Leader that the blood can be at another hospital within 24 hours of being collected, while blood is stored for up to thirty-five days.
They always like to have a certain number of days supply, she confirmed. When it gets below four days, its worrying. Donors can donate every ninety days or three months.
One thing Ms Stewart was keen to point out, however, was that once someone walks in the door, they are not committed to giving blood. Its a matter of choice, and, as she pointed out, its not for everyone.
With that said, donors are always encouraged to bring a friend or relative along, while new donors are always welcome.
Despite the hospital beds, the needles and the vials of blood, the most shocking thing in the entire room were the constant smiles on the faces of each and every donor who walked in.
Its always a happy environment, Ms Stewart confirmed. Thats what we find, that it brings out the best in people!
She also pointed out that while its not something people can do in a rush - all in all, it can take up to an hour and a half to two hours - its a small price to pay for something that could save anothers life.
When you think about it deeply, the amount of good that one little bag can do is immense.
Peter Nevin, a native of Killoe, was just after donating blood for the twelfth time when the Leader spoke to him.
He happily told the Leader that he had started giving blood when he was in school, as a group of his friends decided to attend the clinic.
Ive no fear of needles at all, but they comfort you well here if you were somewhat scared. Its a great cause for the sake of an hour or two, he said, before encouraging people to come along. Even come in and get tested or screened anyway!
Another local donor was there for his second time.
After my wife had our child I said Id better do my bit, he laughed, admitting that it had originally taken him five years to build up the courage to attend a clinic. It was a great experience, he admitted. I have a slight fear of needles but Ive no problem getting it now. I intend to come back regularly.
Its a great thing to do and its the least you can do. There are a lot of sick people, and if youre healthy its a small thing to give back and help someone out.
The next blood donation clinic will take place in Longford in approximately three months time and both new and regular donors are always welcome. For more information on the Irish Blood Transfusion Service or on giving blood, or if you have any queries about your eligibility to donate, visit www.giveblood.ie or call the Freephone number 1850 731137.
Longford native and leading economist, Gerard Brady, will address this Saturday's 'Get Involved - Longford 2016' initiative hosted by Longford Chamber of Commerce at Longford Rugby Club.
The Ballinalee man is the Senior Economist in IBEC, Ireland's largest business representative organisation. His role involves engagement with policymakers on issues of importance to business and helping business navigate economic issues. He was the winner of the Foundation for Fiscal Studies Miriam Hederman O'Brien prize for research on fiscal policy in 2013. He has a key interest in the future of his native county and will open the event with an informed overview of Longford's position the likely best steps forward for the county at this critical junction.
The 'think tank' session will run from 10am to 4pm is targeted at all Longford town based businesses, residents, groups, clubs and organisations.
Chamber President, Fintan McGill said: "We will outline the Councils Local Economic & Community Plan (LECP) 2015-21 and other key strategic documents. The hope is that those in attendance will formulate a series of objectives for the town over the next three to five years, within the context of the stated LECP goals and objectives."
The event will look at everything from job creation, industry, retail strategy, housing, health etc. The findings from the session will be used to formulate a document which the Chamber plans to present to the newly elected TDs and local councilors.
The Chamber is inviting all groups to send two representatives to attend on the day. It will also be open to all Chamber members and anybody else wishing to attend. However it is necessary to register in advance via the Chamber of Commerce CEO, Lisa Brady at 087 778 6834.
Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com
Columnists Press Releases
Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived on Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, today to assist with recovery efforts in support of the Government of Japans relief efforts after the island of Kyushu was hit by a series of earthquakes, causing significant damage and up to 40 deaths.
Four MV-22B Ospreys from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Rein.), 31st MEU departed the Philippines at 11:00am today, refueled at MCAS Futenma, Okinawa, and proceeded to MCAS Iwakuni, where they arrived at 6:30pm.
The 31st MEU has four additional MV-22B Ospreys staged at MCAS Futenma. The aircraft are on standby to provide aerial support for recovery efforts if needed.
U.S. military support is provided at the request of the Government of Japan and is in support of efforts undertaken by the Japanese Self Defense Force.
The 31st MEU provides a forward-deployed, flexible sea-based force capable of conducting amphibious operations, crisis response and limited contingency operations in the Asia-Pacific area. The 31st MEU is the only continually forward-deployed MEU and remains the Marine Corps force-in-readiness in the Asia-Pacific region.
Media queries concerning the 31st MEUs participation in the recovery efforts may be directed to Capt. Jennifer Giles, 31st MEU Public Affairs Officer at jennifer.giles@usmc.mil.
When it comes to judgeships, the solons of the Virginia General Assembly often find themselves tied in political knots. Today, were going to help them, at least with the next open seat on the bench in the Danville area.
Heres a nomination: It should go to Danville Commonwealths Attorney Michael Newman. He earned it with the wisdom he displayed in putting to rest the harebrained notion criminal charges might be warranted against Andy Parker, for threatening state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin. Ahem.
Newmans six-page explanation is so sensible it could have been written by Learned Hand. Diplomatically, it doesnt employ terms such as ludicrous, half-baked, silly, absurd, daft, farcical or preposterous. But one can always read between the lines.
The background: Last August at Bridgewater Plaza on Smith Mountain Lake, Parkers daughter Alison was ambushed by a maniac and gunned down while she worked on a feature story for WDBJ-7, where she was a reporter. Her colleague Adam Ward was murdered, too. Vicki Gardner, a Chamber of Commerce official, was shot and wounded.
Andy Parker channeled much of his grief from that tragedy into advocating for gun control. And last fall, after Stanley bragged about his National Rifle Association rating on his Facebook page, Parker responded churlishly.
At 11 p.m. on Oct. 27, he sent Stanley a private message on Facebook, Im going to be your worst nightmare you little bastard.
According to Newmans report, Stanley read that message at 7 a.m. Oct. 28 in his Franklin County home. Within 15 to 20 minutes, he reported it to Capitol Police in Richmond.
Later that day, Parker put a comment on Stanleys Facebook page:
Youre [sic] finest moment, you sorry little coward. You didnt even have the decency to reach out and offer a lame condolence after my daughter Alison Bailey [Parker] was murdered in your district. When you see me again you best walk the other way lest I beat your little ass with my bare hands.
After he read that comment, Stanley called Capitol Police again, according to the report.
This was the week before the November election. Newmans report notes that at the senators request, Stanley was escorted on his Election Day rounds by two state troopers for his protection. (State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said the troopers already were scheduled to work, so that didnt cost taxpayers extra). By then, Andy Parker had publicly apologized.
The report also notes state police increased their patrols around Stanleys neighborhood for a few weeks after the so-called threats. And Stanley picked up a concealed-carry permit application.
Since October, the issue has been a kind of a hot potato. According to the report, its been handled by Capitol Police, then Virginia State Police, who referred it to the Franklin County Commonwealths Attorney, who referred it to Judge Joseph Milam . Milam, chief judge of the 22nd judicial circuit, appointed Newman special prosecutor at the end of January.
Between legislative matters in Richmond and murder cases in Danville, Newman said he was too busy in February to bother with it much. In all, he estimated, it consumed 10 to 15 hours of his time. The largest single chunk of that was typing and retyping the report, he told me.
In evaluating the case, he relied on Holcomb v. Commonwealth, a 2011 Virginia Court of Appeals ruling that dealt with an electronic threat on a MySpace page. Under state law, that may constitute a class 6 felony. But a conviction requires three distinct elements.
The first is communication theres no question that happened. Another is the purported victims reasonable apprehension of death or bodily injury.
Though one can debate whether Stanleys reaction was reasonable, Newman found the senators calls to police, his request for bodyguards on Election Day, and his statement to cops that his main concern was for his familys safety, met that burden.
The third question is whether there was a threat of bodily injury or death. Newman found the first message was too vague to meet that bar. In other words, nightmares are not injuries.
Taken literally, the second message portends a spanking. But Newman noted that it was conditional, on the two men perhaps crossing paths in the future. His report questioned whether Parker actually had any present intent to harm Stanley. Anyway, the report notes, Parker quickly apologized.
Given the totality of the circumstances, Newman wrote, Parkers actions didnt rise to the level of criminal prosecution. The Facebook comments were very inappropriate, but seeking criminal charges in this matter would neither be in the best interest of the Commonwealth nor serve the ends of justice, Newman wrote.
Bravo.
After winding its way through the criminal justice system for nearly six months, and after bodyguards were summoned for Stanley, and weeks of extra police patrols provided around his house, this sticks-and-stones stuff landed in the lap of someone whos got some common sense.
Newman is 44. Hes a graduate of the College of William & Mary and the George Mason University School of Law. After a stint in Danville as senior assistant commonwealths attorney, he won the office in a three-way election in 2009. He was re-elected without opposition in 2013. Both times, he ran as an independent.
Hes married and he and his wife have two teenagers. When I told him I was nominating him for a judgeship, that caught him a bit off guard.
To be honest, I havent given it too much thought, he told me. Right now Im just doing prosecutions. Thats all I ever wanted to do.
Lets hope this column doesnt doom his chances for a seat on the bench.
Its unclear how Stanley, a criminal defense attorney, views that or Newmans conclusions. He didnt return my call Friday morning. Perhaps he was too busy defending a murderer or a rapist or whatever.
But its been quite sunny lately. Hope hes not getting spooked by all the shadows.
At every budget workshop, there eventually comes a moment when the presenter whether its Henry County Administrator Tim Hall presenting the budget to the board of supervisors, or City Manager Leon Towarnicki presenting to city council says the same thing:
This is your budget, the presenter will say. Were handing it over to you.
There just might be a measure of relief in their voices when they say that. The budget process is a long and grueling one it seems to grow longer each year and it must be a good feeling to finally drop that ten-pound binder into someone elses hands.
For the city and the county, the budget process often is a painful one, and this year certainly is no exception.
In the proposed city budget, real estate and personal property tax rates are staying level, but utility rates could increase. Electric rates could rise 4.97 percent; water and sewer base rates could go up $3 per month; and the meals tax could rise from 6.5% to 7%.
Its unlikely that many city residents will cheer this news. However, without a substantial source of new revenue, these increases are necessary to produce a balanced budget, especially considering the substantial infrastructure repairs the city is going to have to undertake over the coming years.
It is clear that at some point, the topic of reversion is going to rear its head once more.
While it hasnt been that long since city council voted against reverting Martinsville from a city to a town, its worth pointing out that the decision was made just prior to the discovery that a 6.2 mile stretch of city sewer line would need to be replaced to the tune of $30 million, which is almost as much as the citys entire fiscal year 2017 proposed general fund budget.
When the topic of reversion crops up again, the citys financial burdens could become a direct concern for the county.
While Henry Countys proposed fiscal year 2017 budget fortunately is devoid of tax rate and utility increases, the county also has a major expense looming on the horizon.
Sooner or later, the Henry County Jail will need to be replaced.
Last week, the county officially issued a public notice seeking potential sites for the construction of the new jail. When, where and how the jail will be constructed is up to the board of supervisors, and just because the county finds a suitable site does not mean that ground will be broken this week, or this month, or this year.
However, like it or not, the jail needs to be built. In other states, such as Texas and Maryland, there have been instances where the state government has stepped in and forced a jail to shut down because it has been declared unsuitable for habitation.
The likelihood of that happening in Henry County is up for debate, but given the choice, its much better to be proactive and build a new jail ourselves rather than do it because of a government mandate.
The budgets are now in the hands of the board of supervisors and city council. While they face challenges, they have faced worse in the areas recent past.
Its impossible to pass a budget that makes everyone happy, but hopefully, the board and council will make the right choices, if not the most popular ones.
JACKSONVILLE, FL A 19-year-old Roxbury man will be returned to Massachusetts to face murder charges in connection with the March shooting death of a
Salem
man.
Xavier Collazo was arrested in Florida Thursday for being a fugitive from justice and is being held in the Duval County Jail pending his transfer to Massachusetts custody, the Boston Globe reported.
Collazo is accused of shooting 27-year-old Benjamin Magee on March 31 in Salem. The Essex County District Attorney's Office and Salem police have released few details of the shooting, except to say that Magee was probably killed by someone he knew.
Collazo was taken into custody by the Jacksonville County Sheriff's Department. Massachusetts State Police detectives and U.S. Marshal's tracked Collazo to Florida and alerted law enforcement officials there to Collazo's presence.
A spokesman for District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said no decision has been made when Collazo will be returned to face local charges, which include murder, carrying a loaded firearm, carrying a firearm with a defaced serial number, unlicensed possession of ammunition and unlicensed possession of a firearm.
NANTUCKET An 83-year-old cranberry farmer died Saturday after he slipped into chest-deep mud and became trapped.
Thomas Larrabee, Sr., was found alive but stuck up to his chest in mud near Hummock Pond on the island. His family had reported him missing at about 8:30 p.m. the evening before after he did not return from a walk with his two dogs.
A search was launched Friday evening. Nantucket police, firefighters and the State Police Air Wing continued searching into Saturday.
Police said Larrabee's two springer spaniels stayed with him all night.
Larrabee was found in the marsh by a passing dirt bike rider. The retired firefighter notified authorities and stayed with Larrabee until rescuers could get to him. Larrabee was pulled from the muck by Nantucket firefighters and State Police troopers, then taken to Nantucket Cottage Hospital suffering from hypothermia. He died several hours later.
Larrabee's son speculated that his father, a passionate collector of Native American artifacts, went hunting for arrowheads when he ended up in the marsh.
HOLYOKE -- State Sen. Eric Lesser made an unusual announcement at the beginning of a meeting at Holyoke Community College.
Don't turn off cell phones, said Lesser, D-Longmeadow, who instead urged those at the April 11 meeting -- the "Millennial Engagement Initiative" -- to post updates on Twitter keyed with the phrase "#massmillennials."
The message seemed to suit the theme of the meetings Lesser has been holding statewide under orders from Senate President Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, to engage with students and young professionals and learn the issues of importance to them.
"Today, instead of telling young people what government is going to do, we're going to listen to young people...No set agenda, our goal is to listen and to bring what we heard back to the State House so we can implement new laws and changes," Lesser said in a video before the meeting (see above).
The program will wind up in June, a report will be posted online and the plan is to file legislation aimed at addressing specifics raised in the meetings, Lesser said.
Lesser, 30, the youngest member of the Senate, conducted the meeting with Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse, 27. Nearly 30 people attended in a conference room in the college's Kittredge Center for Business & Workforce Development, 303 Homestead Ave.
Millennials is the nickname given to those born between the early 1980's and around 2000.
Among the dozen or so concerns raised in the meeting, which lasted just over an hour, were:
college debt
the need for schools to ensure curricula are geared to helping the young learn how to think
the benefits to young people of a community access television station and of music programs in schools
the importance of teaching courses in civics and how local, state and federal governments work
informing young people, including poor Latinos, that government and others kinds of programs are available to help them get training and jobs
devine.jpg
Joshua Devine while serving overseas with the military.
(Submitted Photo)
ENFIELD - A year after Joshua Devine mysteriously disappeared while on a dive trip in Thailand, his family has not forgotten the U.S. Army sergeant or given up hope that he is still alive.
Devine's family and friends followed a Thailand tradition and created rafts and baskets of flowers and floated them on the Connecticut River on April 11, the one-year anniversary of his disappearance. Later in the week they returned to the Kings Island Boat Ramp on the Connecticut River in Enfield and held a lantern ceremony in his honor, said and Jennifer Bakowski, Devine's sister.
Devine, 36, a Holyoke native and graduate of Chicopee Comprehensive High School, served four years active duty in the U.S. Army and four more years in the Connecticut National Guard doing tours in Kosovo, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan. After leaving the military he worked in computer networking for military contractors most recently Kuwait.
An avid diver, Devine and his wife Thadsana, were just starting a five-day trip in a live-aboard boat in Thailand. Witnesses said Devine was drinking heavily with several other people he knew from previous dives. He grew angry and disruptive and those men escorted him to a storage room and tried to calm him down. He asked to be left alone and when the men checked back with him in 10 to 15 minutes, he was gone.
Despite numerous searches and work with the U.S. Embassy, Devine was never found and his disappearance remains a mystery. His family, including his mother and four siblings, repeatedly said many parts of the story don't fit and they continue to hold out hope they will find answers.
"There hasn't been anything new in terms of finding him. We still have people looking into it," said Bakowski, of Enfield.
Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal continues to work with the family and is asking for the investigation to be restarted, she said.
"We are still hopeful someone will find him and will be able to bring him home. His body was never found and people tell us that is strange for those waters," Bakowski said.
There are many fishing boats in the waters and some stay out for a year or longer, relying on supply vehicles to bring in food and equipment. Some are illegal and the family is hoping one of them may have picked up Devine.
There is also the possibility he may have a brain injury and is not sure exactly where he is which is why they haven't heard from him, she said.
Meanwhile his family is still working to make sure their adventurous relative, who was a dive instructor and traveled extensively to exotic locations, will not be forgotten.
At the suggestion of a friend, they will start making annual donations to a charity which supports a cause he would value such as trying to save or restore coral reefs on or to protect the nudibranch sea slugs, which Devine found fascinating in part because of their defense mechanisms, Bakowski said.
CONNECTICUT Police have charged a teenager from West Haven with threatening to kill a girl after she rejected his prom date invitation, according to the New Haven Register.
Trevon Malik Avery, 18, was arrested for charges that included harassment and breach of peace, on Friday.
Avery allegedly texted the 17-year-old girl threatening messages, including one text that included a picture of him brandishing a firearm. This all occurred after the girl had broken up with him and turned down his prom invitation, according to police.
Avery was ordered to stay under house arrest, with the exception of when he has to attend school, says The Connecticut Post.
Avery allegedly told police that the texts were jokes and that the weapon was fake.
Pope Francis
Pope Francis is hosting Syrian refugees in the Vatican. In this photo, Francis presides the Lord's Passion celebration, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Friday, March 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Twelve Syrian refugees were taken to Rome on Saturday where they will be hosted at the Vatican by Pope Francis, according to The Washington Post.
The twelve Muslim asylum seekers are made up of two families from Damascus and one from Deir al-Zour. Six of them are children. All of them had their homes destroyed by bombs in the Syrian war, according to the New York Times.
Pope Francis rescued the refugees from a detention center on the Greek Island of Lesbos on Saturday, where the families were facing deportation. He then shepherded them back to Rome on his papal plane, where a charity organization called Sant'Egidio will attempt to find the refugees work.
The international refugee crisis is affecting countries all over Europe and the Middle East, and has only worsened as a problem over the past year.
Many academics and think tanks such as The Brookings Institute have interpreted the crisis to be a response to the wars and conflicts caused by radical Islamicist groups like the Islamic State. Hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern people are attempting to flee their own countries and seek sanctuary in European nations like Sweden and Germany, according to NBC News.
Yet much of Europe has been reticent to let in the hordes of refugees, for diverse reasons. Many are afraid that terrorists will pose as asylum seekers as a means of infiltrating European borders. Other nations worry about the governmental strain that could be placed on countries that host thousands of foreigners.
Pope Francis, however, has preached that tolerance, sympathy, and generosity should be offered to the escaping refugees.
At the Moria migrant detention facility on Lesbos, the Pope said on Saturday that he hoped Europe would be generous to the refugees. "We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity," said Francis, according to The Washington Post.
Hillary Clinton
Potential Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been pressured to release transcripts of speeches she made to Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions. Many people suspect her speeches would sink her campaign, if revealed. In this photo, Clinton speaks during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate on April 14, 2016 in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A new hashtag #ReleaseTheTranscripts has emerged on Twitter that is being used to pressure presidential candidate Hillary Clinton into showing voters the contents of paid speeches she made to various financial institutions over the past decade.
The transcripts have become a contentious issue in the 2016 race for the democratic presidential nomination.
Seeing as one of Clinton's key campaign platforms has been that she will be "tough on Wall Street," her paid speeches seem to represent a conflict of interest to many voters.
Together, Hillary and her husband and former U.S. President Bill Clinton made $153 million dollars from speaking fees for 729 speeches given between 2001 and 2016, according to CNN. 39 of those speeches were to banks and financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, among others. CNN estimates that the Clintons made an "average pay day" of upwards of $200,000 on each speech.
As one writer pointed out, Clinton made more money from one speech than her opponent Bernie Sanders made in an entire year as a U.S. senator. For voters that believe financial donations buy political influence, these paid speeches signal that Clinton won't be "tough on Wall Street" as she has vowed during her campaign.
Clinton evaded questions about the speeches during Thursday night's Democratic presidential race debate, and was actively booed by audience members when she said she would release her transcripts when "everybody does it." Sanders made clear in February that he was fine releasing transcripts for speeches he had made to big banks, seeing as he has never made any.
The power plant-sized transmission lines connecting coal-fired Colstrip Power Plant to the Pacific Northwest have attracted a new electricity generator to southeast Montana, one with a greener future.
Clearwater Energy is laying the groundwork for a wind farm near Forsyth with enough juice to power 300,000 homes. The project has been quietly in the works since 2012, but is being frequently referenced by Montanans discussing the regions energy future as Washington and Oregon abandon coal power.
By TOM LUTEY [email protected]
Full Story: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/montana-s-largest-wind-farm-quietly-develops-northeast-of-colstrip/article_35f5dee1-175c-57f6-b778-dd9054bb8238.html
by Tanya Gazdik , April 17, 2016
Toyota won the non-luxury brand-level award, while Acura won the non-luxury brand-level award in Edmunds.com's 2016 Best Retained Value Awards.
The awards recognize the 2016 model-year vehicles that have the highest projected residual values after five years. A total of 24 models won model-level awards.
Toyota won more model-level categories than any other automaker with a total of five awards, followed by Honda, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, with three each. Toyota stood out as the winning non-luxury brand for the second year in a row with a projected 53.8 average percent residual value after five years. Acura earned the luxury brand award for the fifth straight year with a projected residual value of 47.6%.
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Car shoppers owe it to themselves to understand exactly how much they can expect their cars to depreciate over time, says Edmunds.com Consumer Advice Editor Carroll Lachnit.
The awards recognize the brands and models that have the highest projected private party residual value five years after their launch based on their average cash True Market Value price during their first five months in the market (or, for vehicles introduced in November or December 2015, through March 2016), expressed as a percentage of their average True Market Value when purchased new, and assuming 15,000 miles driven per year.
A number of automakers who use Edmunds Best Retained Value Awards in their marketing and promotional materials, says Aaron Lewis, Edmunds.com's senior communications manager.
Resale value is an important consideration for car shoppers and it only helps marketers to highlight the vehicles that stand out in this category, Lewis says. And when there's an independent third party initiating those claims, the message is even stronger.
Even consumers who lease vehicle instead of buying should be concerned with retained value, he says.
After all, the car's residual value is perhaps the single biggest factor that dictates how much you pay over the life of your lease, Lewis says. If, for example, you've narrowed down your choice between two equally priced vehicles, the car with the higher projected retained value will most likely cost less to lease.
Research published today in the Medical Journal of Australia has found that the overall level of vaccination objection (registered and unregistered) has remained largely unchanged since 2001.
Dr Frank Beard and colleagues from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney examined the trends in registered vaccination objection and estimated the contribution of unregistered objection to incomplete vaccination among children in Australia
They found that registered vaccination objection affecting children aged one to six years had increased from 1.1% in 2002 to 2.0% in 2013. However, in this period the proportion of children who were incompletely vaccinated, but for whom no objection was recorded, declined.
"Most areas with high levels of recorded objection were in regional zones, with marked clustering in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland," the authors found.
Further, more than half (52%) of the 2.4% of children with no vaccinations and no recorded objection were born overseas. The authors suggest, however, that most are likely to have been vaccinated, but this had not been recorded on the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR).
"We recommend that primary care clinicians pay close attention to ensuring that the vaccination history of overseas-born children is correctly recorded in the ACIR," the authors urged.
Extrapolating their data, the authors estimated that 1.3% of children were incompletely vaccinated because of unregistered parental vaccination objection, so that an estimated total of 3.3% of children in Australia aged one to six years were affected by a registered or unregistered objection.
As a 2001 survey had found that 2.5-3.0% of children were affected by parents who had registered an objection or had significant concerns about vaccination, this suggests "that there has been little change in the overall impact of vaccination objection since 2001", contrary to claims in the media that parental refusal was increasing.
Beard and his colleagues advised clinicians to be "on the alert for appropriate catch-up opportunities for partially vaccinated children, as in most cases they are probably not up to date for reasons other than parental objection."
The company, which announced the recall on Friday, says it covers certain 2014 and 2015 model 1500 pickups. A steel cable that connects the belts to the trucks can bend when the driver sits in the seats. Over time it can wear and separate, and if that happens, the belts could come loose.
GM said it found the problem by analyzing warranty data, and that it has no reports of crashes or injuries due to the cables. The problem happens rarely and mainly with trucks used by businesses in which drivers frequently enter and exit, GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said.
Although the recall is large, GM says it expects to cover the cost from its normal warranty reserves.
The company has told dealers not to sell about 3,000 new 2014 and 2015 trucks until the cables are repaired. The Silverado is GM's top-selling vehicle, while the Sierra ranks No. 3.
Dealers will enlarge an opening and install a bracket on the cable tensioner. If necessary they'll replace the tensioner. Owners will be notified soon, but no specific date has been set for the recall to start, Wilkinson said.
Most of the trucks are in the U.S. and Canada, but some are in Latin America and the Middle East.
Refugees on the overwhelmed island fell to their knees and wept at his presence. Some 3,000 migrants on the island are facing possible deportation back to Turkey under a new deal with the European Union.
Francis said he decided only a week ago to bring the three refugee families to Italy after a Vatican official suggested it. He said he accepted the proposal "immediately" since it fit the spirit of his visit to Lesbos.
"It's a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same," he said, quoting a well-known phrase of Mother Teresa.
During the five-hour trip, Francis implored European nations to respond to the migrant crisis on its shores "in a way that is worthy of our common humanity." The Greek island just a few miles from the Turkish coast has seen hundreds of thousands of desperate people land on its beaches and rocks in the last year, fleeing war and poverty at home.
The pope visited Lesbos alongside the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians and the head of the Church of Greece. They came to thank the Greek people for their welcome and highlight the plight of refugees as the 28-nation EU implements a controversial plan to deport them back to Turkey.
Many refugees wept at Francis' feet as he and the two Orthodox leaders approached them at the Moria refugee detention center, where they greeted 250 people individually. Others chanted "Freedom! Freedom!" as they passed by.
Francis bent down as one young girl knelt at his feet, sobbing uncontrollably. The pope also blessed a man who wailed "Thank you, God. Thank you! Please Father, bless me!"
The Vatican said the three Syrian families, including six children, who were taken back with the pope will be supported by the Holy See and cared for initially by Italy's Catholic Sant'Egidio Community. It said the homes of all three had been bombed in Syria.
Two of the families hail from the Damascus area and the third from Deir el-Zour, a city close to the Iraqi border that the Islamic State group has been besieging for months, leading to malnutrition among area's 200,000 residents.
Francis said the three families identified by Sant'Egidio as Hasan and Nour and their 2-year-old son, Ramy and Suhila and their three children, and Osama and Wafa and their two children all had their documents in order and Italian visas.
"It's a small gesture," he said. "But these are the small gestures that all men and women must do to give a hand to those in need."
Francis seemed particularly shaken by the trauma the children he met at the detention center suffered as a result of their voyages. En route home to Rome, he showed the picture one Afghan child gave him of a sun weeping over a sea where boats carrying refugees had sunk.
"If the sun is able to weep, so can we," Francis said. "A tear would do us good."
Hundreds of migrants have drowned so far this year in the waters between Greece and Turkey.
At a ceremony in the port of Lesbos to thank Greeks, Francis said he understood Europe's concern about the recent migrant influx. But he said migrants are human beings "who have faces, names and individual stories" and deserve to have their most basic human rights respected.
"God will repay this generosity," he promised.
In his remarks to the refugees, Francis said they should know that they are not alone and shouldn't lose hope. He said he wanted to hear their stories and bring the world's attention to their plight.
"We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity," he said.
Human rights groups have denounced the EU-Turkey deportation deal as an abdication of Europe's obligation to grant protection to asylum-seekers.
The March 18 deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands since March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe. In return, Turkey was granted billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there and promised that its stalled accession talks with the EU would speed up.
The Vatican said the 12 Syrians who came with the pope to Italy had been in Lesbos prior to March 20, and thus were not subject to possible deportation.
During the visit, Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and the archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos II, signed a joint declaration calling on the international community to make the protection of human lives a priority and to extend temporary asylum to those in need.
The declaration also urged political leaders to use all means to ensure that everyone, particularly Christians, can remain in their homelands and enjoy the "fundamental right to live in peace and security."
"The world will be judged by the way it has treated you," Bartholomew told the refugees. "And we will all be accountable for the way we respond to the crisis and conflict in the regions that you come from."
Francis and the two Orthodox leaders, officially divided from Catholics over a 1,000-year schism, lunched with eight of the refugees to hear their stories. They then went to the island's main port to pray together and toss floral wreaths into the sea in memory of those who didn't survive the journey.
Upon his arrival in Greece, Francis met Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the airport and thanked him for the generosity shown by the Greek people in welcoming foreigners despite their own economic troubles.
Tsipras said he was proud of Greece's response "at a time when some of our partners even in the name of Christian Europe were erecting walls and fences to prevent defenseless people from seeking a better life."
Hours before Francis arrived, the European border patrol agency Frontex intercepted a dinghy carrying 41 Syrians and Iraqis off the coast of Lesbos. The refugees were detained.
The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope, denouncing the "globalization of indifference" that the world shows the less fortunate.
GUN BARREL CITY, Texas (AP) A customer eating alone at a Texas restaurant left a big surprise behind for an 18-year-old waitress a $1,000 tip.
Alesha Palmer says she was so stunned by the gift she began crying in the middle of Vetoni's Italian Restaurant in Gun Barrel City, a small community about 50 miles southeast of Dallas.
The high school senior told Tyler television station KLTV (http://bit.ly/1VrIF15 ) that she was serving a couple she knew last weekend and they asked about her college plans. She says she told them her parents would be helping her pay for it.
Another customer who was seated nearby got up to leave and approached the restaurant owner. She says after he left, she asked if everything was all right and her boss showed her the receipt with the huge tip from the man, who asked to remain anonymous.
Anti-abortion groups are wary of the phenomenon, disavowing any drive to prosecute women who self-abort but favoring crackdowns on illegal distribution of the drug. Even in the abortion rights community, the outreach effort has raised some concerns.
Dr. Hal Lawrence, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says it's always preferable for a woman undergoing abortion to be under direct supervision of a medical professional.
Advocates of the new approach say they would agree, under ideal conditions, but they worry that many women out of fear, poverty or lack of a nearby clinic are not getting access to professional services and need accurate information if they're considering self-induced abortion. Notably, they want to highlight the option of using the drug misoprostol as a generally safe method for inducing a miscarriage within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
"There will always be people who need to do this for themselves, and they deserve to have the resources and information so they can do so safely and effectively, free from the threat of arrest," said Jill Adams, executive director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at the University of California-Berkeley law school.
She is chief strategist for the Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, formed this year by women from several legal organizations after consultations with reproductive-rights experts and activists.
The team's goals outlined in a recent online document include halting prosecutions of women for self-induced abortions and expanding access to reliable information on how abortion medication can be obtained and used safely outside the formal health care system. Adams said a short-term goal is finding ways to increase access without breaking any laws.
"We're not here to incite unlawful activity, nor to reprimand anyone if they do step outside the law," she said. "We're here to equip our friends and allies with the information they've been asking for."
In the United States, misoprostol is legally available only through authorized medical professionals; it is commonly used in combination with another drug, mifepristone, as part of a nonsurgical abortion procedure with a strong safety record. In many Latin American and Caribbean countries, misoprostol is widely available, even over the counter in pharmacies in some countries, and has been used extensively for self-induced abortions in countries such as Brazil that have restrictive abortion laws.
Used alone, misoprostol is considered to be effective 75 to 90 percent of the time, according to the World Health Organization. That's lower than the rate of more than 95 percent for the two-drug combination, but reliable enough that the WHO has circulated guidelines for how to use it alone.
"There are all kinds of reasons why it's better for women to have access to professional medical care," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation. "But when that is not available, and there is a desperate situation, these drugs are very effective, and women can safely terminate a pregnancy."
There's no precise data on the extent of self-induced abortions in the U.S.; they are rarely reported to any authority or statistician. An informal barometer was provided by economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who calculated in a recent New York Times article that there were 700,000 Google searches for information about self-induced abortion in the United States in 2015. Eight of the 10 states with the highest search rates were among those with multiple restrictions on abortion, he said.
There has been heated discussion in Texas about the extent of self-induced abortion there. Its strict anti-abortion laws have contributed to the closure of about half of the state's abortion clinics, and the state shares a border with Mexico, where misoprostol is available in pharmacies without a prescription.
John Seago, legislative director of Texas Right To Life, says he would support efforts by law enforcement to crack down on any illegal trafficking of abortion-inducing drugs, but he opposes prosecutions of the women who terminate their own pregnancies.
"By putting that type of law in place, we'd be dissuading her from seeking medical help afterward," Seago said.
That outlook is shared by most national anti-abortion leaders.
"It's a subject that we in the pro-life movement are struggling to get our heads around," said Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League. "I'd put the focus on going after the providers of the drug. We don't want to go after the woman."
Although there are laws in numerous states that could be used to prosecute women who self-induce abortions, prosecutions are rare. Adams' legal team has identified 17 such cases in recent years that led to arrests or convictions. Among them:
An Indiana woman, Purvi Patel, received a 20-year sentence last year in the death of her premature infant. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, said the sentence marked the first time a woman in the U.S. has been convicted and sentenced for attempting to end her pregnancy.
A Georgia woman was jailed without bond last year before prosecutors decided police had wrongly charged her with murder after being told she used pills ordered online to terminate her pregnancy. Kenlissia Jones, 23, was freed and the murder charge dropped; a misdemeanor drug charge was maintained.
In Indiana, a Chinese immigrant charged with killing her baby by eating rat poison while she was pregnant pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of criminal recklessness. It was part of a deal with prosecutors, who dropped a murder charge in 2013. Bei Bei Shuai, 36, spent 178 days in jail.
Lawyer Sara Ainsworth of Legal Voice, one of the groups engaged with Adams' legal team, would like to see more public health officials and legal experts speak out with a message that prosecution of self-induced abortion is inappropriate. "It drives people underground and puts their health at risk," she said. "It creates the back-alley scenario that we're all trying to avoid."
The era of back-alley providers and high-risk self-induced abortions is chronicled in "Every Third Woman in America," a book published last year by Dr. David Grimes, a North Carolina obstetrician-gynecologist. He formerly headed the abortion surveillance division of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is an outspoken advocate of abortion rights.
The book suggests 1,000 women a year died in the U.S. in the 1940s from illegal abortions; it recounts the use of laundry bleach and turpentine by women seeking to end pregnancies on their own.
While saying he is grateful that contemporary women have a vastly safer option in misoprostol, Grimes regrets that anyone might feel compelled to forgo medical supervision.
"Why are women being driven to these means when we have an astounding record of safe, legal abortions?" he asked. "Why should we revisit the 1950s?"
Dr. Anne Davis, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center, sees the potential for misoprostol but worries that women acting on their own might be sold counterfeit versions or might fail to obtain proper instructions on how to use the drug.
However, Davis, consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health, which supports abortion rights, expressed empathy with pregnant women in some locations who face confrontations with anti-abortion activists.
"The experience of going to a clinic in a hostile state has become so incredibly unpleasant for women," she said. "If there's a way we can do this that doesn't involve having to face that, of course we're going to try."
TECUMSEH, Mich. (AP) A judge told a Michigan couple they could land in jail for up to 93 days and face a maximum $500 fine for failing to return a novel and a Dr. Seuss book borrowed from the local public library.
Cathy and Melvin Duren of Tecumseh, Michigan, appeared in Lenawee County court on Thursday to each face a misdemeanor charge of failure to return rental property. They owe about $35 in late fees for "The Rome Prophecy," borrowed in April 2015. They lost a Dr. Seuss book their teenage son borrowed for their granddaughter in July 2014.
"I can't image going to jail over it, but I certainly will fight these charges because I'm not guilty," Cathy Duren said.
Although the couple admitted they were negligent in returning the books, they think it's unfair to each be charged a $105 "diversion fee" to the Lenawee County Economic Crimes Unit in addition to fines owed to the Tecumseh Public Library, WXYZ-TV (http://bit.ly/1VpAbYg ) reported.
In December, the Durens received a letter advising them to return the books and pay the fees, as well as the replacement costs if they couldn't find the books. The letter also informed them that they could be charged with a crime.
In January, the couple was able to find and return "The Rome Prophecy," but they couldn't locate the Dr. Seuss book. The title of the book wasn't known.
Cathy Duren sent a $55 money order to the prosecutor's office to cover the late fees and replacement costs for the lost book. But Cathy Duren said her money order was refused because she and her husband declined to pay the additional $210 in diversion fees to the Lenawee County prosecutor's crime unit.
Cathy Duren said she feels that she's being extorted by the prosecutor's office.
The Durens had to pay $100 bond to avoid going to jail last Friday when they were served with arrest warrants.
The couple said they probably will never check out a library book again.
This week, three- and four-star generals from across the Marine Corps were presented with a plan to overhaul existing fitness standards, making them more relevant and appropriately challenging.
A copy of the brief the generals received, obtained by Military.com, includes dramatic proposed changes to the way the Marine Corps measures body fat. Marine Corps Times first reported on these recommendations earlier this month.
Currently, Marines must fall within specific height and weight standards, or be subject to a tape measure test, which uses the ratio of neck and waist circumference measurements to approximate a body fat percentage. For women, the hips are also measured. Troops have long complained that the tape test, while easy to administer, is notoriously inaccurate and penalizes troops for having more muscular builds.
Under the new recommendations, prepared by Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat development Command, and Maj. Gen. James Lukeman, commanding general of Training and Education Command, Marines would be offered an out. Those troops who achieve a maximum score of 300 on their physical fitness test and combat fitness test, representing the top ten percent of Marines, will be allowed to opt out of height and weight and tape measure body fat assessments.
Those who can get a near-perfect score, of either 295 points, representing the top 15 percent of Marines, or 290 points, representing the top 25 percent, would also be rewarded with a body fat margin of error allowance of 3 percentage points. That's enough to keep some fit Marines out of the body composition program, which can negatively affect career progression.
The brief notes that while the male BMI maximum for Marines is 27.5, the most liberal standard allowed within the Defense Department, the female BMI max is the strictest in the department at 25. The proposal would increase the BMI max for female Marines to 26, increasing maximum weight by five to nine pounds, depending on height.
The generals also recommended the use of self-tensioning taping devices, such as the Health-O-Meter digital tape measure and the AccuFitness MyoTape Body Measuring Tape. These devices, which cost $5-$12, can be used with one hand and yield more precise circumference measurements, the brief notes.
Finally, the new plan would allow the first general officer in a Marine's chain of command to grant a waiver regarding body composition standards, rather than requiring Marines to route all waiver requests to Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert Neller, ordered a review of all Marine physical fitness and body fat standards last November, asking Training and Education Command to deliver recommendations for changes to policy no later than July 1.
"The end state is for a Marine Corps Physical Fitness Program that ensures the overall health and fitness of our Corps," he wrote, in a memo announcing the review.
"As each of us must be physically ready to answer the call in any clime or place, we must continue to train hard but smart, and push ourselves to reach the highest level of personal fitness."
Neller told Military.com in February that he was particularly concerned that the existing standards would interfere with female Marines' efforts to build the muscle mass they needed to qualify for newly opened ground combat jobs and to meet physical standards including a pullup requirement on the PFT. He said a conversation with one of the three female Army officers who graduated from Ranger School last year had alerted him to this concern.
'Whether women go into ground combat or not, they're telling me they're going to do pullups for the fitness test. They're going to get stronger. You get stronger, normally you gain weight, you get thicker," Neller told Military.com. '[Female Marines are] wanting to know, 'Hey, Commandant, make up your mind. What are you going to have us do and if we do this, understand that I'll do it, but it's going to cause me probably to have a physical change, so don't penalize me for doing what you're telling me to do.'"
Related Video:
--Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
DEKALB, Ill.- The Western Michigan softball team moved into first place in the Mid-American Conference West Division standings after winning two of three games this weekend at Northern Illinois. The Broncos' record is now 9-4 in the MAC and 18-19 overall.
Western Michigan won Friday's game one in dramatic fashion, overcoming a 3-0 deficit to win 4-3, scoring two runs in each of the final two innings. The Broncos and Huskies split a doubleheader Saturday. WMU again won in comeback fashion in game one, posting a 7-4 victory after trailing 4-2. NIU (28-13, 9-5 MAC) avoided a sweep with a 6-4 win in the final game of the series.
Michigan's Best Bloody Mary: April 17
Join John Gonzalez and Amy Sherman on their search for Michigan's Best Bloody Mary
(Milt Klingensmith)
ANN ARBOR-- Thanks again to everyone who voted in our search for Michigan's Best Bloody Mary.
Today is day three of our search, and we are starting to hit our stride. Today we will visit 9 top vote getters in Ann Arbor, Jackson and Lansing. Plus one Bloody Mary bar, because it's Sunday and we can.
We will "sample" Bloody Marys at all 9 of our poll winners, as well as other finalists who did well in the votes or with write in nominations.
Overall we will visit 47 restaurants and bars across the state from April 15-23, 2016. We'll also visit one Bloody Mary bar, just for the fun of it.
We'll talk to owners, managers and bartenders about their Bloody Mary, as well as many of you who happen to just show up to support your local favorites.
Once we're done with the visits, we'll compile our notes as well as photos and videos, and then come up with a Top 10 List.
Follow our journey on MLive, as well as on our Social Media channels. Follow us:
Amy Sherman
Twitter
Instagram
Periscope
Facebook Live
John Gonzalez
Twitter
Instagram
Periscope
Facebook Live
OUR CRITERIA:
No. 1 will be taste! We are looking for a drink that is well balanced with a great tomato flavor, but accented with notes of savory, spice and acidity. We also will consider creativity in both the cocktail and in the garnish. We will give extra consideration if the drinks use Michigan ingredients.
Michigan's Best Bloody Mary Itinerary
April 17
9:00 a.m. -- Fraser's Pub, Ann Arbor (Poll Winner)
10:00 a.m. -- Aut Bar, Ann Arbor
11:00 a.m. -- Sidetrack Bar and Grill, Ypsilanti (Bloody Mary Bar visit)
Noon -- Aubree's Pizzeria & Grill, Ypsilanti
2:00 p.m. -- Beach Bar & Restaurant, Clarklake
3:00 p.m. -- Klavon's Pizzeria & Pub, Jackson (Poll Winner)
4:00 p.m. -- The Hunt Club, Jackson
6:00 p.m. -- Meat Southern BBQ, Lansing
7:00 p.m. -- Ellison Brewery + Spirits, East Lansing (Poll Winner)
8:00 p.m. -- Zoobie's Old Town Tavern, Lansing
PLAINWELL, MI -- Gobles High School students celebrated Prom 2016 on Saturday, April 16, in Plainwell.
The spring formal was held at Old Mill Banquet Center. The theme of the event was "A Night Under the Stars."
The Kalamazoo Gazette was there to photograph the prom-goers Saturday evening. If you have your own photos you'd like to have included in our photo gallery, email them to kznews@mlive.com. Include your name and school name.
LAWTON, MI -- Lawton High School students celebrated their 2016 spring formal on Saturday, April 16.
The school's prom was held at the Lawton Community Center.
The Kalamazoo Gazette was there to photograph the prom-goers Saturday evening. If you have your own photos you'd like to have included in our photo gallery, email them to kznews@mlive.com. Include your name and the school name.
Lawton was the winner of the Kalamazoo Gazette's first Prom of the Week the poll for 2016. For winning the poll, a photo package from Lawton's prom will appear in a home-delivered edition of the Gazette during the upcoming week.
The Bay City Commission meets for its regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 18.
BAY CITY, MI -- Despite concerns from parts of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that Bay City's proposed anti-discrimination ordinance lacks specific language and "best practices," the city is moving forward with its version that officials say protects all people equally.
The Bay City Commission votes Monday, April 18, on an anti-discrimination ordinance that offers protections for the city employs, contractors and in housing. The ordinance is based on a similar ordinance on the books in Traverse City.
At a commission meeting two weeks ago, Charin Davenport, a Bay City transgender woman, and Nathan Triplett, political director of Equality Michigan, said they appreciated Bay City's efforts to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance, but said it "falls short" and called for updates. Specifically, Davenport and the advocacy group didn't like the city's definition of "gender identity" and "sexual orientation."
Sandra Rogers listens to public comment during a 2014 City Commission meeting.
Members of the public and the Bay City Commission went into that April 4 meeting believing the city's ordinance was a slam-dunk. They later said they were blindsided by Davenport's and Triplett's comments.
"This ordinance was a no-brainer," said Sandy Rogers, founder of Bay City United for Change, an advocacy watchdog group that looks to bring awareness to certain societal issues. "No one was against it the day before it happened -- no one ever spoke against the wording -- and then we show up at the meeting and hear Equality Michigan's comments.
"I was speechless."
The Bay City Commission unanimously approved a first reading of the ordinance at its April 4 meeting.
Commissioner David Terrasi, who, along with his partner, was the first same-sex couple married in Bay County in June 2015, said he reached out to Equality Michigan in late January after Bay County attorney Brian Elder called on the City Commission to pass an updated anti-discrimination ordinance.
David Terrasi
"They knew full well that our plan was to model our ordinance after Traverse City and they had the opportunity to offer input, but it never happened," Terrasi said. "It's unfortunate that it didn't happen until the day of the first reading."
Terrasi says he fully supports Bay City's ordinance and plans to vote in favor of it Monday.
"I think it's crucial to have an ordinance like this that helps all groups of people," he said.
Bay City's ordinance not only extends protections to members of the LGBT community, but also to people with mental and physical handicaps. Read the proposed ordinance here.
Bay City Mayor Kathleen Newsham said she also supports the ordinance.
Kathleen Newsham
"We have a competent staff and attorney who have worked hard on this," Newsham said. "We're going to keep moving forward with this, get it done and get everyone on the same page, and not have people who aren't in our community run interference for us."
Davenport, a former Bay City resident who now calls Hazel Park home, said she is glad Bay City is addressing the needs of the LGBT community, but still disagrees with the final ordinance.
Charin Davenport
"I do wish it was a more comprehensive ordinance with the updated language," she said. "I look forward to working with the Bay City Commission down the road, along with Equality Michigan and the ACLU if Bay City wants to work on ways to improve their ordinance."
Triplett was unable to be reached for comment.
Monday's vote is just the first step in passing an anti-discrimination ordinance. In the coming months, Bay City staff is expected to bring back information to the commission on how other Michigan cities have developed anti-discrimination legislation on issues outside of business in City Hall and how complaints could be enforced.
BAY CITY, MI -- About two dozen women rocked the runway for a good cause this weekend.
The first annual High Hopes in Heels fashion show took place Saturday, April 16, at Old City Hall in downtown Bay City. The event raised more than $2,200 for the Great Lakes Bay Region YWCA's Getting Ahead program, an empowerment program for women seeking long-term solutions for economic stability.
The sold-out event used the services of several local Bay City businesses, including clothing from Ferne Boutique, headshots by Tosha Cole Photography, makeup by LC Make-Up Artistry and hair by A Spencer Gellise Salon. Other partners were W4 Divas, Self Love Beauty and Old City Hall.
"This was an incredible evening filled with fun, laughter and amazing women," said Laura Horwath, owner of Ferne Boutique and an organizer of the event. "To be able to support the YWCA truly helped us celebrate women in our region and the beauty all around us."
Did you attend the show? Share your photos in the comments below.
DETROIT, MI - A 27-year-old man died and a stray bullet hit and injured a 16-year-old girl when shots were fired during an argument Saturday on Oakland Avenue in Detroit.
Three others - two men, ages 20 and 48, and a 26-year-old woman - also were hurt. Their injuries, and those of the teenage girl, were not considered life threatening, Detroit police Officer Dan Donakowski said.
Police have arrested one man, 23, and were looking for a second suspect, a male.
Authorities were called at 5:59 p.m. to the area in the central part of Detroit, outside Hamtramck.
The suspects and a group of people had been involved in an argument, Donakowski said. He did not know the subject of the dispute.
Only the teenage girl was not involved. She happened to be hit by a bullet while inside a house, Donakowski said.
Hours earlier, a 6-month-old girl died and a 24-year-old man was injured in a separate shooting incident on Detroit's west side.
DETROIT, MI - Detroit police have arrested two men in connection with
a Saturday shooting that killed a 6-month-old girl
while she was in a yard among other children.
As of Sunday morning, Officer Dan Donakowski said he believed a third suspect was still at large.
The shooting might be related to a shooting on Easter morning in Detroit that left a 3-year-old girl dead, Donakowski said. The specifics of how the two events are potentially connected is not being released; an investigation is continuing.
A 24-year-old man also was injured in the shooting Saturday afternoon in the area of Winthrop Street and Clarita Avenue on the city's west side. He was last know to be in stable condition, Donakowski said. At this point, police do not know who was the intended target.
The man and the baby were in a front yard with other children when they came under fire, the officer said. Three men arrived and left in a silver Saturn, but the shots were fired from outside the vehicle, Donakowski said. The other children were not hurt.
Donakowski earlier said police were looking for the alleged gunman, 24-year-old Jose Jackson. He confirmed Sunday that Jackson was among the two arrested.
"We do believe it is gang related," Donakowski said of the Saturday shooting.
It came almost three weeks after A'Naiya D. Montgomery, 3, died when shots were fired inside a home March 27, Easter morning, on Riverview in Detroit.
Days ago, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office announced three men are facing murder charges related to the shooting.
Reginald L. Street, 19, of Detroit, 24-year-old Paul G. Kendall of Ecorse and 30-year-old Jonathan L. Burks of Detroit are accused of entering the home in the 16800 block and opening fire, according to the prosecutor's office. Bullets hit A'Naiya and two men, who survived.
mundytownship.jpg
Mundy Township police are looking for this man who they say robbed an undisclosed amount of money Friday, April 15, 2016 from Dort Federal Credit Union on West Hill Road.
(Courtesy Photo)
MUNDY TOWNSHIP, MI - Police are seeking a suspect in connection with an April 15 bank robbery in Mundy Township.
Officers were called around 4:30 p.m. Friday, April 15 to Dort Federal Credit Union, 1091 W. Hill Road, after a man robbed the business of an undisclosed amount of money and fled the scene.
Mundy Township police have released a photo of the suspect, but they provided no other information on the incident.
Police have asked anyone who may recognize the suspect to call 810-655-4646, 810-732-9911 or email Detective Mike Neering at mike.neering@mundytwp-mi.gov.
single car crash.jpg
The crash happened at 2 a.m. Sunday morning near the intersection of W Quimby Road and Tanner Lake Road in Rutland Township.
RUTLAND TOWNSHIP - A 35-year-old Hastings man died in an early morning crash Sunday, April 17 in Barry County, police say.
Alcohol is believed to have played a role in the single car crash, which occurred while the driver fled police, according to a release from the Michigan State Police Wayland Post.
The crash happened at 2 a.m. Sunday morning near the intersection of W Quimby Road and Tanner Lake Road in Rutland Township.
A caller had reported a Pontiac Grand Prix parked in the road and hearing a male and a female arguing, according to police. Barry County Deputies were dispatched to investigate the suspicious vehicle.
Deputies located the vehicle at the corner of Quimby and Tanner and attempted to contact the occupants, but the vehicle fled east on Quimby Road and crashed about a quarter mile east of Tanner Lake Road.
The driver of the vehicle, identified as 35-year-old David Scott of Hastings, died at the scene. He was not wearing a seatbelt.
A 28-year-old female was a passenger in the vehicle, and was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The crash remains under investigation.
Michigan State Police troopers were assisted on scene by Barry County Sheriff Department, Mercy EMS, Hastings Fire Department and Aircare.
fatal motorcycle.jpg
The accident happened at 12:50 a.m. Sunday morning at the intersection of 48th Street and 142nd Avenue in Allegan County's Fillmore Township.
(Google.com)
FILLMORE TOWNSHIP, MI - The driver of a Land Rover is in custody after police say he rear-ended a Harley Davidson motorcycle about 1 a.m. Sunday in Allegan County's Fillmore Township.
The driver of the motorcycle, 47-year-old Ronald Freeman of Hamilton, died from injuries sustained in the crash, according to the Michigan State Police. He was not wearing a helmet.
Police believe alcohol played a role in the crash. The name of the Land Rover's driver was not released, pending arraignment on a charge of drunken driving causing death.
The accident happened at 12:50 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of 48th Street and 142nd Avenue.
Police said the initial investigation showed the driver of the Land Rover was following the motorcycle south on 48th Street. Both vehicles failed to stop for the stop sign at 142nd, but just past the intersection, the Land Rover ran into the rear of the cycle, ejecting the rider. Both Freeman and the Land Rover left the roadway.
Freeman was airlifted by Aeromed to Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital, where he died of his injuries.
Troopers were assisted on scene by the Allegan County Sheriff's Department, Holland AMR, Overisel Fire and Aeromed.
shooting.jpg
The fight occurred at El Reventon Club on Lincoln Avenue in Holland
(Google.com)
HOLLAND, MI - Officers responded to a fight with a report of shots fired just before 2 a.m. Sunday, April 17, at El Reventon Club on Lincoln Avenue in Holland.
Prior to officers' arrival, callers reported that someone had discharged a firearm and a female may have been shot. Police later determined the woman had not been shot, but had an unrelated medical emergency.
"As officers arrived on scene, witnesses indicated the individual who had discharged a firearm was just leaving on a limo bus and the female had left the scene in a different vehicle possibly enroute to the hospital," according to a release from the Holland Public Safety Department.
The bus was stopped on US-31 just north of Lincoln Ave.
"Officers gave commands over loud speaker for the occupants to exit the vehicle, however for the first 45 minutes, occupants refused to cooperate and exit the bus," according to the release. "The occupants slowly began to comply and all 35-plus occupants were eventually identified, none of which were from the Holland area."
Because firearms were involved, US-31 was briefly shut down to both lanes of traffic.
Three handguns and quantity of marijuana hidden on the bus were found during a later search, according to the public safety department. Another weapon was located on a subject who had a concealed carry license.
One 24-year-old Muskegon man was arrested on an unrelated warrant, according to the public safety department. Several other persons of interest were identified, and the incident remains under investigation, police said.
Anyone who has information that may help in this investigation is asked to contact the Holland Department of Public Safety at (616) 355-1150 or email investigators at policetips@cityofholland.com. Persons wishing to remain anonymous may contact Silent Observer by calling 1-877-887-4536, texting OCMTIP and your message to 274637 or you may go online and submit a tip using the online form at www.mosotips.com.
Holland Police were assisted by the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office, HDPS Fire Services as well as AMR.
PARMA, MI - March was a successful month for the Western School District bands.
All four Western concert bands played at the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association Band Festival on Friday, March 11, at Olivet High School.
Dan Bickel conducted the Western Middle School seventh-grade band, which earned an overall division I rating with a I rating in sight reading. He also conducted the Western Middle School eighth-grade band, which earned two II ratings and one I rating in performance, with a I in sight reading, for an overall division II rating.
Paul Bickel conducted the Western High School concert band, which earned an overall division I rating, with a I in sight reading. He also conducted the Western High School symphonic band, which earned an overall division I rating, with a I in sight reading.
On March 18, 162 students and chaperones also boarded buses to travel to New York City. On the way, they stopped in Toledo for a clinic with Jason Stumbo, interim chairman of the Department of Music and director of bands at the University of Toledo.
Once in New York City, the band performed at the Big Apple Classic at the College of Staten Island. The band earned a gold rating from all three adjudicators, which is the equivalent of straight division I ratings.
The Western band was the only group to earn a gold, giving it first place in its band category, and the title of Grand Champion of the festival.
While in New York City, the group took time during the weekend for sightseeing, including visits to Times Square, Rockefeller Center, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and the Broadway musical, "Aladdin."
Cairo (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande said Sunday human rights should be respected in the fight against "terrorism" after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was overshadowed by claims of rights abuses.
Hollande had arrived in Cairo earlier for a two-day visit to oversee the signing of several economic agreements, but a press conference with Sisi was dominated by the Egyptian leader's human rights record.
Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting.
"The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi, turning to the visiting French leader.
When it was his turn to speak, Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have carried out large scale attacks in both France and Egypt.
"Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said.
Hollande said he had raised the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found covered in torture marks in February in Cairo, more than a week after his disappearance.
He said he also brought up the case of Eric Lang, a French teacher who was murdered in an Egyptian jail in 2013.
On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt.
When a reporter brought up the case of Regeni, Sisi said there was a plot against the country by an "evil force".
"Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said.
Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo in protest at the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death.
Egypt denies he was killed by the police.
- Deals signed -
"I want to say what is happening in Egypt is an attempt to destroy state institutions. Today accusations are made against the police to bring down the police, then against judges to bring down the judiciary," Sisi said.
On the economic front, the two leaders oversaw the signing of 18 memorandums of understanding between Egypt and France, and a 1.2 billion euro agreement to expand the metro line in Cairo.
The deals included financing for a wind farm and a solar power plant.
Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters.
The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi.
Meanwhile, jihadists have mounted an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board.
Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against IS, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria.
The jihadist group has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime.
For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has become the main concern rather than pushing democracy.
For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware.
Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships.
After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Calling the situation in Burundi "alarmingly precarious," UN chief Ban Ki-moon is proposing three options for a new UN police mission there, ranging from a full force of 3,000 officers to a light dispatch of 20 to 50.
The options were detailed in a report to the Security Council obtained by AFP on Saturday, two weeks after the council agreed to send a police force to the African country to help quell a year of violence there.
In the report, Ban said dispatching a force of up to 3,000 was "the only option that could provide some degree of physical protection to the population" but that the mission would take months to prepare and present logistical challenges.
A second option, he said, would be to send 228 UN police officers to work with human rights officials and possibly with African Union monitors to provide early warning, but it would not offer any protection to civilians.
The secretary-general said the council could also decide to send a group of 20 to 50 officers who would assess the Burundi police force and "help bring about concrete and measurable improvements in the respect for human rights and rule of law."
The council is under pressure to take action in Burundi where the descent into violence has raised fears of mass atrocities, similar to those that convulsed neighboring Rwanda in 1994.
Burundi has been in turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans in April last year to run for a third term, which he went on to win.
Violence has left more than 400 dead and driven more than 250,000 people across the border.
Diplomats said the proposed force of 228 police officers appeared to be the best option, but it remained unclear if Bujumbura would accept that many officers.
The government has told the United Nations that it was ready to receive some 20 unarmed police experts, but would oppose any "large" UN police presence.
- Alarming situation -
Ban's proposals followed the adoption earlier this month of a French-drafted resolution that called for the deployment to monitor the security situation and help promote human rights.
"The security situation in Burundi remains alarmingly precarious," Ban wrote in the 11-page report to the council sent late Friday.
"Even as hand grenade attacks on public venues peaked in late February, attacks targeting military and police personnel, including assassinations and abductions, have increased."
Ban cited a "rising trend in enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, illegal detention and ill treatment and torture," although the number of killings has decreased in the past two months.
The proposed police force would allow the United Nations "to maintain situational awareness" and could help develop a strategy to address the crisis, Ban said, but he warned that it was no substitute for a political dialogue.
The United Nations has repeatedly called on Nkurunziza to open up serious talks with the opposition on ending the crisis, but the appeals have been ignored.
The African Union in January abandoned plans to deploy a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force after the Bujumbura government rejected what it described as an "invasion force."
The Honourable Stephane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and LaFrancophonie, today issued the following statement:
Canada deplores the flawed electoral process that led to Denis Sassou Nguesso's inauguration today as president of the Republic of Congo, including a number of arbitrary arrests, imposed restrictions on telecommunications and free movement, and attempts to intimidate the media.
Canada is concerned by reports of post-election violence, and we call on all parties to exercise restraint and to strive for the peaceful settlement of political tensions.
In accordance with Canada and Congo's joint commitments in the Francophonie, the strengthening of democratic institutions is essential to ensure inclusive governance, peaceful pluralism and macroeconomic growth, which will benefit the people of Congo.
17.04.2016 LISTEN
REVIEWER: FRANCIS KWARTENG
BOOK TITLE: CHEIKH ANTA DIOP: AN INTELLECTUAL PORTRAIT
AUTHOR: DR. MOLEFI KETE ASANTE
It does not actually constitute a wide stretch of the human imagination to assert the currency or primacy of Afrocentric theory in contemporary scholarly discourse on serious questions relating to the classical world, and its intellectual force in providing Africans with a legitimate claim to the ownership of the intellectual and cultural legacy of ancient Egypt.
As a matter of fact, a sea of red ink had already been expended in the past century or so in the international debate over the racial constitution of the ancient Egyptians and about their phantom heirs at law, as well as the tireless yet indispensable efforts of honest scholars, such as Drs. Cheikh Anta Diop and Molefi Kete Asante, to pedestalize the ancient Egyptians and their unparalleled cultural and intellectual achievements, as part of the endless battle to expropriate this covetous legacy for Africans, unquestionably the rightful owners of this most productive and influential of ancient civilizations.
Moreover, it is our opinion that by commission or omission the West has committed one of the most egregious intellectual crimes in human history when it belittles the Ancient Egyptians' massive contributions to human civilization, either by bastardizing their advanced culture or by usurping their cultural supremacy in favor of the ancient Greeks' or of UFOs' employing the flimsiest of excuses or glossy evidence, or both. Again, it is our opinion that the West has purposefully done this on a cultural dais of barefaced arrogance, of feigned ignorance of alternate prismatic methodology (i.e. the theory of Afrocentricity) for plumbing ancient Egyptian civilization, and of ruthless confutation of significant contributions put forth by other outstanding scientific thinkers such as Diop, Asante, et al.
Therefore it should come as no surprise to inquisitive and cautious minds that many germane books, that purport to speak eloquently to the classical world would be authored to serve jointly as a corrective to the gross misinterpretation and misguided claims advanced largely by Eurocentric scholars and their ilk, in relation to the contentious ancient Egyptians' historical legacy, in the Levant in particular, and the world at large. One such book is Dr. Molefi Kete Asante's Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait, an elephantine project that received the spiritual imprimaturs of Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and ex-President Thambo Mbeki of South Africa.
In Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait, Dr. Asante, a brilliant theoretician and a leading exponent of Afrocentricity, assumes the difficult task of carrying lay persons and scholars alike along a long and meandering journey into the complicated depths of the mind of one of the most important and intellectually prolific thinkers of the twentieth-century, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, a world-class scientist (see Curtis Alexanders book Cheikh Anta Diop: An African Scientist), polymath and humanist. Dr. Asante focuses on:
* The impact of rich cultural traditions on the evolution of Diopian thought via the long history of familial erudition placed at the disposal of the young Diop; Diop's proximate ten-year study at the bastion of the French Academy, Sorbonne, and the institution's conferment of a doctorate on him as an Egyptologist, after his work with great European physicists, social scientists, scientists, and chemists; the creation of Presence Africaine as a useful instrument for disseminating Dr. Diop's (and others') ideas; the placental effusion of Diopian ideas into the intellectual banquets of African and Diasporan scholars; Dr. Diops and Dr. Theophile Obenga's forceful and successful argument carried out at the 1974 UNESCO-moderated symposium in dissolving the umbilical cord marrying Africa's otherwise intact intellectual and cultural immune system and the calculating infectivity of the Eurocentric virus;
* Dr. Diop's ideologically radical and rhetorical refraction from Leopold Sedar Senghor's grandfatherly stance on the question of French colonialism in Senegal, and Senghor's unforgivable denial of university lectureship to him (Dr. Diop); and hence the latter's generous offer of pedagogic tutelage to inquiring infantile minds outside university walls.
* Dr. Diop's extensive and impressive panorama of expertise from Egyptology, linguistics, archaeology, sociology, mathematics, physics, philosophy, history, political economy, radio-carbon dating, to literature; his unprecedented multidisciplinary approach to the study of ancient Egypt and other African classical civilizations, that is, human civilization, the essential conclusions he drew from them, and their express utility in modern African state formation.
* The portrayal of Dr. Diop as a corporal phenomenon and a family man, and again, of Dr. Diop as a redoubtable concatenation of the paradoxical elements of a concrete Garveyite, of a concrete Duboisian, of a concrete Fanonian, of a concrete Rodneyite, at least in his uncompromising indictment of the West for blanching the ancient Black Egyptians as well as for insidiously implanting a culturally-engineered metastatic cataract in Africa's eye, via the West's insinuating a form of wooden cultural imperialism into Africa's optical blood capillaries that feed her mind's eye, thereby starving the eye of needful aboriginal cultural vitamins and resulting in Africa being locked up into a tight knot of cognitive dissonance, as well as being blinded almost to the point where it hardly sees beyond the ephemeralness of whiteness, beyond the paradoxical juxtaposition of whiteness and blackness, and beyond its own uncritical endorsement of cultural miscegenation, even as he [Dr. Asante] makes a titanic case against Dr. Diop's brash detractors from branding him a racist; Dr. Asante then proposes in later pages the pragmatic utility of Afrocentric theory in excising cultural and psychological parallax of this nature in African peoples from the cultural and intellectual DNA of their worldviews;
* Dr. Diop's unfinished business to divest Europe of her racist cloth implicated with the thread of providential paternalism, which, sadly enough, had already been gifted to Africa 500 years previously, a position that appeared a sham to him [Dr. Diop], and how he believed this to have been a cautiously crafted political stratagem on the part of Europe to milk Africa of her abundant natural resources to fill the empty stomachs of her mammoth industries, and concluding that this had provided the West with what it wrongly perceived as a divine mission to simultaneously demonize African peoples and their preexisting cultural and political institutions and in addition, to salvage Africa from the supposedly harmful corollaries arising from her institutions' imminent geologic implosion.
For this the West had concocted the afore-cited pretexts, he [Dr. Diop] believed, and, accordingly, had anesthetized her ramshackle conscience against the possible reverberatory implications of the scandalous crimes it would later perpetrate against Africa with utter sang-froid, and for which Dr. Diop designed a model scaffolding of political consciousness to exorcise later generations of African peoples from the deleterious effects of racism, as the first step toward intraracial pridefulness along with intraracial amalgamation, and then, second, toward the unification of Black Africa under a multiethnic umbrella of political and economic solidarity, with fully fledged non-eleemosynary civic institutions to address it [Africa] needs;
* How African leaders, scholars, and Pan-Africanists are seriously debating the theoretical actuality and empirical plausibility of the preceding questions, and if so, how to make urgent use of them as part of the crucial template for modern African state formation;
* Dr. Diop's momentous trip to America and the stately honor granted him by the erstwhile mayor of Atlanta, Mr. Andrew Young, captured also by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima (and Larry Williams) in his book Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop;
* A summary account of the Afrocentric paradigm and its subterranean Diopian strata are unveiled and analytically belabored; how Afrocentricity is helping delineate and guide the international debate on the centrality of Africa, both in resolving her own problems and in shaping her destiny, and, also, on Afrocentricity's huge success in encouraging Africa and Africans to peripherize the sinister efforts by others to define and proctor it; and, lastly, on Africa terminating her assigned subservient role as the West's chief amanuensis (see Zizwe Poes book Kwame Nkrumahs Contribution to Pan-African Agency: An Afrocentric Analysis for Nkrumahs contributions to the theory of Afrocentricity);
* How the success of Afrocentricity will be calibrated in the new African state (continental) by its ability to hold the West and itself [the continental African state] to moral accountability and by its ability to subject its corrupt African androids to the pillory of acid justice for Africa's continuing destabilization and reckless plundering of her resources, and why Afrocentricity will not stand up for the West's principal role in the moral and divinatory essentializing of the exploitative economic activities going on in the outwardly-imposed harelip on Africa as its divine-inspired pretext for Africas survival and sustenance.
In the final analysis, then, Afrocentricity offers African peoples a goodly dose of centripetal imperativeness for a harmonious collectivization of the continents ostensibly disparate socio-cultural, economic, and political interests, without which the imminent collapse of Africa within the fragile walls of internecine cannibalizing of her very survival could still remain a tangible material possibility. Afrocentricity is therefore a necessary paradigm for African peoples to appropriate and to put to immediate use in maintaining a firm purchase on the breast of life.
* And, finally, Dr. Diop's enduring legacy seen in the metempsychosis of his ideas in the psychic universes of his lay admirers and intellectual proteges alike, and typified by the multifaceted investigations carried out across the world into Africa's antiquity and this, across an unbroken continuum of sound academic and scientific research since his fateful demise.
Understandably, Dr. Asante also brings a firsthand familiarity with traditional African political and cultural institutions, an intimate knowledge of the body of work done on ancient Africa by leading Continental African scholars themselves and warehoused there [Africa], his close friendships with both Dr. Diop's nuclear physicist-son Cheikh M'Backe Diop, and his polymath colleague Dr. Theophile Obenga, another world-class historian, Egyptologist and linguist, plus his [Dr. Asantes] fruitful social interactions with a coterie of contemporaneous political associates and former students of Dr. Diop's, to bear on the exegesis of Diopian intellectual portraiture and finally, on filling up the many fossae located in our collective memory, even as we attempt to cleave the Einsteinian-Imhotepian Siamese component to the man's [Dr. Diops] mind in order to effortlessly atomize his labyrinthine ideas into readily digestible and straightforwardly absorbent forms, paving the way for the possible material realization of his outrageously sweeping theoretizations about the necessity for African peoples to build competent institutions to serve continents spiritual and physical needs, an obvious attempt to undermine the West's persistent notional rationalization of Africa's intellectual ineptitude with the methodological incessantness of his [Dr. Diops] pointed allusions to the grand ingenuity of the ancient Black Egyptians whose unequalled material, cultural and intellectual civilization provided the spiritual, intellectual, and material roadmap for ancient Greek civilization and the world itself.
Yet, we must applaud Dr. Asante for his priceless methodological circumspection and philosophical success in detailing the complexity of delayering the rarefied fasciae to the man's [Dr. Diops] intellectual persona and of negotiating the serrated contours of Diopian scholarship, eventually avoiding, among other measures, the temptation to easily slip across the sleek countenance of a steep incline into another fosse of grandiose bouillabaisse of racist assertions, or to inferiorize other non-African civilizations, if we can put it that way. In fact, Dr. Asante's sophisticated antiquarian exegesis stations all classical civilizations on a plinth of cultural parity, an admirable feat in and of itself. This is conspicuously exemplified by his total lack of knee-jerk intellectualism and maudlinism in his vigorous interpretation of Dr. Diops complex intellectual profile and Diopian scholarship in general.
In the final analysis, he takes Dr. Diop's crocodilian critics to task, exposes then shreds their largely uneducated and uninformed dinosaurian theses into smithereens of inane arguments, putting these diehard critics to eternal rest. Lastly, the breadth of the bibliography and methodological muscularity of evidence he marshaled to explicate certain features of Dr. Diop's ideas will leave readers' mouth agape.
With this powerful book Dr. Asante surgically deflates the bubble of conspiracy to subject Dr. Diop's ideas to intellectual euthanasia, or, in other words, to intellectual ostracism on a purgatorial island a galaxy away from the major centers of gravity of intense scientific investigation into Africa's antiquity, and therefrom rescues the man [Dr. Diop] yet again, masterfully, from virtual obscurity into the welcoming embrace of collegiate radiance across the world. Now the man [Dr. Diop] and his ideas are alive again thanks to Dr. Molefi Kete Asante's foresight.
CONCLUSION
The book Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait is an excellent summary for undergraduate and graduate students (and lay readers) who need an introductory portrait of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diops intellectual evolution and scientific accomplishments in the spheres of comparative linguistics and religion, Egyptology, political economy, classical scholarship and ancient history in general, anthropology (cultural and physical), sociology, the theory of evolution and migration studies, economics, critical theory, the theory of Afrocentricity, mathematics, physics, and so on.
Thus, we will implore our readers to read more about Dr. Diops melanin dosage test, for instance; and his translation of Albert Einsteins Theory of Relativity into his native Wolof. Dr. Diop translated this aspect of Einsteins theory into his native language, Wolof, at the time leading Western scholars were claiming no native African was developed or sophisticated enough to develop complex ideas such as philosophy. The late Sinologist Martin Bernal and classical historian George James and Theophile Obenga (and numerous scholars, including Dr. Asante) have showed that the word philosophy has no etymological exegesis in the Greek language. These readers can consult those of our essays that have already covered these scholars and their works on these complex topics or subject matters in some appreciable detail.
But, having said this, there is yet more to come in the near future. Dr. Diop's eagle-eyed detractors and admirers should stay tuned, for most of his books and scientific papers still remain untranslated from French. We can only hope that when these works finally appear in English they do not trigger, but should rather stimulate more interest in promoting the commonality of our humanity, a quiescent geyser of simmering angst from expectorating its deadly elements into the already highly charged ongoing intellectual debate engendered by his brand of intellectual putschism, a methodological approach with a direct relation to the revolutionary restoration of Black Africa to the pinnacle of human intellectual and cultural excellence.
This is what the American-based Molefi Kete Asante Institute for the Study of Afrocentricity has set out to do. Dr. Asante also set up the Annual Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference/The Diopian Institute of Scholarly Advancement (DISA) to pursue this noble objective. DIAS honors scholars, researchers and writers who pen the profoundest papers and books with the Cheikh Anta Diop Award. As an aside, renaming the University of Dakar as Cheikh Anta Diop University is in order. The man and his French supporters built one of the most sophisticated radio-carbon dating laboratories in the world, which he manned and from where he conducted most of his revolutionary and transformative intellectual legacy.
The man had/has a few peers in both the 20th and 21st centuries among the worlds influential thinkers. Let us all celebrate him then!
ON A FINAL NOTE
Howard Universitys Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) houses the so-called Nkrumah Papers which includes Dr. Kwame Nkrumahs correspondences with Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (readers who are interested in the subject matter can also consult Dr. Zizwe Poes book Kwame Nkrumahs Contribution to Pan-African Agency: An Afrocentric Analysis for further information).
MAJOR BOOKS BY DR. CHEIKH ANTA DIOP
The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality.
Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology.
Pre-colonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study Of The Political And Social Systems Of Europe And Black Africa, From Antiquity To The Formation Of Modern States.
Black Africa: The Economic And Cultural Basis For A Federated State.
"The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script"
The Cultural Unity Of Black Africa: The Domains Of Patriarchy And Of Matriarchy In Classical Antiquity.
Nations Negres Et Culture
Anteriorite Des Civilisations Negres
ABOUT DR. MOLEFI KETE ASANTE
Dr. Asante is Professor and Chair, Department of African-American Studies at Temple University. He graduated from Oklahoma Christian College (1964) and went on to obtain his masters (MA) at Pepperdine University (1965) and then a doctorate at UCLA (1968), aged 26. He was appointed full professor (the State University of New York, Buffalo) at the age of 30. He also co-founded the Journal of Black Studies (with Robert Singleton). He and Dr. Ama Mazama, the current Graduate Director of African-American Studies at Temple University, co-edit this journal.
Dr. Asante created the worlds first Ph.D. program in African-American Studies (1987), as well as having directed at least 140 Ph.D. dissertations. He is the author of almost 80 books as well as of more than 550 articles and articles published in scholarly journals, magazines and books around the world. Dr. Asante is the founder of the theory of Afrocentricity. Among other honorary labels, he has been widely described as One of the 100 Leading Thinkers in America, Asante may be the most important professor in Black America, one of the twelve top scholars of African descent (the African Union)
In 1995 he was made a traditional king, Nana Okru Asante Peasah, Kyidomhene of Tafo, Akyem, Ghana.His autobiographical book As I Run Toward Africa: A Memoir is a must-read.
NOTE
Readers should go to asante.net and read more about Dr. Molefi Kete Asante and his work.
BOOKS ON THE THEORY OF AFROCENTRICITY (ALL BY DR. ASANTE)
Afrocentricity: Imagination And Action
Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change
An Afrocentric Manifesto: Toward an African Renaissance
Kemet, Afrocentricity, And Knowledge
The Afrocentric Idea
The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism: An Afrocentric Response To Critics
A fifty-member military delegation from the Ugandan Peoples' Defence Force Senior Command and Staff College has called on the Osu Traditional Council at the Osu Chief's Palace in Accra to study the country's culture and traditions.
The visit formed part of the delegation's week-long study tour at the Kofi Annan International Peace-keeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
The delegation, made up of 10 directors and 40 students, was from Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and Southern Sudan.
Peaceful country
The Commandant of the Staff College, Lt Gen. Andrews Gutti, who is also the leader of the delegation, said Ghana was chosen out of West African countries for the training because of the peace the country enjoyed, the friendly relations existing among its people and the country's record in peacekeeping on the African continent.
He said they were in Ghana to study the origin of civilisation and the nation's culture and that they saw Ghana as the home of civilisation and also to familiarise themselves with how the nation had been able to live as one people.
Lt Gen. Gutti said what they had learnt would impact positively on their duty of ensuring unity among their people in their respective countries.
Roles
The Paramount Chief and President of the Osu Traditional Council, Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI, who received the delegation, briefed them on the role of chiefs, also known as traditional rulers, in nation building.
He said as a chief, one was recognised in one's community as a father, for which reason one was expected to communicate directly to one's people and also lead them in developing the communities.
Nii Dowuona said there were different clans with different traditions but due to regular meetings and interactions, coupled with inter-marriages among the people, there had always been unity and peaceful co-existence among them.
There were traditional performances to showcase the culture of Osu and the Ga tradition to the admiration of the delegation.
Present at the meeting were some sub chiefs and elders of the council.
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President John Mahama yesterday rounded up his accounting to the people tour of the Eastern Region with the commissioning of two water vessels for the people of Kpando and Agordeke at a ceremony at Agordeke in the Afram Plains.
The two vessels are a ferry known as the MV Damen 1 and a water bus, MV Akpini Princess.
For almost a decade now, the ferry that plies between the two areas on the Volta Lake had broken down, making the movement of people and goods difficult.
The two vessels are, therefore, meant to improve transportation on the Volta Lake.
The provision of the ferry is a fulfilment of a promise made by the government when the chiefs and people of the Afram Plains made the request two years ago.
While MV Damen will ply between Kpando and Agordeke and replace the MV Fourth Republic which sank at Akosombo Port in August 2009, MV Akpini Princess will serve the Ntoaboma-Bridge Ano crossing, whose ferry sank recently.
More ferries to be allocated
Speaking at the ceremony, President Mahama said the Makango-Yeji and Dambai portions of the lake would also be allocated a ferry each to facilitate the easy movement of goods and people.
He expressed the hope that the two vessels would solve the transport needs of the beneficiary communities and improve their livelihood.
Tractor services
President Mahama also stated that the government had plans to establish a one-stop tractor plant with all the needed facilities to support farmers in the Afram Plains.
He noted that some farmers could not afford the tractors so such people would be made to register with the tractor plant and use its services for a fee.
Ride to Kpando Torkor
The President and his delegation had the first ride on MV Damen from the Afram Plains across the Volta Lake to Kpando Torkor.
The journey took one-and-half hours and the delegation finally arrived at Kpando Torkor at almost midnight to hand over the vessel. The chiefs and people, however, waited to welcome the new ferry and their joy was profound.
The Chief of Obomeng Kwahu, Nana Effah Pinamang, had earlier bemoaned the lack of facilities in the area and appealed to the government to do more to promote the development of Kwahu Afram Plains.
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Ghana has not recorded any meningitis fatality in the past four weeks while all confirmed cases are being effectively managed to ensure that no more deaths are recorded, the Ministry of Health has indicated.
As of April 13, 2016, there was a total of 2,184 confirmed cases of the meningitis disease out of which 93 deaths had been recorded across the country except the Central Region since the beginning of this year.
The Minister of Health (MOH), Mr Alex Segbefia, said the Tain and Jaman North districts which crossed the epidemic threshold of 10 out of every 10,000 people sampled for meningitis had also now left the epidemic phase.
He attributed the decline in the fatality rate and the current progress made in managing the disease to the intensive nature of the national response measures, particularly public education.
Mr Segbefia made this known in Accra yesterday when he briefed journalists on the current situation of the disease since it was reported in December 2015.
Interventions
Mr Segbefia said stakeholders focused on enhanced surveillance, improved case management, social mobilisation, risk communication, vaccination and coordination.
'In the early stages, we provided alert to all districts and health facilities and commissioned thorough investigations into the outbreak which identified pneumococcus as the most causative agent,' he said.
According to him, the outcome of the investigations was a major contributor to the success of the national response system.
Mr Segbefia said a team of health workers were also mobilised and supported to trace and follow up on contacts as a management strategy, conduct reactive vaccination campaigns and vaccinate 200,000 people against type A, C and W of the meningitis in three districts in the Upper West Region as part of interventions.
Other interventions, he said, included the provision and distribution of 7,500 antibiotics to the 10 regions and the involvement of all stakeholders in the ongoing management campaign.
The Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions and their neighbouring districts in the Brong Ahafo and the Volta regions lie in the meningitis belt of Africa, where the condition is endemic.
'The country experiences a number of meningitis cases annually with periodic outbreaks, particularly during the dry and hot weather conditions. October to March has been identified as meningitis season,' he added.
Meningitis
Meningitis is an inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord.
The common bacteria which cause meningitis in Ghana are pneumococcal, neisseria meningitides and homophile influenza type B.
The germs that cause it can be passed from one person to another through coughing, sneezing and close contact.
The disease manifests itself as fever, persistent headache, stiff neck, altered consciousness, among other symptoms.
Background
An outbreak of pneumococcal meningitis occurred in December 2015 in the Brohani and Seikwa communities in the Tain District in the Brong Ahafo Region during which initially 31 people were affected of which nine died.
The causative agent was confirmed as streptococcus pneumonia. Response measures were initiated and the outbreak abated.
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A mixed of tears and celebrations flowed at Gyinaase, a suburb of Kumasi, as Ghana's business mogul, Sir Sam Jonah led hundreds of mourners chiefly from the mining industry to bid the late John Owusu farewell.
The late Owusu, 55, a communication strategist with AngloGold Ashanti was killed on February 6, this year, while on operation to weed out illegal miners from parts of the concession of the company.
An expatriate driver with the company mistakenly knocked him down while reversing to escape an imminent attack from illegal miners popularly referred to as galamsey.
In an electrifying atmosphere filled with drumming, dancing and wailing, Sam Jonah under whose regime as Chief Executive Officer of AngloGold, the late John Owusu was employed in 1996 eulogised him as 'fiercely, protective of his passion, Ashanti"
Before joining AngloGold, John Owusu had worked with New Times Corporation as a business reporter and the Daily Graphic as features editor.
He left behind a wife, Roselyn and five children.
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A spiritual scientist, Torgbui Amuzu, has dismissed the prophecy by Nigerian Pastor, Prophet T.B. Joshua, concerning 'foreign terrorist attacks' on Ghana and described it as falsehood intended to create fear and panic.
'Ghana is not going to experience any terrorist attack. It is a false alarm. Ghanaians should ignore any alarm from any quarters,' he told the Daily Graphic when he visited the offices of the newspaper.
'I have also entered the spiritual realm and from what I saw, nothing will happen here. Countries that like violence and war attract spirits of violence but peaceful and prayerful countries don't attract such spirits. We are very peaceful and have no violent mindsets,' he added.
To confirm his claim, he pulled out two black slates, prayed over them and some words appeared on one of them that read, 'Nothing will happen in Ghana. Ghanaians should not panic' he said.
T.B. Joshua's prophecy
Prophet Joshua said he had received a prophecy from God that there was a planned 'foreign attack' on Ghana and Nigeria.
He therefore asked members of his church to pray against the planned attacks.
The prophet even specified the days on which the attackers would strike, saying the attacks would take place at where people were gathered.
'I am seeing Thursday, Friday and Saturday if I may say, Thursday because these evil people are very funny. Anything can just happen. You will be very shocked to see what will happen, because when the prayer is going in this direction they [attackers] change to another direction,' hw stated.
Violent spirits attract violence
But the spiritualist from Keta said there was no truth in the prophecy.
'No one should be in their country and be predicting doom that they have seen a vision of attacks. It is not true. God is protecting this country. This is a holy land and there will be no drop of blood from terrorist attacks,' he said.
Asked whether countries such as Belgium, France and Burkina Faso that recently experienced terror attacks were violent and war-like hence the attacks on them, he said he was not in such countries to know what was happening, but he was concerned about Ghana.
The Daily Graphic also pointed out leaked intelligence report that suggested that the country was on the radar of the terrorists, but he insisted that the slates were clean for the country in the spiritual realm.
'If people have such evil minds about Ghana, they will be diverted and they may end up elsewhere. Ghanaians are peace-loving and hardworking and don't deserve any terrorist attack. They should concentrate on their work. Wherever you find yourself, concentrate on the work for mother Ghana,' he added.
He said those prophesying were rather disrupting the peace in the country and causing fear and panic.
Peaceful elections
In an election year when there are concerns about crowds being attacked during rallies and political campaigns, Torgbui Amuzu said 'there are spiritualists and pastors in Ghana. It won't happen. Let us pray, work hard, go to the elections and elect people to lead us'.
Asked whether statements like what he was making would not result in the security services relaxing instead of being vigilant, he shook his head and said, 'nothing will happen'.
While stating that the November polls would be peaceful, he also called on the leadership of the country to continue to work hard to move the country forward.
Torgbui Amuzu appealed to the youth to desist from vices such as the use of hard drugs and crime that had the tendency to destroy their lives and concentrate on things that would promote the country's development.
'This country is well-endowed. If we take very good care of it, generations unborn would come and enjoy, but if we don't manage it well, we will leave our children with nothing,' he added.
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The Progressive People's Party (PPP) Parliamentary candidate for Korley Klottey, Eva Lokko, has said she is prepared to fight tooth and nail to win the Korle Klottey seat for her party.
The former Director of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) said she was fully prepared to contest the seat, which has become one of the hottest in the country.
'It's about competition, I wasn't in the race when they were running, they have to deal with me, I don't have to deal with themI don't care about their money, I am giving them a run for Korle Klottey,' she said in response to the question of whether she feels terrified by the 'heavy weights' running for the position.
Courtesy call
The engineer said this when she paid a courtesy call on the Adabraka Traditional Council to introduce herself to the chiefs.
Korle Klottey is considered as one of the seats which would be keenly contested in the November polls following the internal wranglings within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
While the NPP had to resort to a rerun of polls after a protracted court case between Lawyer Philip Addison and Nii Noi Nortey, the NDC is yet to settle on one candidate to run for the seat.
The incumbent MP, Nii Armah Ashietey has sued elected candidate, Dr Zanetor Rawlings, who he believes was not qualified to have contested the primary of the NDC.
While the court is yet to come out with a judgment on that case, Nii Noi of the NPP, after losing the rerun ,has declared his intention to contest as an independent candidate.
Presidential candidate
Madam Lokko, who was the running mate to Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, the PPP Presidential Candidate in the 2012 elections, thinks she possesses the best of strategies to win the keenly contested constituency.
'Whether they are fighting here or not, there is a lot of work to be doneI am only interested in the development of the constituency and nothing else,' she said.
Strategy
She further told the media that her strategy upon becoming the MP for the constituency would be to develop it to become a 'model constituency' in the country and this would involve solving the huge youth unemployment in the constituency. She also called on the chiefs to offer her all the needed support to win the upcoming elections and bring the needed change to the constituency.
When asked if she did not consider her new position as a Parliamentary candidate as a form of political demotion, Madam Lokko responded that she was chosen by the party as part of the bigger strategy to win more parliamentary seats in the November polls.
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The government has voiced concern over the amount of young people trying anal sex as part of a push to regulate porn.
Officials are baffled at the increased popularity of the sex act because research suggests it is not pleasurable for women.
According to a consultation document issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport young people are trying anal sex as a result of having viewed porn, and this is a worry for the government as the act is unwanted.
Many people worry that young people will come to expect their real life sexual experiences to mirror what they or their peers see in pornography, which often features ambiguous depictions of consent, submissive female stereotypes and unrealistic scenarios.
There is also a question about the effect of pornography on unwanted sex for instance more young people are engaging in anal intercourse than ever before despite research which suggests that it is often not seen as a pleasurable activity for young women, the consultation reads.
The document suggests that restricting access to porn sites might reduce the worrying numbers of people trying anal.
While the increase in anal sex cannot be attributed directly to pornography consumption, it does feature in a large percentage of mainstream pornography (for example, one content analysis found it featured in 56% of sex scenes).
The governments negative view of anal sex recalls opposition to the practice by Margaret Thatcher, who in 1986 altered an anti-AIDS campaign so as not to acknowledge the act.
She feared teaching children about risky sex would corrupt them, according to leaked secret files.
Jerry Barnett, porn entrepreneur and founder of the Sex & Censorship campaign, told Pink News: The consultation is basically an attempt to grant stronger censorship powers. And the suggestion that it is somehow governments role to prevent anal sex happening is surreal in the extreme.
Originating at www.thesun.co.uk
The US Ambassador to Ghana has urged the government to make the Savannah Accelerated Development Initiative viable to effectively combat poverty in its target areas.
Ambassador Robert Jackson said the real answer to solving the poverty situation of the people of the three regions in the North does not lie in just government assistance. He believes investment, [and] job creation are the two most important ways out of poverty.
The Ambassador was addressing the media on Saturday, April 16 after his tour of the three regions of the North namely; Northern, Upper East, and Upper West regions.
The Ambassador's comment comes in the wake of calls by some Ghanaians to have the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) scrapped following allegations of financial misappropriation.
SADA was set up in 2010 by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to coordinate the development agenda for the regions in the northern savannah ecological zone of the country namely; Upper East, Upper West and the Northern regions, and north of Brong Ahafo and north of the Volta region.
The Authority has come under severe criticism after it was reported there has been issues of misappropriation of funds by some officials.
President Mahama consulted the Attorney-General (A-G) and ordered the termination of certain contracts awarded by the Authority.
This decision by the President affected some on-going projects of the Authority including the guinea fowl rearing as well as the afforestation projects.
Delivering the State of the Nation address on February 24, President Mahama said: The new Board and Management of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) have comprehensively addressed the concerns raise in the 2013 audit report regarding the use of resources.
Ambassador Jackson said any initiative executed by the Authority should be aimed at addressing the very problem it is established to do.
He appealed to the leadership of SADA to find a way of strengthening the Authority through the attraction of investment opportunities.
Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | Email: [email protected]
By Hilda Ampomah, GNA
Accra, April 17, GNA - Fidelity Bank, one of Ghana's success stories in the banking industry has rewarded a total of 85 customers in the ongoing 'Save for Gold' promotion.
A statement issued in Accra and copied to the GNA disclosed that Fidelity Bank plans to reward more than 100 lucky winners by the end of the promo in April as an activity gear towards inculcating the habit of saving in customers and appreciating their loyalty to the bank.
It said 17 lucky customers across branches nationwide were announced winners of a total of 20 gold prizes in the 5th draw held at Ho in the Volta Region.
The statement noted that the lucky customers would receive their prizes from their Branch Managers in their branches.
Speaking at the draw Mr Alex Dodoo, Executive Director, Wholesale Banking of the Bank, said the Save for Gold promo is one of many creative ways Fidelity Bank is using to appreciate customers for banking with them.
'The Save for Gold promo is our unique way of saying thank you to customers for banking with us. We dedicated six months to this promotion and we are glad to say that we have rewarded over eighty customers in five months.
'This is the last monthly draw which precedes the grand draw where the major gold prizes will be won. I will encourage customers to be hopeful and continue their good saving habit with the bank as we approach the end of the promotion,' he said.
The statement explained that a 1kg 24 carat gold bar is the ultimate reward and it could go to any customer who have observed the terms and conditions of the promo.
Mr Dodoo used the occasion to thank the National Lotteries Authority for the immense support shown to the Bank and ensuring a fair process throughout the promotion.
GNA
By Godwill Arthur-Mensah/ Mildred Siabi-Mensah, GNA
Takoradi, April 17, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) says it would comply with its values by ensuring transparency, fairness and integrity in the electoral process.
The Commission had also affirmed to comply with the electoral laws, Constitutional Instrument C.I 91, without fear or favour, and would therefore not be perturbed by the incessant public criticisms of its activities.
Mr Stephen Opoku-Mensah, the Western Regional Electoral Director, said this at a capacity-building workshop for media practitioners in Takoradi, in the Western Region.
The event, which was organised by the EC and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) educated the practitioners on election reportage and explained some salient issues in the L.I 91, which would govern this year's elections.
Mr Opoku-Mensah urged eligible voters who had attained 18 years, as well as those who could not register in the 2014 registration exercise, to avail themselves to register in the limited voter registration slated for April 28 to May 8.
The workshop was held on the theme: 'Enhancing Inclusiveness in Ghana's Electoral Process.'
Mr Samuel Boadu, Acting Director of Human Resource at the EC, said it would not be good for the nation to go into national elections with a questionable voter register.
He noted that it would require the collective efforts of all well-meaning Ghanaians to ensure a credible voter register.
He, therefore, entreated Ghanaians to volunteer information on deceased relatives and persons to the Commission, in order to aid in cleaning the register.
He said the media play a prominent role in ensuring a successful election and therefore tasked journalists to ensure balanced, fair and accurate reportage on events and activities leading to the November 7 polls.
Mr Boadu said the EC does not aid the government in power to win power, adding that , all the political parties are involved in conducting electoral activities, hence their agents or representatives are expected to observe and monitor all electoral actions.
He said the political parties are also at liberty to raise issues for redress.
GNA
17.04.2016 LISTEN
By Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA
Accra, April 17, GNA - The University of Ghana, has honoured its three past Vice Chancellors for the impact they made on the University during their times on duty.
The honour involved naming Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr after a busy road in the University; Professor George Benneh after a road Circle and Professor Ivan Addae-Mensah after a road intersection.
Prof Sawyerr addressing the attendees said his concern was to have the university grow freely and have the encouragement of the government during his time as the Vice Chancellor.
He expressed gratitude to the Heads of the University for recognising what he and his colleagues they did for the school and giving him the honour.
'It is an irony of history that a road with asphalt is being named after me,' he said.
Prof Benneh expressing gratitude to the Authorities for honouring him adding:, 'This clearly connotes that you do not have to belong to a political class before a road is named after you.'
Prof Addae-Mensah who also showed appreciation to the University for the honour urged the Chief Executive Officer of the Data Bank Group to consider construction of a traffic light at the intersection of the academic facility to prevent accidents.
'I thank the University for showing appreciation for the modest contribution I made to the University,' he said.
Prof Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, Vice Chancellor of the University disclosed to the media in an interview that the African Universities in collaboration with Times Higher Education is going to hold the African University Summit.
He said the purpose is to bring to global attention all the developments taking place in African Universities and showcase how developmental African universities are becoming global players.
Prof Oduro Owusu said the publicity that would be given through the Times Higher Education would develop new opportunities for African Higher Education.
The Vice Chancellor said the Summit would also be looking at how globalisation is affecting the space available in higher education in Africa.
He said since globalisation has made it possible for countries to travel to countries for education, the summit would also find out the implications of having students from Africa travelling to pursue higher education in Europe, the United States and Asia.
'We will also look at how to get African Francophone countries to study in African Anglophone countries and vice versa.'
GNA
17.04.2016 LISTEN
By D.I. Laary
Accra, April 17, GNA - Commanding officers of the national Cadet corps in Ashanti Region, have implored the Director General of Ghana Education Service (GES) to remove the National Cadet Coordinator from office and sanitise the school-based cadet force.
The regional command raised scores of concerns that bordered on favouritism, corruption, abuse of office, sex scandals in camps, lack of regulatory framework, unprofessional teachers handling students and wanton discrimination against the coordinator.
They threatened to sever ties with the national cadet corps established in 1965 if authorities fail to address their concerns against Mr Nicholas Nii Tettey Amartefio who is said to have stayed in office more than 15 years.
The 16-point strongly worded petition was signed by six officers and copied to the Minister of Education, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Chief of Air Staff, Inspector-General of Police and Bureau of National Investigations.
The copy of the five-petition document with five appendices available to the Ghana News Agency was also copied to all battalion commanders, Ashanti Regional minister and the police commander as well as Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools and Ashanti Regional Cadet Patron.
The petitioners are made up of coordinators, officers in charge of research, training and operations, logistics and general duties, administration and finance and training and programmes.
They accused, Mr Amartefio, of supervising inconsistent command control and structure and discriminate against teachers in command affairs, regional and national leadership training camps, including local and international exchange and expeditions.
They also claimed teachers are deliberately left out in cadet activities, a situation they say exposed students, particularly females, to vulnerable conditions, indiscipline and risk as they are handled by unprofessional individuals.
The petitioners expressed worry over many instances of sex scandals, which have hit the cadet corps during camps when teachers failed to accompany students.
'We are of the view that since cadetting in Ghana is school-based just like culture, physical education and school representative council, teaching staff are supposed to play a core role in the day-to-day administration of cadet corpsunder the auspices and direction of the Regional Directorate,' it said.
'The Ashanti Regional Cadet Corps will no more be under the National Cadet Command but under GES by extension the Ashanti Regional Directorate.'
'We are strongly against the changes in appointment the National Cadet Coordinator, Nicholas Nii Tettey Amartefio, is trying to make in Ashanti Region,' the supplicants said.
Minutes available show the past Regional Director of Education, Mr J. K. Onyinah, in May 2011 agreed with stakeholders among other issues that 'Adult Volunteer Cadets' were not needed in schools - public and private.
Therefore, 'we are baffled as to why the National Cadet Coordinator would want to appoint an Adult Volunteer Cadet to Ashanti Region as Coordinator,' they said quoting portion of the minutes.
The national coordinator, they said, refused and restricted amendments to the constitution officers agreed to at a National Training Leadership Camp at Chiraa in the Brong- Ahafo Region in 2009.
They described as 'very appalling,' a situation where the selection process to leadership programmes was ragged in secrecy and monies demanded from qualified personnel to attend.
In a rebuttal Mr Amartefio said the allegations are false.
He said the cadet corps operates with transparency and accountability and that changes made in the organisation sought to restructure the force.
'Look, I don't appoint as an individual, I do it with the higher command, we do assessment of the candidate,' he said.
He also said government has cut funding to the cadet force and so the body survives on donations, projects and programmes from benevolence.
The petition comes days after the GES inaugurated a 16-member Board including personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces to oversee management and administration of the Cadet Corps in schools.
Mr Jacob Kor, Director-General of GES told the board that the concept of school cadet, when managed well, could help tame indiscipline.
'Apart from helping to instil discipline in students, Cadet Corps equips the youth with basic skills in security, peace building and landscape designing. I urge all schools to have it formed in order to supplement the knowledge that students acquire through formal education for better life,' he said.
GNA
17.04.2016 LISTEN
Accra, April 17, GNA - The World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, has appointed Victoria Kwakwa, a Ghanaian, as the new Regional Vice President for the bank's East Asia and Pacific region with effect from April 15.
'The appointment of Victoria Kwakwa to this role ensures a seamless leadership transition for this region of increasing importance to the World Bank Group,' said Kim.
'She knows the region well and has been part of our efforts in bringing about change at a time when East Asia Pacific has been rapidly developing and playing a pivotal global role,' he said in a statement posted on the bank's website.
Kwakwa, would lead the Bank's advisory and lending operations in the region and oversee strategic engagement with the region's 23 member countries.
The Bank's lending in East Asia Pacific is expected to be more than $7 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30.
'I am honored to lead our engagement in a region that is key to the future relevance of the World Bank Group,' the statement quoted Kwakwa.
'In the last decade, East Asia and Pacific's share in the world economy has tripled, to about 19 per cent,' she said.
'That number is projected to rise to more than 30 per cent by 2030, I look forward to working with our client countries to maintain their competitiveness and economic dynamism while tackling challenges including urbanisation, vulnerability to climate change, rapid ageing and rising inequality.'
'I am confident that the region will continue to find innovative solutions that will resonate around the world.'
Kwakwa was previously the World Bank's Country Director of Vietnam, overseeing a multibillion-dollar lending portfolio and an innovative knowledge programme.
During her tenure, the Bank's partnership with Vietnam deepened, responding to the increasingly complex challenges of an emerging middle-income country, the statement said.
Recently, Kwakwa led a joint team with the government to produce the Vietnam 2035 report, which presents options for Vietnam to achieve its ambitious goal of becoming an upper-middle-income country in a generation.
Before moving to Hanoi, Kwakwa was the Country Manager for Rwanda, where she worked with the government to design and pilot programmes in social protection, health financing and agriculture productivity.
From 2000 to 2006, she was a senior economist and lead economist in Abuja, Nigeria, where she set up a programme of state-level analytical work and provided policy advice on how to efficiently and transparently manage oil revenues.
Kwakwa joined the Bank as a Young Professional in 1989 and worked on the 2000-2001 World Development Report on poverty.
She holds a bachelor's in economics from the University of Ghana, Legon and earned a master's and doctorate from Queen's University in Canada.
GNA
Accra, April 17, GNA - Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, Greater Accra Regional Minister, says the world has reached an era where countries must live interdependently.
He said, for that matter, Ghana cannot overlook the co-operation and support Israel has been giving to the country in the area of academic exchanges, transfer of technology, agricultural expertise among others.
Nii Afotey Agbo made the remark at the opening of a three-day conference by Africa-Israel Initiative, a religious group which is advocating Israeli technology and business transfer into Africa.
He said the need to extend economic development cooperation and partnership with nations such as Israel could therefore not be over-emphasised.
He said relationship between the two countries is growing within the historical contest of post-independence era and has continued through successive regimes.
'We as a country are very much aware of the new diplomatic environment in which we operate.
'We therefore see the partnership with Israel based on Ghana's core foreign policy principle of positive neutrality as a strategic partnership and solidarity that would maximise Ghana's benefits from the development opportunities and expertise that abound in Israel,' the Minister said.
Nii Afotey Agbo said it is important that as a continent and a nation to review our development philosophy in relation to our foreign policy and diplomatic strategies with a view to realising the value addition objective, which could give our economies significant boost.
'Good strategy options of value addition would undoubtedly help reduce unemployment and migration with their attendant social challenges,' he said.
He challenged envoys of state and non-state actors to spearhead negotiations and partnerships with the nation Israel that could lead to an appreciable level of value addition and exchanges of ideas, technologies and expertise that would improve mutual economies of nations.
Nii Afotey Agbo said Ghana and for that matter Africa has had a chequered history of partnerships, integration and economic diplomacy, but many of the relationship forged with foreign development partners have arguably not benefitted the citizens to a large extent.
'It is in the light of this that I see our partnership with Israel from today as one that will mark the reverse of an unworkable partnership to a new beginning where there will be a conscious effort by Israel and our nations to change our development orientation and empower our diplomatic agents, academic institutions, businesses and experts, to make better use of our abundant natural resources' he said.
He said Ghana's position as the gateway to the West Africa sub-region would guarantee Israeli business entrepreneurs a market of more than 250 million people, adding: 'We need development partners who can assist the country to establish training centres to expose artisans and middle level personnel to new technologies in use around the world.
'Our government is committed to the development of the private sector. We shall therefore welcome any assistant and partnership for the support of the sector. The reason is that a well-developed private sector will create jobs for the youth and promote socio-economic development.'
Mr Ami Mehl, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana said the initiative was to add to the ongoing development support being offered by his country to Ghana.
Reverend Perey Gilbert Apreala, the Country Director of Africa-Israel Initiative who gave the welcomed address said the conference was an opportunity to tap into the blessings of Israel and to create job opportunities for the youth.
GNA
The United States government has pledged a financial support of over 4.5 million dollars for Ghana's forthcoming elections. Ghana is expected to go to the polls in November to elect a President and Parliamentarians.
According to the US government, one third of that amount would be given to the Electoral Commission to help in its strategic communication work, while another one third would be used by the peace commission for peace keeping operations. We are providing about 4.5 million dollars in assistance for Ghana's election. One third of that will go to the Electoral Commission to assist with its strategic communications and provide other support for the Commission, educating voters and making people aware of the practicalities of voting. One third of the funds will also go to the peace commission. the US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson said.
Ambassador Jackson said the US government will also be offering additional training programmes for journalists ahead of the election to equip them to cover the polls effectively. we will be doing additional training for journalists and we will also be working to identify the areas that are at greatest risk of conflict. The Peace Commission and the UNDP have already done a map of potential conflict areas. We are bringing leading experts from US agency for international development on election security to validate that work. The United States of America will coincidentally be voting in their elections around the same time with Ghana.
UK's 4m for Ghana's democratic activities to last for 5yrs
The United Kingdom Government recently launched a 4 million electoral support programme for Ghana's democratic activities. The electoral assistance programme tagged the 'Deepening Democratic Governance Programme', is geared towards weaning Ghana off international assistance as far as its democratic activities are concerned. The UK Government said that will be it's last support for Ghana in that regard after the five-year period elapses.
-citifmonline
Cairo (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande sealed several economic deals with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Sunday during a visit dogged by allegations of rights abuses in the North African country.
Hollande had touched down in Cairo to a lavish welcome, pulling up at the historic Al-Qubbah palace flanked by a cavalry guard and to a 21-gun salute.
He and Sisi later oversaw the signing of several memorandums of understanding, including a 1.2 billion euro deal to expand the metro line in Cairo.
Later at a news conference, both leaders veered into the question of rights abuses under Sisi, who activists accuse of crushing dissent.
Turning to Hollande, Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting.
"The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi.
He added that "European criteria" of human rights should not be applied to struggling countries such as Egypt, and should include rights to "better education and better housing".
Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have conducted large scale attacks in both France and Egypt.
"Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said.
On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt.
- 'Evil force' -
When a reporter brought up the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found bearing torture marks in Cairo in February, Sisi said there was a plot by an "evil force".
"Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said.
Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo to protest the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death.
Egypt denies he was killed by the police.
"I want to say what is happening in Egypt is an attempt to destroy state institutions. Today accusations are made against the police to bring down the police, then against judges to bring down the judiciary," Sisi said.
Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters.
The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi.
Meanwhile, jihadists have staged an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board.
Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against IS, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria.
IS has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime.
For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has become the main concern rather than pushing democracy.
For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware.
Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships.
After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed.
17.04.2016 LISTEN
It is all over the media, and an ongoing topic of discussion in the country that the Acting Kwahumanhene Nana Asiedu Agyemang III has publicly declared his unflinching support for President Mahama. This declaration came following the Presidents bid to seek a second term which to me is a two-and-a-half term, if not a third term, in office as the President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana.
Why do I see it as a third term that President John Dramani Mahama is seeking to stay in the presidency? Was he not the one who on own volition came out to declare to the public that while the late President Mills, his boss, was in office, he, then Vice-President Mahama, was in total charge of the affairs of the nation doing everything because of the apparent incapacitation of President Mills? This is just by the way.
Let me cruise on to flay the Acting Kwahumanhene alive to prove to him how ignorant, selfish and absolutely absurd his behaviour and intentions are.
Even though chiefs by the Chieftaincy Act are not to involve themselves in active politics for obvious reasons, it does not bother me much if a chief or king goes his own way to publicly announce his support for a President campaigning for re-election, a Presidential candidate or a political party. Such a declaration automatically comes at a cost or at a profit to that particular chief and their locality hence the Chieftaincy Act barring them from such spurious open political affiliations.
I do not care which person or party the chief supports, however, I find his invocation of curses on his supposed President Mahamas detractors very offensive, if not criminal and nonsensical.
He is understood, according to what I have read on the news, to have cursed the detractors of President Mahama by invoking 77 gods (river deities, stones, trees, ghosts etc.) on them. I find his attitude very stupid and unworthy of a chief. Check the underlying web link:
Kwahumahene rains curses on Mahamas detractors
Let me read into his mind to tell why he did what he did.
1. He is an Acting Chief. He wants to seek the support of President Mahama to be confirmed the real Kwahumanhene
2. He is doing that so as to be seen as a great supporter of the President and the NDC in order to be showered with gifts (cars, money, etc.) by the President.
3. He is doing that in order to have an unfettered access to the police through the help, or orders, of the President to intimidate anyone in Kwahuman who will rise up to challenge him in any way. Like all the NDC rogues who are law unto themselves, so this Acting Chief wants to become.
4. He is not civilized but an ignorant person seeking the easier way to climb to the top.
The chief can be rich like any other rich person from Kwahu but he is completely out of his mind hence requesting a psychiatric attention and treatment for him. Any sensible chief who is worthy of his salt will not come out publicly irresponsibly as Nana Asiedu Agyemang III has done.
Let me then reverse the curse upon his head and that of his family on to their third generation. If the gods he has invoked are as powerful as he believes, and the gods known to adjudicate cases before inflicting punishment on the guilty party, then let the gods judge him according to his character, whether he is honest or not. If he has personally benefited from, or hopes to benefit from, what he has said and done in support of President Mahama (declaring his public support for him amid invocation of curses on the Presidents detractors) then the deities so-invoked must sacrifice him as a thanks offering on their altar.
If the majority of the subjects of Kwahuman are suffering either socially, economically, financially or politically because of the corruption, incompetence, practice of selective justice, intimidations, fondness for lies or any irresponsible character, initiatives or undertakings by President Mahama and the NDC party and government, then the curse he has invoked must be his familys portion with himself included, from his generation on to their third generation.
If he has accepted anything, or stands to gain favours, from President Mahama and his government and party hence raining curses on the Presidents detractors, he should suffer the repercussions of the curses he has himself invoked.
Let it be known to this Acting Chief of Kwahuman that President Mahama is his own greatest enemy and detractor. Has he not appointed mostly incompetent persons, crooks and thieves as his Government Ministers, Presidential staffers etc. to help him govern the nation? Are his appointees not stealing from the public funds in a way or the other? Does he not pay people to go on air or public telling lies to the public? If President Mahama has done any of these hence bringing economic and financial hardships to the people of Ghana, then the curse must be upon the head of the Acting Kwahuman chief, Nana Asiedu Agyemang III.
Finally, may all the painful curses in the bible be his portion had he invoked his curses in bad faith, thus, seeking favours from President Mahama and his NDC government and party while it is clearly known that the majority of Ghanaians are suffering.
I do not suffer fools kindly. I dedicate this publication to the people of Kwahuman.
Rockson Adofo
Delhi Public School (DPS) International, Ghana, a world class international school in Tema last Saturday held a graduation ceremony for Preps and Class V students at a beautiful and colourful ceremony.
The graduates displayed fantastic cultural skills with wonderful presentation of inspirational quotes among others, for which parents and invited guestS could not help but give the kids a standing ovation at the end of the show.
Earlier students aged between 2 to 5 years dressed in fancy apparel and colourful costumes, showcased their creativity through multicultural dance performances witnessed by parents, school authorities and other guests in attendance.
The kids displayed complex moves of Ghanaian song Ghana Nyigba among other international rhythms to the admiration of the audience who attended the event held on the school premises.
A 'Magic Dance' performed by Preps students and inspirational quotes was followed by a formal ceremony wherein students received scrolls and their diplomas.
Speaking at the ceremony Mr. Mukesh Thakwani, Director of the school, said education is the most effective vehicle for change to a better world because the solution of every problem in human life depends on the initiatives and capacities of human beings themselves.
Inspired by this he indicated that DPS International Ghana has since 2010 served all manner of students regardless of race, colour or faith, and that this is the core pillar upon which the school will continue in its service to humanity.
According to him, management of the school will continue investing in the school and creating more programmes to enable bring out the talents in the students so that the needed results will be achieved.
The Director advised parents to collaborate with the school to help develop their children. Parents little contribution will help the students and the school make a difference and the children achieve their goals.
He further added that parents should continue to encourage their students to participate in numerous programmes organised by the school to unearth their talents.
Mr. Thakwani pointed out that at DPS International, students of all cultures are taught universal values and ethics along with modern sciences.
According to him, teachers at the school focus on individual differences because each individual is a different world.
In a welcome address earlier, the Principal of DPS International Ghana, Mr. David Raj said teachers of the school are trained in contemporary techniques to help pupils realise their academic and extracurricular potentials.
He stated that the advanced teaching methodology and excellent guidance provided by a highly qualified and dedicated staff is instrumental in creating a stimulating and competitive environment for tutoring the children to become all-rounders.
Parents who shared their thoughts about the program were impressed about the use of extracurricular activities to teach students important values in life, urging the school authorities to continue to invest in such angle.
Recently, Ms. Inhere Baek, a student from DPS International, Ghana emerged the second runner-up in the last American Mathematics Competition (AMC) organised by the Mathematics Association of America (MAA).
Furthermore, five students of DPS International, Ghana were ranked one at international level after participating in the Science Olympia Examination in Science, Mathematics, English and Information Communication and Technology.
Two other students, also of the school, Rutuja Sonawane and Ellen Donkor emerged first runner-up and 5th position holder respectively out of the hundreds of students who submitted entries in the maiden edition of the innovative Access Banks Budding Writers Competition, among other competitions which the students excel at various stages.
The school has also won the National Spelling Bee competition for three consecutive years and recorded the highest performance at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the US.
Mr. Mr. Mukesh Thakwani, Director of the Delhi Public School International (DPSI), with the Headmaster, Mr. David Raj, at the graduation ceremony.
Mr. Mr. Mukesh Thakwani, Director of the Delhi Public School International (DPSI), with one of the graduates.
Parents of the children at the Delhi Public School International (DPSI) graduation ceremony in Tema.
Graduates at the ceremony of the Delhi Public School International (DPSI) in Tema.
Girls performing at the graduation ceremony of the Delhi Public School International (DPSI) in Tema.
17.04.2016 LISTEN
There Rockson Adofo goes again, some destructive critics will say. So what, he will retort? When Rockson uses corruption, it is not solely premised on embezzling funds but mostly, using your position and power abusively.
What then is corrupt by definition? Corrupt is dishonestly using your position or power to get an advantage, especially for money. The Chief Justice is not known in the books of Rockson to have accepted money from anyone, or used her position to acquire illegal wealth for herself, friends or family members, unlike some Ghanaian politicians including President Mahama.
There are certain individuals who had tried, and continue to try, to corrupt her hence my anger oftentimes directed at her. She may have her own professional or personal weaknesses, being a human being. This is why we say, To err is human. However, I shall not have her corrupted in anyway by whomever, be they Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, President Mahama or Rockson Adofo. That is my reason for critiquing her when I see her to be dilly-dallying on certain issues that in my opinion require prompt action by her.
A case in point is when the registrars of Kumawu Traditional Council Kumawu), Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs (Manhyia Kumasi) and The National House of Chiefs (Manhyia Kumasi) had sought to trick the Chief Justice into corrupting herself by way of intentionally, although dubiously, to delay the course of justice in the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute.
When a praecipe for search was caused, according to credible information available to me, into whether or not Dr Yaw Sarfo, the masquerading Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua has been gazetted as the Omanhene (paramount chief) of Kumawu Traditional Area, the Acting Registrar of the National House of Chiefs (Kumasi) answered yes. He said the forms filled in by Dr Yaw Sarfo as Omanhene of Kumawu was approved on 24th April 2015 by the National House of Chiefs.
What is PRAECIPE? It means,
1. (Law) a written request, addressed to a court, for a writ to be produced, specifying what the contents of the writ should be
2. (Law) a writ instructing that a given action be taken, or demanding a reason for failure to take the given action
When a second request was made to the same Registrar to provide the applicant(s) with two certified true form copies of the forms filled in by Dr Yaw Sarfo before his acceptance and gazetting by the National House of Chiefs as the paramount chief (Omanhene) of Kumawu, the registrar started behaving strangely. He would not provide the copies as requested.
What are his fears should he release copies of the requested document to the applicants?
When he was proving unprofessionally obstinate, never ready to do as lawfully requested of him, the applicants applied to the court to compel him to provide them with copies of the forms filled in by Dr Yaw Sarfo subsequent upon which he was accepted and gazetted as the Omanhene of Kumawu.
A writ of mandamus was issued by the court to oblige him to provide the document. Upon the issue of the mandamus, the registrar moved a motion that the Mampong Regional High Court has no jurisdiction to hear the case. When the judge on an adjourned date said he has the authority to hear the case and that he would, fixing a new date for the hearing, the registrar quickly petitioned the Chief Justice Mrs Theodora Georgina Wood to stop the Mampong High Court Judge from hearing the case or continuing with the proceedings.
What is a mandamus? It is an official order from a court of law stating that a person or organization must do a particular thing: A writ issued by a court requiring a public official or entity to perform a duty associated with that office or entity.
Being conversant with the prevailing circumstances under which one could permissively petition the Chief Justice, and seeing that the registrars does not come within that sphere, I became furious on learning that the Chief Justice had following the petition caused the case or the proceedings to be adjourned sine die.
It is under the following two conditions that the Chief Justice can be understandably petitioned by a plaintiff or a defendant to look into a case for them to ensure that true justice prevails.
a. When a judge has ruled against you even though your available evidence and facts before the court should have yielded the opposite result. By this, you may conclude that the judge is biased, so you can petition the Chief Justice to look into the case much further.
b. When a judge in the course of the proceedings, depending on his perceived posture of bias towards you, you can petition the Chief Justice about it.
However, in the case of this registrar under discussion, he never went to court for the proceedings to begin in the first place let alone, decided. How can he credibly then petition the Chief Justice?
What then is sine die? It means without arranging a future date for something or without a day specified for a future meeting. This goes to tell until the Chief Justice decides on the next line of action; the judge has been rendered absolutely incapable of continuing with the mandamus proceedings.
What baffles me is, is the form(s) filled in by Dr Yaw Sarfo not a public record that anyone with good intention or otherwise, can avail themselves of? Who has the right to ask for, and be given, a copy of that document?
I am sure it is not the intention of the Chief Justice to help the registrar and his employers to flout the laws of the land by protecting the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua from exposure as a probable criminal or fraudster.
I thought she was helping them to protect Dr Yaw Sarfo from eventual exposure by accepting their petition; sit on it without issuing a directive to the Mampong High Court in what shall become justice delayed is justice denied.
The camp of Dr Yaw Sarfo has said that they will do whatever is in their power to delay the case or drag it on for as many years as they can in the hope of breaking the backbone of the popularly and publicly accepted Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V. According to them, as long as Dr Yaw Sarfo has been gazetted, he can do whatever he likes as Omanhene and the longer it takes the law to expose him as a fraudster if indeed he is, the greater the chance of Barima Tweneboa Kodua Vs supporters getting discouraged and abandoning him.
Is the Chief Justice going to help him do whatever he likes, as ineligible as he is to make it all nonsense the good hard work done by Ghana ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, in exposing the judicial corruption in Ghana, the bane of the socio-politico-economic prosperity of Ghana? No, she wont!
Following this publication that exonerates the Chief Justice from any perceived corruption about her as I might have held, she will expedite the study of the petition made to her by the registrar so that in one way or the other, the colluding registrar will provide the applicants with certified true form copies of the form(s) filled in by Dr Yaw Sarfo subsequent upon which he was gazetted either dubiously or not, as Kumawu Omanhene.
What particular interest has this registrar in the Kumawu chieftaincy dispute, I want to know? Is the registrar not seeking to, or trying to, pervert the cause of justice by his reprehensible attitude?
At workplace, most of my colleagues see me as pedantic. This attitudinal pedantry makes me the proud and fearless person as I am, able to take people on when I see them to be abusing their authority hence my numerous publications touching on the unfairness, abuse of power, corruption and all the ongoing ills in Ghana today.
Chief Justice Mrs Georgina Wood, you are not corrupt, so do not allow this criminal registrar to tarnish your reputation by his doubtful petition to you. The document the applicants are requesting is a public record and it has to be treated as such. It must be made available to the public if they have nothing to hide.
Whether the form(s) is inundated with falsities during its filling in or not, the fact still remains that it is a public record that must be made available to every sane person who requires seeing it or having a copy for future reference.
Rockson Adofo
A human rights organisation, which been helping journalists in an East African country by fighting court cases against the brutality of the police and military forces in the country, was awarded with the prestigious Lord Astor Award for their role.
At a dinner held at the Red Fort Restaurant in Soho Central London -the coordinator Robert Ssempala and Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) legal adviser Diana Nandudu were in absentia recognised for their efforts by the executive director of one of Britains leading newspaper, the Telegraph, Lord Guy Black.
Ssempala and Nandudu have immensely played a huge role in helping Ugandan journalists currently facing extreme police brutality.
Praising the duo for helping persecuted journalists in Uganda, Lord Black who also doubles as Chairman of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU)s Media Trust, said: The battle for freedom of expression is far from won in Uganda, but the dedicated work of HRNJ-Uganda has helped sustain the will to win against fearsome odds. He added: To succeed as such an indispensable and unflinching friend of press freedom is the finest tradition of CPU Astor Awards. Its that triumph which makes the Human Rights Network for Journalists Uganda so deserving of this accolade.
He said attempts to have Ssempala and Nandudu present and receive the trophy in person had unfortunately been in vain. Last presented 11 years ago, Lord Black said it had been decided to make a new award and was delighted to honour the HRNJ-Uganda with the award as a recognition for their contribution towards the freedom of speech and the press. In their absence, the award was presented to former BBC Correspondent Henry Gombya, himself a long-time campaigner for free speech and the freedom of the press.
Gombya thanked Lord Black and promised to make sure the trophy reached the recipients. He [Gombya] thanked Lord Black and his organisation for recognising the wonderful and remarkable work being done by HRNJ-Uganda. He told the audience that the organisation was the only one of its kind operating in the Great Lakes Region and that it had done a remarkable job in helping journalists often caught at the receiving end of brutal police officials. He said HRNJ-Uganda has used the Ugandan constitution effectively in reminding those harassing journalists of the provisions given in the Ugandan constitution for freedom of the press and speech.
The Lord Astor Award is an honour to individual journalists and organisations from the Commonwealth countries in recognition of their contributions and involvement for advocating press freedom and development. Its been honoured since 1970 in the memory of Lord William Astor of Hever for his contributions as President of the CPU and his relentless involvement in the development of press freedom. Previously, individuals who have received this prestigious award include: Mabel Strickland of Malta in 1971, Derek Ingram (a founder member of the CJA and current President Emeritus of the association) in 1978, Lyle Turbull (Australia) in 1984, Gilbert Ahnee of Mauritius in 2000, Kuldip Nayar of India in 2003 among others.
Ugandan media has faced a perpetual litany of threats, murders, kidnap and politically-motivated or police brutality of journalists, as well as detention, censorship, criminal defamation, assault and destruction of media equipment that has persisted for decades, said Lord Black, which exactly compatible with the current characteristics of the security officials in a country that continues to harass the media and make it very difficult for journalists to do their work and compel the government to account to the citizens.
Lord Black is not an isolated observer of the situation of journalists in Uganda, the US representative to the UN Samantha Power, recently criticised the Kampala regime for shutting down the social media and the 2016 poll verdict after the countrys Supreme Court ruled that Gen. Museveni was validly declared winner.
"Ten years on, the threats [against Uganda journalists] remain and could worsen, following this years disputed presidential election, said Lord Black in reference to the recent presidential election, which many in the opposition ranks contend that Gen Yoweeri Museveni using state tools stole their victory.
Gen. Museveni's main challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye could not have time to collect evidences to file a petition to court as he remained under house arrest with security organs were permanently stationed around his residence.
One candidate who contested in the February 18, 2016 Uganda polls, John Patrick Amama Mbabazi also disputed the elections and petitioned the Supreme Court, which threw out the petition on technicalities despite several independent reports that elections were not free and fair.
Several voices from western capitals, particularly the powers that have been supplementing the Kampala regimes annual budget, have come out openly to criticise the elections. European Union (EU) Elections observers mission in their preliminary report said that the 2016 Uganda polls were not free and fair.
Both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) are part of Ugandas development partners, with huge financial and military assistance and they have since expressed concerns about Gen Musevenis continued grip on power in their independent view is a threat to Ugandas future. The names of Ugandan journalists Bahati Remmy and Elijah Turyagumanawe of NBS Television were on the mouths of many journalists who attended the CJA conference at Open University in Camden Town -London. Several praised NBS Turyagumanawe coverage of the situation at the home of Dr Kizza Besigye, particularly when he was shoved onto a police track and driven to Kasangati Police Station, 12.2 kilometres north of the capital Kampala. During the whole journey, Turyagumanawe continued reporting live on camera. It was the most exciting piece of news item for a journalist to report his own arrest until pushed into the police cell, said Shannon Vanraes, a reporter from Canada in reference to Turyagumanawes incident
Lord Black, a member of the British House of Lords said: But the landscape has now changed. Journalists still face oppression but they do not stand alone. HRNJ -Uganda, under the leadership of their national co-ordinator Robert Ssempala and legal officer Diana Nandudu, are forever by their side often literally and at personal risk, monitoring journalistic human rights and protecting them from abuse. In a tone that suggest Lord Black has the current situation in Uganda at his fingertips, he intoned: When police beat up a broadcaster, Ssempala led the protest march and was himself arrested. When journalists are detained without cause, HRNJ-Uganda is on the spot with legal advice.
One grateful reporter fresh from the cells advised colleagues never to be without the phone numbers of the good men and women of HRNJ-Uganda, he narrated to the audience, adding that: When HRNJ-Uganda activists are not on the frontline, they are educating the media on human rights and conducting seminars to raise journalistic standards, reduce risk and promote good governance. I have spent most of my career fighting for press and media freedom, said Lord Black. But sometimes I think we ought more often to stop and remind ourselves why press freedom matters. I get used to politicians talking about how they support a free press usually they prefer another countrys press freedom to their own but very few of them really understand what it is we fight for, and its important we articulate that.
Lord Black expressed sorrow over the lack of progress in expanding media freedom across the globe, saying that: We seem to be going backwards and the Commonwealth is no exception."
"I simply cant even pretend to understand how difficult it must be to be a reporter in a country where intimidation is rife and Governments use the full force of the criminal law to stop you reporting and sometimes jail you for telling the truth. But that happens in a growing number of places, said Lord Black. He explained further: For me press and media freedom is not an abstract point of ideology or just a high-blown principle. It really matters to the way society operates for three reasons:
First, it has the power to hold Governments, public authorities and other parts of the State in other words, those who exercise power to account. It is the watchdog of the public interest a guardian against corruption, incompetence, waste, hypocrisy and greed, and a campaigner against injustice. Second, unlike regulated media, it alone has the ability to conduct long term investigations, unhindered by the fear of prior restraint. And third, in any state where there are free and fair elections, the free press has a fundamental role in transmitting information to voters, independently of political interests, and explaining often complex policy issues in a way which is understandable and intelligible to the great majority of electors. Free elections simply cant take place without a free media.
The second main barrier to press freedom, he [ Lord Black] added, was the physical safety of journalists, in both the print and broadcast media. The press can only be free if reporters and editors can get on with their job without fear of physical violence or, in the worst cases, fear for their lives. Yet in too many parts of the world, there is an appalling record on the safety of journalists.
He further said that those three issues in fact go to the heart of what a democracy and a free society are about. He said this was summed up so well by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, when he said: Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it. He said that some two centuries ago, but the reality he spoke is timeless. These are fundamental truths to which I believe all those in the media should hold firm. But I am painfully aware that life is not as simple as that and it is difficult to live up to these high ideals.
While all those in the independent media want to hold those in power to account, and undertake investigations in the public interest, in many parts of the world daily life as a journalist is a terrible struggle. A struggle to publish information in the face of repressive laws; a struggle to extract information from secretive public authorities; a struggle to make the money to invest in journalism and technology or just to pay the salary bill, and, tragically far too often, a struggle to keep safe and go about work without fear of violence or intimidation.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 1,200 journalists have been killed in line of duty in the last 25 years. Although we are only at the start of April, eight journalists have already been killed this year. And intimidation and harassment of reporters by the police and others is still commonplace in some countries, with often lengthy jail sentences handed down to those including bloggers who make a nuisance of themselves to those in power.
The CPJ also lists the top 20 deadliest countries for journalists over the last 25 years, and six of them are in the Commonwealth with Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Sierra Leone all featuring high up. In too many cases, the perpetrators have rarely, if ever, been brought to justice as we saw in Sri Lanka with the cold-blooded murder of leading editor Lasantha Wickrematunga on his way to work in January 2009, a dreadful crime for which no one has yet to be charged.
It was into this atmosphere of constant menace that the Human Rights Network for Journalists Uganda was born in 2006, the new kid on the block in the ceaseless battle for freedom of expression, says Lord Black.
17.04.2016 LISTEN
It has come to the attention of the UK & Ireland Chapter of the National Democratic Congress that certain individuals or persons are falsely using its name to achieve their personal agenda or course.
One of such incidents occurred again yesterday (16th April, 2016) at Golden Star FM in Agona Swedru in the Central Region, where a panellist, Chris Arthur (former Tescon president, KNUST) claimed that NDC, UK & Ireland Chapter has endorsed one Cynthia Morrison's candidature for Agona West constituency parliamentary contest.
Chris Arthur also claimed that Cynthia Morrison had helped the NDC UK & Ireland Chapter financially towards support for a patient in a hospital in Kumasi. It must be stated clearly that all such claims are false, and that public must disregard and condemn this politics of lies.
Cynthia Morrison is NOT a member of the NDC here in the UK. Our understanding is that she is a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and currently seeking to represent NPP in parliament.
This is opportunistic attempt by an individual who seeks to hide behind the good name the NDC UK & Ireland Chapter has carved for itself, to achieve personal course.
The members of the NDC UK & Ireland Chapter are law abiding and are very much aware of the provisions of the party constitution. We will not do anything to undermine it.
The timely intervention and debunking of Chris Arthur's claims by Kofi Adoli, the youth organiser of the Chapter, who was in the region at the time, should inform liars and falsehood preachers that we are everywhere and that they would do more damage to their own reputation by trading in falsehood and mischievous propaganda as they will always be challenged.
If any individual believes that the political party they belong no longer serves any purpose or support their course, and therefore, wants to join the National Democratic Congress (NDC), they are welcome. But they must follow the party's laid down procedures as stipulated in the party's constitution.
They must stop cashing on the party's good name and progress (both home and abroad) for their personal agenda.
Members of the NDC UK & Ireland Chapter support and are firmly behind all the parliamentary candidates elected or endorsed during the party's primaries in November 2015 for a resounding victory in the upcoming general elections slated for November this year (2016).
NDC UK & Ireland Chapter
Alexander S Bediako,
Chapter Organiser
The Nation Liberia and corruption were given birth to the same hour the non-governmental organization known as the American Colonization Society (ACS) after bringing back eighty-six free slaves from the United States of America then declaring Liberia a free Nation for the return of other free slaves when the abolition of the trade in slavery were announced by the dealers in the trade!
Since the Non-governmental organization pronounced the so-called independence of this nation that lacks priorities and leadership from its inception those according to classified information leadership of this Nation (Liberia) has been wiring millions of poverty stricken Liberians monies into foreign accounts with the United States treasury department tracing these monies up to where they were deposited!
My information is and continues to be that within the United States treasury department there something called Politically Exposed People (PEP) on leaders from around the World who engages in what stealing their people monies and stacking same in foreign banking institutions around the World!
Moreover, my classified information revealed that its depends on the currencies these countries trade into like for Liberia dual currencies with the United States dollars been the major trading one. As such with any amount of this currency that leaves the shore of Liberia the details of the moving of the monies to where ever destination are to the knowledge of the currency owner the United States treasury department and it is cleared that they keep track of their monies circulation!
For the case of Liberia, when the late interim Liberian president Grude Bryant visited United States of America along with some senior members of his entourage fortunately for them they visited the US treasury department and officials at the time made a full disclosure to the Liberian delegation about capital flight dating as far back as the granting of independence of this Nation Liberia!
My information is that former interim President Bryant was asked by the them officials of the US treasury department that if he was interested in pursuing the case in giving Liberians back their stolen monies they were prepared to give him details of those regimes that stole the poverty stricken people of this Nation Liberia!
Again, the same Liberian scenario considering the Country Liberia an elephant meat where every regime must have their piece of the pie to the very existence of the people who they often said in the cause of the people the struggle continues yet they continues to live in abject poverty with Liberia been the 5th poorest country in the World in the abundant of God given natural resources!
Information available to me indicates that the then Liberian delegation on the State visit to the United States of America were not in the position to dig out old wound as the old saying goes in Liberia when you pull rope, rope pull bush they too since realizing that their predecessors amassed wealth it was their turn to enrich themselves since the people of Liberia always in the position to let bad gone be bad gone!
These politically Exposed People (PEP) are still within our midst and most of their children and grand children are enjoying these stolen monies where the parents invested some locally in real estates and used the rest to purchase homes in United States of America and other parts of the World! Shockingly, most of these ill-gotten wealth were transfer into properties and are still been rented by this presence regime for the upkeep of their friend and cronies especially in the United States and Europe!
Moreover, these Politically Exposed People (PEP) still today their spouses and children are claiming greater Monrovia and parts adjacent as their parents properties indicating that these properties were purchase by the parents in the 1900s!
If Liberians wants to regain their financial independence they must rethink especially those young people who are so gullible and quick to jump to the defense of these crooks because according to some of them these criminals paid their school fees at local and foreign universities yet failed to asked the origin of these monies that they claimed paid their tuitions!
I am of the opinion that, if this Nation is serious the American can make available the listing of the Politically Exposed People (PEP) that has kept the people of Liberia in perpetual darkness for decades with their portion been to only stretch forth their hands asking for survival without knowing that it is their enshrined rights within the Liberian constitution for better life!
If Liberians that think this is not real look at the present leadership in Nigeria and see how many billions has been retrieved and brought back to the Nigerians people coffer in just less than a year now!
The author is a Liberian broadcast journalist and writer and can be reach @ +231776590725/+231886224134 or E-mail [email protected]
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
ALL NEWLY ELECTED OFFICIALS AND MEMBERS OF THE LIBERIAN ASSOCIATION OF CHINESE TRAIN SCHOLARS (LACTS) ARE ASK TO ATTEND THEPENDING RETREAT SLATED FOR 16TH OF APRIL 2016 AT THE HOUR OF 1:PM PROMPT AT THE HOME OF HON ROLAND LAFAYETTA GIDDING IN TINKER VILLAGE COMMUNITY PAYNESVILLE CITY.
ALL MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED TO BE PRESENCE AS THEIR IMPUT IN THE BRAIN STORMING SECTION WILL BE HIGH ON THE AGENDA CUMMINATING TO THE UPLIFTMENT OF THIS NOBLE ASSOCIATION.
MOREOVER, MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED AS AGREED BY THE BODY IN HER MARCH MEETING THAT MEMBERS ATTENDING THE RETREAT MUST ATLEAST BRING FIVE MONTHS ARREARS OF THEIR DUES FOR THE SMOOTH OPERATION OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ORGANIZATION.
MEMBERS ARE URGE TO NOT SHY AWAY FROM THIS ALL IMPORTANT RETREAT BECAUSE OF ITS FINANCIAL ARREARS MADE MENTIONED OF, BUT YOUR PRESENCE WILL HIGHLY BE APPRECIATED IN HELPING TO RESURRECT THE MEMBERSHIP DRIVE IN MAKING SURE THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL DRAMS DONT DIE A NATURAL DEATH!
REMEMBER AS THE OLD SAYING GOES, ONE WHO FAIL TO PLAN HAS ALREADY PLANNED TO FAIL....
SIGNED:
JOE NOUTOUA WANDAH
ACTING PUBLICITY CHAIRMAN/LACTS
APPROVED:
CLIFTON GARPEH JR.
PRESIDENT ELECET/LACTS
Many concerned Ghanaians are wondering why the Electoral Commission (EC) would throw away the current logo that mimics Ghana's Coat of Arms to choose an Occultic Symbol that has this long historical pagan ties.
Below shares a number of entries with the list of alchemical symbols associated with occultism which the EC has chosen from.
The eight-pointed arrowheads at the center of the circle in the new logo dates back to the First Crusade in the 12th century. It was first used by the Knights Templar, the
Knights of Malta, and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem among others. In 1813, during the War of Liberation against Napoleon, the symbol was revived by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III and became an award for acts of heroism, bravery or leadership skills.
Octagram (Eight Pointed Stars/Arrowheads) used in the circle are essential in the repertoire of Wizards, demonologists and practitioners of Magic. They smack too much of "jommetry" to witches. They are complex sigils drawn on the floor, often in glowing chalk, wherein the 7a points are conjoined. Within the confines of the octagram, huge powers can be unleashed with relative safety. Demons, other
Supernatural Entities and even Death can be summoned and contained.
Octagram (eight - pointed stars/arrowheads) pointing down, usually used in occult rituals to direct forces or energies. (you can Google and read more about Occultic symbols).
Octagram often represent satanism, the horned god or various expressions of contemporary occultism, especially when a goat-head is superimposed on the inverted octagram within a "sacred" circle.
In the occultic world, the black circle background is a universal symbol of cosmic unity, astrology, "the circle of life," evolution, etc. The pagan sacred circle plus any number of radiating spokes or petals form the wheel - a Wheel of Life to Buddhists, a Medicine Wheel to Native Americans, a Mandala to Hindus. It symbolizes unity, movement, the sun, the zodiac, reincarnation, and earth's cycles of renewal.
Pagans use it in astrology, magic and many kinds of rituals. (See Medicine Wheel and Quartered Circle). Just like the circle of SUN WHEEL became a magical amulet to the Celtic Gauls or Gaels in Europe.
Therefore, the question is, what is the rationale behind the octagram symbol with eight pointed arrowheads been chosen by the EC as its new logo? The new logo with eight arrowheads in a black circle has a direct high powered spiritual connotations and I believe Ghanaians would like to know what informed the EC's decision to choose that symbol, knowing the spiritual ties of the symbol.
What at all will inform the EC decision to replace the current beautiful logo which mimics the National Emblem of the coat of arms with which Ghanaians have strong connection, with this New Satanic Symbol which has no meaning whatsoever to Ghanaians? Unless the EC and John Mahama's government would have a meaning to this Satanic Symbol they plan to impose on our dear nation.
The other thing Ghanaians must understand is that, changing the existing logo comes with a huge cost of replacing all stationery, paraphernalia and anything that has the old logo with a new satanic symbol.
The question is, ain't there any better ways of using our limited national resources at this time when the nation has more pressing needs? Is this the best use of the taxpayers money, by changing the logo or is it just one more way to steal our monies as usual?
This is outrageous and demonic, and I call on all well meaning Ghanaians to rise up against this imposition of satanism on our nation, the conspicuous stealing of our money just like they did in the rebranding of the Metro Mass Buses and the overt corruption going on.
Peter Antwi Boasiako.
London.
Awutu-Beraku (C/R), April 17, GNA - Parents and Guardians in the Awutu-Senya District whose wards benefited from the District Assembly's scholarship scheme this year have commended the Government for the offer.
They have also promised to ensure that their children embark on serious studies during their vacation periods.
Making the commendation in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Awutu in the Central Region, a cross section of the parents and guardians said what surprised them most was that the selection committee set up by the District Assembly to select the beneficiary students, performed creditably and was devoid of partisan sentiment.
The Assembly paid GHa 31,000.00 under its special educational development fund, as scholarships to 76 brilliant but needy children to pursue higher education.
Mr Sampson Abbey-Armah, the District Chief said the purpose of establishing the educational development fund was to fulfill President John Dramani Mahama's better Ghana Agenda.
He charged the beneficiary students to let the offer spur them on to study hard for excellent returns.
Mr Abbey-Armah praised the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Awutu/Senya, Madam Hanna Serwaah Tetteh, for the immense financial and moral support she is offering to the scheme.
So far the MP had contributed GHa 8,000.00 from her share of the MP's District Assemblies Common Fund to buttress the initiative of the assembly.
Madam Serwaah Tetteh expressed the hope that the scheme would go a long way to help the Assembly produce more qualified technocrats to enhance the socio-economic development of the district.
Ms Anna Belinda Baidoo, District Director of Education, also charged the students to take study hard.
GNA
Ave-Havi (V/R), April 17, GNA - The Co-operative Fashion Designers Association (CFDA), has appealed to Government to support its members with the needed industrial machines to enable them produce to meet international standards.
Mr Patrick Debrah, Volta Regional CFDA President made the appeal when addressing a graduation for 10 girls from fashion homes under the union in the Akatsi North District at Ave-Havi.
He said industrial sewing, over-locking, knitting and designing machines and irons are important for every small fashion outfit.
'The absence of these industrial fashion designing machines are our main challenges against our competitiveness and Government must help,' he said.
Mr Debrah lauded a piloted scheme under a Ghana-German scheme, expected to transform apprenticeship from the former traditional system to a modern one.
Under the scheme trainees would do their final years of apprenticeship in vocational and technical schools.
He said the apprentices would be evaluated and awarded proficiency certificates, which would enable them continue to higher levels.
Mr Debrah also called for support for the CFDA to establish a well-equipped training centre for training apprentices in the region.
Mr James Gunu, District Chief Executive (DCE) asked Ghanaians to patronise dresses produced by local tailors and dressmakers to sustain their jobs.
He said the taste for foreign wears amounts to helping to develop the economies of other countries.
Mr Gunu said it is important that those in the fashion industry keep abreast of the current trends to stay in business.
The DCE challenged the youth to venture into fashion where there are verifiable prospects and enroll at the vocation school to be opened at Ave- Afiadenyigba this year.
Mr Gunu asked the graduating apprentices to be business-oriented.
He promised that the Assembly would donate sewing machines to support CFDA.
GNA
17.04.2016 LISTEN
By Edmund Quaynor, GNA
Agodeke (E/R), April 17, GNA - Government is to establish a tractor service station in the Kwahu Afram Plains to offer tractor and other agricultural mechanisation services to farmers.
The station is expected to rent out tractors and other agricultural machinery to farmers who cannot buy the facility to enable them mechanise their agricultural activities.
This was announced by President John Dramani Mahama when he inaugurated a pontoon- MV Dame and a water taxi- MV Akpini at Agodeke in the Kwahu Afram Plains North as part of activities to end his three days accounting to the people tour of the Eastern Region.
The pontoon replaces the one that plies Agodeke in the Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kpandu Tokor in the Volta Region which broke down about 10 years ago.
The water taxi is expected to be used to transport people from the Afram Plains to Anto Aborma, a resettlement community.
President Mahama said two more water taxis would be introduced to the area later to help farmers in the area to cross the Volta River easily.
The President said, the two pontoons, which were used to transport vehicles and passengers across the Volta River at Senkyi when the Adomi Bridge was under repairs would be relocated to Yeji and Dambai.
He explained that the provision of the pontoons and water taxis to people in the Afram Plains and other areas are aimed at facilitating the transportation of their produce to the marketing centres.
The President and his entourage undertook a two- hour voyage on the pontoon across the Volta River from Agodeke to Kpandu Torkor.
Earlier, the President inspected the construction of a modern hospital at Abertifi, the Kotosu Water Project expansion, which aimed at improving water supply to the towns and communities on the Kwahu Ridge.
At Abertifi, the Acting Omanhene of the Kwahu; Nana Asiedu Agyemang III, appealed to the President and all other political parties in the country to ensure peaceful campaigns devoid of insults and personal attacks.
He thanked the government for the number of projects that have been extended to the Kwahu area and appealed for the early completion of the rehabilitation of the Nkawkaw -Atibie road.
The Acting Omanhene asked for the improvement of the road leading to the take off point of the paragliding site.
He said government must also find permanent solution to the feud between Fulani herdsmen and crop farmers in the Kwahu Afram Plains.
GNA
17.04.2016 LISTEN
By Kwamina Tandoh/Celestine Seyram Tsievor, GNA
Accra, April 17, GNA - Air Marshal Michael Samson-Oje, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), has urged Ghanaians to be vigilant and provide timely information on suspicious activities to the security agencies for immediate action to be taken.
He said even though Ghana takes an imminent of terrorism on the country seriously, the citizenry should remain calm because adequate security interventions have been put in place to avert any attack on the nation.
Air Marshal Michael Samson-Oje gave the advise when he was speaking at an induction ceremony held for the three service chiefs of the Ghana Armed Forces at the Garrison Methodist-Presbyterian Church in Accra, Burma Camp.
The CDS said the Military is a non partisan institution and ready to combat any attack on the country, to hold the nation together to ensure peace and unity.
He added that the price for eternal peace is vigilant 'hence let's keep peace to benefit this generation and others to come.'
The Acting Director of Religious Affairs, Reverend Commander Paul Adjei-Djan who inducted the service chiefs into office, entreated them to be faithful and loyal to Ghana and endeavour at all times to serve the interest of the State and set it above all other interests.
The service chiefs swore to exercise the powers entrusted to them through their offices in the fear of God in accordance with His divine will
Rt Reverend Col William Jonfia, (Rtd) former Director of Religious Affairs of GAF, charged the service chiefs to entrust everything in the hands of God in their walk through service.
He encouraged them to become bold gentle and cautious in their line of work but be firm and patience even us they accept each other as brothers and sisters as they age by day by day.
The service chiefs comprised the CDS, Chief of Naval Staff- Real Admiral P.K. Faidoo and Chief of Airforce Staff-Air Vice Marshall M.M.T. Nagai.
GNA
By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA
Holomuni, (U/W), April 17, GNA - Dr Stell Rudolf, a German philanthropist, has provided a school block at Holomuni, a very remote community in the Wa East District.
Through the donation of GHa 200,000.00 by Dr Rudolf the community could now boast of two (three-unit classroom blocks), eight- bedroom teachers' quarters, a borehole, urinary and a place of convenience.
The money was channeled through Brother Dick Vandergeest, a retired Catholic Missionary, who has been using his pension allowance from Holland to provide educational facilities to isolated communities in the Upper West Region.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Bro Vandergeest thanked Dr Rudolf for the donation, adding that through her assistance a similar project is taking place at Kalanhi also in the District.
He also commended the community for offering free labour and demonstrating absolute commitment throughout the project execution period.
Bro Vandergeest appealed to the government to come to the aid of the school with teachers, furniture and learning materials to enable it function effectively.
To the communities he said: 'I hope you will maintain the school well. Don't delay repairing things that get spoiled. Tell the pupils not to spoil anything, and to keep the school and its surroundings neat always.'
Mr Nelson Aborigia, Regional Director of Education thanked Dr Rudolf and Bro Vandergeest for the support, noting that government alone cannot deliver all the educational needs of the country, hence the need for such philanthropic support.
He gave the assurance that teachers would be posted to the school to help the two staff handling the 446 pupils.
Mr Aborigia appealed to parents to help take care of their children's education by investing in the pursuit.
He asked them to help stem the traditional practice of men eloping with girls or impregnating their daughters by reporting the culprits to the police for action.
Mr Bukari Ahmed Awie, Headmaster of the school and a native of Holomuni community thanked Bro Vandergeest for listening to his plea to come to the aid of his home town when he met him at Gurunbelle where he put up similar project.
He appealed to the District Assembly to provide the locality with a junior high school (JHS) block to enable the children to continue with their education when they complete their primary school.
He said there is a big river dividing Holomuni and Gbantala, the nearest community where pupils from the community could access JHS.
Mr Awie said it is very dangerous for one to cross during the rainy seasons.
GNA
18.04.2016 LISTEN
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Folks, there is a conundrum for the NPP and its Akufo-Addowhether to rely on ex-President Kufuor as the prime-mover for their political campaigns toward Election 2016 or to sideline him and go their own way. Much exists to prove that sidelining Kufuor will be disastrous to Akufo-Addo. Much also exists to suggest that giving Kufuor such a prominent role is like plunging a double-edged sword into the NPPs camp. Dont ask me why if you know what the internal crisis in the NPP is all about. There is a Kufuor faction and an Akufo-Addo faction. What for, I dont know; but I know it for a fact that all is not well in the NPP as such. Will Akufo-Addo rely on Kufuor to work for him? With what consequences?
I am poised to dissect happenings at the NPP front to hit hard on plain facts that will hurt Akufo-Addo but which, if properly understood, appreciated and factored into the political manouevres of the NPP, can help Akufo-Addo and his NPP redeem themselves, even if that redemption doesnt win Election 2016 for them. I cant be the first or only Ghanaian to not want to see an Akufo-Addo Presidency in Ghana in my lifetime. Phew!!
But I have the blended gift of hindsight and foresight to say what I have to say, based on my experiences, serving Ghana in many capacities before moving on into other departments of life, and now seeing things from afar to know how the tide flows and to stick my neck out for whatever I stand.
I want to say upfront that a tide bearing an Akufo-Addo leadership of Ghana will not flow well for the country. I have said so in all my opinion pieces dealing with Ghanas challenges of development in contemporary times and will continue to say so till I drop down dead!! Simply put, then, what I want to do here is to put the ball in Akufo-Addos camp to challenge him to know why Akufo-Addo hasnt cut butter all this while and wont do so at age 72.
Once he comes across as the one destroying his own political house, there is no way anybody will waste efforts trying to build that house for him to become Ghanas President at all costs or buying into his vile cry to be tried as Ghanas leader. The days of trial-and-error are long gone and wont return. Governance in the 21st century demands better than Akufo-Addos kind of blindfolding politics entails.
In stating my stance, I will be blunt and toughen myself for the fallouts, especially the usual insults and empty threats from his benighted buffs. If they had monitored their sacred cows lorgorligi-logarithms all these years, they would have known better not to tread where he himself fears to go. The reputable Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in London that enrolled him for law studies in 1973 but that didnt follow him up to the point where he left the shores of Britain for France to end up being enrolled surreptitiously by the General Legal Council of Ghana without certification knows why. Hard balls here!!
There is a lot more that posterity will probe into. By putting Akufo-Addo on the spot, we are only seeking to set the stage for that probe, even as his disastrous leadership of the NPP poses a terrible challenge to Ghanas future in democracy. We saw how he failed in 2008 and 2012 and why failing again at 2016 poses a terrible threat to Ghanas stability, granted that he has amplified his disgruntled political aspirations in all spheres, locally and internationally, even if not heeded to. All the stale demonstrations and arm-twisting manouevres (including recruiting South African ex-combatants to establish a private security institution of the NPP) have bounced back to hurt his reputation. What a sore but unrepentant looser!!
We are poised to go the whole hog to prove why Akufo-Addos quest for political power is not in the best interest of Ghana. Clearly, he is even not accepted wholeheartedly in his own political family. Why, then, does he think that he is better than everybody else? We will examine it all.
Here we go, then. The NPPs main challenge under Akufo-Addo, especially in its desperate attempt at wresting political power from the NDC administration, lies more within than without. This loaded claim will be unpacked soon; but for now, suffice it for me to say that the NPP and its Akufo-Addo are still groping about, unsure of how to reach out to the electorate for goodwill. Many instances confirm my claim that the real challenges facing Akufo-Addo are within his own party ranks. Will he be smart enough to see things as some of us do? I wonder.
First, let us turn to the desperation for funding to suggest that the coffers of the party are virtually dry, indicating that something terrible must be happening to discourage financiers from putting their pecuniary weight behind the party being led by Akufo-Addo to Election 2016. They must have genuine reservations, misgivings, or apprehensions that their contributions arent being judiciously used to advance the partys agenda. In other words, they must be concerned that something other than the partys interests is being pursued at their expense.
In that senseand given the clear evidence of how Freddie Blay, Abankwa and others in the team have been playing chaskele with the partys funds without being held accountable as suchwill they be willing to pump money into the NPPs coffers? Already, the partys MPs have broken ranks and arent willing to continue contributing funds. They must know why. Others too are following suit, which speaks volumes.
We woke up yesterday to be confronted with the news report headlined as NPP not broke, but not very wealthy (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Blay-NPP-not-broke-but-not-very-wealthy-430763 ). Another report was about a fund-raising ceremony to be addressed by Akufo-Addo at which the NPP would appeal to Ghanaians to contribute funds for the partys electioneering campaigns. A long haul, indeed!!
Meantime, we have already been informed that the partys MPs have vowed not to contribute a pesewa to the electioneering campaign efforts (for reasons best known to them), all coming against the background of malfeasance by those placed in charge of managing the partys finances (How about the secret re-opening of accounts at Ecobank that would pit Afoko and Agyepong against the Akufo-Addo camp for which they would be maligned and emaciated politically? We wont lose sight of the fact that Afoko and Agyepong were so maltreated because they were accused of belonging to the Kufuor camp and also for being bought to do the bidding of President Mahama. What a complicated load of nonsense!!)
As we write, the complications arent even being untangled by the court hearing Afokos suit against the NPP leaders over his suspension, although it has emerged that attempts by the Akufo-Addo camp to gag him have been damned by the court. So, cant the Akufo-Addo camp see things as they are so they can look for better ways to deal with their self-created internal crisis?
I shall return
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IVA Struggling with debt? Compare your debt options and write off up to 80% of your unsecured debts from 80 per month Get Started for free
What is an IVA? With an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) you can make affordable monthly payments towards a percentage of your debt for 5 years. At the end of the 5 year plan, your remaining debt will be completely written off.
Benefits of an IVA
Here is a list of the cost common advantages of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA):
Affordability You will only be asked to pay back what you can afford, with allowances taken into account for food, bills, entertainment, travel, childcare and others. You may be sacrificing certain essential costs at the moment. With an IVA they are budgeted for so they will no longer be neglected
No upfront costs When you set up an IVA, there are no upfront costs whatsoever. This means that you can put a debt solution in place today without spending a penny
You have a finishing line Do you feel like there will be no end to your debt problems? With high interest costs and charges, the balances of your credit accounts may not reduce as you need them to. With an IVA you will become totally debt free at the completion of the IVA (usually 5 years). You can use this as an opportunity to change your financial life, for good
Confidential Your IVA is not advertised in the London Gazette or local newspaper. It is your decision whether you would like to disclose it to other people or not
No more contact from creditors When you are in an IVA, your creditors will no longer have the right to contact you or refer the debt on to debt collectors/bailiffs. This is a great benefit for most people as it will take away the stress caused by constant calls/texts/emails and home visits
Stay in your house Unlike some debt solutions, an IVA will allow you to stay in your current home. This is even the case if the property has a mortgage or is owned outright
Your pension An IVA does not have an impact on your pension. You will not have to surrender your pension or withdraw money from it to pay into your IVA
Risks of an IVA
Here is a list of the cost common disadvantages of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA):
Equity Release If you own your property and it has value, you may be asked to release the equity in the property
Credit Rating If you have a perfect credit rating, this will be damaged and you will not be allowed to take out more debt whilst in an arrangement
You must keep up with repayments If you do not keep up with your monthly repayments, there is a risk you will be made bankrupt
Who qualifies for an IVA?
There is no office guidelines to who qualifies for an IVA. It is a legally binding, Government legislation designed to help all people. Generally speaking, insolvency practitioners (IP) will look at your situation if they think the IVA proposal they submit is beneficial to both yourself (the debtor) and your creditors. This often restricts people to a certain criteria which you will have to meet:
Over 5000 worth of unsecured debt You must have 2 or more creditors of 2 or more lines of credit Must live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland Must be insolvent Must be willing to pay at least 70 per month into their IVA Must have some type or types of regular income
What debts can I include in an IVA?
You can include a wide range of unsecured debts within your IVA. These include:
Credit card debt/credit cards
Loans/loan debt
Payday loans
Council tax arrears
HMRC debt
Overpaid benefits
Catalogues
Gas and electricity arrears
Overdrafts/overdraft debt
Water arrears
Income tax arrears
Debts to friends and family
Other unsecured debts
Note: If you are a resident of Scotland, you will need to apply for a Scottish Trust Deed (legally binding). Speak to our advisors for Scottish Debt Advice.
What debts cant be included in an IVA?
Secured loans
Your mortgage (if you still live in the house)
Car finance (if you still have the car)
Rent arrears for your current property
Court fines/Police fines
Hire purchase arrears (if you still have the product)
Log book loans (if you still have the vehicle that the debts are secured on)
Student loans
Other secured debts
What does I.V.A stand for?
IVA stands for Individual Voluntary Arrangement. It is a formal way to consolidate your debts into one affordable monthly repayment, resulting in the debtor becoming debt free at the end of their payments.
Can I apply for an IVA online?
Use the IVA Calculator to check your eligibility Prepare your IVA proposal and apply for your IVA. When your IVA is accepted, your creditors can no longer contact you. Pay 60 low monthly payments. After 5 years, you are out of your IVA and completely debt free.
Will an IVA affect my employment?
In most occupations, your credit rating or credit scoring is not a factor and it may never have been checked in the past, it may also be likely that it is not checked in the future either.
There is no law to tell you that you must advise your employer that you have entered an IVA or that you owe money. They will not be notified by your insolvency practitioner. If you wanted to keep it a private matter, in most cases this would be absolutely fine. With some roles such as financial advisors, solicitors or bank workers it may make up part of your contract to advise them of changes like this. In these situations we would advise to inform your employers of your intentions before you enter into any arrangements. This way there will be no nasty surprises for you later down the line. More often than not, we find that your employer would not be concerned by your IVA and that it would not affect your employment status. An IVA is a formal solution and could affect some employments, such as if you were a solicitor or accountant for example. We would always recommend that you receive approval from your employers that your job isnt affected before you sign up for anything.
Will an IVA impact my partner?
There are certain situations where you may not want to involve your partner at all in your IVA proposal due to personal reasons. Insolvency Practitioners are very aware of these circumstances and can operate solely via telephone and email and at your convenience, so rest assured that your matters can be kept completely private.
If the debts which you are looking to place into your IVA are in joint names, then this would be different. Your IP would look to place all of your debts into an IVA, including joint debts therefore you would have to inform your partner of your plans.
If your debts are solely yours, then there would be no negative impact on your partner, their credit score would remain unaffected and they would not be entered onto any registers or be tainted in any way.
Will an IVA affect my credit score/credit file?
Whilst you are in your arrangement, you will not be able to get any credit. An IVA will stay on your credit file for 6 years, so 12 months after a typical IVA. When this time has passed and your monthly payments have ended, you will be able to rebuild your credit rating.
What proof will I need to apply for an IVA?
Proof of ID Passport/driving license/birth certificate/utility bills/national insurance identification/credit agreement Bank statements 3 months bank statements with all transactions displayed Proof of income 3 months payslips/P60/proof of benefits
How long does it take to set up an IVA?
Your initial call will only last around 5-10 minutes. The IVA process will be explained to you and you will be told what further information you will need to provide to proceed with your IVA proposal. Once you have returned the required information, an IVA will usually take between 7-14 days to get into place. You will be protected from creditors within this time, your advisor will provide you with documentation via email.
How long does an IVA last?
Most IVAs will last for a length of five years. The i v a will remain on your credit file for a period of six years and is placed on the Insolvency Register for that period. You can work out what date it will be removed from your credit file, it will be six years from the start date of the IVA term. So if the IVA started on 1 January 2000, it should be removed from your credit file six years from that date, which would be 1 January 2006. When you apply for an individual voluntary arrangement your Insolvency Practitioner (IP) will tell you if you qualify for an IVA, how long it lasts, how much it costs and provide you with any other debt advice which you may need.
How much will debt advice cost for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement?
The advice cost for individual voluntary arrangements is free of charge. Your I.V.A company will tell you if you qualify for an IVA. They will talk to you about your different debts, provide you with free debt advice and check if your creditors are likely to approve your proposal for your IVA for debt.
How does an IVA affect your life?
By taking out an IVA you may affect your overall financial position. You will not be allowed to take out credit for 6 years. You will struggle to get a mortgage or remortgage your existing property. It also may affect any future increase in earnings or windfalls you may receive, as these will need to be paid to your insolvency practitioner. Your insolvency practitioner will take control of your debts for this period, they will deal with all of your creditors and this is legally binding. That means you will not be allowed to take out any more debts whilst in the IVA.
Once the plan is completed, any debts which you accrue will be managed by yourself. Your ability to take out further debts in the future will not be impacted once the IVA has completed.
What is the IVA protocol?
The I.V.A protocol is a voluntary set of guidelines which your Insolvency Practitioner (IP) can sign up for which improves the efficiency of Individual Voluntary Arrangements. When you apply for debt advice, it is important that you understand the steps of the debt solution, so you can decide whether or not the solution is the best one for your circumstances.
How do I know if creditors will accept my IVA?
Generally speaking, most creditors will approve voluntary arrangements for unsecured debt. But some debts can not be included within one formal debt solution. Your Insolvency Practitioner will tell you how likely it is that your creditors will be willing to accept your proposal, based on the voting creditors.
Can I pay in one lump sum?
There are occasions when you may be eligible for a debt solution which is payable in a one off lump sum as a final settlement to your creditors. This is usually when the money is being gifted from some one else, or you have received inheritance or a windfall for example. With a one-off lump sum payment, the advice is usually the same as when you normally apply for an IVA. You wouldnt have to make regular payments into the solution, your IP can provide you with more advice on one off lump sum solutions for your debts. Your IP will provide you with more advice on the debt IVA and explain what is IVA to you.
Who regulates the debt industry?
At present the debt industry is not regulated. Some Insolvency Practitioners offices choose to sign up to the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) or register with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). You can contact the IPA using the contact details or email address on their website. Your creditors do not regulate the debt industry and your creditors will not be able to impact any decisions which the IPA or FCA make. In our experience, the regulators will take assertive action on any advisers or businesses which do not comply with their strict codes of practice. To check if a person is regulated by the FCA, enter their name into the search box in the FCA website.
Should I use a debt charity?
There are thousands of companies which provide debt help in the UK. You may be looking for an alternative to a private company. You should know that charities usually pass their fee charging products to sister companies which charge fees and disbursements, just like private companies. So what you initially thought was a good option, on further analysis could be different to what you originally thought. Charities do have their part to play though. They can help you if you have a problem with your bank accounts, maintenance arrears, living costs, credit reference agencies, child support arrears, bankruptcy, assets, accountancy issues, mortgages, creditor issues, insurance providers, mobiles, your bank account, rates arrears, PAYE contributions or if you want to work out your expenditure. They can make sure that you speak to an adviser or supervisor and look at proposals to offer your lender. A petition has started with the possibility of a debate in parliament about how charities represent themselves and their services.
Which charities help with debt?
You can contact Money Advice Service, National Debtline, Step Change, Shelter or a combination of the three. Charities are particular useful for a low debt level under 1,000. If the debt is high (such as a debt value of 10,000 or more) you would usually seek an assessment from a professional adviser. If you do decide to use a charity to guide you, make sure you check their charity number and the registration number on their website to make sure you are content that their team can answer your questions in the right ways. A lot of clients of charities have a minimum debt level which does not meet the basis for an IVA, so you could always chat to a charity that is happy to act on your behalf for low debt levels.
Although an I.V.A could be the answer to your debt problem, its important to understand the monthly payment so call us on our free phone number. Anyone customers can receive expert feedback on their rights from debt charities, if they cant help they will usually point you in the director of firms which help with IVAs.
We are homeowners, will lenders see my proposal differently?
In some cases yes. In the majority of cases, if you are a homeowner you will not need to remortgage or take out any additional finances that will effect your property. You will need to sign a additional restrictions which remove your ability to take out additional credit tied to your property, which is something that is restricted once you are in an i.v.a. There are exceptions to this, such as when you have a lot of equity in your property/properties. If you own half of a property and another party owns the other half, only your equity will be affected.
If you are landlord and you are in a position of equity, your IP may review your trading position or business to make sure the figures in question are in order. This is usually the case if you have two or more properties, as sometimes the equity can be used to form a repayment to your creditors. But this usually depends on the amount of value built up in your properties.
Banks and building societies will not change the terms of your mortgage as long as a contribution is still being made for the duration of your arrangement. Your mortgage payments will be added to your expenses and accounted for within your budget, as long as you can provide evidence that you can afford to continue to make payments into your mortgage for duration of the plan.
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April 17, 2016
Congress Threatens To Seize Saudi U.S. Assets
Some current nonsense headlines in the U.S. media read like this: Saudis threaten sell-off of U.S. assets if 9/11 suits are allowed:
Saudi Arabia has warned the United States not to revoke its sovereign immunity, protecting the kingdom from lawsuits related to Sept. 11, or it will sell off hundreds of billions in American assets.
It is not the Saudis who are threatening something. It is the U.S. Congress that is threatening to lift the immunity of nation states in front of U.S. courts:
The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.
Under the bill a civil U.S. person could file in a U.S. court against nation states for acts or omissions(!) of that nation state related to some "terrorist act". U.S. courts are notorious for dubious rulings against foreign states, impounding and seizing huge assets of such states.
In 2012 Congress passed a law that specifically allowed victims of terrorist attacks allegedly related to Iran to collect judgements against the Iranian state. Judges started to rule in favor of billions in compensatory damages to victims and to impound even assets of Iranian charities. One of these cases and the anti-Iranian law are now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Immunity against such judgements is standard international law and known as "acta iure imperii" - the principal that no foreign court can judge the liability of a nation state for acts and omissions in the exercise of the nation state's authority.
Should the U.S. Congress break that principal, any foreign national wealth fund, pension fund or otherwise state related institution could have its U.S. assets impounded under this or that dubious terrorism judgement.
The Saudis would be utterly stupid to leave even a penny invested in the U.S. or in U.S. bonds should that law pass.
This not because the Saudi state had something to do or not with 9/11. Even a claim that the Saudi state somehow neglected to prevent some of its nationals to commit terrorism could, under the new law, be enough to seize U.S. investment of a Saudi national wealth fund. The Saudis said they would withdraw their $750 billion in U.S. assets should the law pass. That would be simply a necessary and prudent move and announcing that move is not "a threat".
If the law should pass not only the Saudis but any other nation state could and should pass similar laws and allow their use against the United States. Some Russian widow of a solider who died years ago from wounds received in Afghanistan by U.S. supported Mujaheddin, aka terrorists, could have U.S assets in Russia seized as compensation. Many South America countries have fought against U.S. instigated terrorism. There are many victims who could sue over such cases and there are many U.S. assets to seize.
To sue against U.S. assets under such laws would be a profitable business for some enterprising lawyers. One wonders how Congress would react when the first U.S. assets get seized.
Posted by b on April 17, 2016 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink
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Members of the Permian Basin section, SEPM will meet at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in the upstairs ballroom of Midland Country Club.
Dr. Richard Kyle, economic geology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, will present Texas Industrial Mineral and Metal Resources: A Permian Basin Perspective.
Cost is $20 with reservation, $30 at the door, including lunch. Reservations are available by calling 683-1573 or by email at wtgs@wtgs.org. Online registration is also available at www.wtgs.org and clicking on the Events tab.
SIPES speaker to focus on ROZs
The Midland chapter, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists will meet at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday in the upstairs ballroom at Midland Country Club.
Stephen Melzer, consulting engineer and director of the annual CO2 Flooding Conference, will give a talk on San Andres Formation Residual Oil Zones and Their Relationship to the Horizontal Carbonate Play on the Northern Shelf.
There is no charge for members; $20 for guests.
Rangeland Energy announces Open Season for RIO Pipeline
SUGAR LAND, Texas Rangeland Energy has launched a binding open season for its RIO Pipeline. The open season will end at noon May 20.
Rangelands affilliate, Rangeland RIO Pipeline LLC will operate the 109-mile, 12-inch, common carrier pipeline to transport crude oil and condensate produced in the Delaware Basin to terminals in the Midland market center and takeaway pipelines to Cushing, Oklahoma, the Gulf Coast; and other market centers.
Currently under construction, the pipeline has a capacity of more than 125,000 barrels per day and is expected to become operational in July 2016.
The pipeline originates at Rangelands State Line Terminal in Loving County, where Rangeland has constructed truck unloading and crude storage facilities. Unloading facilities and tanks also have been constructed at the destination terminal in Midland, where additional space is available to build customer-leased crude storage. A long-term connection agreement has been executed with Plains Pipeline L.P. for delivery to the Plains Midland South terminal, giving shippers access to multiple terminals at Midland as well as outbound pipelines.
Pemex gets tax break and $1.5 billion relief to tackle debt
Bloomberg
Mexico will grant a hefty tax break and $1.5 billion to the nation's state-owned oil company to help it pay contractors after debt levels at the company soared to new highs.
Raising the tax deduction ceiling will result in a 50-billion peso ($2.9 billion) boost for Pemex this year alone, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. The ministry will also use debt swaps to absorb 47 billion pesos in Pemex pension liabilities this year. The aid will depend on Pemex reducing liabilities by 73.5 billion pesos, the same amount as the support package.
"Clearly the government is going beyond a short-term Band-Aid, choosing instead to work with the company to make it better and more productive," Rafael Elias, the head of emerging markets strategy at Cantor Fitzgerald, wrote in a note to clients.
The government support comes as Pemex's debt reaches historic levels amid weak oil prices and 11-straight years of declining crude output. Pemex, which has more than $87 billion in debt and owes more than 100 billion pesos to service providers, was downgraded two notches by Moody's Investors Service last month on expectations high taxes and low oil prices will hurt its credit.
The support plan, $1.5 billion of which was transferred to Pemex on Friday, strengthens the company's financial position and will help it limit the need for additional debt, Deputy Finance Minister Miguel Messmacher told reporters Wednesday.
The oil producer already reduced its staff by more than 10,000 employees last year and had its budget cut by $5.6 billion in February.
At the very least, the measures will prevent further downgrades by Moody's, which put the company's credit on negative outlook, said Marco Oviedo, chief Mexico economist at Barclays. "This is positive," Oviedo said about the tax break. "At such low prices, it definitely helps" prevent more losses at Pemex.
Chesapeake Energy Corp., the deeply indebted shale producer, said this week that it can hang on to its $4 billion bank line as long as it posts just about everything it owns as collateral.
Many of its competitors are faring far worse. Almost two years into the worst oil bust in a generation, lenders including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are slashing credit lines for struggling energy companies. It's a tacit acknowledgment that energy prices aren't coming back, and represents an abrupt turnaround from last year when banks were lenient on struggling drillers in the hope that better times were coming.
Since the start of 2016 lenders have yanked $5.6 billion of credit from 36 oil and gas producers, a reduction of 12 percent, making this the most severe retreat since crude began tumbling in mid-2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
And it isn't over yet. Banks are in the middle of a twice-yearly review of energy loans, where they decide how much credit they are willing to extend to junk-rated companies based on the value of their oil and gas reserves. With crude hovering near $40 a barrel, drillers' assets are worth far less than they were two years ago.
"The banks are your best friends until you really need the money," said Matthew Duch, a money manager at Calvert Investments in Bethesda, Maryland, which oversees more than $12 billion. "When there are troubles like what we have in the energy sector, they want more control." Representatives for Bank of America, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo declined to comment.
Banks are cutting their oil and gas exposure in part because they are facing pressure from regulators and investors to rein in risk.
"The banks are walking a tightrope," said Spencer Cutter, a credit analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. "They don't want to push the companies into bankruptcy, but on the other hand they're getting a lot of heat from regulators and investors. They can't keep kicking the can down the road like they did last year."
A bank that denies credit to a company could find itself liable for damage to the borrower, said David Feldman, a restructuring lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
"Lenders are very torn because it's a difficult call," Feldman said.
Borrowers are feeling the pinch. At least 15 companies have seen their credit lines cut, including Whiting Petroleum Corp., Rex Energy Corp., and Halcon Resources Corp. Goodrich Petroleum Corp.'s lenders cut its credit line in January to $40.3 million from $75 million, limiting how much the cash-starved company could draw. The oil and gas driller gave creditors until May 6 to vote on a reorganization plan.
Last month, in exchange for waiving Energy XXI Ltd.'s loan covenants, lenders led by Wells Fargo cut the company's credit line to $377.7 million, the amount the oil producer had already borrowed under what had been a $500 million facility. The lenders also required Energy XXI to cash out its oil hedges and use the money to pay down the loan, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Representatives for Chesapeake, Energy XXI and Goodrich didn't return calls or e-mails seeking comment.
Banks are setting aside more money to cover losses on energy loans. Wells Fargo, which had $17.4 billion in outstanding oil and gas loans at the end of 2015, set aside $1.2 billion to cover potential losses. JPMorgan, which had $14 billion in outstanding oil and gas loans, said in a February presentation that it will boost its energy loan loss reserves to $1.3 billion in the first quarter, a $500 million increase from the end of the year.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup could need an additional $9 billion to cover souring oil and gas loans in the worst-case scenario, Moody's Investors Service said in an April 7 report. Still, the lenders would be able to absorb such losses out of one quarter's earnings.
Halliburton and Baker Hughes are in talks to sell $7 billion in assets to private equity shop Carlyle Group LP, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The two Houston companies have sought to overcome antitrust concerns over their potential $35 billion merger by shopping overlapping assets to competitors such as General Electric Co. and, briefly, Weatherford International. The report indicates a widening of the market for the businesses owned by Halliburton and Baker Hughes, which have faced strong opposition from antitrust regulators over their plan to combine.
Even though Midlanders love their restaurants, tons of Tall City denizens frequently partake in the time-honored tradition of making a home-cooked meal. But while good ingredients are a must, many are keen not to break the bank.
In March's debut edition of Price Check, an occasional series that looks at prices of consumer goods around Midland, the Reporter-Telegram asked readers what products were important to them. Several said they were concerned, or at least curious, about produce prices, which seem to vary wildly and fluctuate week-to-week.
So, the Reporter-Telegram visited four supermarkets twice last week to check the prices on several produce staples. On Tuesday and Thursday, we visited Super Mercado, Market Street, the northside Wal-Mart and the new H-E-B on Loop 250 and recorded the marked prices on 21 different items.
These days were chosen because the pricing week generally begins Wednesday and ends Tuesday. By choosing these days, we were able to get two weeks' worth of produce prices.
Of the items we checked, we opted to eliminate two of them because of inconsistencies. Not every store had hothouse tomatoes or labeled them as such. We felt navel oranges, while available everywhere, were too inconsistent. Some stores sold them by unit, and others sold them by weight. At least one store had different prices depending on size.
In analyzing the data, a few trends were clear: H-E-B and Wal-Mart not only consistently had the lowest prices, but also quite often had the same prices down to the penny. As for the highest prices, Market Street often charged the most.
Super Mercado was in the middle. It recorded several of the highest prices, but most of its produce was priced similarly to its competitors. One exception was for strawberries. A 1-pound carton was listed at $3.79, compared to $1.98 at Wal-Mart and H-E-Bs discounted $1.68 on Thursday.
The story behind the high price offers a snapshot into how produce prices are variable. Super Mercado produce manager Perry Garcia said the price last week was up significantly over weeks past because suppliers raised their prices. Recently, strawberries were on sale for $1.50 per carton. Garcia said he wasn't exactly sure why suppliers raised prices, but he speculated it was because supply was low, thus inflating the cost.
Garcia said supply plays a major role in produce pricing. He said that in the past month, he was able to sell garlic for 25 cents per bulb, but when the U.S. ran out, the costs associated with having to import the culinary staple from counties such as China raised the price to 79 cents per bulb.
Seasonality also plays a large role in produce pricing. How do you know where produce is in season?
"Just follow where the sun is at," said Garcia, who has worked at Super Mercado for the past 14 years and has worked in produce since 1984.
Garcia noted that winter fruits and vegetables come mostly from Mexico down into South America. He said longer distances can mean higher transportation costs and that those higher costs are passed on to the consumer.
Striving to keep costs low is written in Wal-Mart's heritage.
"We are fanatical about low prices," said John Forrest Ales, a Wal-Mart spokesperson. "We are continuously looking for ways to drive down costs and passing those savings on to customers. We believe they shouldn't have to trade down or sacrifice quality to save money."
Small grocers like Super Mercado rely on purchasing from a handful of produce suppliers. For the world's largest retailer, the operation is much more complicated.
"We have a global food-sourcing team that works hand-in-hand with the stores," Ales said.
Wal-Mart works with suppliers, distributors and even directly with farmers to ensure Wal-Mart has the freshest produce at the lowest price.
"We look at all aspects of the supply chain, particularly within food, to see how we can most efficiently move items, how we can work with farmers to plan what's happening with Mother Nature and the growing season," Ales said.
Wal-Mart uses its large logistics network to ensure products are in stock, and it checks competitors and listens to customers to ensure it's charging the lowest prices.
Cost, however, isn't everything. Customers want to buy a quality product.
"Not everything that comes in a box is perfect," Garcia said, "so the first thing I do as I stock is start culling and grade it. If there's something that I wouldn't buy, I try not to stock it. If I wouldn't buy it, I wouldn't expect anybody else to buy it."
That was the case with mangoes last week.
"I got a batch of mangoes that were pretty ugly," Garcia said, noting that what he received looked as if it had been scarred by wind and rain. Because of the low quality, mangoes weren't in stock at Super Mercado last week; however, Garcia said an extra-large variety would be for sale this week.
Running a produce department is a team effort.
"You need good employees that do the same thing," he said. "One employee that doesn't care or isn't as interested as you or the others, it puts a big damper on everything."
Sometimes, other factors are just out of supermarkets' hands.
"We can't control Mother Nature, and that's what makes produce tough but also exciting for our food team in navigating these challenges," Ales said.
THE PRICES
The following are the prices we found for various produce items in Midland:
Avocados: Super Mercado, Wal-Mart and H-E-B sold small Hass avocados for 50 cents apiece each day we checked. Market Street charged 69 cents on Tuesday and 50 cents on Thursday.
Bananas: Wal-Mart had the lowest price at 48 cents per pound, while H-E-B and Market Street charged 49 cents. Super Mercado was a dime higher at 59 cents.
Carrots: Market Street had the edge on 2-pound bags of carrots, charging $1.29 compared to $1.48 at Wal-Mart and H-E-B and $1.59 at Super Mercado.
Celery hearts: H-E-B was the only store to sell 1-pound bags of celery hearts below $2, charging $1.98 compared to $2.28 at Wal-Mart, $2.29 at Super Mercado and $2.49 at Market Street.
Gala apples: Wal-Mart sold Gala apples by the pound at $1.27 on Thursday, lowering the price 20 cents since Tuesday. H-E-B sold them at $1.47, while Super Mercado charged $1.49. Market Street fetched $1.79.
Granny Smith apples: The green-skinned fruit favorite cost the most at Super Mercado, which sought $2.09 per pound. Market Street had Granny Smiths on sale for 99 cents per pound on Tuesday, but the price rose to $1.89 on Thursday. The lowest price was at H-E-B, which fetched 97 cents. Wal-Mart charged $1.47.
Green bell peppers: If you wanted the best deal last week, you would have found it at H-E-B and Wal-Mart, which each charged 68 cents apiece. They could be found at Super Mercado for 99 cents and at Market Street for $1.29.
Iceberg lettuce: A head of bagged iceberg lettuce cost $1.18 at Wal-Mart and H-E-B and a penny more at Super Mercado. Market Street charged $1.29.
Jalapeno peppers: The best deals on this Tex-Mex staple were found at Wal-Mart and H-E-B, which charged 78 cents per pound. Super Mercado sought $1.09, while Market Street priced them at $1.29.
Mangoes: The cheapest price of the week for medium-sized mangoes was found Tuesday at H-E-B. The Texas-based chain sold mangoes at 68 cents each but raised the price to 78 cents on Thursday, which was the Wal-Mart price both days last week. Market Street mangoes fetched 69 cents each, and they were not available at Super Mercado because of a bad shipment.
Poblano peppers: If you want fajitas, you have to have poblanos. The cheapest price was $1.78 per pound at H-E-B and Wal-Mart, followed by $1.99 at Market Street and $2.29 at Super Mercado.
Red bell peppers: Market Street had red bell peppers on sale for 97 cents each on Tuesday, but the price rose to $1.59 on Thursday. Super Mercado sold them for $1.09, while Wal-Mart and H-E-B each charged $1.28.
Red delicious apples: H-E-B priced medium-sized red delicious apples at 97 cents per pound, while Market Street sold them for 99 cents a pound on Tuesday, but raised the price to $1.37 on Thursday. Wal-Mart fetched $1.27, while Super Mercado charged $1.39.
Roma tomatoes: Market Street was the only grocer to charge more than $1 for roma tomatoes last week, asking $1.29 per pound. Wal-Mart and H-E-B priced theirs at 98 cents, while Super Mercado charged a penny more.
Romaine lettuce: Super Mercado had the lowest price. A head cost $1.49, compared to $1.58 at H-E-B and Wal-Mart and $1.59 at Market Street.
Serrano peppers: Heat-packed serrano peppers were cheapest at Wal-Mart and H-E-B, which each charged $1.48 per pound. Super Mercado charged a penny more, and Market Street sought $1.99.
Strawberries: Super Mercado had the highest price last week at $3.79 for a 1-pound carton. Market Street had two prices: Strawberries from Mexico cost $3.29, while berries from the U.S. coast $3.49. Wal-Mart and H-E-B sold them for $1.98, but H-E-B dropped the price to $1.67 on Thursday.
Sweet potatoes: The lowest price of the week for sweet potatoes was found at Super Mercado which charged 87 per pound on Thursday. Tuesday's price was 99 cents. H-E-B and Wal-Mart charged 88 cents. Market Street sought 99 cents on Tuesday and $1.29 on Thursday.
White onions: The best deal on white onions was 78 cents per pound at Wal-Mart and H-E-B. Super Mercado charged 89 cents, while Market Street set the price at 99 cents.
THE TALLY
After adding all items together, the lowest total was Thursday at H-E-B, which tallied $21.71. Tuesday's total was $21.91. Wal-Mart was close behind at $22.19 on Thursday and $23.11 on Tuesday.
Thursday's groceries would have cost $26.11 at Super Mercado, while Tuesday's tally was $26.23. Note, though, that mangoes were not included because they were not available.
Market Street charged the most for produce. The grocery bill would have been $26.49 on Tuesday and $28.50 on Thursday. The average price of strawberries was used because Market Street had two price options.
When comparing the highest tally with the lowest, shopping at H-E-B over Market Street on Thursday would have saved $6.79.
When asked about H-E-B having the lowest prices in this price check, Unit Director Bob Murphy said, H-E-B is proud of our commitment to the West Texas community, it is our goal to offer the lowest prices possible and to serve our customers with the highest level of service each and every day.
Wal-Mart spokesman Ales said his company was glad it did well because it takes low prices very seriously.
While offering no specific comment on how Super Mercado compared, Garcia noted that when analyzing produce week-to-week, most prices are uniform between stores and that his store aims to keep staple items especially low.
Market Street did not return request for comment.
WHAT'S NEXT?
We want to know what products are important to you. Send your Price Check suggestions to Trevor at thawes@mrt.com or call him at 432-687-8854. You can also leave your suggestions in the comments section for this article on the Reporter-Telegram's Facebook page.
Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes.
Guilty pleas accepted and sentences imposed April 4-8 by district Judges Robin Darr, George D. Gilles, Elizabeth B. Leonard and Rodney W. Satterwhite:
Steven Almager, 43, possession of a controlled substance, 12 months state jail.
Alexander Ray Arballo, 20, criminal mischief, 10 months state jail; burglary of a building, 12 months state jail.
Miranda Marie Arenivas, 22, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, two years state jail suspended for four years community supervision; unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, two years state jail suspended for four years community supervision, fine, 200 hours community service.
Jonathan Lynn Bishop, 20, forgery, six months state jail; forgery, six months state jail.
Alex Hernandez Carrillo, 20, theft of property more than $1,500 but less than $20,000, adjudicate two years suspended five years probation, 75 days jail, CRTC.
Richard James Catlin, 39, assault as a lesser of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, six months state jail.
Guillermo Cisneros, 20, assault family violence by strangulation, three years deferred adjudication, fine, court cost, Family Violence.
John Ray Cornelius, 22, assault family violence, eight years TDCJ suspended eight years probation, fine, Family Violence; assault family violence, adjudicate, eight years TDCJ suspended eight years probation, fine, Family Violence.
Jason Andrew Deem, 32, assault family violence as a lesser of assault family violence by strangulation, 60 days county jail.
Shane Allen Diller, 44, failure to comply with sex offender registration, eight years TDCJ suspended three years probation, fine, court cost, 150 hours community service.
Taraeus Dunson, 17, credit card/debit card abuse, deferred adjudication five years, fine, 300 hours community service.
Darold Keith Ellsworth, 53, evading arrest/detention with a motor vehicle, eight years TDCJ; failure to appear, eight years TDCJ; unauthorized use of a vehicle, two years state jail; burglary, two years state jail.
Keekee Kiosha Kiona Evans, 21, assault family violence by strangulation, two years TDCJ; assault family violence with two previous convictions, two years TDCJ.
Jeffrey Scott Farmer, 50, assault, two years TDCJ.
Jose A. Florez, 28, evading arrest/detention with a motor vehicle, extend probation two years, GPS monitor.
Daiidrion Glover-Gonzalez, 25, assault family violence by strangulation, extend probation one year.
Kenneth Roshaun Hie, 31, two counts, take weapon from officer, two years TDCJ.
Hennessey Hunt, 56, possession of a controlled substance, six months state jail.
Gregory Allen Moat Jr., 24, possession of a controlled substance, eight months state jail.
Jose Rogelio Monarrez Jr., 28, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, deferred adjudication four years, fine, 250 hours community service, Project Adam, TAIP.
Chance Lei Neatherlin, 32, possession of a controlled substance as a lesser of possession of a controlled substance in a drug-free zone, deferred adjudication three years, fine, 150 hours community service, TAIP, drivers license suspended for 180 days.
Jose Alexis Galindo Olivas, 18, evading arrest/detention in a motor vehicle, three years deferred adjudication, fine, court cost, anger management, 100 hours community service.
Marcelina Orona, 24, endangering a child, five years deferred adjudication, fine, court cost, drivers license suspended for 365 days, TAIP, parenting classes, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, 150 hours community service.
Armando Billy Pena, 26, assault family violence by strangulation, 10 years TDCJ suspended five years probation, fine, court cost, Project Adam, 300 hours community service.
Ikayla Dajonay Polk, 22, manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance in drug-free zone, deferred adjudication 10 years, fine, restitution, 300 hours community service, TAIP, 90 days jail.
Deborah Nikole Robertson, 29, unauthorized use of vehicle, adjudicate, revoke, nine months state jail.
Luis L. Rodriguez, 55, possession of a controlled substance, deferred adjudication three years, fine, restitution, 200 hours community service.
Jaime Scott Saenz, 29, tampering with physical evidence, extend probation one year, 90 days intensive supervision.
Armando Santillan Jr., 32, abandoning or endangering a child, three years TDCJ.
Joseph Ryan Sarabia, 34, possession of a controlled substance, six months state jail.
Tyler Wayne Shelton, 31, assault family violence by strangulation, three years deferred adjudication, fine, court cost, Family Violence, AA meetings, Project Adam, 150 hours community service.
Clayton Rance Shields, 23, retaliation, deferred adjudication five years, $1,500 fine, 150 hours community service, anger management.
Gonzalo A. Soto, 28, prohibited substance or item in a correctional facility, eight years TDCJ suspended eight years probation, fine, court cost, 10 days county jail, drivers license suspended for 365 days, TAIP, 300 hours community service.
Raul Torres Urias, 58, theft of property more than $1,500 but less than $20,000, six months state jail, restitution.
Austin Cole Warnick, 25, theft of a firearm, adjudicate, five years TDCJ suspended five years probation, 200 additional hours community service.
Cameron Morris Williams, 22, possession of a controlled substance, eight months state jail.
Crawford Donald Williams III, 33, sex offender duty to register life/annually, 10 years TDCJ suspended five years probation, fine, 150 hours community service.
Karl Douglas Wilson III, 34, assault family violence, 10 years TDCJ suspended five years probation, 45 days jail, court cost, Family Violence; assault family violence, extend probation five years.
[TDCJ = Texas Department of Criminal Justice; TAIP = treatment alternative to incarceration program, CRTC = court residential treatment center; ISP = intensive supervision parole]
Weve heard for years that when it comes to African-Americans, Hispanics and low-income minority communities in general, expectations for academic achievement are low.
Indeed, the Center for American Progress found in 2014 that 10th-grade teachers thought that African-American students were 47 percent, and Hispanic students were 42 percent, less likely to graduate college than white students.
But parents and families of these students disagree. They want public schools to be rigorous and to set high expectations for their children.
According to a new nationwide survey conducted by the Leadership Conference Education Fund on the attitudes and aspirations of African-American and Hispanic parents -- who were interviewed in person and via landline and cellphone, in both English and Spanish -- a third of African-Americans and a quarter of Latinos do not believe that the nations schools are really trying to educate low-income students in their communities.
This belief goes hand in hand with these parents certainty that their students should be challenged more in school than they currently are to help ensure they are successful later in life.
This could be a potentially groundbreaking insight if we can get it into the heads of teachers.
You see, educators insist they have a particularly difficult time teaching low-income and minority students because these kids tend to show up in classrooms lacking the fundamentals of a stable home -- reliable schedules, quiet places to study, nutritious meals, enough sleep, the ability to control impulses -- that set them up for success in the classroom
If a child doesn do homework and does not participate constructively in class or show the adults in school respect -- perhaps because the child does not have the basic routines and resources a college-educated teacher might expect at home -- it becomes easy for teachers to believe that his or her parent must not care about the childs education.
According to Wade Henderson, the Education Funds president, not only are minority parents (which his group calls new majority parents, since students of color are the new majority in schools) highly interested in their childrens education, they are a sophisticated group of respondents who are savvy consumers of public education, want more funding for schools and more rigor for their kids.
Interestingly, though one might have expected such a survey to confirm that African-American and Hispanic parents prioritize racial issues at school -- due to news headlines about violence in schools and the school-to-prison pipeline -- the parents who responded actually listed good teachers as the No. 1 important quality, by far, of a great school. Good core curricula and parental involvement rounded out the top three.
Not to say that diversity is completely unimportant to these families -- it is in the eighth spot on a list of nine factors for ensuring great schools -- but it certainly takes a back seat to the same qualities that white parents expect from their schools: adequate funding, low class size and high standards.
A full 90 percent of both African-American and Latino parents said that they believe expectations for low-income students should be either the same or higher than those of other students.
And both minority groups take personal responsibility quite seriously, saying that when low-income students succeed, it is mostly because of the support they receive at home. Their students own hard work is seen as the next biggest reason, while few parents cited schools as the driving factor in a low-income students success.
This is, potentially, a revelation for school systems, administrators and teachers who have for years equated poor educational outcomes for students with a lax attitude at home about academic potential.
If the results of this survey truly reflect the mindset of minority parents, then it bodes well for schools to partner with them. After all, education leaders are always talking about how crucial parents are to the task of catalyzing changes necessary to ensure low-income community schools meet their academic potential.
At a bare minimum, these findings should provide education policymakers a new lens through which to view low-income and minority students: Don underestimate them -- and don expect less of their parents and families, either.
If schools endeavor to push these kids harder and expect them to achieve on par with their white peers, they are likely to find that parents, too, will rise to the challenge of helping their students succeed.
When I first heard about Educate Midland, I can honestly say that I was skeptical.
I thought that this was going to be another one of those groups that get together, talk about inclusiveness, gives a few presentations and all of a sudden, after a few meetings, the ideas blow away with the West Texas winds. Many of us have experienced this before.
Well, let me be the first to say that it looks like Educate Midland will not be that kind of organization. After being invited to take part of the Leadership Committee of Educate Midland, I am seeing a very different approach that is truly inclusive. This organization has kept its word about being inclusive across the board. Why do I say that? After attending all four meetings where the community was invited to listen and speak on the educational system in Midland, I saw and heard the desperate cry of many teachers, parents and students.
The presentations have been up front and hard to look at because we have to admit to many failings within our schools. The bleak numbers being presented add to the pressing need of getting the entire community involved. This committee has done something that I have never seen before. Educate Midland means business when we say that we want all of the community involved.
This past Monday, a meeting was held 100 percent in Spanish to cater to those parents who do not speak or understand English. Wow! I was born and raised in Midland, and I have never been part of a city effort of this magnitude that included all segments of our community to the point that it was important for us to give a presentation of this high importance completely in another language. Yes, we can ignorantly argue like so many others that this is America and that everyone needs to speak English. If we continue with that type of ignorance, it will continue to get us nowhere. If we want to be real and walk the walk of inclusion, what Educate Midland did was groundbreaking in our community.
Now that we are all on the same page, we can understand that the only way to fix our educational system in Midland is not to point fingers or play the blame game. The statistics and numbers do not lie. We have a serious problem in Midland and its time for all of us to be a part of the change. The future will not wait, and neither should we.
I am proud to say that all of Midland is invited to be a part of this groundbreaking educational movement. I want to commend the great work that is being undertaken in the infancy of this great organization. I for one will continue to encourage my community, teachers, parents and students to be a part of Educate Midland because it will change Midlands future for the better. I encourage all of you to be a part of Educate Midland. The time to criticize is over. It has gotten us nowhere. The time to step up to the plate and do something is now. The future wont wait.
---
Luis Sanchez is on the Educate Midlands Leadership Committee.
Educate Texas Chris Coxon was crystal clear when he said Midlands road back to academic redemption doesnt start with spending millions of dollars on the latest and greatest programs. It starts at home.
Academic revival, he said, starts with programs already working in Midland. Figure out what works well on one campus and transfer it as needed.
It will be obvious what campuses have programs that work. Early College High School at Midland College has a student population of economically disadvantaged students and potentially first-generation college students but it is Midland ISDs second-highest ranking school behind Carver Center.
Other programs might not be as obvious. Some might not even be located on an MISD campus, such as the summer program at Greater Ideal Baptist Church.
Improvements of one grade or more in one summer
Entering its 14th year, Greater Ideals summer academic program has been a vehicle for students to work with certified teachers to either keep current or improve their skills in reading, math, science and language arts, according to the schools director, Rosalind Perkins, whose titles at Greater Ideal include director of Christian education.
As many as 131 students in kindergarten through eighth grade descend on the southeast Midland churchs Family Life Center from Midland, Greenwood and Odessa, to take part in the Greater Ideal program, which begins the Monday after school ends for MISD and continues through August. There is a $30-a-week fee per child.
The results are what keeps waiting lists 200 strong, Perkins said. An average of 127 students participated from 2011-15, according to the programs end-of-the year reports provided to local foundations that fund the program. The results include:
- More than 48 percent improved their reading one grade level;
- 18 percent improved their reading two or three grade levels; and
- 40 percent of students improved their math one grade level.
- 26 percent showed improvements in math of two or more grade levels.
Numbers last summer were consistent with the five-year average on the math side and were better on the reading side, including a 55 percent improvement of one grade level.
Greater Ideals results also showed that during consecutive years, 15 kindergartners were non-readers when the program started and nine were reading at a first-grade level at the end.
Addressing the success of Greater Ideas program, Perkins said: We know we cant do anything without God.
It is hard to expect anything less from the former classroom teacher with 26 years of experience teaching in Midland. She told a packed house at Thursdays Educate Midland town hall that a community has to stop being afraid to pray, especially in the classroom.
Greater Ideals program is faith-based. Students do acknowledge God, they pray and learn lessons tied to the Lord, Perkins said.
Collective impact in the flesh
Educate Midland describes collective impact as the framework to tackle deeply entrenched and complex social problems. It is an innovative and structured approach to making collaboration work across government, business, philanthropy, nonprofit organizations and citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change.
It was stated at Thursdays meeting that collective impact will supplement what MISD already is doing. The Greater Ideal summer academic program is collective impact already in effect in Midland. Greater Ideal hopes to do more with children in the community, Perkins recently told the Reporter-Telegram. She said plans are in place to work with The Reading Center to create a pilot program for third-graders from a nearby school not doing well on the STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) test.
The Reading Center, 1008 W. Missouri Ave., provides a scientific research based system proven to significantly improve the reading, writing, and spelling of most children, teenagers, and adults, according to its website.
During the town halls to roll out Educate Midland, residents got a look at the struggles third-graders have had with STAAR. The passage rate for MISD students (65 percent) trails the state (77 percent). Inside the district, Hispanics are passing at a 61 percent clip. African-American students trailed at 49 percent.
Again, this southeast side learning center will take in students, teachers and their families. Dinner will be provided, aides will be on hand to work with siblings, and parents can go to class to find out how to work with their kids, Perkins said.
We are trying to cover every excuse a parent can come up with, so a child can be successful in school, Perkins said.
Excellence not excuses
The Rev. George Bell, Greater Ideal pastor, called the Educate Midland process an investment Midlanders need to make with themselves.
Take it, use it and invest in our children, Bell said.
He said the only way to realize education in excellence is to play an active part. Greater Ideal through academic, economic and social initiatives has been doing that for years in southeast Midland. The focus now for the entire community is education.
If it is not good, it is on all of us, Bell told those at Thursdays forum. We all have failed the system.
Leading up to Educate Midlands town hall meetings, MISD officials were quick to talk about the communitys (and therefore districts) slow reaction to the changes in demographics. Hispanics grew to be 61.8 percent. The population of students who identified as white fell to 26.4 percent. The number of economically disadvantaged was _. Collective impact will not change those trends, but will help a changing community achieve no matter the demographics -- at least that is hope.
Luzelma G. Canales, executive director of RGV Focus -- the backbone organization for collective impact programs in the Rio Grande Valley -- said 88 percent of the students represented by the districts working with RGV Focus are economically disadvantaged, and on average they are outperforming their economically disadvantaged and Latino peers around the state.
Canales said they followed the Educate Texas playbook as part of the turnaround happening in the Valley, including playing on its strengths. For instance, all Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD schools implement early college high school strategies.
There are no restrictions on brick and mortar, Canales said. Its about principles you have to abide by.
James Fuller, the dean of Midland ISD school board members, said he would like for Educate Midland to encourage the community to de-emphasize economically disadvantaged children as the root cause for all that fails education.
He pointed to Early College High School as an exemplary program made up of young people who are first generation (college bound) or economically disadvantaged.
If those young people can year in and year out rank themselves as a result of the initiative as exemplary, what can other students do in this community? Fuller said. That is the challenge of this particular initiative. We have had initiatives in past that addressed it, but I have a sense this will work. It will work because we will look at this phenomenon as the most important initiative that we have undertaken -- to salvage our most precious resource.
Greater Ideal Summer program
2011
Number of students: 130
Reading
Percentage increasing one grade level: 35
Percentage increasing two or more: 20
Math
Percentage increasing one grade level: 45
Percentage increasing two or more: 25
**
2012
Number of students: 126
Reading
Percentage increasing one grade level: 50
Percentage increasing two or more: 15
Math
Percentage increasing one grade level: 40
Percentage increasing two or more: 25
**
2013
Number of students: 125
Reading
Percentage increasing one grade level: 57
Percentage increasing two or more: 15
Math
Percentage increasing one grade level: 45
Percentage increasing two or more: 25
**
2014
Number of students: 125
Reading
Percentage increasing one grade level: 45
Percentage increasing two or more: 20
Math
Percentage increasing one grade level: 30
Percentage increasing two or more: 30
**
2015
Number of students: 131
Reading
Percentage increasing one grade level: 55
Percentage increasing two or more: 20
Math
Percentage increasing one grade level: 40
Percentage increasing two or more: 25
Source: Greater Ideal summer program annual reports
The Texas primaries took place more than a month ago, but the next step in the Republican process for the heavily red state is coming in less than a month: the Texas Republican Party State Convention.
As for who will represent the 11th Congressional District where Midland resides, no one knows. Theres no official ballot of those running to be a congressional or at-large delegate. No one will know until the May 12 convention in Dallas, according to Midland County Republican Party Chairman James Beauchamp.
Until you get to the convention, you dont know who all is running, Beauchamp said. People can say they will be there ahead of time and try to work that progress, but it doesnt necessarily mean thats going to happen.
Three delegates and three alternates will be chosen from each congressional district. The six delegates will represent their district at the Republican National Convention, which takes place in Cleveland, Ohio on July 18-21.
Rhonda J. Lacy, currently on the State Republican Executive Committee for Senate District 31, has been the only Midlander who publicly said she will go to Dallas in May to try to become a delegate to the national convention. There are 28 other counties within District 11, Lacy said.
We all touch base with each other. Its not a big secret or anything, Lacy said. We just want the strongest delegation that we can have going to the national convention.
Lacy said that she knew the responsibilities for a congressional delegate beforehand, having been involved in politics since she was a teenager. She also went to the Republican National Convention several years ago as a visitor. She considered that a strength.
I dont really want somebody green to go to the national convention as a delegate, Lacy said. They really need to have walked through the process. ... Theres a lot of responsibilities thats on the backs of every delegate there.
At the May convention, there will be a two-step process to select the delegates who will represent their district on the national level. First, there will be congressional caucuses, when state delegates like Lacy can each give a short speech and pass out fliers about their qualifications, Lacy said.
Lacy said she had already reached out to every countys Republican Party chairman and other Republican leaders in every county of the 11th Congressional district. She also plans to pass out fliers once at the state convention.
Ive talked to several people in all of our counties and other people who are also from the other parts of the district that are going to be running. We want to spread that responsibility and that privilege around to many people, Lacy said. You need to represent your whole district.
Delegates within the same congressional district who are at the state convention will then cast their votes on who among them they want to represent their congressional district at the national convention, Beauchamp said. Three delegates and three alternates will emerge; the alternates will serve as stand-bys in case a delegate cant or wont vote at the national election, Lacy and Beauchamp said.
While many delegates will have an expressed preference for one presidential candidate in particular, it will not necessarily matter at the national level, Beauchamp said.
Texas delegates are bound to vote vis-a-vis the results of our primary election in the first two rounds of voting, Beauchamp said.
Like Midland County, most counties in Texas voted Ted Cruz the winner of the March 1 primary, with Trump often coming in second. Two of the three delegates representing the 11th district sent to the national convention must vote Cruz and one must vote Trump, per rules on the Texas GOPs website.
The second step of the selection process will determine at-large or uncommitted delegates. The SREC will choose at-large delegates, although none will come from our area, SREC member Lacy said.
Per the Texas GOPs website, official rules are that 108 congressional delegates and 44 at-large delegates will go to the national convention along with three Republican National Committee members (the state partys chair, one man and one woman).
A candidate for the latter was in Midland last Wednesday. Rick Figueroa, of Brenham, spoke at the Midland County Republican Women luncheon to explain why he should be chosen as Republican National Committeeman by congressional delegates.
Im going to represent Texas, Im going to fight for Texas, Im going to make sure Texas has a strong voice, Figueroa said after the luncheon.
Chief among them were the need for more Latino voices in the Republican National Committee, which has 168 seats: three from each state, three from five U.S. territories and three from Washington, D.C. There previously have been three Latinos on the committee, which Figueroa said must change because Latino values and Republican values are aligning so well.
Im going into change the system to get a different output, Figueroa said. Theres 168 members (on the RNC). We need Latino voices in there.
Another was his life experiences: Figueroa was raised by a hardworking single mom in government housing, worked as a day laborer and now owns a ranch as well as working in the financial sector.
You dont have to dismiss the country club owner to represent the day laborer, or vice versa - you can do both, Figueroa said. I feel like I have that opportunity because of my experiences to represent a broad, broad range of people.
Lacy hosted Figueroa at the event, according to a post on Figueroas Facebook page.
Follow Cassie on Twitter at @Cassie_Burton51
The founders of an international organization that raises awareness about sex trafficking and provides services for victims will be in Midland later this month sharing their experiences.
Annie Dieselberg, founding CEO of NightLight International and Natalie Shirley, co-founder of NightLight and Freedom Place, will speak about working with trafficking victims and how to recognize sex trafficking in the community. Faces of Children, a ministry of First Presbyterian Church, will be hosting the women at a luncheon on April 25.
Church member Margaret Purvis has been wanting to bring Shirley and Dieselburg to Midland after meeting them in 2004.
I think the more we know about victims of trafficking and child pornography, the more our society will say no to those practices, Purvis said. I have never heard anyone speak more passionately (than Dieselberg and Shirley) about their work to restore and rescue and have victims refreshed with the word of God. So I hope a lot of Midlanders will come and hear and learn and develop a greater heart for those who have such great needs.
Dieselberg will speak about the organizations work in Bangkok, and Shirley will speak about NightLights domestic work.
Most people when they hear trafficking they think, oh its somebody coming across the border, Shirley said in a phone interview. But what I will be focusing on is American girls and women who are being trafficked. Domestic trafficking is a huge problem.
The majority of calls to the national human trafficking hotline come from California, with Texas coming in with the second most calls, according to 2015 statistics from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. Sex trafficking, as opposed to other types of trafficking, makes up the majority of the calls by far. Texas has ranked second the past several years.
Of the women and girls Shirley works with in the Houston area, most of them entered prostitution between the ages of 12 and 14, she said.
A large percentage of the girls have been sexually abused (before becoming trafficking victims), so just that combination of the low self-esteem, having been sexually abused, theyre vulnerable to traffickers who prey upon young girls who are looking for love and not understanding what that is, Shirley said.
Much of the work NightLight does with survivors is helping them see their situations in a different light.
The recidivism rate is very high, Shirley said. On average theyll go back five to seven times before theyre able to completely get away Just about every survivor that I work with initially does not recognize themselves as a victim. They see themselves as, hes my boyfriend, Im doing this because I want to. But a lot of times the boyfriend is basically their pimp and he is much older, but to her -- who has maybe not had a father figure in her life -- that seems like a good thing and shes not recognizing that shes really being used by him.
Shirley said and she doesnt doubt that Midland-Odessa area is involved in modern slave trade.
Midland County Sheriffs Office discovered in 2010 a local human trafficking ring, which involved a 17-year-old girl being forced to prostitute, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram article.
People wanna say its just big cities, but its also in rural areas, Shirley said. I know its in the Midland-Odessa area, I think Odessa has a real problem, but Im sure its there in Midland as well. So I think its important for people to learn what to look for and recognize whats there. Because it is there, it just may be more hidden.
Katarina BenzovaLooks like the rumors were true: AC/DC is planning to resume their Rock or Bust tour with none other than Axl Rose replacing longtime AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson. Johnson has been forced to stop touring because he's in danger of losing his hearing.
"AC/DC band members would like to thank Brian Johnson for his contributions and dedication to the band throughout the years. We wish him all the best with his hearing issues and future ventures," said AC/DC in a statement. "As much as we want this tour to end as it started, we understand, respect and support Brian's decision to stop touring and save his hearing."
The statement continued, "We are dedicated to fulfilling the remainder of our touring commitments to everyone that has supported us over the years, and are fortunate that Axl Rose has kindly offered his support to help us fulfill this commitment."
The Rock or Bust tour will resume May 7 in Lisbon, Portugal and will continue through June 12 in Denmark. After those dates are complete, Axl will rejoin Guns N' Roses for its summer stadium tour, which begins June 23 in Detroit.
The 10 AC/DC shows in the U.S. that were postponed following the revelation of Johnson's hearing problems will be rescheduled shortly, and will include Rose as well.
Visit GunsNRoses.com for a complete list of tour dates.
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Someone should sue the President for ...
Until Bob Izzard coined the phrase "The Golden Spread," the Texas Panhandle-Plains and adjacent areas was the Rodney Dangerfield of American geography.
It just couldn't get any respect.
When Army Maj. Stephen H. Long explored the region in 1820, all he saw was a flat, treeless, arid "Great American Desert" which he reported was "almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence."
Early explorers and pioneers did their best to skirt the region rather than risk becoming hopelessly lost in such a vast uncharted sea of grass and savages.
Even after Col. Ranald Mackenzie and his 4th Cavalry defeated the last large hostile Comanche band in Palo Duro Canyon in 1874, only the hardiest buffalo hunters and ranchers ventured into the region.
Then, four short decades after settlers began turning sod and building homes, the dust started blowing. That's when novelist John Steinbeck and others tagged the region with the name "The Dust Bowl."
In the 1940s, when Amarillo newspaper publisher Gene Howe sought to draw commerce and customers into the region, downstate and wire reporters relished in reporting the region's every snowflake as a blizzard, and embellishing any weather anomaly with rich prose accentuating multiple doses of doom and gloom.
That's when Izzard came to the rescue of an increasingly flustered Howe.
Wesley Robert "Bob" Izzard, a well-known Amarillo-area journalist and broadcaster, died on Sept. 16. But the story of how he coined the term "The Golden Spread" is well documented in numerous historical publications, including "The Panhandle Pilgrimage" and "Cattleman's Country," both by R.L. and Pauline Robertson.
In 1991, Izzard shared "The Golden Spread" story with Mike Haynes, an Amarillo College journalism instructor, for an article in the Amarillo Daily News.
As the story goes, Howe was desperate for a descriptive title for the vast region extending "from Liberal (Kan.) to Lubbock, and from Sayre (Okla.) to Santa Rosa (N.M.)."
Howe had founded the Amarillo Globe-News in 1924 and added KGNC Radio to his media empire in 1935.
An enthusiastic promoter of Amarillo and the surrounding area, Howe popularized the term "Tri-State" for the Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico trade area and successfully got the name of Amarillo's annual county fair changed to the Tri-State Fair.
But with the newspaper's circulation extended into Kansas and Colorado, Howe urged his newspaper and broadcast staffs to come up with a new title for the ever-widening region.
Widely known for his daily "Old Tack" newspaper column, the self-proclaimed "Tackless Texan" let it be known that an acceptable new label for the region was due "before the snow flies."
Soon after Howe's decree, Izzard and a friend coined the colorful "Golden Spread" phrase while they were driving from Memphis to Amarillo on a late summer day in the early 1950s.
The exact date of the phrase's birth is unknown, although some references list it as January 1954. However, the term "Golden Spread" was already being used at the time of Howe's death in June 1952.
As Izzard recalled, the phase was born during a news gathering trip with stops in Goodnight, Claude, Clarendon, Ashtola, Hedley and Memphis.
Izzard and a friend, who came along to scout quail hunting prospects, were driving northwest on Highway 287, heading back to Amarillo, when Izzard mentioned Howe's need for a title to promote the region. That's also when it occurred to Izzard that Howe was particularly fond of using the word "gold" in his "Old Tack" column. "Golden Sandies, black gold, golden wheat," Izzard recalled. "And anything that had to do with Amarillo, he was hanging gold' on it."
So Izzard told his traveling companion, "Let's face it, it's got to be gold' or golden.'
"And the old boy was getting tired, it was late in the evening, and he said, This sure is one big ranch we've been driving along,' and I said, Yeah, it's spread from here to there.'
"And that's where Golden Spread' came from."
Izzard put his suggestion on Howe's desk that night, and within days the term was being used in newspaper promotions as well as in Howe's column.
The Amarillo Daily News, before it consolidated with the afternoon Globe-Times in 2001, reserved a spot on the upper left corner of the front page for the phrase "The Morning Newspaper of the Golden Spread." And from 1952 until his death in 1968, J. Garland "Cotton John" Smith's slow, southern drawl greeted KGNC Radio listeners across the Panhandle-South Plains with "Wake up and good morning; this is the best part of a Golden Spread Day." Smith was considered the dean of radio agricultural newscasters and editors in the Panhandle.
According to "The Panhandle Pilgrimage," the Globe-News launched the Golden Spread campaign, with the newspaper and radio station receiving daily collect phone calls from more than 120 amateur weather reporters recruited by Izzard in outlying communities. Those reporters functioned in that capacity for the next five or six years, until the weather bureau began reporting regional temperature and precipitation data. Many of those original weather reporters became regular news stringers for the Amarillo paper.
On its Web site, the Golden Spread Electrical Cooperative adds, "We believe that the name Golden Spread' signifies the vast riches of this beautiful land. The Golden Spread is blessed with cotton, corn, and golden grains waving gently in the summer breeze; cattle feeding under a warm blanket of sunshine; and oil, natural gas and helium abundant beneath the soil. And most important, this land is blest with her people - proud and strong, with character and determination coming from a colorful heritage, working to make this land and life better for all. We choose Golden Spread for our name because it signifies the great potential of this area."
(Contact Doug McDonough at dmcdonough@hearstnp.com or 806-296-1350. Become his fan on Facebook.)
Wayland Baptist University officials are excited to kick off the Impact 2020 capital campaign that focuses on providing students with a safe and comfortable learning environment. The Offices of Advancement will be working on the campaign that was officially unveiled at the annual Evening with the President Saturday evening.
Over the next five years, the university will seek to raise $14 million to apply toward updating facilities and providing a comfortable, safe and secure university where students can learn and grow both professionally and personally. Throughout the years, Waylands impact has been evident in the students lives. This campaign is designed to improve student facility and study areas, including infrastructure like plumbing, air conditioning and overall safety.
This may not be the most glamorous capital campaign, said Executive Director of Advancement Mike Melcher, but it is certainly one that will impact thousands of lives.
Campaign objectives include:
--Remodeling parts of Gates Hall including restrooms and preparing unused space for offices.
--Renovating the Moody Science Building
--Renovating three womens residence halls to make the structures more energy efficient, update HVAC systems and replace shower facilities
--Repairing or replacing the concrete prairie, the concrete expanse between the library, science building and university center
--Construction of a new weight room for student athletes
--Repairing roofs on the Plainview, Amarillo and San Antonio campuses
--Replacing the main sewer line
--Repairing campus parking lots
The renovation of the science building comes with an initiative to name the School of Mathematics and Sciences after Dr. Kenneth Mattox, a 1960 graduate of Wayland who serves as the chief of staff at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston.
Dr. Mattox has received numerous recognitions and awards throughout the years. He is a distinguished service professor of the Micheal E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He has been a visiting professor or consultant at more than 800 medical schools, hospitals or health care systems. He is a member of 30 professional organizations, is past president of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, secretary-treasurer of the DeBakey International Surgical Society, past president of the Houston Surgical Society and the Texas Surgical Society. He has been listed in Best Doctors in America and Best Doctors in Houston. He has received several distinguished surgeon awards. He has written more than 15 books, 600 scientific articles and about 1,000 abstracts, and has a ground-breaking surgical procedure named after him.
While the Impact 2020 campaign does not directly include the construction of a new Bible building, it does incorporate most of what was included in the previous capital campaign initiative that stalled with the waning economy several years ago. University officials said, however, that the Bible building and the School of Religion and Philosophy remain as a future goal. Impact 2020 simply shifts priority focus to those areas that are in need of immediate attention.
For more information about Impact 2020, contact the Offices of Advancement at 806-291-3425.
NORTH HAVEN More than 100 students from five area high schools visited the Quinnipiac University law school last week to participate in Politics Matters. The panel discussion, hosted by the New Haven County Bar Association, featured a group of local political leaders who discussed various topics.
The goal of the April 12 event was to bolster student interest in politics. The teenagers were asked a series of questions, from their interest in considering a political career to who they would vote for in the upcoming presidential election.
Twenty percent of the respondents expressed an interest in a political career and Bernie Sanders was the overwhelming favorite for president, winning 60 percent of the vote, compared with 12 percent for Donald Trump and 11 percent for Hillary Clinton.
Philip Kent, a Quinnipiac Law School alumnus and a lawyer at Susman, Duffy & Segaloff, hosted the panel discussion and explained the importance of politics to young people. Youth matters, he said. Forty-five percent of young people ages 18 to 29 voted in the presidential election in 2012 and 43 percent voted in Connecticut. Young people in Connecticut were crucial to Obamas election.
Members of the panel included state Sen. Gary Winfield from New Haven, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and former Meriden Mayor Manny Santos. The group answered questions posed by moderator Paul Diego Holzer, executive director of Achieve Hartford!
The panelists were asked to comment on voter disaffection, a key issue in this years presidential campaign. Santos said voters are tired of seeing America in decline and are responding to the bluntness of candidates critiques of national government.
Students from High School in the Community, Amistad High School, Hamden High School, Platt High School and Maloney High School attended the panel discussion, filling the law school auditorium. They cheered a few of the responses and participated in the question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the event.
Image source: SunPower.
Over the past decade, the solar industry has been one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. In 2005, there were only 5 GW of solar energy production installed in the entire world, and in 2015 alone, there was 59 GW installed, equating to nearly 5 GW every single month.
But that growth hasn't been all roses for solar companies or their investors. Along the way, solar giants like Suntech Power, Q-Cells, LDK Solar, and SunEdison have gone from market darlings to bankrupt, or close to it. If you're looking at investing in the growth of the solar industry today, here's what you need to know.
Image source: SunPower.
Technology is hard, but it matters
One of the hidden secrets of the solar industry's growth is that it wasn't built by Silicon Valley investments,a spectacular new invention, or even on the back of improving technology. In fact, most companies that invested in new solar technology are now dead. The past decade was driven by Chinese banks giving billions of dollars in loans to companies to buy off the shelf equipment to build solar panels. This helped lower costs with scale and created such an oversupply that it forced prices even lower to keep plants running, leading to a lot of the decline in solar installation costs over the past decade.
But the companies building commodity solar panels in China aren't raking in billions in profits. They're duking it out against one another for every sale. They're competing on cost, not technology. And companies that have the best technology are winning the long game. First Solar and SunPower have superior panel efficiency to commodity solar panel producers like Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, and Canadian Solar and are able to generate more value as a result. Despite First Solar and SunPower making 2.5 GW and 1.2 GW of panels, respectively in 2015 -- lower than 5.7 GW at Trina, 4.5 GW at JinkoSolar, and 4.7 GW at Canadian Solar -- they have much larger market caps.
SPWR Market Cap data by YCharts.
Long term, technology has proven to be a big differentiator in solar. Even though it's hard to truly bring superior technology to market, it's important as a differentiator for solar companies.
Bankability is the hidden key in renewable energy
One thing companies are finding out the hard way is that bankability matters. What that means is that a bank or debt investor's confidence in your company, technology, and energy production projections matter a lot to the success of your project. You can have the most efficient cells in the world, but unless you have the capital to make it happen all the best technology in the world means little.
Let's take a simple example and say that two companies are bidding to sell energy from a new project. Construction will cost $10 million, the system will produce 100,000 MWh of energy per year, the contract is for 20 years, and at the end of the contract life, the system is worth $0. The only difference between the companies is their cost of capital.
Company A Company B Construction Cost $10 million $10 million Duration 20 Years 20 years Energy Production Annually 100,000 MWh 100,000 MWh Cost of Capital 6% 8% Minimum Energy Bid per MWh $8.72 $10.19
Table calculations by the author.
You can see that Company A can bid much lower for the energy contract to meet its cost of capital than Company B. This is why SunPower's borrowing rates of LIBOR plus 1.5%-3% and First Solar's rates of LIBOR plus 2.25%-3.5% are such an advantage over competitors. Case in point: SunEdison recently refinanced some of its debt at a whopping LIBOR plus 10%. That's a rate that will sink a company quickly. And that's exactly what is happening.
Debt and financial engineering is a path to value destruction
Financial engineering is a tempting strategy in the renewable energy industry. Projects have consistent cash flows, usually with reliable counterparties, and that can lead companies to look at financing options like securitization, warehouse vehicles, yieldcos, and other complex financial products. But unless the underlying company is on solid financial footing, this can lead to disaster by overleveraging future operations.
SunEdison is, perhaps, the best example of financial engineering gone wrong. It created yieldcos TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global to buy renewable energy assets, assuming their cost of capital would be low, and thought new equity offerings would allow an almost endless supply of capital to buy projects. As a backup plan, it built warehouse vehicles to hold assets in case the yieldcos couldn't buy them. But when the market turned on SunEdison, its cost of capital skyrocketed and now it's on the verge of collapse. The constant need for funding to both build and own projects, combined with those rising interest costs to sink the company.
SolarCity has struggled with some market confidence in its financial engineering business model as well. It's trying to use a combination of tax equity, aggregation facilities, and securitizations to generate enough cash to fund operations on an ongoing basis, keeping a slice of the cash flows for itself, just like a bank would do. The problem lately is that borrowing costs are on the rise. Investors have lost confidence that very aggressive projections will ever come true and that's a big reason for the stock's drop over the last two years.
In renewable energy, financial engineering works until the moment investors lose confidence in you. If you don't have a backup plan and/or a lot of cash, that can leave you in a world of hurt.
The warning signs to watch for
Over the last decade, the solar industry has learned the hard way that technology matters, confidence from lenders matters, and financial games rarely pay off in the end. And if you're looking at solar as an investment option, I would look first at companies with advantages on those three points -- because betting the other way has been a great way to destroy value in the long term.
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With the threat of rain putting a damper on some Fiesta events, it's more important than ever to stake out a front-row seat to parades and specials in your own dry living rooms.
KSAT is the TV destination again this year. San Antonio's ABC affiliate will honor the 125th anniversary of the Alamo City's biggest party with not only high-definition telecasts of the three big parades, but also several lively specials.
San Antonio police are seeking two suspect in a shooting on the Southwest Side that left two injured Saturday night.
According to police at the scene, two victims were in their home in the 3200 Block of West Gerald about 11 p.m. when two unidentified suspects shot into their home hitting them both.
An estimated 30 percent of job openings in 2020 will require some college experience or an associates degree. President Obama proposes that the federal government provide two free years of community college. He argues that if all 50 states adopt his plan, full-time college students would save approximately $3,800 in tuition per year and 9 million students would benefit.
Two-year institutions of higher education could serve valuable educational needs, but their aggregate performance is not meeting the expectations the Legislature demands of them. While the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has set a goal of awarding certificates or degrees to 60 percent of Texans between ages 25 and 34 by the year 2030, it is questionable and worthy of consideration by the Legislature if two-year institutions can be appreciably relied upon to help reach that goal.
Across Texas 50 community and junior college districts, the rate of full-time students who attain two-year degrees or certificates within six years has remained between 29 percent and 32 percent since at least 2010. The rate for part-time students is worse, falling in a range between 22 percent and 25 percent. Texas ranks third nationally in terms of lowest average tuition at public two-year institutions, yet it ranks a dismal 46th in terms of completion.
The Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas evaluated community college students in terms of assessment, placement and developmental education. Data collected from more than 70,000 community college students at 150 institutions reveal that 86 percent of students believed themselves academically prepared for college, but 67 percent required developmental or remedial coursework. Worse, when faculty members recognize unpreparedness in their students, only 6 percent of those faculty recommend that students change to a more appropriate course.
Even so, tuition and fee costs increased by 25 percent for in-district residents and 33 percent for out-of-district residents between 2010 and 2015. Operating revenues for junior and community colleges have more than quintupled from less than $1 billion in 1990 to $5.4 billion in 2014, though enrollment during that period only doubled. General Revenue appropriations from the state $2 billion in all funds for the 2014-15 biennium account for approximately 30 percent of operating costs, and the rest is a combination of local property taxes another $2 billion in 2014 and tuition/fee revenue. The Legislature has adopted performance-based requirements for its portion of operating costs, but very little emphasis is placed on measuring workforce preparedness of graduates.
The Texas Association of Community Colleges lists as one of its key messages that student success is the highest priority of every community college in Texas. It also maintains that the states community colleges are driving rapid and expansive improvements in public higher education to meet current and anticipated workforce needs. These messages are not matched with metrics measuring graduate success and workforce readiness. As Preston Cooper of the Manhattan Institute explains, without measures to ensure that colleges help their students graduate and find good jobs, free tuition (such as that proposed by President Obama) would only shuffle more young people into a system that fails two-thirds of them.
The Center for Community College Student Engagements report on unprepared students and community colleges deserves a considerable amount of attention and should propel continued re-evaluation of the states two-year institutions, as well as K-12 public education.
John D. Colyandro is executive director and Russell H. Withers is general counsel of the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, a public policy foundation based in Austin.
Legislation to help Puerto Rico with its massive debt is not a bailout. But if it, or something like it, isnt approved soon, a bailout for the U.S. territory in the Caribbean is precisely what Congress will be considering.
And time is running out. The commonwealth faces a May deadline for a $422 million bond payment and $2 billion more is due in July. In all, Puerto Rico is burdened with some $72 billion in debt, most of it in municipal bonds. It also owes $43 billion in government pensions.
The repercussion from defaults of this magnitude cant help but roil a lot of financial waters on the mainland.
But legislation that addresses this backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan appears to be stalled in the House Natural Resources Committee, partly a victim of the type of pressure from the right that bedeviled Ryans predecessor, John Boehner.
They are labeling the bill a bailout or a step toward it.
Theyve got that backwards. Imposing a seven-member federal oversight board and giving Puerto Rico the ability to restructure its debt can help avoid that. The U.S. territory is now prohibited by law from declaring bankruptcy.
Bondholders are likely fueling this revolt as well. They want a larger say in any restructuring and some likely believe that they will get more back if Puerto Rico is forced to sell assets to cover its debts.
But it isnt only Republicans and major bondholders whove got problems with this bill. Democrats oppose a provision that allows Puerto Rico to lower its minimum wage to $4.25 an hour and transfer part of the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge to the islands government. And they object to a provision that requires five of the seven oversight board members to agree to any debt restructuring that is filed in court. They contend this is mission impossible.
This bill is far from perfect. But its clear that if all sides fail to come to an agreement soon, dominoes will begin to fall. Puerto Rico must be allowed to restructure its debt and in a manner that does not do serious injury to its sovereignty.
Only one Texan sits on the Natural Resources Committee, Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler. We urge him and all members of the Texas delegation to apply the pressure needed to arrive at a compromise.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. It is also a U.S. responsibility.
When youre out in the sun, nibbling on chips and salsa perhaps a likely scenario during this months Fiesta San Antonio? a cold Mexican beer sounds like a great idea. And indeed, the great beers of Mexico were developed for exactly these conditions: to refresh in warm weather and counter the heat of spicy foods.
Its a formula we like, as evidenced by the great success of Mexican imported beer in the United States last year, Mexican beers Corona Extra and Modelo Especial were the nations top two imported beers, according to Beverage Industry magazine.
But did you know that most Mexican beers have their roots in classic international styles? Many of the most popular at Total Wine & More, including Dos Equis Ambar and Victoria, are made in the Vienna Lager style.
Generally darker in color than most lager beers, Vienna Lagers are clear amber-red to copper-hued with a lasting head. Soft and toasty German Munich or Vienna malt defines this style. Bitterness from Noble hop varietals provides balance to the malty sweetness and contributes to a smooth, dry finish. German and Austrian examples of this style are rare, but Vienna Lagers from Mexico, where Austrian immigrants introduced the style in the late 1800s, are widely available. These Mexican versions tend to be lighter-bodied than the original Vienna brews.
Negra Modelo, with a bright amber color and creamy head of foam, is brewed in Mexico in the Munich Dunkel Lager style. Munich Dunkel Lagers feature prominent malty aromas and flavors with only moderate hop bitterness. Classic examples of this dark lager beer use dark Munich malt and display a bready character on the nose and palate, along with mild chocolate, nut and toast notes.
Other Mexican favorites take their cue from North America. Leading export Corona is an American-style Lager, as are Modelo Especial, Tecate, Pacifico and Dos Equis Lager. These crisp, easy-drinking beers evolved from Czech and German Pilsener styles produced in the United States prior to Prohibition. Like many modern American brewers, they may use corn and rice as ingredients, which contribute to the beers clean taste and lighten the color and body of these lager beers.
Come explore Mexican beers, and the worlds brews that inspired them, at your local Total Wine & More.
Del Norte
125 NW Loop 410
San Antonio, TX 78216
(210) 524-9300
The Rim
17530 La Cantera Parkway
San Antonio, TX 78257
(210) 877-9155
You can also shop online at www.TotalWine.com.
Editors Note: This content is made possible by Total Wine & More. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
This week I had the honour to rise in the House of Commons and speak to Canadians about my Private Members Bill The Fairness in Charitable Gifts Act, Bill C-239.
Parliamentarians get very few opportunities during their time as elected officials to present legislation and so I count myself fortunate to be drawn first for MPs to introduce a Private Members Bill in the 42nd Parliament. It took a great deal of consideration to arrive at Bill and I consider it important to take a few moments to explain how I arrived at this idea.
When I found out that my name had been drawn to be the first to introduce a Private Members Bill, I quickly decided to gather input from you, my constituents. I asked for feedback and spoke with many people and organizations in Provencher. The input I received was overwhelmingly clear: people want a law that protects the rights of the unborn. So, I did a little research.
Here in Canada, there are no laws in place that protect the rights of the unborn child. There are also no guidelines governing when and why termination of a pregnancy can be procured.
In 1988 when the Supreme Court of Canada, in a divided decision, struck down Canadas existing law banning abortion, they also indicated that Parliament had the right to establish protection for the unborn child. Unfortunately, past governments have not modernized human rights protections for individuals at early stages of life. We are among only a handful of nations in the world that lack these protections.
I believe this to be a serious failing on the part of previous governments.
Many Canadians think there are at least some regulations governing this issue, but that is simply not the case.
Here in Canada there tends to be a kneejerk reaction to the word abortion. It has been a polarizing issue in this country and the word has various associations for every individual.
This became apparent to me when I originally wanted to craft a piece of legislation that would at the very least align our laws on this issue with that of our allies and other developed countries. However, after a great deal of discussion and consultation, it became apparent that I would not be able to garner sufficient support from the honourable members of this House, despite the strong commitment many of my colleagues show towards protecting the vulnerable. I recognized that a private members bill updating these protections would not become law, at this time.
If Canada is going to continue to be a nation that is blessed, I believe that it must draft and pass legislation that protects the rights of women, which was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court, but it must also put in place protection for the unborn child. I think that we need to start a national conversation and I believe that we as Canadians are capable of discussing this issue with open hearts and informed minds, ultimately coming up with the right solution. No Law is not a solution!
However, there are some things we can all agree on.
Bill C-239, the Fairness in Charitable Gifts Act, is a bill that would correct the considerable gap between Federal tax credits given for donations to political parties as opposed to Federal tax credits given for donations to charities.
Feeding politicians should not be more important than feeding the hungry, than healing the sick, than educating the poor or restoring the broken-hearted. This is not right and it is not fair. I do not believe that our current tax treatment of charitable donations reflects our Canadian values.
The work that charities do is indispensable. There are many people who benefit from the services they provide. They change lives and I think we can all agree that we have been touched in many ways by the great work that charities provide to our communities.
Make no mistake; government services provide much needed help to Canadians who are struggling, but lets be honest, government cannot do it all.
There are many gaps in our system, and charities fill those gaps. Every single day and night across Canada, charities provide food for the hungry, beds for the homeless, help to the hurting, support for the aging and hope to the sick. Charites advance scientific and medical research and Charities promote education and care for our environment. Charities especially faith-based have been very instrumental in the re-settlement of refugee families.
However, despite the incredible impact that charities have on our lives and Country, the fact remains that Canadian charities are faced with an aging and ever declining donor base. I fear that should this trend continue, eventually Canadian charities that provide important services will be forced to close their doors. When surveyed by Statistics Canada, the #1 reason that people stated they dont give more is because they could not afford to give a higher donation. This was the reason given by 71% of Canadians surveyed.
So how do we encourage Canadians to get into the practice of making regular charitable donations?
Currently an imbalance exists in how different types of donations are treated in Canada. Federal tax credits for political contributions far exceed federal tax credits for donations to charities.
Through Bill C-239, donors to registered charities would receive the same generous federal tax credits that donors to political parties currently receive. This bill will provide the largest incentive to the largest segments of the population those who currently donate under $400 per year as well as those who currently do not donate at all. If we can accomplish this, your favourite charities, and indeed charities all across Canada, will benefit greatly as more dollars will be freed up for donations. This will make it easier for small donors to become larger donors, and for people who do not currently donate, to start.
Heres how it will work:
Under the Fairness in Charitable Gifts Act, Canadians donating to registered Canadian Charities would receive the following:
A 75% federal tax credit on the first $400 of total annual donations.
You would receive a 50% federal tax credit on the next $350 of total annual donations.
And a 33.3% federal tax credit on all total annual donations over $750.
These federal tax credits would now be in line with federal political tax donation credits. The same percentage benefit at the same thresholds. Now thats fairness.
The Fairness in Charitable Gifts Act will level the playing field between donations to political parties and donations to registered charitable organizations. It will also:
encourage charitable giving by offering a more generous federal tax benefit.
increase the number of Canadians giving to charities.
strengthen and empower charities.
make it easier for small donors to become larger donors, and for people who do not currently donate, to start.
reduce the burden on government social services, thus freeing up public resources for other important priorities.
We need to put an end to a system that is both unfair and unjust. Feeding politicians should not be more important than feeding the hungry. This is a bill for all Canadians and I believe can be supported by all parties.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this bill as well.
Posted on 04/17/2016, 10:00 am, by mySteinbach
Scott Dick, co-founder of Agra-Gold Consulting based in Landmark, along with Steves Livestock Transport, based in Blumenort, were recent recipients of the 2016 Pork Industry Awards. The awards were presented by Manitoba Pork Chair George Matheson as part of Manitoba Porks Annual General Meeting in Winnipeg on April 13, 2016.
Scott Dick was recognized for his exceptional leadership skills and his commitment to protecting Manitobas environment through continuous innovation and raising the bar for excellence in nutrient management.
Steves Livestock Transport was recognized for their continuous pursuit and exceptional implementation of cutting-edge technologies to ensure the highest standard of animal care and biosecurity in Manitobas livestock transport industry.
The two recipients of the 2016 Pork Industry Awards are linked by their remarkable contributions to our industry, said Manitoba Pork Chair George Matheson. Manitoba Pork congratulates these extraordinary industry partners for their leadership, innovation and steadfast commitment to the betterment of agriculture in Manitoba and beyond.
Submitted Moorings Park is holding an informational event describing its Platinum and Diamond Membership Programs and prioritized access Friday at 11 a.m. at The Center for Healthy Living on the Moorings Park campus.
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Submitted By Caffrey & Associates
Moorings Park announced it is holding an informational event describing its Platinum and Diamond Membership Programs on Friday, April 22 at 11 a.m. in the Sheffield Theatre at The Center for Healthy Living, 132 Moorings Park Drive, on the Moorings Park campus. The event will be followed by lunch at the Trio Restaurant at Moorings Park.
The Platinum and Diamond Membership Programs are designed to provide those looking forward to making Moorings Park their future home an opportunity to experience the community's on-site health care, social activities, and dining before committing to residency. Members will enjoy the benefits of Moorings Park's amenities that are currently in development, including enhancements to the community's clubhouse and expanded dining opportunities.
Those wishing to attend the April 22 event are asked to RSVP by 5 p.m. on Monday, April 18 by calling 239-643-9111. Additional information about the Platinum and Diamond Membership Programs and prioritized placement is available at www.mooringspark.org.
Moorings Park's Platinum Membership Program is suited to individuals and couples who are within one to two years of making their residency decision. The Diamond Membership is available to individuals and couples who are in the early stages of finalizing their retirement plans. Both the Platinum and Diamond Membership Programs are available for a one-time membership fee plus a monthly charge. The membership fees can be applied to residency entrance fees at Moorings Park or at the Moorings Park at Grey Oaks campus once the decision to move into Moorings Park is made.
Platinum Membership provides prioritized access to all available Moorings Park residences and to Orchid Terrace Assisted Living and Memory Care and to The Chateau Skilled Nursing on a private rate basis. Upon approval, Platinum Members will receive 24-Month Moorings Assessment Protocol (MAP) protection. All residents of Moorings Park are required to undergo an assessment which qualifies them for Independent Living. Platinum Members may choose to undergo this assessment and defer admission to Moorings Park for up to 24 months from the date of the assessment while protecting the opportunity to secure a residence.
In addition to the benefits afforded through the Premier Senior Health Care Program, integrated rehabilitation programs, and licensed professional staff at The Center for Healthy Living, a comprehensive medical assessment is provided to Platinum members. The thorough evaluation encompasses medical, psychological and functional capabilities. The assessment evaluates risk factors for functional decline and provides a plan to optimize functional well-being while putting together processes to facilitate achieving the goals outlined in the plan and to promote an independent lifestyle.
Additional services available to Platinum members at the Center for Healthy Living include a complimentary monthly spa treatment at the Rejuvenate Salon and Spa that features hair styling, facials, manicures and pedicures, massages and aromatherapy; a complimentary monthly personal training session tailored to meet individual fitness needs; outpatient rehabilitation services; and access to the Center for Healthy Living's Sheffield Theatre, special events, and Internet cafe. Platinum members are also provided access to events at the Bower Chapel and may enjoy two complimentary dinners per month at one of Moorings Park's five casual and fine dining venues, including the Trio Restaurant and its waterfront verandah.
A Platinum Personal Charge Card entitles cardholders to charge meals at the dining facilities and to access additional services at the Center for Healthy Living. A personal concierge is available to members Monday through Friday to secure dinner reservations, tickets, salon appointments, transportation, personal trainer appointments and more.
Among the Diamond Membership's benefits is access to the wellness services at Moorings Park's Center for Healthy Living, a state-of-the-art center offering resident and member-focused physician based services. The Center offers personalized physician services, integrated rehabilitation programs, and licensed professional staff. On-site primary care physician services are provided to members through Moorings Park's Premier Senior Health Care Program that offers personalized health care. The Premier Senior Health Care Program is available to Diamond members with no additional charges, other than typical co-pays. Third-party billing to Medicare will occur for services when appropriate.
The Center for Healthy Living's features include cardio and strength programming geared toward seniors, as well as cognitive and memory training. Licensed physical, occupational and speech therapists establish customized treatment plans with patients and their physicians to meet specific needs. The Center is home to the Sheffield Theatre that is suitable for feature films and lectures, the full-service Rejuvenate Salon and Spa, and a Max-Wellness retail store with products ranging from natural vitamins and supplements to fitness items and mobility devices. The Center for Healthy Living's Internet Cafe offers an opportunity to socialize with friends over healthy fare and beverages. Additional charges will apply for all meals, spa treatment services, personal trainers, and purchases in the Max-Wellness retail store.
The Diamond Membership Program rewards members with preferred access over nonresidents to Moorings Park's Orchid Terrace Assisted Living and Memory Care and to The Chateau Skilled Nursing on a private rate basis. Orchid Terrace provides members 24-hour assistance with the activities of daily living, as well as memory care. The Chateau at Moorings Park, accorded both 5-Star and Gold Seal ratings, is a Medicare certified facility providing short-term rehabilitation, outpatient rehab, and long-term care.
Other benefits of a Diamond Membership include access to the Bower Chapel's worship services and concert series subject to availability; clubhouse privileges, including all lectures and special social events; and dining privileges in the clubhouse main dining room, grill room, and the Trio Restaurant subject to availability. A members-only Diamond Personal Charge Card entitles cardholders to charge for meals and retail purchases.
Earlier this month, Moorings Park announced it is developing plans for the construction of new Mid-Rise II Residences. As planned, Mid-Rise II will include three residential floors over parking and is slated to include 18 residences ranging from 2,200 to 3,300 square feet under air plus covered outdoor terrace spaces. Eight, two- and three-bedroom plus den great room floor plans will be offered. Construction of the Mid-Rise II building is expected to begin in the near future.
Moorings Park is a nationally accredited, nonprofit, Medicare certified community and the only A+ S & P and Fitch rated Continuing Care Retirement Community in the country. Moorings Park has been repeatedly acknowledged as Southwest Florida's premier retirement community for more than 30 years and is the only Continuing Care Retirement Community in the city of Naples.
Opening day ceremonies for the Tamiami Trail at Everglades City (then known as Everglade) on April 27, 1928. Courtesy of Collier County Museum
SHARE Bobbie Lee Davenport Vice president of the Responsible Growth Management Coalition
By Sebastian Gonzalez, Sebastian.Gonzalez@Naplesnews.com
Wednesday
Earth Day to Arbor Day Exhibition
5:30 to 7 p.m. April 20 at Arsenault Studio & Banyan Arts Gallery, 1199 Third St. S., Naples. Wine and cheese reception. Cypress Cove Conservancy founder Bobbie Lee Davenport and advisory committee member and renowned ecologist David Cecilly, will speak at 6 p.m. Free. RSVP requested. 239-263-1214.
Thursday
Foreign Film Series: "To Kill A Man"
2 p.m. April 21 at South County Regional Library, 21100 Three Oaks Parkway, Estero. Chile: Spanish with English subtitles, 81 minutes. Hardworking family man Jorge is just barely making ends meet. When he gets mugged by Kalule, a neighborhood delinquent, Jorge's son decides to confront Kalule, only to get himself shot in the process. Sentenced to two years in prison for the offense, Kalule goes on the warpath after he is released.
Friday
Party On the Plaza
6-9 p.m. April 22 at Six Bends Harley-Davidson, 9501 Thunder Road, Fort Myers. Family-friendly event benefiting United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee counties. Music by Killa Watts, food and drink. 239-433-2000.
Saturday
Anniversaries
11 a.m. April 23 at The Museum of the Everglades, 105 W. Broadway, Everglades City. The museum will celebrate its 18th birthday and the 88th anniversary of the opening of the Tamiami Trail with festivities including lectures, antique cars and live music. Free. Information: colliermuseums.com.
Deputies believed they found a matching vehicle parked on 103rd Avenue North.
By Ashley Collins
A teenage girl Sunday reported a suspicious person approaching her in Naples Park, bringing the total number of stranger danger cases to five in about two weeks, officials said.
Deputies with the Collier County Sheriffs Office received a call at 4:47 p.m. about a suspicious person in the area of 92nd Avenue North between Eighth Street North and U.S. 41, said Kristie Lester, a spokeswoman for the sheriffs department.
According to initial reports, the girl was walking when she was approached by a man driving a white Toyota minivan. It appeared the man mentioned something about ice cream as a way to lure the girl into his vehicle, but she declined and ran away. When deputies responded to the area, they took a statement from the girl, but they werent able to immediately locate the vehicle reported.
Deputies are still assessing the situation, Lester said in a phone message.
In recent weeks, four similar cases occurred in Collier County and were reported on by the Naples Daily News on Sunday. Three of those incidents occurred in Immokalee. Most of them involved a man trying to lure a teenage girl. In one of those cases, a man offered a 14-year-old girl a car ride to school on April 4.
Another case dealt with an eyewitness report of someone attempting to invite children into a wooded area in Immokalee. According to one witness, they saw two children go into the woods, but only one come back out. However, there were no reports of missing children in the area.
Officials dont believe the incidents in Immokalee are related because of different eyewitness reports describing the men and their vehicles.
Due to the recent incidents, deputies have increased patrol and urge children to report any suspicious activity if they feel threatened or in danger.
_______
Read a related story here, on the four previous suspicious person reports taken in recent weeks, including three in Immokalee.
Police car on the street at night
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By Daily News Staff
Authorities spent Saturday night searching for a man who stabbed another man in the hand at a Naples Park restaurant, but they didn't need to search for long.
The man who was stabbed at the Rib City in North Naples decided not to press charges against the man who stabbed his hand during a heated altercation, said Kristi Lester, spokeswoman for the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
On Saturday, deputies responded to the eatery located at 9191 U.S. 41 North about 9:15 p.m. for a report of a fight. Deputies searched for the knife-wielding man that night, but no arrest was made.
The man who was stabbed received treatment for his non-life threatening wound on his hand at the NCH North Collier hospital.
The names of the two men were not released Sunday.
Parker Close, 13, sits on a four-wheeler after riding around his family's property in Golden Gate Estates on Friday, April 15, 2016. Collier County is beginning its review of the area, which could lead to new businesses opening closer to the residents of Golden Gate Estates. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff)
SHARE Gino Aull, left, helps Ian Spiller load his truck at Fayard Hardware Store in Golden Gate Estates on Friday, April 15, 2016. Collier County is beginning its review of the area, which could lead to new businesses opening closer to the residents of Golden Gate Estates. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Jeff Close, left, and his son, Hunter, 17, paint their garage floor in their Golden Gate Estates home on Friday, April 15, 2016. Collier County is beginning its review of the area, which could lead to new businesses opening closer to the residents of Golden Gate Estates. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Employees Gino Aull, left, and Ashlie Slaby organize the shelves at Fayard Hardware Store in Golden Gate Estates on Friday, April 15, 2016. Collier County is beginning its review of the area, which could lead to new businesses opening closer to the residents of Golden Gate Estates. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Related Photos Photos: Golden Gate Estates
By Greg Stanley of the Naples Daily News
The thing about rural Collier County is that a large chunk, more than 91 square miles of it, was designed by con men.
It's a place where today's roads are the paved-over runways once used by high-pressure salesmen of the Gulf American Land Corp. to fly prospective buyers over their overpriced lots. A place where New Englanders, Midwesterners, Californians and suckers from all over were sold dreams of retiring to Florida, of canals that would reach the Gulf, of cashing in at the ground floor of a building boom.
This is Golden Gate Estates, where in the 1960s hastily dug canals drained the swamps, where miles of limestone roads were poured with no thought of bringing parks, shops, schools, water or sewers. Where those who did sign on the dotted line, who were in fact sold Florida swampland, came to define gullibility for a generation.
But out of that scam, in the decades after the land corporation went bankrupt, a sprawling neighborhood did eventually form, one that's now larger in area than the city limits of Boston.
County planners have reopened the master plan for the Estates area for the first time in 10 years. They are reviewing plans to see if the county should do more to spur everything from commercial growth to wetlands restoration in the nefariously designed neighborhood, or if existing plans should be mostly left alone.
The area is uniquely attractive to some. Almost an anti-Naples, where no homeowners associations are allowed and campers, boats and RVs are welcomed on front lawns. Homes in the Estates are more affordable than in most parts of the county. And since they are mostly built on 2.5- or 5-acre lots, they are private.
It's home to a mix of people, those who moved to the Estates to get away from everything, and those who moved there because it is what they could afford.
Many of those who moved there for affordability grow tired, not only of what could be a 40-minute commute to work, but a 40-minute drive to just about everything else, too.
The county's move to rethink planning for the Estates is part of the yearslong process of revising plans to accommodate a booming population east of Collier Boulevard. About 300,000 people are expected to move into the mostly undeveloped eastern region, nearly doubling the county's current population of 339,000 over the next two decades, according to county growth projections. With that surge will come more houses, roads, businesses, schools and everything else new communities need to thrive.
About half the lots in Golden Gate Estates are empty. Three of four commercial centers, designated areas within the neighborhood grid for small stores, restaurants and offices, are vacant.
While tweaks to the master plan may be done, especially to get use out of those commercial centers, Community Planning Manager Kris Van Lengen said he doesn't expect much more to change.
"There was a major review a little over 10 years ago and now you don't see a tremendous number of problems," Van Lengen said. "Because it's a pre-platted subdivision there's not much call for redesignating large areas. You might not need much in the Estates, itself, because there are areas of land nearby that could accomplish and bring the things that most people want."
There are large swaths of undeveloped land south and east of the homes in the Estates where the county should focus any commercial and industrial growth, said Commissioner Tim Nance, who represents the area.
"If we plan this right we can have our cake and eat it too," Nance said. "We could see those areas around the Estates help out with economic development so people can work and stay in the area without having to rezone or 'densify' anything in the Estates."
The county has two separate master plans for land south and east of the Estates. The first covers the vast fields surrounding Immokalee. That plan helped guide Ave Maria's creation. It also will govern the development known as Rural Lands West, planned for 10,000 homes east of Everglades Boulevard along Oil Well Road.
The other plan, which also is undergoing revision, focuses on the Rural Fringe. It's a development density bonus program that allows landowners to swap undeveloped land for more building rights. About nine square miles of the Rural Fringe border the southern homes in the Estates, Nance said.
If plans are updated to allow commercial and industrial development in that area, residential areas could remain as they are, he said.
"That's where we need to put more of the uses that people in the Estates are hoping for," Nance said. "So you don't have to drive to the coast for everything."
Jeff Close is building a new home in the Estates, where he has lived since 1985.
"I'm a good ol' boy, man, I can't live in a gated community," Close said. "I have two campers and I'm not going to pay put them in storage. I don't like somebody telling me how to do everything."
The Estates is peaceful, Close said.
"It's really the only place left to get out there," he said. "But at the same time, if they were talking about bringing in some type of amenities, I wouldn't mind., if it's something so we don't have to drive everywhere."
The ideal type of development is something like Fayard Hardware, Close said.
The store opened in a plaza on Wilson and Golden Gate boulevards in 2008. The plaza also includes a dentist's office, restaurant, pet supply store and a small convenience store among a handful of other shops. Similar strips could be built in three other commercial centers planned for the neighborhoods on the corners of Collier Boulevard and Pine Ridge Road, Golden Gate and Everglades boulevards and Immokalee Road and Everglades Boulevard.
The expanding hardware store was opened to save frustrated Estates residents a two-hour round trip to Home Depot every time something broke, said co-owner Jerry Craft.
"I mainly started it because I'd get out of work at 5 p.m. and always have a well broken or have to work on the well," Craft said. "So by the time you get out of work and drive back into town and got back out here you would be outside until midnight swatting mosquitoes. What we used to do is if something broke, you'd put off until tomorrow if you could get by with it."
Peter Gaddy, past president of the area's civic association, said the county might need to look at expanding the three undeveloped commercial centers to make it easier for some stores to open.
"Some question if those centers are ever going to be viable because of the amount of area it takes to accommodate transportation and stormwater management," Gaddy said.
Longtime resident Annette Kniola said she wouldn't mind some limited development, but doesn't want to see the commercial centers expanded.
"If they make these any bigger it's just going to grow from there," Kniola said. "I'm hoping they keep this as rural as possible. It's going to be worth more someday for its peace and quiet, than anything else."
The area has always had very few environmental policies and needs significant attention, said Nancy Payton, Southwest Florida field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation.
The county should consider adopting a program similar to the plan in place for the Rural Fringe land, where owners can trade development rights in sensitive areas, such as the southeast corner of the Estates, to build greater density in areas that are already developed, Payton said.
"The county has yet to step up and assume a lot of responsibility for managing water in its rural areas," Payton said. "The wetland system needs to be protected. We need to move density out of the southeastern portion of the Estates, and that means the county may have to acquire what it can from private landowners, or provide incentives to exchange parcels for density."
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If you go
WHO: Collier County and Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association
WHAT: Golden Gate Area Master Plan review meeting
WHEN: 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 20
WHERE: Fire Station No. 71, 100 13th Street S.W.
Florida House of Representatives Speaker pro tempore Matt Hudson presents the Clayton Feig Youth Award to Hayden Moneghan, 14, of Cape Coral, during the Walk the Talk for Epilepsy event at North Collier Regional Park on Sunday, April 17, 2016. Moneghan was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2015. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News)
SHARE Clayton Feig Youth Award winner Hayden Moneghan, 14, of Cape Coral, and his stepmother Dana Byler, second from right, help carry a banner leading the Walk the Talk for Epilepsy event at North Collier Regional Park on Sunday, April 17, 2016. Moneghan was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2015. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Volunteers hold down a tent as the Collier County Sheriff Office helicopter lands for a display during the Walk the Talk for Epilepsy event at North Collier Regional Park on Sunday, April 17, 2016. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Lee Memorial Health System Foundation Director of Development Tracy Connelly, right, shares in a laugh as (L-R) Danny Rosenfeld, Dr. Guillermo Philipps, Burt Golumbic, Lizzie Golumbic, and Nadia Philipps, 4, hold a$2,500 check that is being donated to the Golisano Children's Hospital in Dr. Philipps name during the Walk the Talk for Epilepsy event at North Collier Regional Park on Sunday, April 17, 2016. The Money will be used toward the purchase of an epilepsy monitoring unit for the hospital so that patients will no longer need to travel to Miami or Tampa for this service. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Lee Memorial Health System Foundation Director of Development Tracy Connelly, left, leans on the large check as he chats with Epilepsy Foundation of Florida CEO Karen Basha Egozi while others check out the silent auction during the Walk the Talk for Epilepsy event at North Collier Regional Park on Sunday, April 17, 2016. The Money will be used toward the purchase of an epilepsy monitoring unit for the hospital so that patients will no longer need to travel to Miami or Tampa for this service. (Photo by Gregg Pachkowski/Special to the Daily News) Related Photos Photos: Walk the Talk for Epilepsy
By Ashley Collins, ashley.collins@naplesnews.com
On Sunday, the footsteps of people affected in some way by epilepsy resounded loudly in North Collier Regional Park during the sixth annual Walk the Talk for Epilepsy hosted by the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida.
Hayden Moneghan, 14, put on his walking shoes help spread awareness of epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with nearly two years ago.
He was the event's 2016 Clayton Feig award recipient. Each year, the foundation recognizes one young person, in each of its nine locations across Florida, who suffers from seizures and shows dedication toward spreading awareness about epilepsy.
Florida Rep. Matt Hudson and Karen Basha-Egozi, the foundation's CEO, gave the award to Hayden. Hudson also accompanied Hayden during the ribbon-cutting that kicked off the walk.
"I'm glad that I have so many supporters and I don't think I would be here today without them," Hayden said.
According to the Epilepsy Foundation, epilepsy is a chronic disorder that causes unpredictable seizures and affects one in 26 people at some point in their life.
Shanell Moneghan, Hayden's mother, said it was a long process to find out why her son was suffering from seizures.
"He was first diagnosed with migraines and cluster headaches, and it wasn't until a year-and-a-half later that he was diagnosed with epilepsy," Shanell said.
Dana Byler, Hayden's stepmother, said they hope to continue spreading awareness of epilepsy so that other families know how to deal with someone in their family who suffers from the condition.
"It can be very scary to see and we just want people to know how to protect someone who gets seizures and how to talk to them during their seizures by telling them it's going to be OK," Byler said.
Hayden said he was scared at first when he started getting seizures, but now he knows how to deal with his condition and hopes to help others dealing with the same problem.
More than 100 people came out Sunday to walk and support Hayden and other epilepsy sufferers.
One of those people was Margie Yurewitch, of Naples, who lost her son last year from epilepsy. Yurewitch and her husband walked in memory of their son.
"And to raise money for research so that perhaps other families won't have to endure this loss and that people with epilepsy can be cured," Yurewitch said.
Officials with the local sheriff and fire departments were also in attendance and local businesses contributed to the silent auction and bingo card raffle prizes. Participants of all ages were also able to enjoy family-friendly activities, including face painting, arts and crafts and a rock climbing wall.
The annual walk-a-thon is a dream realized by Dan Rosenfeld, 31, the event's organizer. For the past six years, Rosenfeld, along with his mother, Lizzie Golumbic, have organized the event in Collier County with the support of the foundation.
Diagnosed with epilepsy at age 10, Rosenfeld would get seizures every couple of months or so, until 2009, when he suffered around six to 12 seizures in a week's time. After being denied candidacy for brain surgery, Rosenfeld, with the support of his family, decided to get the implantation of a small device called the vagus nerve stimulator, that stimulates the nerve with electrical impulses and helps prevent seizures.
When Rosenfeld sought support from the community, he quickly discovered that there weren't any support groups or organizations catering to epilepsy in Collier County.
That's when he decided to take matters into his own hands and walking shoes.
"I got in contact with the foundation and they've been behind me 100 percent ever since," Rosenfeld said. He also started a local support group.
In the past six years, the event has raised more than $300,000, with more than a 1,000 people participating.
During Sunday's event, the group made a special donation of $2,500 to the Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida, which is building a new local facility with an epilepsy monitoring unit.
The rest of the proceeds will go to research.
Rosenfeld said he hopes to keep the momentum going so that one day they can find a cure for epilepsy.
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There's been a change of seasons.
Not season when it comes to departing tourists and winter residents. Not spring, which started March 20 and is reflected by humidity.
We're referring to the recent heating up of the local political season, one that's going to continue through fall. While any election year is important, we submit this one bears utmost scrutiny because of the number of incumbents leaving office.
For voters, there will be many newcomers on the ballot who don't have a voting record as public servants to track. That creates an extra responsibility to get acquainted with candidates for legislative, county commission, school board and other local seats.
Officially, the ballot won't be set until June 20-24, when qualifying documents from candidates are due to elections offices. The primary is Aug. 30; the general election Nov. 8.
Based on those dates, it might seem early for forums to be under way. However, given the importance of decisions facing Collier residents and many new candidates they need to get to know, the sooner voters get involved the better.
We're also concerned about registered voters being tempted to stay away in August because they don't know candidates well. A high turnout will be needed to ensure a candidate doesn't win just because a select group of supporters turns out strongly.
Collier School Board
There's a recognized 3-2 ideological difference on the Collier School Board.
It's certain there will be at least one new face on the board, and potentially two. Fall elections could shift majority control to the faction now in the minority.
While she isn't making a formal announcement, Kathleen Curatolo, in her fourth term, has decided not to run again, saying she's had "14 wonderful years" but it's "time for me to move on and someone else to take the seat." Four declared candidates for this nonpartisan District 2 seat collectively raised $32,000 already.
Current board Chairwoman Julie Sprague, first elected to the District 2 seat in November 2008, said she is going back and forth on whether to run. Two declared candidates have raised about $17,500 total so far.
Collier commission
Three or four of the five Collier commission seats will change. Some candidates running have name recognition, evidenced by nearly $85,000 total raised so far.
Commission Chairwoman Donna Fiala had a short-lived challenger, who withdrew.
Five candidates are seeking the seat of Tom Henning, who is leaving his District 3 post. Commissioner Tim Nance isn't seeking re-election; five are running so far in District 5.
As of Friday, there was no candidate listed on the Collier elections website for the commission District 2 seat Georgia Hiller has said she is leaving to challenge Clerk of Courts Dwight Brock. She already has about $50,000 in her clerk's campaign account to his $14,000, elections office records show.
Legislative
Veteran GOP state lawmakers Kathleen Passidomo and Matt Hudson are leaving their House seats to run for state Senate. As of Friday, there were a total of five candidates in their House districts. Voters' decisions will be key because Collier will be served in Tallahassee by some newcomers in the legislative delegation.
Politics, but where?
We worried earlier this year about political season spilling into government meeting chambers. Unfortunately, we saw it three times in the past week.
For the third Collier School Board meeting this year, an accusation was aired that the teachers union engaged in improper political activity at schools. The district attorney spent 30 hours investigating what ended up with no proof of a law or policy violation.
A half-dozen North Collier fire staff members were instructed by a supervisor to leave a public meeting when two elected fire commissioners got into a heated exchange over handling of department finances.
Collier commissioners, with Brock and Hiller front and center, consumed hours of staff time Tuesday for a rerun discussion of county bill paying.
We're all for a full airing of this campaign in the right places, at the right times.
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Robert Minogue, Naples
Totalitarianism
It was only a matter of time. As the left wing of American politics sank further and further into the fever swamps of intolerance deriding any opposing views, denouncing any who dared disagree with their view of the world the next step would be to outlaw such opposition.
Overstating the case? Hardly.
The president and attorney general are now seriously proposing that those who deny their views on climate change, whether corporations, think tanks, or scientists, could be subject to criminal prosecution. As it happens, this is the classic definition of totalitarianism, i.e., a state in which opposition is outlawed.
An exaggeration? The April 10 edition of the Naples Daily News presented a pro/con debate of the issue in a presentation headlined: "Should those who deny climate change face prosecution?" I do not suggest that this is the opinion of the newspaper. Nevertheless, that such a proposition should even be considered in this country, that short of advocating the violent overthrow of the government, a person's opinions might lead to criminal prosecution is a terrifying abuse of governmental power.
The reaction from the ACLU and other "apostles of tolerance?" Silence. Apparently freedom of speech is a sometimes thing.
Disney crosses ethical boundaries
Emails obtained by STAT show that Disney asked Hill and a coauthor to withdraw the meal study a step that many researchers would consider a breach of ethics.
In one email, Hill told Disney an editor at the journal had advised him that "we risk some real negative PR if anyone found out that Disney was even trying to influence publication." The company relented, but was later offered an opportunity by the authors to tailor the press release about the study's findings. That, too, was unusual.
The emails do not indicate that Disney influenced the findings, but they open a rare window on the back-and-forth between researchers and a corporate sponsor. They also mark what experts described as an unusual degree of corporate involvement in an academic study.
Gary Ruskin, codirector of US Right to Know, a California-based consumer group that obtained the emails under the Colorado Open Records Act and provided them to STAT, said he was troubled by the authors' disclosure on the paper. ...
It suggests Disney shouldn't have had the opportunity to edit the press release, Ruskin said. But the emails show Disney insisting on more information about the publication before they could give approval to a press release; the authors then provided Disney with the draft release.
The demise of empirical research
Medical industry to begin harvesting organs from living patients' right before killing them?
California headed down a dangerous, destructive path
(NaturalNews) In medical systems around the world, the hunt for viable, transplantable organs is on. The knowledgeable Jan Bollen of the Maastricht University Medical Centre points this out in two separate papers published this year in theand in the. He suggested that the more "normalized" euthanasia becomes, the more the boundaries will be pushed for expediting organ harvesting.In Belgium, euthanasia rates have skyrocketed since it became legal in 2002. More and more people complying to be euthanized are opting to have their organs donated. Doctors are beginning to pressure patients into euthanasia , requesting that their viable organs be donated. Family members may pressure a loved one to follow through with euthanasia if their quality of life is determined to never be the same.Bollen writes about the worrisome state of euthanasia today and how the hunt for viable organs is pressuring patients to end their lives: "The patient needs to be hospitalised when the physician administers the euthanasia drugs, facilitating optimal organ recovery and optimising transplantation success of these organs."The patient's relatives are informed that they should say goodbye to their beloved person before the euthanasia drugs are being administered, since the time between death and organ donation should be minimised."More important, after the physician has determined death, the [profitable] patient has to be transported to the operating room[emphasis added]As medical systems expedite the process of organ harvesting to make better use of all the working parts of euthanized patient's, there is a possibility that surgeons may begin harvesting organs from patients right before they kill them. Doctors have a set amount of time before the organs are no longer viable. Hearts and lungs are the most vulnerable. By harvesting them before the person is killed, they would have more time to save organs for immediate transplant. Jan Bollen brings up the morbid possibility of this in his most recent papers.The process would likely begin with anaesthetizing the patient and then removing their organs, one by bone, while they are still alive, until the heart is removed. At that point, the person would be pronounced dead. Using this macabre procedure, hospital systems could transplant more hearts and lungs to dying patients waiting for a transplant."The trend is deeply worrying," said anti-euthanasia campaigner Alex Carlile. "The pressure to agree to provide a transplantable heart, lung or liver might be huge," he continued, warning that a stroke patient could be easily persuaded to give up their life on the operating table, complying to a physician-assisted suicide so that optimal organ harvesting opportunities can commence."The evidence of protection of the vulnerable in Belgium and Holland is sketchy at best. The boundaries of euthanasia are pushed yet further back and the potential for doctors to 'engineer' these events grows. We have cause to fear such developments and the ethical ambiguity that has been used to justify them," said Carlile.The emergence of California's physician-assisted suicide bill and the recent passage of the state's forced vaccination law raise many questions. Is mandatory euthanasia coming to California in the near future? The state is headed down a very dangerous, destructive path as the state continues to abandon patients' informed consent for using drugs and medical procedures.The medical system to which many now pledge allegiance prioritizes the value of a person's organs over their actual life and liberty. That's obviously the case at Planned Parenthood , where women are told that they have a choice, only to have their unborn child's organs meticulously removed and sold to biotechnology firms for medical research.As euthanasia becomes legal and accepted shamelessly, doctors are starting to push the boundaries, pressuring patients into ending their own lives. In Belgium, euthanasia is now requested by patients who are depressed or lonely. One person, who suffered from a botched sex change surgery, wanted euthanasia because they didn't like their body appearance. One 47-year-old patient wanted physician-assisted suicide because she struggled with tinnitus.Doctors are either openly permitting or pressuring patients into giving up their life so the medical system can utilize whatever organs they want liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, pancreas and so on. It's like the patients are being moved along a conveyor belt as their dead body is picked through, giving others select access to their organs
With the New York primary fast approaching, and the state's 247 pledged delegates up for grabs, tensions have escalated bewteen presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders evident when the Democratic rivals faced-off on the debate stage in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday night.
Leave it to "Saturday Night Live," which is known for its political sketches, to mock the CNN event dubbed the "Brooklyn Brawl."
Comedian Larry David made a welcomed return to Studio 8 to reprise his role as the Vermont senator alongside Kate McKinnon's Clinton and Beck Bennett as CNN's Wolf Blitzer. [[238904721, C]]
"I am Bernie Sanders," David said. "I'm a voice for regular people. Im not fancy. I'm not the elite. I put on my pants just like all of you. I sit on the edge of the bed and Jane pulls them up for me."
The real-life testy exchange between the former secretary of state and Sanders translated into a slap fight over the minimum wage.
"You feel that burn?" McKinnon asked David while holding him in a headlock and giving him a "noogie."
The faux-candidates also took questions from average New Yorkers, like "Seinfelds" Elaine Benes, reprised by "SNL" host Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Rachel Green from "Friends," played by cast member Vanessa Bayer.
"You've been pretty vague in the past. But how exactly are you going break up the big banks?" Louis-Dreyfus' Benes pressed Sanders.
"You mean a Big Bank Breakup?" Sanders replied.
"Yeah, a Big Bank Breakup" Benes said.
Benes grilled Sanders over his vague answers in the hilarious Seinfeld-esque exchange, and "yada, yada, yada," then took him to task about raising taxes on the rich.
"Senator Sanders, you believe the super-rich should pay more in taxes?" she asked. "But wouldnt that be bad for actors who made a lot of money on a certain very successful sitcom? And in turn, even worse for the person who created that sitcom?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should vote for her," Davids Sanders admitted pointing to McKinnon's Clinton.
The "Veep" star, who was hosting for the third time, showed her dramatic range and comedic timing as a bored housewife named Mrs. Handler having an affair with a much younger man in the sketch "Pool Boy." [[375984181, C]]
Mrs. Handlers passionate break-up speech is totally lost on the 20-something-year-old Chad, played by cast member Pete Davidson, who is more interested in the dead squirrel he fishes out of the filter.
As Handler says her final goodbyes to one fling, another one quickly ignites after seeing Toby (Nick Jonas) the new lawn guy cutting her grass.
Playing a black-and-white movie star who hid her lines all over the set and even on her co-stars chest Louis-Dreyfus got to indulge her always-fun flair for physical comedy in the "Cinema Classics" sketch. [[375984241, C]]
Musical guest Nick Jonas performed his recently released single "Champagne Problems" and dusted with Tove Lo on "Close."
Chicago Police are warning residents in the Bucktown neighborhood of two recent robberies.
In both incidents, three men walked up to someone on the street, punched them in the face or head and took their property, according to a community alert from police. The two robberies happened at 3:50 a.m. April 11 in the 1700 block of North Milwaukee Avenue and at 4:45 a.m. April 14 in the 1700 block of West North Avenue.
In the first robbery, the victim felt a hard object pressed against his head, and in the second one a robber stood with his hand behind his back as if he were armed, police said.
Two robbers are described as 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-10, 160-to-180 pound black men between 20 and 25 years old, police said. One man had a dark complexion, blond dreadlocks and was wearing a white or green military jacket. The other man had black hair and was wearing a brown and white puffy coat or a dark blue hooded sweatshirt.
The third robber is described as a 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, 170-to-180 pound black man between 20 and 29 years old, police said. He was wearing a black shirt or a dark blue hoodie.
Anyone with information on the robberies is asked to contact Area North detectives at (312) 744-8263.
Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger announced Sunday that amid ongoing state budget negotiations, monthly paychecks for legislators and elected officials will be delayed.
"Our social service network is being dismantled, mass layoffs are occurring and small businesses across Illinois are awaiting payments for services they've already provided," Munger said in a statement. "It is only appropriate that the unfair prioritization of payments to elected leaders ends. We are all in this together, we all will wait in line."
The state has operated without a budget since July 1, 2015. Without a budget, the state has no authority to spend money, though certain funding, including legislative pay, is considered continuing appropriation which is automatically funded. Court orders and consent decrees have also mandated spending at the Department of Human Services and Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
The delay on state payments is currently about two months, according to Munger, and though her office will continue to process the monthly paychecks for elected officials, they will wait in a queue with other payments and be released only when the cash is available.
Legislators make a base salary of $67,836 for the part-time position, with many earning more through leadership roles or by chairing committees. Legislators are also paid a per diem for each session day in Springfield as well as mileage reimbursement. Salaries for the states 177 lawmakers and six Constitutional officers total approximately $1.3 million per month.
Last month, Munger told a Senate appropriations committee that the states backlog of overdue bills could reach a sum of $10 billion by June.
Munger, a Republican from Lincolnshire, was appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in December 2014 after the death of longtime Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. She faces re-election in a November special election against Democrat Susana Mendoza, the city clerk of Chicago.
"Like everything else thats broken in Springfield, Comptroller Mungers suggestion is 10 months late and many dollars short, Mendoza said in a statement Sunday. Yes, we should not pay elected officials where possible before paying more urgent bills, but when is Comptroller Munger going to stand up to Governor Rauner and demand an end to his extreme agenda and pass a budget?
State police have charged the driver in a crash that killed two UConn sophomores last September with negligent homicide.
Hannah Marguerite Schmidt, 19, of Hebron, turned herself in to police Saturday. She was wanted for negligent homicide involving a motor vehicle and a stop sign violation.
Last September Schimdt was driving on West Street in Columbia when her car collided with a tractor-trailer at the intersection of Route 66 and West Street. Her two passengers, Alana Ferrante, 19, of South Windsor, and Ryan Meegan, 19, of Ridgefield, both UConn sophomores, died in accident. Ferrante was a pre-kinesiology major who had just transferred from Central Connecticut State University.
The tractor-trailer, driven by 48-year-old Adolfo Lopez, of Hartford, was traveling east on Route 66 while a Toyota Camry, driven by Schmidt, was traveling south on West Street.
The tractor-trailer collided with the right side of the Camry as the car entered the intersection. Both vehicles continued across the road and crashed into a utility pole on the right eastbound shoulder of Route 66. Witnesses reported to police that the Camry did not come to a complete stop at a stop sign prior to entering the intersection.
Ferrante and Meegan died at the scene. Schmidt was transported to Windham hospital by Columbia Fire/EMS, and was later transferred to Hartford Hospital via LifeStar helicopter for treatment of serious injuries. Lopez was transported to Windham Hospital with minor injuries.Police do not believe drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.
Schmidt's bond was set at $1,000 and she is expected to appear in court on April 27.
Chelsea Clinton is expected to campaign for her mother Hillary Clinton in Connecticut today.
The Clinton campaign announced that Chelsea will hold an event at Dunns River at 2996 Main St. in Hartford, ahead of the Connecticut primary. She is expected to discuss the issue of gun violence in America and will be joined by local leaders.
Doors to the event will open at 1 p.m. and the event itself starts at 1:45 p.m. Those interested in attending should RSVP online through the Clinton campaign website.
Hillary Clinton has a campaign event planned in Hartford on Thursday.
Hillary Clinton will be at the YMCA on Albany Avenue accompanied by the family of victims killed in Sandy Hook, along with other family members of gun violence victims, her campaign said.
The discussion will start at 11:30 a.m. with doors opening at 10 a.m.
Rescuers pulled survivors from rubble Sunday after the strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast.
Ecuador's president says the earthquake death toll in country has risen to at least 272 and is sure to go much higher. Vice President Jorge Glas said more than 2,500 were injured in the powerful quake.
After visiting areas hard hit by the quake, Rafael Correa gave the new count to reporters early Monday and said it would "surely rise, and in a considerable way."
Correa says Ecuador will overcome the tragedy.
He said: "The Ecuadorean spirit knows how to move forward, and will know how to overcome these very difficult moments."
The magnitude-7.8 quake, the strongest to hit Ecuador since 1979, was centered on Ecuador's sparsely populated fishing ports and tourist beaches, 105 miles (170 kilometers) northwest of Quito, the capital.
Correa flew back from Rome to deal with the crisis.
Glas said there were deaths in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil all several hundred kilometers (miles) from the center of the quake, which struck shortly after nightfall Saturday.
In Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the quake's epicenter, dozens of frightened residents slept in the streets while men equipped with little more than car headlights tried to rescue survivors who could be heard trapped under the rubble.
"We're trying to do the most we can, but there's almost nothing we can do," said Pedernales Mayor Gabriel Alcivar.
Alcivar pleaded for authorities to send earth-moving machines and rescue workers to help find people in the rubble. He said looting had broken out amid the chaos but authorities were too busy trying to save lives to re-establish order.
"This wasn't just a house that collapsed. It was an entire town," he said.
Correa declared a national emergency and urged Ecuadoreans to stay strong.
"Everything can be rebuilt, but what can't be rebuilt are human lives, and that's the most painful," he said in a telephone call to state TV before departing Rome for Manta.
Glas said the country had already deployed 10,000 armed forces. In addition, 4,600 national police were sent to towns near the epicenter. He said there is a long list of missing people that authorities are looking for but he has declined to disclose the number. He says only that the number of casualties is expected to go up more.
Would-be rescuers scrambled through the ruins in the provincial capital Portoviejo, digging with their hands to find survivors. As officials set up shelters and field hospitals, residents said they felt like their entire town had been flattened.
More than 3,000 packages of food and nearly 8,000 sleeping kits were being delivered. Electricity in Manabi province, the hardest-hit, remained mostly down as authorities focused on finding survivors.
"Compatriots: Unity, strength and prayer," Glas told a throng of residents gathered in the streets of Manta as he instructed them on how to look for survivors. "We need to be quiet so we can hear. We can't use heavy machinery because it can be very tragic for those who are injured."
On social media, Ecuadorians celebrated a video of a baby girl being pulled from beneath a collapsed home in Manta.
Shanty towns and cheaply-constructed brick and concrete homes were reduced to rubble along the quake's path, while in Guayaquil a shopping center's roof fell down and a collapsed highway overpass crushed a car. In Manta, the airport closed after the control tower collapsed, injuring an air traffic control worker and a security guard.
Alberto Reynas, 58, was fishing off the coast of Pedernales when giant waves violently rocked his boat.
"It felt the same on sea as it did on land," he said.
But he was shaken again when he returned to land to find the facade of his two-story home had fallen off into the streets. He has been unable to communicate with members of his family and spent the night sleeping outdoors with neighbors, keeping a close watch against thieves.
"It's pure sadness. Everything is destroyed," he said.
Luis Quito said he spent the entire night delivering water to guests trapped under the rubble of a small, four-story Hotel Chimborazo owned by his father-in-law, who was missing and he believed dead.
"We hear screaming all through night," said Quito, wailing as he expressed outrage over the slow response of authorities. "There are humans trapped below the terrace. Babies. We need rescuers. But nobody has arrived so far."
In the capital Quito, terrified people fled into the streets as the quake shook their buildings. It knocked out electricity in several neighborhoods and a few homes collapsed but after a few hours power was being restored.
Among those killed was the driver of a car crushed by an overpass that buckled in Guayaquil, the country's most populous city. The city's international airport was also briefly closed. Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines in the OPEC-member nation were shut down as a precautionary measure but so there were no reports of damage to them.
Towns near the epicenter were evacuated as a precautionary measure in case of hazardous tsunami waves but several hours later authorities said was safe for coastal residents to return to their homes.
Ecuador's ally Venezuela pledged humanitarian aid while neighbor Colombia, where the quake was also felt, said it stands ready to help in any way possible. The government is drawing on $600 million in emergency funding from multilateral banks to rebuild, Correa said.
The U.S. Geological Survey originally put the quake at a magnitude of 7.4 then raised it to 7.8. It had a depth of 19 kilometers (12 miles). More than 135 aftershocks followed, one as strong as magnitude-5.6, and authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days.
David Rothery, a professor of geosciences at The Open University northeast of London said the quake was about six times as strong as the most powerful of two deadly earthquakes across the Pacific, in the southernmost of Japan's four main islands.
A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck Thursday near Kumamoto, followed by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake just 28 hours later. The quakes have killed 41 people and injured about 1,500, flattened houses and triggered major landslides.
On Sunday, thousands of rescue workers searched a debris-strewn village in southern Japan for about a half-dozen missing people as U.S. military aircraft rushed to join the relief mission.
A violent overnight across Philadelphia left 10 people shot, three of whom died, in five separate incidents within a roughly four-hour span Sunday.
In the first shooting, a 25-year-old man was shot once in the wrist on Lancaster Avenue near 41st Street, in West Philadelphia's Powelton neighborhood, just after 2 a.m., police said. That man was in stable condition at a local hospital, and no arrests were made in the shooting.
Less than two hours later, about 3:40 a.m., three men were at 9th and Ontario streets in North Philadelphia when police say someone opened fire on them, wounding all three. One victim, age 28, suffered a gunshot wound to his knee, police said. Police said they were unsure exactly where on the body the other two men were shot, but all three were taken to the hospital and listed in stable condition. No arrests were made in that shooting, and police have not said what they believe motivated it.
About the same time, police said, officers in Kensington responded to what would eventually become a standoff with a shotgun-wielding man who would ultimately shoot four people, killing three of them. When police finally got the man to surrender, they found the bodies of two men and a woman, all suffering what appeared to be shotgun wounds to their heads, inside a house on Westmoreland Street.
A little more than an hour later and not far away, a 27-year-old man was near Front Street and Lehigh Avenue, in North Philadelphia, about 4:50 a.m. when police say someone shot him in the arm. He was taken to Temple University Hospital in a private vehicle and listed in stable condition, police said. No arrests were reported.
Less than an hour after that, about 5:45 a.m., police said a 19-year-old man suffered a graze wound to his buttocks when someone shot at him on Erie Avenue near B Street, about a block from the headquarters of the 24th and 25th Police Districts in North Philadelphia. Police said they did not make any arrests in that shooting.
The spate of shootings Sunday morning came on the heels of a tragic Saturday in Philadelphia, after a 4-year-old girl was shot to death inside a home in Kensington Saturday afternoon.
Investigators are searching for a man who they believe impersonated a police officer in Evesham Township, New Jersey.
A driver told police he was traveling on North Maple Avenue Wednesday when he spotted an unmarked, gold-colored Ford Crown Victoria that had activated its emergency lights and siren. The driver pulled over and the Crown Victoria pulled up next to him.
The driver said the man in the Crown Victoria then identified himself as a police officer and said that he had cut him off. He never showed any identification or credentials however, police said. The man then drove away.
The suspect is described as a white male with dark brown hair and a goatee wearing a navy blue hooded sweatshirt. His Crown Victoria had a New Jersey license plate with the tag S80AUX, police said. Investigators later determined that license plate doesnt match any in the New Jersey state database.
No arrests have been made. Police continue to investigate the incident.
Virginia lawmakers are set to return to the Capitol this week to debate how the state should put inmates to death, how it should structure a new economic development initiative, and whether the Old Dominion should tweak its new ethics laws.
Wednesday is the so-called veto session, where legislators return to Richmond for a day to consider Gov. Terry McAuliffe's vetoes and amendments to legislation passed earlier this year.
Among the most watched moves by the Democratic governor is his proposal to shield the identities of companies that supply lethal-injection drugs for executions. Virginia has struggled to obtain the drugs necessary for lethal injections and the GOP-controlled General Assembly passed legislation earlier this year that would force inmates to die in the electric chair if there are no available drugs.
McAuliffe said drug manufacturers won't provide Virginia the drugs necessary without the secrecy provision and has vowed to veto the legislation if lawmakers insist on the contentious electric-chair provision. The governor said lawmakers need to agree to his proposed changes if they keep the death penalty.
``If they pass up that opportunity, they will bring the death penalty to an end here in Virginia,'' he said last week.
The governor's amendment would give Virginia's Department of Corrections the authority to compound its own execution drugs using products from pharmacies whose identities would remain confidential. Virginia is one of at least eight states that allow electrocutions, but currently gives inmates the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair.
McAuliffe has also proposed changes to a business-backed economic development initiative designed to foster greater regional cooperation. McAuliffe has said the initiative, called Go Virginia, as passed by the General Assembly would improperly give lawmakers control over an executive office function. He's proposed amending the legislation to give his office more power in selecting Go Virginia's board members.
And the governor has rejected some of minor changes the General Assembly approved to a new ethics law, which would have loosened some of the restrictions related to gifts from lobbyists. Lawmakers wanted to exempt meals and drinks under $20 lobbyists bought from a $100 gift cap, a proposal McAuliffe has rejected. And the governor also wants to prohibit lobbyists from bundling gifts together from multiple clients, an issue the General Assembly has been silent on.
Republican leaders have not yet signaled how they'll respond to any of McAuliffe's proposed amendments. If they reject amendments, McAuliffe can veto the legislation.
McAuliffe also vetoed 32 pieces of legislation this year, mostly related to social issues like abortion, gun control and gay rights. Republicans will need a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override a veto, and are unlikely to get enough votes in the near evenly split state Senate.
The search continues for a missing woman whose car was discovered at a national park in Virginia on Saturday.
Nicole Mittendorff, 31, was reported missing to police on Friday. Her 2009 Mini Cooper was found shortly before 8 p.m. the next day in a parking lot in Shenandoah National Park by a U.S. Park ranger. State police said Mittendorff was last in touch with her family Wednesday, April 13.
Federal, state and volunteer search teams have spent the past few days searching the Shenandoah National Park for any signs of Mittendorff. Due to the rugged terrain, Virginia State Police said the search has to stop at sundown but will resume early in the morning.
The search has focused on the area around the White Oak Canyon trail in Madison County.
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Mittendorff is a career firefighter and paramedic for the Fairfax County Fire Department, a family member confirmed to News4. Her husband is a Virginia State Police employee, police said.
There is currently no evidence to suggest anything suspicious about Mittendorff's disappearance, state police said.
Her family has created a Facebook page and a website to help find her.
She is described as a white woman with blonde hair and green eyes. She is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 125 pounds.
As police worked Saturday to determine why a person opened fire on firefighters who were responding to a call for help at a home in a Maryland suburb of Washington, the alleged shooter was released from custody.
The Prince Georges County State Attorneys Office told News4's Darcy Spencer they do not have enough evidence to charge and prosecute the accused shooter at this time.
The man told detectives he fired in self-defense, believing he was in danger from unknown people breaking into his home.
"The citizens brother thought he was in medical duress, called for assistance, and his brother did not realize the firefighters were there to assist him and reacted as if his house was being broken into," said Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince Georges County states attorney.
Repairmen were at the home Saturday, fixing the front door that had been forced open. A fire department spokesman said there will be a review to see if policies need to be changed.
John Ulmschneider, a 13-year veteran of the Prince George's County Fire Department, died Friday night after he was shot while trying to enter a home to make a welfare check, police said.
Volunteer firefighter Kevin Swain, 19, also was shot, and was in serious but stable condition after coming out of surgery Saturday, department officials said. Swain, who authorities say was shot four times, is expected to survive.
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Firefighters had gone to the Temple Hills home after the brother of the man who lived there told authorities he was concerned about the man's safety, said Mark Brady, spokesman for the fire department.
The man said his brother had trouble controlling his blood sugar and recently blacked out. He told authorities he was worried because his brother wasn't answering the phone or the door and his car was parked in the driveway, Brady said.
When the firefighters arrived on the scene, the person inside was unresponsive, so they decided to force entry, police said. As that was happening, the person inside fired several rounds, striking two firefighters and his brother, authorities said. Police said that once firefighters got into the home, the gunfire stopped.
There were no police officers present when the firefighters decided to enter the home, Prince George's County Police Department spokeswoman Julie Parker.
Brady said that's something firefighters do fairly routinely when there's a concern about someone's safety. He said anytime there is an incident such as this, the department will review its protocols and possibly make changes.
"The firefighter medics made a decision that this was indeed a reason they needed to get into that house as soon as possible. Time could have been of the essence," he said.
Brady said Ulmschneider was described as a "good old hard working country boy who loved his job." A You Caring fund has been set up for his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
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Diana Krieger, whose daughter is married to Ulmschneider's brother, told The Washington Post that he was a "caring man" who had dreamed of being a firefighter since high school.
"He wanted to help others, he loved doing what he was doing, being a paramedic and a firefighter, and I really believe that he was doing God's work," Krieger told the newspaper.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the state's flag to be flown at half-staff in Ulmschneider's memory.
"His legacy as a husband, father and firefighter, and his commitment to protecting others, will not soon be forgotten by his loved ones, the community, or Maryland," Hogan said in a statement.
The brother of the man who lived at the home was not seriously injured, Prince George's County police Chief Henry P. Stawinski III said at a news conference.
Two other firefighters with the Morningside Volunteer Fire Department suffered minor injuries while seeking cover after the shooting. One firefighter injured a knee and the other injured her jaw. The two were treated at the hospital and released Saturday.
Two separate overnight shootings in the area have killed two men, according to authorities.
Prince Georges County police said they were called to the 5300 block of Vienna Drive in Clinton, Maryland, around 10 p.m. for reports of a shooting. When they arrived, they found two men suffering from gunshot wounds.
They said both men were taken to the hosptial in critical condition, but one man died at the hospital. Detectives are working to establish a motive and seeking any information.
The victims have not been identified.
D.C. Metropolitan police said the body of a man was found behind Cooke Elementary School near Mozart Place, NW, around 3 a.m. Jayvon Marshman, 35, of southeast D.C., was pronounced dead at the scene.
A second gunshot victim was found nearby. They were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Investigators are still looking for witnesses and information.
The hacker responsible for bringing pwnage pain to the Hacking Team last July has published an in-depth DIY guide for how he pulled it off. Its a detailed, really great read.
The hacker is none other than Phones Fisher. He runs the @GammaGroupPR Twitter account, now referred to as Hack Back, and previously leaked FinFisher spyware documents, including details such as which antivirus solutions could detect Gamma Internationals surveillance malware.
On Friday, Phineas Fisher tweeted a link to his original post, which is in Spanish, giving a technical blow-by-blow on the tools he used and how he breached the Hacking Teams system. On Saturday, he tweeted a link to an English translation.
He makes no bones about it; hes a black hat hacker. Phineas Fisher wrote, You used to have to sneak into offices to leak documents. You used to need a gun to rob a bank. Now you can do both from bed with a laptop in hand.
After giving tips on how to avoid being caught and sent to prison, such as encrypt your hard drive, use a virtual machine with all traffic routed through Tor and dont connect directly to Tor, he described how he uses Tor to protect his anonymity while connecting to the infrastructure he uses for hacking.
Phineas Fisher credited hardworking Russians for developing exploits that have already compromised almost all of the Fortune 500 networks. Hacking Team, however, had not been.
A discussion on Hacker News suggested that law enforcement might use the hackers postdialect, spelling, phrases or other strong markersto attempt to identify him. Then again, Phineas Fisher might have crafted the document in a style that is not his usual type. Thats exactly what he said he did when he hacked The Hacking Team.
I didnt want to make the polices work any easier by relating my hack of Hacking Team with other hacks Ive done or with names I use in my day-to-day work as a blackhat hacker. So, I used new servers and domain names, registered with new emails and payed for with new bitcoin addresses. Also, I only used tools that are publicly available, or things that I wrote specifically for this attack, and I changed my way of doing some things to not leave my usual forensic footprint.
Under technical exploitation, Phineas Fisher explained that his reconnaissance into the Hacking Team revealed three choices to hack the company. He could look for a zero-day in Joomla, look for a zero-day in Postfix or look for a zero-day in one of the embedded devices. He added, A zero-day in an embedded device seemed like the easiest option, and after two weeks of work reverse engineering, I got a remote root exploit. He did not detail that vulnerability, since it still hasnt been patched, but he did point to sources for finding such vulnerabilities.
Phineas Fisher did a lot of testing on his zero-day backdoored firmware before deploying it. Once he did, he said, Although it was fun to listen to recordings and see webcam images of Hacking Team developing their malware, it wasn't very useful. Their insecure backups were the vulnerability that opened their doors.
He discovered several vulnerabilities, such as an unprotected MongoDB, which is where Hacking Teams Remote Control Software audio is stored. He noted, The audio folder in the torrent came from this. They were spying on themselves without meaning to.
Eventually, he went after the Exchange email server and mounted the backup. This was where he found a working BlackBerry Enterprise Service admin password. Then with access to the Domain Admin server, he had the passwords for users.
The fact that Hacking Teams Christian Pozzi used P4ssword was pointed out as lol great sysadmin. Phineas Fisher goes into a lot more depth, adding how he included the Pozzi material in the leak as a false clue, and to laugh at him. The reality is that Mimikatz and keyloggers view all passwords equally.
After reading the companys emails, he discovered the companys GitLab server. He used a password reset option to gain access into that server, as well as the Hacking Teams Twitter account.
Despite the massive pwnage, the Hacking Team is still around; however, it did recently lose its global export license. After giving his detailed account of how he hacked the company, Phineas Fisher concluded:
Thats all it takes to take down a company and stop their human rights abuses. Thats the beauty and asymmetry of hacking: with 100 hours of work, one person can undo years of work by a multi-million-dollar company. Hacking gives the underdog a chance to fight and win.
To the self-described black hat, leaking documents, expropriating money from banks and working to secure the computers of ordinary people is ethical hacking. Phineas Fisher dedicated his guide to the victims of the raid on Armando Diaz school and to all those who have had their blood spilled by Italian fascists.
He hopes that the write-up about how Hacking Team was hacked, which he promised to do last July, will be enough to laugh them off the internet for good.
Champaign, IL (61820)
Today
Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 62F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..
Tonight
Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 62F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.
Our County Editor
Dave Hinton is editor of The News-Gazette's Our County section and former editor of the Rantoul Press. He can be reached at dhinton@news-gazette.com.
Reporter/Columnist
Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth).
Columnist
Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).
Religious Fundamentalism versus Common Sense
There are several controversial issues in recent years that have made me wonder if religion affects ones ability to reason .
To me, religious fundamentalism gives people an excuse to stop thinking, as their arguments begin and end with: your view is irrelevant because *insert relevant deity/ religious book* said so. For many, their religious beliefs and moral convictions are more important than everything and everyone every time, and no matter what, their deitys commands are final .
This topic has been weighing heavily on my mind since 2014 when Gambia passed homophobic laws against aggravated homosexuality followed a year later by a statement from its presidential dictator promising to slit the throats of gay men himself .
Then in 2015, a pregnant Australian Jehovahs Witness woman after being diagnosed with leukaemia refused a blood transfusion, which would have most likely saved the lives of both her and the baby. While there are many divergent subjects where religious dogma and common sense collide, the three most important issues for us in Trinidad and Tobago seem to be abortion, LGBT rights and pre-marital sex .
In 2012, then PNM Senator and current Minister of Works and Transport, Fitzgerald Hinds while touting his strict adherence to the Bible expressed his intention to protect his children from the feelings of homosexuals .
In 2014, Presbyterian minister, Daniel Teelucksingh suggested that pre-marital sex be criminalised. In recent weeks, weve seen the Presbyterian Board essentially condone bigotry and hate speech at Naparima College. And a couple weeks ago, both the Amir of the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Institute and the Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese were steadfast in their positions that abortion should not be an option under any circumstances whatsoever, despite the learned opinion of medical doctors advocating for the lives of mothers .
So we have all these hard and fast positions on issues based on religious beliefs without even an iota of common sense being injected into the situations .
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines common sense as the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions. Do these staunch religious advocates believe that it is a good decision to oppress others because of their lifestyle choices? I can even hear their respective deities asking the same question: Do you think by oppressing someone and denying them their rights, you are fulfilling my law? Do these staunch religious advocates believe it is reasonable to allow a victim of rape or incest to bear that child to remind her of the abuse she endured? Have these staunch religious advocates considered the psychological effects of a child being raised knowing that its mother is also its sister? Is it reasonable to place the burden of known physical handicap or mental defects on a mother who cannot properly care for that child financially, mentally, or emotionally? With Misoprostol (Cytotec) available just as easily as Panadol at some pharmacies, the law will not stop abortions from occurring, but making the act legal means that instead of a woman potentially overdosing and dying, she can safely have her abortion with medical supervision. And regarding our anachronous 1925 laws on abortion, does it really make sense to punish women, let alone with four years imprisonment? The most outrageously ridiculous of all these opinions has to be the criminal punishment for coital encounters that occur before marriage .
I guess the message is to get married as quickly as possible so you can have sex legally. The only kind of sense present in this suggestion is non-sense. Yes, children making children is a serious problem, but most of these children are being impregnated by older men, and despite statutory rape laws, nothing is being done. It is quite amusing to read and hear the views of religious radicals who want to police the bedrooms of law abiding citizens, yet remain remarkably silent on the rape and molestation of children by religious leaders. I am also perplexed by religious fanatics who are against the distribution of condoms in schools, yet they are first in line to condemn teenage pregnancies .
Of course, religion is the moral compass guiding our behaviour, but religiously-based absolute morality is ignorant intolerance, and has no place in the variety, complexity and sophistication of modern life. Religious fundamentalism has passed its sell-by date. Perspicacious debate and common sense is needed, not the uncompromising views of religious zealots .
We need sound religious values, but it must be wrapped snugly in common sense .
'He Had the Chance to Go in
and Save the Children'
(Newser) The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. As rescue workers rushed in, officials said the damage stretched for hundreds of miles. The magnitude-7.8 quake was centered on Ecuador's sparsely populated fishing ports and tourist beaches. Vice President Jorge Glas later that at least 235 were confirmed dead, with another 1,557 injured, reports the AP. He said there were deaths in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo, and Guayaquilall several hundred miles from where the quake struck shortly after nightfall. He said the quake was the strongest to hit Ecuador since 1979 and accessing the disaster zone was difficult due to landslides. "We're trying to do the most we can, but there's almost nothing we can do," said Gabriel Alcivar, mayor of Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the epicenter.
Alcivar pleaded for earth-moving machines and rescue workers as dozens of buildings in the town were flattened, trapping residents among the rubble. He said looting had broken out but authorities were too busy trying to save lives to re-establish order, reports the AP. "This wasn't just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town," he said. President Rafael Correa declared a national emergency and rushed home from a visit to Rome. Ecuador's Risk Management agency said 10,000 armed forces had been deployed. The USGS originally put the quake at a magnitude of 7.4 then raised it to 7.8. It had a depth of 12 miles. At least 36 aftershocks followed, one as strong as 6 on the Richter scale, and authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days. (Read more Ecuador stories.)
(Newser) George Clooney would like to get big money out of politicsso he doesn't have to raise it. As the AP reports, Clooney hosted two weekend fundraisers in California on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Donations for attendees at an event in San Francisco topped out at $353,000 per couple, which Clooney acknowledges is an "obscene amount of money." The event even drew pro-Bernie Sanders demonstrators, Clooney recounted Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. When he went to talk with them, he said, they called him a corporate shill. "That's one of the funnier things you could say about me," the Oscar-winner said, though he conceded protesters had a valid point on a different matter. "Their T-shirts said, you know, 'You sucked as Batman,'" said Clooney, the star of 1997's Batman & Robin. "And I was like, 'Well, you kind of got me on that one.'"
Of Sanders, Clooney says "what he's saying in this election is important if you're a Democrat" and, per Politico, he hopes Sanders "stays in for the entire election." Clooney would gladly raise money for him if he became the Democratic nominee, but is supporting Clinton because of her work as secretary of state and efforts to avert a humanitarian crisis ahead of South Sudan's independence. Clooney faulted Clinton for not better explaining where the money she is raising goes. Most of it, he said, would end up being spent on down-ballot races including those for the Senate, which will confirm the next president's picks for the Supreme Court. If the right justice is confirmed for the spot now open on the court, Clooney said, political campaigns could "get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again." (Read more George Clooney stories.)
(Newser) The parent of a 4-year-old girl who was killed in a Philadelphia neighborhood has confessed to accidentally shooting her, police said. Authorities were unsure whether the man, who has not been identified, is her father or stepfather, but said he told police it was him Saturday night. The child was originally believed to have been fatally shot by her young brother. Investigators said the girl was shot in the face by the parent in a home in the Kensington neighborhood shortly before 2:30pm Saturday. Emergency medical personnel pronounced her dead at the scene. Police previously said the girl was shot by her 5-year-old sibling and were searching for the child's father or stepfather, who was believed to have owned the gun used.
But the man turned himself in Saturday night and ultimately said he, not the other child, was responsible, Sgt. Eric Gripp said Sunday. "After investigation, (he) admitted to accidentally shooting the victim, and stated that the sibling had nothing to do with it," Gripp said. He said charges were pending. A neighbor said the girl's mother was quite protective, rarely letting her children out to play for fear of violence in a neighborhood in which shootings and drugs were a constant concern. She would say, "No, I'm not bringing these kids out with this trouble," Louise Sawyer told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Crystal Dougherty, who said she was a friend of the family, said the little girl who died was sweet and loved Barbie dolls and coloring. "She was just an outgoing little girl," she said. (Read more accidental death stories.)
(Newser) Southwest Airlines recently removed a college student from a flight after he was heard speaking Arabic on his cellphone, the New York Times reports. The student, Khairuldeen Makhzoomiwho had emigrated to the US from Iraq with his family in 2010says he was only talking about a dinner he had attended where UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave a speech. "I was very excited about the event so I called my uncle to tell him about it," says the 26-year-old. But a passenger apparently misheard his use of the common Arabic phrase "inshallah" (or "god willing") as "shahid" (or "martyr") and reported him on the April 6 flight out of LAX, the Daily Californian reports. According to Makhzoomi, an employee escorted him off the plane and asked why he was speaking Arabic.
"I said to him, 'This is what Islamophobia got this country into,' and that made him so angry," says the UC Berkeley student. "That is when he told me I could not go back on the plane." Taken to a terminal, Makhzoomi says he and his luggage were searched while onlookers and half a dozen cops watched. "That is when I couldnt handle it and my eyes began to water," says Makhzoomi, whose father was killed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Released by the FBI later that day, Makhzoomi got a refund from Southwest and arrived at his Oakland destination on Delta Air Lines 8 hours later than expected. Makhzoomi says he doesn't want any money for his ordealjust an apology from Southwest. Makhzoomi's case isn't so unusual: Six Muslims have already been pulled off flights this year, an expert says, including one on a Southwest flight just last week, CBS Baltimore reports. (Read more Southwest Airlines stories.)
Jet hand dryers may be fast dryers, but they aren't safe. A new study shows that compared to paper towels and warm dryers, jet dryers spray 1,300 times more viral plaques, which can be sent 10 feet away.
Participants were asked to dip gloved hands into solutions of the harmless virus MS2. They then shook their hands and tried out three drying methods. The experts then collected samples from the air as well as petri dishes placed in different spots around this area to inspect them for viruses.
They found that jet dryers spread viruses further than the other methods. Do their benefits outweigh their downsides, then?
It certainly looks like it! "These differences in results between the three hand-drying devices can be largely explained by their mode of drying the hands," the team said. "These differences in results between the three hand-drying devices can be largely explained by their mode of drying the hands."
Hence, jet dryers are better avoided in spots where diseases should be minimized, such as at hospitals.
Bacteria are larger than viruses and also have the potential to cause disease. It is not known how the jet dryers distribute bacteria.
Dyson, the company that designs the jet hand dryers, claimed in its defence that in the real world paper towels are covered with germs due to earlier users. In experiments such as these, participants' hands are covered with viruses much more than they would be.
Most people do not wash their hands at all.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that hand washing should take 20 seconds, along with warm water and soap. A quick rinse and then heading for the jet dryer is going to spray viruses liberally, said the company spokesman.
The findings were published in the Jan. 20 issue of the Journal of Applied Microbiology.
Pope Francis' visit to the island of Lesbos in Greece on Saturday had quite a fallout in time and space. Many refugees fell at his feet when he gave a powerful speech about Europe's developing stance on the migrants. He concluded with a visit to the Holy See and rescued a number of refugees.
He took 12 Syrians from three families with him back to the Vatican to be cared for. About half the entourage were children whose houses had got destroyed by the Middle East unrest.
The visit lasted only a few hours, but he reached out to a large number of migrants, especially at the Moria detention facility, the centre for hundreds of deportations amidst a new immigration plan by Europe.
He told the people in the refugee camp that they were not alone.
"I want to tell you, you are not alone. As people of faith, we wish to join our voices to speak out on your behalf. Do not lose hope!" he said.
He referred to a large number of migrants who had been killed on the way but reached the island to start a new life in the continent.
"This is a trip that is a bit different than the others. This is a trip marked by sadness. We are going to encounter the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War Two. We will see many people who are suffering, who don't know where to go, who had to flee," Francis said.
"We are also going to a cemetery, the sea. So many people died there. This is what is in my heart as I make this trip."
Hence, even though a number of migrants were not Catholic, his five-hour visit got a number of migrants cheering, weeping and kissing his feet.
Riyadh:
Saudi Arabias state-run news agency says a fire at a chemical plant in the kingdoms east has killed 12 people and injured 11. The Saudi Press Agency said the fire in al-Jubail happened around 11:40 am today at the Jubail United Petrochemical Co. The news agency quoted the company as saying the fire began during maintenance at the plant.
The company also said the fire caused thick black smoke, which contributed to the death of the contractors working on the maintenance at the plant. A telephone number for the plant could not be immediately found last night.
The website for SABIC, a chemical conglomerate based in Riyadh, says the firm holds a 75-percent stake in al-Jubail United Petrochemical Co. SABIC did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
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New Delhi:
The Netherlands has appealed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to spare the demolition of Patna Collectorate, one of the last surviving signatures of Dutch history of Bihars capital, and list the centuries-old structures under the state archaeology department.
Ambassador of the Netherlands to India Alphonsus Stoelinga in a letter to Kumar also suggested that adaptive reusage of these old buildings, on the banks of Ganga, could be found. I came across reports about the possibility of this shared built heritage of India and the Netherlands being demolished anytime.
I sincerely believe that this built heritage depicting the Indo-Dutch history can be restored and alternate uses can be planned. I am writing this letter to appeal to you to list the complex of buildings as per the norms of the state archaeological department, said Stoelinga.
Highlighting the vulnerabilities of unprotected heritage buildings in the city, heritage body INTACH and members of civil society, including eminent historians, architects and former judges had on April 6 also urged the Bihar chief minister to spare its dismantling and restore it.
Patna Collectorate alongside Patna Colleges main administration building and the remains of the opium godown in Gulzarbagh, comprise the last remnants of Dutch history of Patna.
The governments move has upset experts and commoners alike and the civil society in its appeal to Kumar had also asked to restore it to its original glory and reuse the site as a tourist attraction.
The Ambassador in his letter also cited the book Patna: A Monumental History brought out in 2008 by the state governments Department of Art, Culture and Youth, where Patna Collectorate and Patna College are listed among the heritage buildings of the capital city.
A senior official at the Dutch Embassy here said, Bihar, especially, cities of Patna and Chhapra have intrinsic links to the Dutch past, and the riverine trade and history of that era. Places like Patna Collectorate could become focal points in storytelling of shared history between the two countries.
The buildings once restored could also serve as a backdrop for celebrating the local culture of Patna and Bihar on the banks of Ganga. That way, it will attract both foreign tourists and engage the local people with their own history, the official told PTI.
The Dutch came to India in early 17th century with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company which traded in various Indian cities like Surat, Patna, Chinsurah (Bengal) and Pulicat (Coromandel region of Tamil Nadu).
Patna was one of the major trading centres for opium and saltpetre and the Dutch built factories and godowns there on the banks of Ganga as the river played a major role in trade operation until the advent of railways in 19th century.
The Dutch government in the letter also offered to NIT-Patna and Bihar government to work on a collaborative project on capacity-building programmes on the theme of adaptive reusage of heritage buildings.
May I also take this opportunity to invite the architecture department of the National Institute of Technology, Patna, for working out a collaborative effort with my Embassy and Dutch counterparts in making a capacity building programme in conservation and adaptive reusage of heritage buildings in collaboration with the state Department of Culture using the Dutch (era) Patna College as a reference point, the letter said.
The Dutch Embassy official said such collaborative programmes can help widen avenues on both sides, and enhance better understanding of our shared heritage as well.
A Dutch-era building, being used as a post office in Surat had also faced demolition about 10 years ago, but then eventually the decision was reconsidered and it survived, he said.
The Dutch government in 2014 had worked on a series of collaborative projects seeking to link shared history with tourism in partnership with Victoria Memorial Hall and Presidency University and West Bengal Tourism.
West Bengals Chinsurah is steeped in Dutch history and remnants of the bygone era can still be seen in the town by the banks of Hooghly.
We brought out a volume - A Documentation of the Dutch Heritage in Chinsurah and a booklet Chinsurah - The Dutch Heritage seeking to rekindle our mutual old links and celebrate the legacy and promote tourism there, he said.
The government of the Netherlands had also made attempts to salvage its links with Pulicat, a town in Tamil Nadu, where remains of the old Dutch era can still be seen.
The embassy official said that one of the reasons the Dutch history has remained not so accessible to people is because of the language barrier. Most of the records are in Dutch language and we have tried to get some of them translated into English, he said.
A richly-illustrated book De VOC in India, originally in Dutch language and authored by researcher Bauke van der Pol was brought out a few years ago. In 2014, its English version The Dutch East India Company in India was released.
VOC or Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was originally established as a chartered company in early 1602 and is said to be the first multinational corporation of the world and the first company to issue stock.
The VOC monogramme can still be seen in buildings and other places and artefacts in various cities having Dutch connection. The Commissioners Bungalow in Chinsurah carries the inscription VOC 1687 on its grand staircase.
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Washington:
A US Air Force reconnaissance plane was intercepted by a Russian SU-27 jet in an unsafe and unprofessional manner while in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, the Pentagon has said.
The US aircraft was operating in international airspace and at no time crossed into Russian territory, Laura Seal, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said of Thursdays incident.
It came shortly after Russian aircraft repeatedly buzzed the USS Donald Cook this past week, including an incident Tuesday in which a Russian Su-24 flew nine metres above the war ship in a simulated attack profile, according to the US militarys European Command.
Russia has denied the actions were reckless or provocative but they have been seen as exacerbating tensions between the rival powers.
This unsafe and unprofessional air intercept has the potential to cause serious harm and injury to all aircrews involved, Seal said of the latest incident in a statement.
More importantly, the unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries. The US aircraft in question was an RC-135 and the Pentagon said it had been flying a routine route.
There have been repeated incidents over the last year where Russian military aircraft have come close enough to other air and sea traffic to raise serious safety concerns, and we are very concerned with any such behavior, the Pentagon said. On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry had strong words about the recent warship flyby.
We condemn this kind of behaviour. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down, Kerry told CNN Espanol in Miami.
Kerry added: People need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated on the high seas. We are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is and our hope is that this will never be repeated, he said.
The Russian maneuvers began Monday while the destroyer was located about 70 nautical miles from the Russian base in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. One US defence official called the actions of the Russian planes more aggressive than anything weve seen in some time.
The destroyers commanding officer Charles Hampton told journalists in Lithuania that very low, very fast flybys were inconsistent with the professional norms of militaries in international waters or international airspace. But Russia countered the criticism, insisting it had observed all safety regulations.
The US militarys European Command (EUCOM) released video showing warplanes zooming so close past the Cook that one sailor can be heard saying: He is below the bridge wing, meaning the plane was flying lower than the highest point of the ship.
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New Delhi:
As the days are passing by, effects of global warming are becoming more vivid with soaring temperatures. Sweltering heatwave has gripped the entire world, leaving some parts swept by drought while others by floods.
Unprecedented rise in mercury can be attributed to a lot of factors ranging from greenhouse gases to deforestation and El-Nino climate phenomenon.
According to global temperature reports, last month was the hottest. March remained the hottest of all months, since record keeping began, the eleventh such consecutive record, according to reports released this week. Data released by NASA shows that March was 1.65C (3.0F) warmer than the average between 1951 and 1980.
Scientists worldwide expect 2016 to be the hottest year on record. To deal with this world leaders and scientists had gathered last year to deliberate on steps and measures for climate change. Now in India, a team of scientists are also deliberating over climate resilience for coastal areas.
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New Delhi:
Nearly 300 officers from various ministries including Defence, Home and Finance will be visiting village panchayats during the 10-day Gram uday se bharat uday campaign, which was launched recently by the Prime Minister.
The officers working at the level of Deputy Secretaries and Directors have been nominated by various ministries for visiting gram panchayats during the programme to be observed between April 14-24. The government has attached a lot of importance to the Gram uday se bharat uday abhiyan and it is being monitored by Prime Ministers Office, according to a Personnel Ministry communique.
Interestingly, no officers working in the Prime Ministers Office and Cabinet Secretariat have been nominated for the programme, it says.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on April 14 launched the Gram uday se bharat uday abhiyanvillage self governance campaignaimed at development of the villages.
The officers nominated would be visiting village panchayats in different states as part of this programme. The officers nominated for Panchayati Raj work include 32 from Defence Ministry, 21 from Finance and 15 from Home Ministry, it said.
Out of 900 Deputy Secretary and Director level employees, nearly 300 have been nominated for the programme. We expect more employees to be nominated, a senior Personnel Ministry official said.
The communication was sent to various ministries to convey less than desired attendance of nominated officers for the orientation programme held two days before the launch of the campaign.
Of the 300 nominated officers, only 170 had attended the orientation programme. Non-attendance in the orientation programme on April 11, 2016 by several officers in regrettable, it had said. Following this more officers were nominated, the official said.
While launching the programme in Madhya Pradeshs Mhow on April 14, the Prime Minister had said the campaign would focus on the development work to be done in villages. He said this years Union Budget was dedicated to farmers and villages and initiatives should be focused on rural development.
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Srinagar:
Authorities today lifted restrictions in the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, while the curbs on the movement of people in Kupwara continued for the fifth day following killing of five persons in security forces action since Tuesday. Mobile Internet services remain snapped across the Valley. A police official said there are no restrictions in Srinagar today.
He said the restrictions, imposed on Wednesday in six police station areas of the city, were lifted as there were no major protests on Saturday and no call for shutdown or protests.
However, the official said, strict curbs in some areas in north Kashmir, including Kupwara and Handwara towns, were in force for the fifth day to maintain law and order.
Meanwhile, normal activities resumed today elsewhere in the Valley as no separatist group has called for a strike for today.
While the government offices and educational institutions remained shut on account of Sunday, shops, fuel stations and other business establishments opened after four days in the city here and across other districts, the official said, adding public transport was back on roads.
The restrictions were imposed following death of three persons during protests against alleged molestation of a girl by a soldier in Handwara town on Tuesday. Another youth was killed in Drugmulla area of Kupwara during protests against the Handwara incident a day after.
In fresh violence on Friday, 18-year-old Arif Hussain Dar was killed while three others sustained bullet injuries when army opened fire to disperse stone-pelting protestors outside a camp in Nathnusa area of Kupwara, 100 kms from here.
Two persons were injured in violent clashes that took place in Trehgam area of Kupwara district yesterday.Both the injured were shifted to a hospital in Srinagar for specialised treatment.
Mobile Internet services across Kashmir continued to remain completely snapped to curb the menace of rumour mongering, the official said. He said the ban on the services may be revoked later today after assessing the situation.
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Bengaluru:
After facing flak over SUV car worth more than Rs 1 crore, Karnataka BJP president BS Yeddyurappa has returned the gift from former industries minister Murgesh R Nirani. Downplaying all claims, a statement has been released mentioning how he has relied on different means of transport to travel in last 40 years of politics including car, widely covering all parts of Karnataka.
"Handling the same state tour in the same manner is not an issue at all for me. Hence I have sent back the car provided by Murugesh Nirani yesterday to his residence," he said. The Toyota Land Cruiser Prado provided by sugar baron Murugesh Nirani has stirred the hornets nest after reports that the seven-seater luxury vehicle would be used by Yeddyurappa to travel around the drought-hit parts, with questions raised about its propriety. (Also read. Yeddyurappa takes charge as Karnataka BJP chief, sets 150 seat target)
Yeddyurappa, who was compelled to quit over graft charges in 2011, was recently appointed the state BJP president to revive the fortunes of the party, after he was cleared by the court in most of the corruption-related cases. A combative leader who is projected as pro-farmers, Yeddyurappa has set a target of winning 150 of the 224 Assembly seats in the 2018 polls.
The controversy comes close on the heels of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah landing in a row over a gifted Rs 70 lakh diamond-studded Hublot watch that he wore before he handed it over to the state in the wake of a political storm over it.
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New Delhi:
In the wake of reports of clashes in Mehsana town, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today called up Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, who apprised him on the prevailing situation there.
During the telephonic talk, the Home Minister took stock of the situation in Gujarat's Mehsana district, where clashes broke out between protesters.
Patel informed Singh about the steps being taken by the state government to control the situation and maintain peace, official sources said.
Curfew was today clamped in Mehsana town in Gujarat and mobile internet service banned as a massive rally of the Patel community demanding reservation and immediate release of their jailed leaders turned violent with two buildings being set ablaze and some police vehicles damaged.
A godown of Food Corporation of India and a district office were set on fire, police said, adding 15 persons have been detained in this connection.
Five policemen and two officials sustained injuries in the incidents, police said while agitators claimed that 25 of their supporters were injured in police action.
Patel protesters had gathered at Modhera crossroad as part of the 'Jail Bharo' agitation announced by the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), one of the prominent groups seeking OBC status.
The incident brought fears of a revival of the Patel community's quota agitation.
Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said that some information from Gujarat has come but the Central Government was awaiting for a detail report.
"The Gujarat government is acting on it." he said.
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New Delhi :
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars call for an RSS-free India, today received support from Congress which said the saffron fountainhead was posing a threat to the countrys unity and democracy as BJP jumped to the defence of its mentor, saying its critics should attend its shakha for a day to clear their misconceptions.
The BJP said it was unfazed by Kumars efforts to form a united front to counter it and that such attempts to stop the Modi government from working for the development of the country and for the poor will not succeed.
Maintaining that everyone was aware of the newly-elected JD(U) chiefs national ambitions, BJP spokesman Shrikant Sharma took a dig at the Congress, asking party president Sonia Gandhi to make it clear if Rahul Gandhi will lead such a front or will he be just part of it.
Congress backed Nitish Kumars view that the country should be made Sangh-mukt (RSS-free) as it is posing a threat to democracy and unity but did not appear inclined to be a part of a broad-based alliance of secular parties to take on BJP, saying for any national-level alliance ahead of 2019 polls, parties should have a national existence.
Asked if Nitish Kumar can be projected as the leader of a national-level alliance he has mooted, party general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said he is a popular chief minister who is doing good work in Bihar.
There is no talk of leadership (led by Nitish)...You are trying to create an imaginary alliance. I told you first, an alliance at the national level...all parties are state specific parties. The understanding is with such parties in states.
By the time 2019 elections come, the public themselves will oust the Modi government and there will be no need for any alliance, Ahmed said, replying to queries about the possibility of forging a Nitish-led national alliance.
Congress is part of ruling alliance in Bihar. Addressing an event in Patna yesterday, Kumar had mounted a counteroffensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Congress-mukt Bharat slogan, saying, Sangh-mukt Bharat banane ke liye sabhi gair BJP parties ko ek hona hoga (to usher in a Sangh-free India all non-BJP parties will have to come together).
Uniting against BJP and its divisive ideology is the only way to save democracy, said Kumar, who has already talked about largest possible unity among secular parties.
And for that visiting the Shakha of the Sangh is the best. Those who oppose the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the country should first at least visit its shakha (meeting).
Only then will they have a better understanding and their misconceptions cleared. Only then the technical glitches in their software will be fixed, Sharma said, stressing that the RSS has always worked in the interest of the country.
Kumars JD(U) had snapped its 17-year-old alliance with BJP in 2013 as it was opposed to naming Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general election.
Sharma said from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, and from Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, all had opposed the RSS but the organisation has only grown.
The attempt is only to stop the Modi government from taking steps for development of the country, to stop job opportunities for the youth and to stop the government from helping the poor, Sharma said.
You (Nitish) are unable to digest the fact that we are working for poor, weaker sections of the society. And therefore, you are not opposing BJP but the efforts to uplift the weaker sections and to empower the poor. We have no objections to what he says. He wont succeed in his motive, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
RSS ideologue M G Vaidya said efforts to attack the Sangh will only backfire.
They cant defeat the BJP on their own. May be they will gain a bit by coming together. As far as Sangh is concerned... when there are increased protests against the Sangh, it grows.
Sangh does not grow at someones mercy but because of the hard work and capability of its workers, he said.
Sharma took on Nitish calling him a kathputhli (puppet) Chief Minister and said that the real remote-control of his government was in the hands of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.
Asked if Nitish Kumar was being pitted against Rahul Gandhi in leading an alternative coalition against BJP-led NDA, Congress spokesman Ahmed said, There is no fight amongst us. We are all together. But before we get together (for a broader alliance), the people of the country will get together to oust Modiji.
Time and things keep changing. Lohiaji was against Congress, but Congress and Lohias followers are today together in an alliance. There is paradigm shift, he said.
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The mall era is supposed to be over.
Rather than build massive enclosed shopping centers amid a sea of parking lots, developers across the region have looked increasingly toward walkable mixed-use districts, with homes, businesses and shopping on top of one another.
To some extent, the numbers bear this out. From 2000 to 2009, an average of about 18.2 million square feet of mall space came online nationally, according to CoStar Group. Last year, it was down to 3.4 million.
In the midst of those trends, Trumbull in recent years has completed more than $35 million in renovations to the Westfield Trumbull mall, with successful businesses like the Apple store and Cheesecake Factory continuing to count on the shopping centers success.
Even more dramatically, Norwalk will soon see construction of a 700,000-plus-square-foot enclosed shopping center on one of its most highly visible tracts. While malls elsewhere may be dying, Norwalk is staking much of its future growth on one.
And despite troubles elsewhere in the sector, there are indications this project, with its choice anchor stores, favorable demographics and desirable location, is on solid footing.
Theres a broad perception that malls are dying, and that is the case in some places, said Ryan McCullough, senior real estate economist with CoStar Group. But the productivity is quite good on about 80 percent of malls, and the leasing is solid on many new properties.
The malls with the best outlook have attributes that will be found in bulk at The SoNo Collection, as the mall planned by General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) will be known.
The most important factor, beyond location, is who your tenants are, McCullough said. Who the tenants are can go a long way in predicting how a mall is going to do. The second factor beyond that is demographics.
According to GGP, Norwalk is in the middle of one of the most desirable markets in the country, and 1 out of 5 households in the trade area are among the top 1 percent of Americans in terms of wealth.
The malls location could hardly be more visible, at the meeting point of Interstate 95 and Route 7, with 150,000 cars traveling by the site daily. And it will have some of the highest-level stores of any shopping center around, with Nordstrom and Bloomingdales as anchors.
Building around cars
Trends in mall construction in some ways mirror wider tendencies in favor of car-centered development. The postwar era, which led to the dominance of suburbs accessible only by automobile, brought about the dominance of the fortress-style shopping mall placed far from a city center.
In recent years, younger people are showing less inclination to own a car. Development trends, capitalizing to some degree on a nationwide drop in crime, are increasingly focused on center cities.
Malls have been forced to adapt.
The notion of walkability matters, said Maureen McAvey, of the Urban Land Institute, adding that people want malls to have plenty of amenities, just like they would want in a city neighborhood.
Many are now offering more services, sometimes including community space, and in some cases there are health facilities inside the mall, she said. We see malls nationally that in some cases have a library inside, or a theater, and not just a cinema.
Drawing people away from their computers is a challenge, she said.
Given that the internet offers so much competition, people need to find other reasons to come to the mall, McAvey said. It has to be a real attraction.
GGPs website promises that the SoNo Collection will be more than a mall; it will be a collection of unique and memorable experiences that will keep shoppers coming back frequently. A marketplace for residents to spend an entire day, it will offer restaurants, coffee shops, exercise and wellness classes, and of course, access to the latest trends in upscale fashion.
Food is another big draw in successful malls, she said.
Malls are moving away from the fast food youd find in a food court, McAvey said, adding that nationally up to 30 percent of people go to a mall expressly for a meal. Now you see food in different places around the mall, placed strategically.
Creating density
GGP has 120 malls nationwide, second only to Simon Property Group, according to Green Street Advisors, a real estate research firm. While anchor stores drive traffic to a mall, some 80 percent of sales are generated by other retailers.
Far from a standalone, Norwalks mall is meant to bridge the gap between SoNo to the south and a restaurant-heavy district above it. It is designed to be a part of the urban fabric, not the standalone model of a previous generation.
This is going to be a tremendous boost to the Norwalk economy, Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling said last month when a rendering of the plan was released. Youre going to be bringing a lot of people into Norwalk, and when people ... see what we have to offer, theyre not just going to be one stop and go.
McCullough, of CoStar Group, said this idea is also in line with current trends.
Where retail is looking quite good is in urban locations, he said. But usually the path of growth is very limited as to how quickly can you build there.
An open lot like the one where Norwalks mall will be built is hard to find.
Retail development is headed more toward the downtown, walkable, urban variety, McCullough said. Sometimes we see malls trying to create their own density, sometimes with hotels and office space included. The SoNo Collection, in fact, is also to include a 170-room hotel and parking for nearly 3,000 cars.
Some malls are struggling, and we dont think in many cases theres much of a rescue plan in place, McCullough said. But the idea that the mall is dying we think is a myth.
hbailey@ctpost.com; 203-330-6233; @hughsbailey
Eighth Blackbird, a group of six classically trained musicians, may be one of the most unique contemporary music groups in America and one of the most celebrated.
In mid-February, the Chicago-based nonprofit group won its fourth Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its album Filament, and a $400,000 MacArthur Foundation Grant to ensure its continued commitment to premiering and commissioning works by living composers.
For group spokeswoman and co-founder Lisa Kaplan, the past several months have been extraordinary. And the excitement is far from over.
Kaplan was born in Detroit and raised in Fairfield. She is returning home on Thursday, April 21, with her group to perform for the first time at Fairfield Universitys Quick Center for the Arts.
Crazy, right? Youd think we would have made it to Fairfield U. before this, she said, laughing. The group was founded 20 years ago.
Im very excited. ... It will be wonderful to see (and perform for) former school friends and teachers, the pianist said. (Her parents, who moved to Chicago a few years ago to be close to her, will not be able to attend, she said.)
More Information Fairfield University's Quick Center for the Arts, 200 Barlow Road entrance to campus. Thursday, April 21, 8 p.m. $40, $35, $30. 203-254-4010, quickcenter.com See More Collapse
Kaplan went to Stratfield Elementary School, Fairfield Woods Middle School and graduated from high school in Fairfield in 1992. She played violin for five years with the Norwalk Youth Symphony, and studied piano with the renowned Burton Hatheway, of Fairfield (who is planning on being part of Kaplans rooting section at the Quick).
In Fairfield, Eighth Blackbird will perform Hand Eye, an evening-length work that showcases a composition by six composers of the Sleeping Giant collective and video from CandyStations.
It promises to transport you from a soul-studded jam session, to a high-velocity adventure-ride, a shimmering yet blinding landscape, and the flickering and pulsing of ink on paper, said the Quick Center in its announcement.
The group began in 1996 as six recent graduates of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Ohio), who decided to join forces to create one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Key to the groups success is the ability to get along which, although seemingly obvious, often can be missing from artistic associations.
Weve learned how to work together. If someone is having a bad day, we stay out of the way. Ultimately, we have deep respect for each other as musicians and as people, Kaplan said.
In this case, the other musicians are: Nathalie Joachim, flutes; Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Yvonne Lam, violin and viola; Nicholas Photinos, cello; and Matthew Duvall, percussion.
In addition to frequently touring and performing, Kaplan said the group is committed to teaching and sharing their musical philosophy. Eighth Blackbird is in its 11th year as Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Richmond in Virginia, devoting about six weeks a year working individually with students, presenting concerts, giving master classes and workshops. The ensemble also is a resident artist at the University of Chicago.
pasboros@ctpost.com; Twitter: @PhyllisASBoros
Contributed photo /Univ. of Connecticut
The driver of a car involved in a crash that killed two University of Connecticut students last fall, one of them from Ridgefield, has been charged with negligent homicide, State Police said.
Hannah Schmidt, 19, of Hebron, turned herself in Saturday, police said. She also was charged with running a stop sign.
The severe cold that knifed into the state in mid-February left after two days or so, but that one stroke ruined the states peach crop.
On the other hand, that same stroke might have saved the states hemlocks one of the invaluable native species in Connecticut forests. Peaches will bear fruit again. Hemlocks, once killed, are not coming back.
So are we lucky, or unlucky? It depends, in part, on whether you own a peach orchard.
Sally and Bob Futh do Starberry Farm in Washington.
When the cold hit on Feb. 14, it went down to minus-17 degrees F. at the farm.
Thats 7 degrees below the temperature when the buds start to die, Sally Futh said.
After inspecting the trees, she and her husband figured that one cold snap cost them at least 90 percent of their crop this year.
Were calling it the Valentines Day massacre, she said.
The orchards cherry trees may be all right, though.
But the apricots are all gone, she said.
Futh said she and her husband cant simply cut their losses and wait until next year.
You have to spray the trees to avoid insects and disease from getting into the trees, she said.
This damage isnt confined to Starberry Farm, or even Litchfield County. Doris Ostrowski, administrative officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture farm service agency in Connecticut, said her office is hearing the same dire news from other counties.
Its all over the state, Ostrowski said.
Her office is now considering what USDA programs could help some orchard owners who will not make money from peaches this year.
Ive worked in this agency for 32 years, and I have to say, farming is one of the most heartbreaking businesses there is, she said. So much depends on the weather, over which you have no control.
Mary Concklin, extension educator with the University of Connecticut Extension Service, said peach trees are less cold-tolerant that other fruit trees.
It didnt help that we had such a mild winter, she said. We may love mild winters, but we always get a frost or freeze and this happens. The trees were just coming out of dormancy, were starting to grow a little, and we had sub-zero temperatures. The cold we had earlier this month may have killed off what was left.
Concklin said, however, shes not heard of another other fruit crop in the state thats taken such a hit.
There may be some damage, but nothing like a complete loss, she said.
Other fruit-bearing trees, including apples, are a little hardier.
So far, so good, said Chris Seifrit, manager of Blue Jay Orchard in Bethel.
Likewise, Howard Bronson of Maple Bank Farm in Roxbury said both his apple trees and his blueberry crop look like theyve survived the winter without much damage.
However, Bronson said, the sudden re-emergence of winter this month may have frozen the buds on some of his trees.
At 20 degrees were fine, he said. But one night this month, we went down to 18 degrees. Were in the range of having some damage, but we dont know yet.
The key for apple growers will be this: If they get a warm spell, and the trees blossom early, but then follows a cold snap, there could be trouble.
If temperatures stay low, and the trees dont blossom early, well be OK, said Blue Jays Seifrit. If that doesnt happen, he said, hell just have to cross his fingers and hope the blossoms dont get frosted.
But looking at a different maybe larger environmental picture, the cold was a blessing. It decimated the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect thats been damaging the states hemlock stands since the mid-1980s. (Another meteorological event the winds of Hurricane Gloria in 1985 apparently carried it to Connecticut from the South.)
The aphid-like insect, native to Japan, sucks the sap out of the branches of hemlocks, killing them, before moving on to the next stand.
Because hemlocks are the most shade-tolerant trees in the eastern U.S. forest, and one of the longest-lived, they create a unique ecological niche. Certain songbirds find food and shelter in hemlock groves. Because they often grow along streambeds, hemlocks shade the water in brooks and rivers, keeping it cooler and more habitable for fish species.
The one proven control of the adelgids is cold weather: Frigid temperatures kill them. New England winters have kept the spread on the insect in check and limited the considerable damage its done to hemlocks over the past 30 years.
Carole Cheah, a research entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, has been tracking the ebb-and-flow advance of the adelgid in the state.
The February cold was devastating to the adelgids, she said. In some places in the states Northwest corner, like Mt. Riga in Salisbury, or the Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk, the mortality rate was 100 percent. Other spots in the state saw die-off rates from 89 percent to 96 percent, Cheah said.
These are tremendous numbers, she said.
One reason the mortality rate may have been so high is that, until the St. Valentines Day plummet, winter temperatures were on the warm side, she said.
It was a very mild December and the adelgids were just chugging along, she said. Then the cold came.
But one hard winter, however fierce, does not spell the end of the adelgids in the state. Cheah said that in the places where snow was deep, adelgids on the lower parts of hemlocks survived just fine under a protective white blanket.
Under the snow, the mortality rate was only about 5 percent, Cheah said. It was night and day.
Contact Robert Miller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.com
Editors note: When Redding resident Amanda Neville saw a man openly wearing a gun in a Bethel grocery store, she became alarmed and posted what she saw on Facebook. News stories reported the reaction. Ms. Nevilles viewpoint, Stores should make choice on open carry, was published in this Opinion page Feb. 28. This is a response from the man with a gun she saw.
Amanda, I am the guy with the gun you saw that Wednesday morning, shopping with his 5-year old daughter, at Caraluzzis in Bethel.
Id like to simply tell you why I open carry a firearm, (or conceal carry, as applicable), as I do, in the hopes that you might read and understand at least one persons take on being a legal and Constitutional firearms owner in Connecticut. I do not speak for the whole of all gun owners in Connecticut, no. This is me speaking to you.
I vividly remember where I was on Friday morning, Dec. 14, 2012. I was actually en route to my fathers house in Virginia and my wifes phone rang with a call from a co-worker about a shooting in Newtown. I switched the radio to find a news station, and sure enough, I found a report about it. My wife and I were horrified. Once we reached my fathers house, we all sat silently watching the report unfold. I couldnt even begin to imagine the heartache those parents were experiencing. My God, such loss. The feelings of helplessness they must be going through.
I live in Bethel. Not exactly a hotbed of crime. Then I thought about Newtown. Small, quiet, safe. Now it was crying over loss and burying their children murdered by a madman, for lack of a gun. I decided right then that I would get my permit and purchase a firearm, to never be put into a situation wherein I could lose my children due to the machinations of any madman, without being armed myself.
I have years behind me as an Infantry Grunt, so guns are not alien to me. I learned to shoot at a young age, (obtaining my MI Hunters Safety certification), and also learned the maintenance of guns and their required safety protocols. Now I was a husband and father. Decision made.
After spending over $320 and waiting four months, I made the trip to Middletown to get my Permit to Carry Pistols and Revolvers. These required steps included local, state, and federal background criminal checks. I had thought it would be a simpler process, but alas, it was mildly complicated. However, my patience and determination paid off.
Now I have a permit. I open carry or conceal carry my legal and Constitutional firearms where I venture, save for establishments/businesses that prohibit my entry due to said firearms. I simply do not frequent such establishments, as they are merely potential targets for madmen like Adam Lanza, and I dont like dealing in variables.
When you saw me that Wednesday morning, I was grocery shopping with my 5-year-old daughter. As her father, I am fully prepared to kill for her protection, if needed. What proper parent would not do likewise for their children? I wore a hooded sweatshirt and had my gun on my right hip in a very comfortable mid-ride holster. This particular holster is also equipped with a snap enclosure for safety. I prefer an open carry method so I can draw the firearm faster if needed. Remember, my first priority is to protect my daughter from another Adam Lanza. Speed and efficiency are crucial, and I practice rigorously.
The argument goes: Who needs a gun when they grocery shop? This isnt the Wild West. Youre just paranoid, making others uncomfortable. Why are you trying to make a political point? Your rights end where my comfort begins.
I say, I am breaking no Connecticut laws. My guns are wholly legal. I have a legitimate permit to carry. I paid for this right in the state of Connecticut, although both the U.S. Constitution and our state Constitution, make no mention of me ever needing to pay for rights. I am a combat arms veteran who respects guns. I put my familys safety far above anyones comfort level. I do so without apology.
Newtown Action Alliance is pushing legislation that would force legal open-carriers to produce a permit whenever a police officer asks to see it. I am pro-police, and happy to accommodate. I actually have my permit on an ID card lanyard, so anyone can plainly see I am legally armed, and that I am one of the good guys with a gun.
I am sorry you fear my gun. It is an inanimate object. It does nothing by itself. My permit lets you know that I am a person who has passed a stringent battery of background checks, and have been deemed completely safe. Safe enough, in fact, that Connecticut would trust me with a permit to carry a gun.
If only you would believe and realize that I am not a danger to you.
Donald Borsch Jr. is a resident of Bethel.
REGINA, April 16, 2016 /CNW/ - The Final Count of all ballots cast for the 28th General Election is now complete. While the candidates leading in the vote count on election night remain unchanged, these results do not become official until the Return of the Writs which is scheduled to take place on April 27.
A total of 434,244 ballots were cast in the election. This represents 57.8 per cent of the 750,893 voters who were registered for the election.
"Today marks an important milestone in the election cycle, as these results will become historical records and will be looked back on for decades and elections to come," says Dr. Michael Boda, Chief Electoral Officer of Saskatchewan.
Elections Saskatchewan provided many ways for voters to cast a ballot during the General Election. A total of 3,554 ballot boxes were used for the election and included:
Regular ballot boxes used on election day ;
; Advance ballot boxes used from March 29 to April 2 ;
; Mobile poll ballot boxes (including personal care homes);
Homebound voting ballot boxes;
Hospital and remand centre ballot boxes; and
Absentee ballot boxes from mail-in voting.
The preliminary results released on April 4 showed a total of 426,706 ballots cast. These results did not include hospital and remand centre votes, nor absentee ballots from mail-in-voting.
The Saskatchewan Elections Act allows for a voter to postmark their completed absentee mail-in ballot as late as 8:00 p.m. on April 4. All absentee ballots needed to be received by April 14 to be counted. More than 5,000 absentee ballot applications were processed before the March 28 deadline, and 4,813 were returned by the April 14 deadline. Election officials also need time to centralize, sort and forward all of the hospital and remand centre ballots to their appropriate constituencies for counting.
"I am extremely proud of the attention to detail and adherence to the legislative process that our field leadership team around the province has shown the past few weeks in completing these post-election day tasks. They serve democracy well with their diligence and dedicated efforts," says Boda. "Our team's focus now shifts to the return of the writs on Wednesday, April 27 and the closing of returning offices on Saturday, April 30."
For more details regarding the Final Count results, visit www.elections.sk.ca .
Elections Saskatchewan is the province's independent, impartial, professional election management body. Given a mandate from the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, it organizes, manages and oversees provincial electoral events, including the April 4, 2016 general election. Information for voters, workers, media, candidates and parties at www.elections.sk.ca.
SOURCE Elections Saskatchewan
For further information: Tim Kydd, Senior Director, Outreach & Policy, Elections Saskatchewan, 306.537.9211, [email protected]
[April 17, 2016] New Quiz App from LumenLab, BerryQ, Rewards Asians for Health Literacy
SINGAPORE, April 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lumenlab and MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) innovation centre for Asia have launched BerryQ, a new quiz app that sheds light on common health myths, provides practical wellness tips, and rewards users for their health literacy, to help you get the best for your health. Are carrots more nutritious raw or cooked? Contrary to popular belief, not all fruits and vegetables are more nutritious when eaten raw. By steaming or boiling, antioxidants contained in carrots become easier to absorb by the human body. BerryQ quizzes cover a variety of health, fitness and wellness questions split into a variety of categories, including Nutrition, Stress, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It is designed to encourage a well-rounded understanding of health for Asian consumers. The multiple-choice questions range from general knowledge such as "What is the shortest workout that can still be beneficial to your health?" to condition specifc, "What is commonly the first step in treating Type-2 diabetes?"
The app provides a personalized overview of the user's health awareness via a health literacy score, which lets users evaluate their knowledge on everyday health related topics, and be rewarded for learning even more. Completing quizzes on BerryQ unlocks a variety of fitness and wellness rewards in Singapore, ranging from cash vouchers for popular F&B brands such as Grain and BoxGreen, to a free annual membership for the wellness community Urban Remedy. BerryQ is part of LumenLab's portfolio of digital solutions which target health topics such as chronic disease management and behavioral change, in addition to providing ways to address challenges around aging and wealth.
About LumenLab LumenLab seeks to go beyond today's industry, to begin with a deep understanding of people's lives and lifestyles, and rewrite the role of insurance for Asians in the 21st century. Lumen, a measure of light, symbolizes our commitment to illuminating a new path for solving the problems that the people of Asia face today. Through our focus on building new business models grounded in technology and data, we aim to help people achieve richer and more fulfilling lives. To learn more about LumenLab, please visit www.lumenlab.sg. About MetLife MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), through its subsidiaries and affiliates ("MetLife"), is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. Founded in 1868, MetLife is a global provider of life insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management. Serving approximately 100 million customers, MetLife has operations in nearly 50 countries and holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.metlife.com.
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The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has accused the major opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, of being responsibl...
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has accused the major opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, of being responsible for the nations economic crisis.Ngige said it was the alleged looting of the treasury by the PDP that forced President Muhammadu Buhari to seek foreign loans.He said This is because the Peoples Democratic Party, for 16 years, looted the nations treasury and pauperised Nigerians. The PDP during the oil windfall did not bother to save any kobo for this country. All (the money) they got, they squandered. That is why Nigerians are pauperised this way today.Whatever money we borrow today is not going to be used for recurrent expenditure. It is going to be invested in railroads, power, roads, providing infrastructure for agriculture and solid minerals. Wont you want to see the construction of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway?The minister speaking on Friday at a programme organised by the National Directorate of Employment in Amawbia, Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, justified Buharis loan requests from foreign governments, saying, the only option under the circumstance is to look for loans to give Nigerians good governance because Section 14 of our Constitution says the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.He promised that the Federal Government, through outlets like the NDE will make jobs available in the country.In the next two months, the second phase of this exercise would have been carried out and I want to assure you that over 2, 800 new businesses would have been generated across the country through the Resettlement Scheme of the NDE, Ngige said.On his own part, the Acting Director General of NDE, Kunle Obayan, said apart from the 30 persons that were empowered during the occasion, 220 other persons previously trained in the state but not empowered were given lifelines from the Federal Government through the NDE, under the Artisans Resettlement and Mentoring Scheme.
Alhaji Maimala Buni, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Sunday said Nigerias economy would get a boost a...
Alhaji Maimala Buni, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Sunday said Nigerias economy would get a boost as a result of President Muhammadu Buharis foreign trips. The APC`s National Secretary said this in Damaturu on Sunday in an interview Nigeria is in dire need of partners with technical expertise to develop its infrastructure.There is a deliberate effort by the President Buhari administration to build functional infrastructure, develop agriculture, create employment and diversify the economy; so, we need support from countries with the expertise. The president has to be there to demonstrate his commitment to wooing investors and assuring them of the enabling environment to invest in the country, he said.Buni said all the countries visited by the president have developed agriculture, power supply and vibrant economy that can assist Nigeria to develop her economy.If you look at China for instance, it has the capacity to support Nigeria to build a functional rail transport, road network, build refineries to improve gas and energy and develop the manufacturing sector, he said.He urged Nigerians to support the Federal Government in its quest to build functional and efficient infrastructure to impact positively on the lives of the people.It is noteworthy that President Buhari got favourable responses from these countries to partner with Nigeria in various sectors that will build the economy. This administration is committed to improving the lives of Nigerians and these foreign trips will fast track and enhance infrastructural development and the economy, Buni added.
Resident doctors in the employment of Ekiti State Government have embarked on strike to press for payment of their four-month salary arrea...
Resident doctors in the employment of Ekiti State Government have embarked on strike to press for payment of their four-month salary arrears.The Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association, Ekiti chapter, Dr. John Akinbote, who justified the strike action, lamented that those sacrificing for robust health care delivery in the country were being abandoned.He said, People should come out and speak for the doctors. Our strike action is to press home our demand for the payment of four months salaries being owed our members.We are all aware of the fuel scarcity and our children are in schools, we have to pay their school fees and also attend to other bills. People will live better if appropriate things are done.Morbidity and mortality have increased as a result of poor health condition of our people. The unpaid salaries are exacerbating the medical conditions of Nigerians and the government must do the needful.If we refuse to go on strike, the government will just sleep over this matter. The fight is not about doctors alone, but for all workers. How do people get money to go to work when salaries are not paid? We are talking to ARD on how the salaries can be paid, so that they can return to work.Akinbote appealed to the state government to find a balanced ground to resolve the issue. He said doctors expected the government to do the needful so that the strike would not be prolonged unnecessarily.Our correspondent gathered that relatives of patients in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, had been requesting for referrals to Federal Government and private hospitals in the state.A top member of the hospitals management team, who reacted to the strike on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak, said, We are speaking to the striking doctors but it seems as if they are recalcitrant. They need to show understanding.We are optimistic that the meeting of Monday, April 18 will yield good result. Hopefully, by Monday or Tuesday, they should suspend the strike and return to work.In another development, pupils have been advised to take necessary proactive measures to prevent cancer and rape by remaining vigilant at all times.The advice was given at a sensitisation workshop organised by Lasses Education and Healthcare Initiative for secondary school students in Ado Local Government Areas of Ekiti State. It was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.A Health Promotion Specialist and Lifestyle Consultant, Dr. Abimbola Solanke, listed the symptoms of breast cancer to include breast lumps, rashes or discharge from the breast, retraction of pointed nipples, as well as shrinking, thickening and unusual change in the texture of the skin around the breast.She advised female pupils to conduct regular self breast examination, particularly, after their monthly menstrual cycle.Identifying fibroid and testicular cancer as the most common among young people, she stressed that early detection was the best way to tackle the deadly disease.The Executive Director of LEHI, Mrs. Opeyemi Dapo-Alade, bemoaned the rising incidences of rape, which she attributed to obscene broadcasts, unemployment, indecent dressing, influence of alcohol and drugs among others.
HE All Progressives Congress has described the letter written to the Chinese Government by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, as lacki...
HE All Progressives Congress has described the letter written to the Chinese Government by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, as lacking patriotism, a product of uncoordinated mind and the height of irresponsibility.The Rivers State Deputy Chairman of the APC, Peter Odike, who made this remark in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Saturday, stated that such act should not have emanated from a governor of a state.Fayose was quoted in a letter to the Chinese Government on Wednesday calling for the cancellation of the $2b loan which was to be granted to the Nigeria Government.Odike reminded the Ekiti State governor that no government globally, including his own state, had not partly funded developmental projects through borrowing.The state APC chieftain maintained that borrowing was a healthy financial strategy, especially when such funds were used on projects and programmes that would not only address the developmental needs of the people, but increase the production capacity of a nation.He stressed that when projects were executed from the loan, it would also promote economic growth in the country.The statement also urged Fayose to join hands with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to ensure that the loan was received for immediate and long term benefits of Nigerians.The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress totally condemns the Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, over his purported letter to the Government of China in which he called for the cancellation of the $2b loan being granted to the Nigerian Government by the Chinese Government.We therefore call on Governor Fayose to immediately withdraw his very ill-informed, ill-motivated and unpatriotic letter and apologise to Nigerians for this national embarrassment.
The Lagos State Government at the weekend said it would henceforth strictly enforce the law on environmental offences, restriction of ope...
The Lagos State Government at the weekend said it would henceforth strictly enforce the law on environmental offences, restriction of operation of commercial motorcycles, popularly called Okada on certain routes and street trading.Rising from the monthly Security Council Meeting attended heads of all security agencies in the state and chaired by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the Government urged residents to willfully comply with the extant laws in the state to make the enforcement of the law easier.Briefing Government House Correspondents on the outcome of the meeting, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, urged the public to desist from patronising traders especially where street trading is not allowed.Owoseni also counseled Lagosians to stop patronising commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as Okada operators on routes where the law restricts them from plying.Owoseni, who briefed journalists alongside heads of the Army, Navy, Airforce and other security agencies in state, said: The Council appraised the security situation in the state and looked at the challenges we are still having and from discussions and conclusions that were made, the Council agreed that lot of progress had been made.We have covered lot of miles regarding security and safety in the state. For now, the State is relatively peaceful.We want to sustain that tempo; we want to improve on that tempo. We have looked at those areas we need to improve upon and basically those were the issues the Council considered, Owoseni said.When asked on the directive by Governor Ambode at the Town Hall Meeting in Ikorodu last week that Okada should not ply Mile 12-Ikorodu route, the Commissioner said: Yes, we deliberated on that and I can tell you that we specifically considered the need to improve on enforcement of the laws of the state, especially the areas where we have been having challenges with members of the public with regard to enforcement. Specifically, Im talking about the street trading, the restriction of commercial motorcyclists to certain areas. You see, there is need to have the buy-in of members of the public in all these and the Council considered the need for us to still tell the citizens that in as much as we want to enforce, there is also need for members of the public to willfully comply with extant laws of the State.When they comply and conform to the laws, it will be easier for security agencies to enforce. Where the law says there should not be street trading, people should not patronise street traders; where the law says Okada should not ply certain routes, people should not patronise commercial motorcyclists in those areas.But most importantly, as the Security Council has always emphasised , there is need for everyone to be security conscious and raise awareness about security in their surroundings, Owoseni said.
The federal government yesterday commenced the distribution of relief materials to no fewer than one million Internally Displaced Person...
The federal government yesterday commenced the distribution of relief materials to no fewer than one million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who returned to various communities in Adamawa and Taraba States.Secretary to the Government of the Federation Lawan Babachir, who flagged off the distribution said it was under the auspices of the Presidential Initiative for the North East.Represented by Alhaji Ibrahim Patel, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari, Babachir said government would reach out to all states affected by disasters, natural or man-made.Government, he said, deemed it necessary to see how it palliates the suffering of the affected communities in the region and other parts of the country.He said that the materials were meant to assist the returnees to re-start their lives in their respective communities and advised them to make good use of the materials.Earlier, Governor Muhammadu Jirillah of Adamawa thanked the federal government for the support.Jibrillah, who was also represented by the Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Ahmad Sajo, said that the state government would cooperate with the Federal Government to assist the returnees.Among items distributed were food, building materials and wrappers.
The Nigerian Postal Services will soon introduce banking services to rural areas of Nigeria, Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, ...
The Nigerian Postal Services will soon introduce banking services to rural areas of Nigeria, Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has said.Shittu told the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja, that the banking services would avail Nigerians in rural areas the opportunity to carry out banking transactions.He said that the Ministry of Communication was making effort to re-position NIPOST to make it vibrant and to diversify its services.He said that since the commencement of GSM operations in the country, NIPOST had witnessed drop in sales particularly for postage stamp and other services.The minister told NAN that in its efforts to reposition NIPOST, the ministry had identified some major areas that could be included in the mandate of the service.He listed some of them to include internet services in all NIPOST locations, introduction of rural banking, property development and e-commerce.We are also looking at consolidating the capacity of NIPOST to engage in property development; you will recall that in most communities NIPOST usually has more land than needed.So we are seeking private-partnership arrangement with private sector developers to construct and rent out office blocks, malls and even high class residential houses to enable us generate revenue, he said.Shittu said the ministry was also looking at the possibility of using NIPOST to facilitate e-commerce.He said that the ministry had finalised arrangement to appoint a new Post-Master General, who is expected to kick start the reforms in NIPOST.We have gone through the processes of interview test and new post-master General will soon emerge.Once he emerges, the reforms will take off, the minister said.
OAKLAND -- A child was struck by a vehicle Saturday while trying to cross Franklin Avenue, police said.
The child was sent to Hackensack University Medical Center, Oakland Police said in a press release.
The Oakland Police Department Detective Bureau is investigating. The Oakland First Aid Squad, Oakland Volunteer Fire Department, Bergen County Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Bergen County Prosecutor's Office Fatal Accident Investigation Unit assisted at the scene.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
VINELAND -- A man who opened fire on a Vineland policeman was shot by the officer early Sunday and later died, authorities said.
A man who fired at a police officer was shot and killed, authorities say.
The incident unfolded around 1 a.m. in the area of 7th and Cherry Streets in the city, according to the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office.
Officers had responded to investigate a robbery. They discovered the victim, but the two suspects allegedly involved had fled.
According to the prosecutor's office, police found the two men suspected in the robbery in the area of East Avenue and Almond Street.
There was a foot pursuit and an exchange of gunfire between police and the suspects.
One of the suspects got away, but the other was shot and later died at Inspira Medical Center Vineland, authorities said.
The dead man was identified Sunday afternoon as Richard Bard Jr. 31, of Bridgeton.
According to the prosecutor's office, Bard shot at one of the officers and that officer returned fire, striking Bard and fatally wounding him.
A gun was found near the Bard, the prosecutor's office said. An autopsy was planned for Sunday.
According to the prosecutor's office, a gun was also found in the path where the other suspect fled.
Authorities describe that man as a black male wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt. They say he should be considered to be armed and dangerous.
He remained at large late Sunday morning.
The unidentified robbery victim was airlifted to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center where he was listed in stable condition on Sunday.
The police officer involved has not been identified by the prosecutor's office.
Per protocol, the officer has been placed on administrative leave during the investigation into the shooting.
The two police officers were not injured, authorities said.
No other information was available Sunday.
On its Facebook page Sunday afternoon, the Vineland Police Department posted a message saying "An Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) investigation is being conducted in the City of Vineland. The Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office is handling the investigation pursuant to Attorney General Guideline 2006-5. The Vineland Police Department has been walled off from the investigation in accordance with the guidelines."
Along with the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office, the incident is being investigated by the New Jersey State Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit.
Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow South Jersey Times on Twitter @TheSJTimes. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
"Mother Can You Not?
By Kate Siegel
(Crown Archetype, 255, $22)
The first time my daughter sent me an email with "Crazy Jewish Mom" in the subject line, I shrugged. This is news?
Admittedly, some of my texts are similar to Kim Friedman's, the mother in the title.
Friedman, however, is funnier. She is world class as far as crazy Jewish mothers go, and trust me, I know a little about this category as a member in a long line of them.
Friedman makes those of us who have been accused of being overbearing Jewish mothers look as if we're meth addicts leaving our kids in trailers to subsist on Cheetos dust and cough syrup while watching E!
Friedman is genius, hilarious and Machiavellian -- at least when it comes to her only offspring. One suspects that the wit isn't limited considering her directing credits include "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "Alice."
This book is a collection of tweets between mother and daughter and Siegel's narrative. It is much more about Friedman, with Siegel reacting to her mother than it is about Siegel on her own.
Along those lines -- and this could be taken as criticism, which I realize places me directly in the line of Friedman's fire -- I could not help but think more than once about another very funny Jewish mother and her daughter, Joan and Melissa Rivers.
The great lines, the jokes, the sheer madness of this extremely enjoyable book -- that's all Friedman. Sure, Siegel has a sharp eye and is smart enough to analyze and write it. As much I loved this, and I truly did, I am looking forward to also seeing what Siegel can do by herself.
This book is very much worth a read. It's fun, breezy. Here, the daughter explains the mother, who sees cancer everywhere. And, really, does this mean it isn't there?
"You want Lunchables?! LUNCHABLES?! I read a story in the Harvard Journal of Medicine about the proven link between preservatives and nitrates and cancer. That crap is loaded with disgusting chemicals that can make a person grow a third eye! If you so much as say the word Lunchables to me again, you're grounded until you're thirty!"
"At that point, I was six, so "no" probably would have sufficed."
First of all, who could argue with Friedman's logic? Why would anyone eat meat that's been sitting, unrefrigerated, on a shelf?
It's Siegel's deadpan rejoinders and that she knows her mother is being crazy yet loves her so much that makes this book such fun. What seems like an uncensored account of her life adds to the intimacy of the book.
All the mother ever wanted for her daughter was to go to an Ivy League school. Naturally, that included getting her spawn fake ID so she could pretend to be older and enroll in Stanford's rowing camp, which would give her the needed edge when applying -- in six years.
"Most kids get their first fake ID from a sketchy friend with a connection at the DMV. My first fake ID was handed to me directly by my mom when I was twelve years old. Mind you, it wasn't so I could start guzzling 40s and chain-smoking Camel Lights. It was all part of her master plan to help me get into an Ivy League college."
"When she is passionate about something, my mother is terrifyingly convincing. Under the right circumstances, she could persuade a vegan to dive headfirst into a platter of ribs."
An extremely funny book about the ties that bind, sometimes tighter than the daughter would like.
And so Friedman embarked on this mission as any crazy mother who does not mind stampeding on rules, would. The family took a trip to a seedy part of L.A., and finally found a counterfeiter who could forge documents making Siegel two years older, allowing her to attend the camp.
Incidentally, Siegel did indeed attend an Ivy school, Princeton. Besides her years in Jersey for university, Siegel also spends time at her parents' Jersey home and at one point they tried to create a reality show, an LGBT version of the "Jersey Shore."
Through school and work, her mother contacts her dozens of times a day. Her daughter's best interests are all that motivate her. Though Friedman is a feminist and was fearless in launching her career, the mom wants her daughter married and to a successful man. Is that such a crime?
Naturally, Friedman is as subtle as a rutting rhino. Though not religious, Friedman winds up enlisting the services of the Princeton rabbi as a matchmaker. She learned about the rabbi from one of Siegel's friends when he casually mentioned his sister was getting married to a man she had met through this rabbi.
"I could see all the gears in my mother's brain locking into place as he said this. Ivy League. Men. Jewish. Wedding. Babies. Grandspawn. Stealing grandspawn. Grandspawn with outfits. Grandspawn elementary school applications."
It doesn't take a marketing genius to see natural sequels in the wedding planning and the grandspawn, and I'm already looking forward to them.
Last year, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert used the $1 million, Grade 1 Arkansas Derby as the final stepping stone for American Pharoah on his way to the Kentucky Derby.
That scenario was supposed to repeat this year when Cupid won Oaklawn's Grade 2 Rebel last month for Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier and Derrick Smith.
The 65,000+ on hand for the mile and furlong Arkansas Derby thought they had heard that story before and made Cupid and jockey Martin Garcia the 4 to 5 favorites in the 12- horse field.
They were close to being correct -- for seven furlongs.
After being brushed at the start, Cupid attended the pace being set by Gettysburg, racing for WinStar Farm and Todd Pletcher with Hall of Fame rider John Velazquez aboard.
Meanwhile, WinStar's other horse, Creator, carrying odds of 11 to 1 (They don't couple stable entries in Arkansas) and jockey Ricardo Santana for trainer Steve Asmussen, was on the move from 11th place. The third place finisher behind Cupid in Oaklawn's Rebel last month hit the head of the stretch with a short lead over Suddenbreakingnews, the eventual place horse, while Cupid continued to back up.
At the wire it was Creator by 1-1/4 lengths, Suddenbreakingnews second and Whitmore, the second place finisher in the Rebel, another 1-1/2 lengths back in third. Cupid finished 10th.
The first three finishers and Cupid are all qualified for the Derby.
After the race, Baffert's assistant Jimmy Barnes, told the media, "The fractions (22.81 seconds for the quarter and 46.33 for the half) took its toll."
Santana said Asmussen told him to "Be patient. Be patient. You're going to have a lot of horse. It worked out perfectly."
At Keeneland...
Things went much better for Baffert and his team.
Collected drew off in the home stretch to win the $150,000, Grade 3 Lexington Stakes by four lengths.
The Baffert trainee was ridden to the win by Javier Castellano who might have been shopping to insure a ride in the Preakness, the second race of the Triple Crown.
The Lexington carried only 10 points in the Churchill Downs mixed-up mathematical system of Kentucky Derby qualification. Because Collected did not collect enough points to get in, Speedway Stable partner Peter Fluor told an interviewer, The Preakness "...would be the most logical step, given the distance. That would be a thrill for us."
Castellano followed up with, "What an impressive horse. I really liked the way he did it. He broke well out of the gate, and he wanted to dictate the pace today. I tried to sit a little bit behind the pacemaker.
"Turning for home, I really like the way he accelerated. When I asked, he really responded. I was really satisfied today."
Final Derby Leaderboard, April 16
The 20-point Lexington at Keeneland and the 100-point Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park wrapped up the seven-month, 34-race qualifying season for the 2016 Kentucky Derby. Here are the final standing for the horses that have qualified for the 20 stalls in the starting gate for the May 7 Derby.
Under the convoluted system employed by Churchill Downs, the top qualifier will have no advantage at all over the horse that qualifies last. (Ties for the 20th spot will be broken by Non-Restricted Stakes Earnings.)
Twenty-four horses will be allowed to enter. An 'also-eligible' list of four will be established in the event of scratches.
151 Points. Winchell Thoroughbreds' and Three Chimneys'
130 Points. Reddam Racing's
126 Points. Big Chief Racing, Head of Plains Partners and Rocker O Ranch's
120 Points. Repole Stable's
100 Points. Yoko Maeda's
80 Points. Shadwell Stable's
51 Points. Twin Creeks Racing's
50 Points. Shadwell's
44 Points. Gayle Benson's
40 Points. Valentin Bukhtoyarov and Evgeny Kappushev's
34 Points. Robert La Penta, Harry Rosenblum and Southern Springs'
30 Points. Steve Landers'
32 Points. GMB Racing's
26 Points. Big Chief Racing's
For current equestrian news see Horse News or check out the online version of the print edition.
Horse News covers everything equestrian in the mid-Atlantic area and can be reached at horsenews@hcdemocrat.com
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JERSEY CITY -- Three days after a fire forced 10 people out of their homes, one victim is putting the blame on the "junkies" who hang out in the vacant building where the fire started.
The 32-year-old home owner at 279 Forrest St. -- who asked that his name not be published -- said 273 and 275 Forrest St. were often used by people looking for a place to get their heroin fix.
The fire broke out at about 8 p.m. on Thursday at 275 Forrest St., spreading to 279, 273, 271, and 269 Forrest St. Early the next morning, the fire rekindled, Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.
The resident said when he purchased his home in 2011, the squatters would walk through a small alleyway between his house to get into the vacant buildings adjacent to him.
"The junkies would go through the back and do what they got to do," the resident said.
He said he put up a tall metal fence in efforts to stop the squatters because "obviously the junkies aren't going to be competent enough to get to the back."
Officials have not released the cause of the fire yet, but the resident said he believes someone was inside the vacant building and somehow caused the fire.
"Someone was in where they weren't supposed to be because it wasn't boarded properly, one of the heroin addicts or whatever," he said.
On Friday morning, Todd Safer, a resident in the neighborhood, told The Jersey Journal he saw someone as recently as last week removing a piece of plywood to enter the basement of one of the vacant buildings.
While the resident has been allowed back to his house, he said the two family building -- which is occupied by six adults and two children -- likely won't be livable for at least another year. Two residents living at 271 Forrest St. were also displaced.
As of this evening, the fire still remains under investigation, Morrill said.
At the scene today, debris filled the front lawns of four of the buildings damaged in the blaze. The walls inside many of the buildings were blackened with a strong smell of fire still lingering in the air.
The resident said someone should be held responsible for the damage to his first home.
"I didn't cause a fire," he said. "Someone is getting sued."
PRINCETON - Thousands of people crowded into downtown Princeton Sunday to see and hear from more than 225 local artists, crafters, merchants, performers and nonprofits at the 46th annual Communiversity ArtsFest.
The weekend festival, which closed streets in and around Palmer Square, is organized by The Arts Council of Princeton in collaboration with the town and Princeton University.
"Communiversity ArtsFest draws over 40,000 art lovers and fun seekers to downtown Princeton, making it Central New Jersey's largest and longest running cultural event," Arts Council of Princeton said on its website.
Arts Council of Princeton volunteer Melanie Winstead said she signed up to help with the organization in the winter and Communiversity is her first event.
"It's exciting," Winstead said. "I heard it wasn't as busy last year but there are tons of people here." The streets were so crowded in certain areas that people were unable to move.
Winstead said she was happy to give people information and guide them around the street fair but she also volunteered for personal gains.
"I'm an artist," Winstead said. "I'm just trying to come out and meet artists in the area. It was the perfect opportunity. I can see how other artists are running their tables and maybe take some ideas for myself."
One table Winstead said she enjoyed helping out at was an organization making hats out of recycled materials.
Giselle Dsouza of Giselle's Naturals - a company in Princeton that makes all-natural skin care products - said out of all the vendor events she has attended, Princeton's Communiversity draws the most interest from people. This is her second year attending the street fair.
"I want people to learn about all-natural products," Dsouza said. "It's better for you. I got everyone, my friends, family, using this stuff. I definitely see more interest in all-natural products coming from Princeton than in other places."
West-Windsor resident Jeffrey Bolden said he enjoyed learning from nonprofits and activists at the street fair such as Princeton University's Tigers for Israel, a student organization that aims to spread information on campus about Israel, the Mid-East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"I was really, really happy to hear from them," Bolden said.
Bolden joked he also got to do "real-estate-broker shopping" which is something he "didn't think he would do" at the street fair.
"I ended up talking to three different real estate agents," Bolden said. "I wanted to see how well they could each sell themselves in five minutes."
Communiversity brings various events to Princeton to promote the arts. It was held April 15-17 and Sunday's street fair was held from 1 to 6 p.m.
Lindsay Rittenhouse may be reached at lrittenhouse@njadvancemedia.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
SOUTH BRUNSWICK -- Last week, the township council unanimously voted in support of anti-corruption legislation, becoming just the third municipality in the state to publicly support ridding the influence of money in politics.
The council's resolution supported the American Anti-Corruption Act, "which would stop political bribery, end secret money and give every voter a voice," according to a statement from Represent.Us Central New Jersey, a local, nonpartisan, anti-corruption organization that backed the vote.
The organization is pushing for anti-corruption acts to be passed in 33 cities across the country.
South Brunswick is now part of a small group of municipalities in the state calling on lawmakers in Trenton and Washington, D.C. to pass anti-corruption legislation, the statement said.
In 2014, Princeton became the first municipality in the state to urge federal and state officials to enact stricter campaign finance laws, previous reports said. The following year, Ewing Township adopted a resolution supporting the restriction of political influence by special interest groups and lobbyists, according to a previous report.
Ewing Township becoming the second the following year, according to Represent.Us.
On its website, Represents.Us says the measure accomplishes three things: "Stops legalized bribery so politicians can't take campaign money from the industries they're supposed to be regulating; Ends secret money by requiring political committees to disclose where their campaign cash is coming from; And empowers voters like us with a tax rebate that we can use to contribute to the candidates of our choice."
Represent.Us also says the Act would close the "revolving door" by "limiting contributions from SuperPACs" and providing voters with a $100 tax rebate that they could use to "donate to the candidate of their choice."
The organization noted that both conservative and progressive members of Represent.Us support the legislation, showing that the desire to end political corruption transcends political ideology.
"Our political system is corrupt, and Congress won't fix it," said Represent.Us Executive Director Josh Silver, in the statement. "We're taking our fight local. Conservatives and progressives are uniting to demand that our states pass anti-corruption acts, and that our leaders start representing us."
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Council Bluffs Police Department sergeants, detectives, community officers, traffic patrol and pretty much everyone on the current staff believe the proposed new police headquarters would afford them the space to do their jobs more effectively.
Currently, police headquarters is located in a 19,000-square-foot building attached to the Pottawattamie County Courthouse on South Sixth Street in downtown Council Bluffs. The department would like to build a new 58,000-square-foot facility just north of NP Dodge on Woodbury Avenue.
The Council Bluffs City Council approved, on a March 14 vote, a special election on a bond issue for a new police headquarters. The election will be held Tuesday, May 3. Voters will cast ballots on whether to allow the city to issue bonds of up to $20 million for a new headquarters for the department.
The Woodbury site is expected to cost an estimated $19.5 million, with $1 million going to purchase the land and the other $18.5 million going toward building costs, according to the Council Bluffs Police Department.
If the bond referendum earns voter approval, the department says the bond would cost the average homeowner, based on a $103,000 valuation, an estimated $2.47 per month.
Council Bluffs Police Chief Tim Carmody said he has heard from residents who worry that moving to a new location outside of downtown would lead to service issues.
People worry about a lack of service because were moving two miles, Carmody said. The exact opposite is true. Youre going to get more services, better quality and with better efficiency.
Enough space for detectives
Council Bluffs Police Sgt. Chad Meyers has been in law enforcement for 23 years and currently works as a detective, working with fellow detectives to solve serious crimes, including the three murder cases so far in 2016.
Meyers said working with witnesses and evidence is difficult because of space concerns at the police station. While there are two interview rooms, theyre located next to each other. Meyers said the walls arent soundproof.
If you have someone in the other room, they can hear whats going on in the other room if they listen closely, Meyers said. Because of that, we have to keep suspects in offices and, of course, offices have important information. Thats not always the best option.
Additionally, Meyers said there isnt a room to lay out evidence and leave it out for several days, providing another obstacle to investigating serious crime.
We have to pack up the evidence every day and put it away because were not sure who may also be in that room, Meyers said.
Moving to a bigger building would mean moving away from the headquarters current neighbors, the Pottawattamie County Courthouse, and the judges and attorneys the detectives work with on a daily basis.
Ten years ago, not being close to the county attorneys, judges would have been an issue, but now we do everything electronically, Meyers said. Its rare that people have to walk up there.
Carmody said there is now a paperless system which allows attorneys and law enforcement to share police records and videos seamlessly.
More secure parking, entrance
Community officer Dale Schmitz has been with the Council Bluffs Police Department for 18 years. Schmitz said hes looking forward to the secured parking lot and entrances, which would be a part of proposed police headquarters.
It wouldnt just be a secured entrance for us, it would be for everyone, suspects, witnesses, Schmitz said. Everyone would be in a secured area.
He continued: Right now, the front of the building is the only entrance. We must bring evidence and property in that door. The new building would be secure. It would not be accessible to suspects, victims.
If the bond referendum is approved and a new station is constructed on Woodbury Avenue, current plans call for the communitys parking lot in the front of the building, with many more parking spots than the current location. Law enforcement would park in a different lot, likely behind the building.
Community space for many events
Design plans not only include a bigger parking lot for the community but also a large community room.
Jill Knotek, a police area representative officer with the department, said a community room is a necessity.
I think thats one of the things the public should be really excited about is the opportunity to have a community room within the police department, Knotek said. People call us monthly and say they want to start a neighborhood watch group and get involved in the neighborhood association. They want to get involved with the police department with their Boys Scouts troop.
Those are valuable relationships for the department to build with the community. But space is a constraint.
We cant do those things here and that is silly because we want to show them what we have here. We want to invite them into our house, in a way, Knotek said. It would be really cool if we could do events at the police station.
Presently, events such as retirement or awards ceremonies must take place in a separate location, such as the Council Bluffs Public Library. Carmody said other police stations dont just hold retirement ceremonies on site, but they host additional events for the community, such as children events on Halloween and Christmas.
Everything located under one roof
The additional space would allow evidence or property to be served in one location, too. Currently, evidence is spread out across the Council Bluffs.
The departments cyber task force, which helps find potential child predators, would also move inside the potential new headquarters. Due to a lack of space, that department is located in a different building.
Carmody said the potential new home for the police department will solve these issues.
We have designed the building to include the features that we are missing, he said. It will definitely help us with technology. Its important because if we dont keep up with technology, were going to get run over by it.
Students ages 14-18 with an interest in learning about the outdoors are encouraged to attend the 53rd Nebraska Youth Range Camp that will be on June 6-10, at the Nebraska State 4-H Camp in Halsey.
The Nebraska Youth Range Camp consists of a four-and-a-half day dynamic curriculum that appeals to students with a wide array of interests including, but not limited to, rangeland management, conservation, ecology, animal science and wildlife. With over 50 years to perfect and evolve this curriculum, every student, no matter what prior experience they have, will learn substantial information that will help them become more aware of Nebraskas most prevalent land use. Rangelands cover nearly 50 percent of Nebraska and approximately 60 percent of the United States.
The students that attend Range Camp will be actively involved with field activities, lectures, hand-on experience and recreational leadership and team-building activities that are all led by up to 20 of Nebraskas most respected and dedicated leaders, teachers, and professionals from various agencies, colleges, and universities. Students will also prepare for the upcoming range judging season and be a step ahead of the competition. The Range Judging Contest format will be changing this year and Range Camp students will be amongst the first to learn about all of these changes.
Financial sponsorship is available. Interested individuals can find more information, the Range Camp application and the brochure by visiting the Nebraska Society for Range Management website at nesrm.org or by emailing Shelly@SandhillsTaskForce.org. Applications need to be submitted by May 27. Attendance is capped at 65 students. Individuals will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis.
Womens Resource Center Executive Director Linda Logsdon along with Linda Schiro, office assistant; Barb Ingle, office manager; and Bunny Hinde, board vice president recently attended the 45th Annual Heartbeat International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The theme was Celebrating Heroes for empowering individuals to make the healthiest choice for everyone involved in an unexpected pregnancy. The conference provided marvelous workshops with life-affirming topics and keynote speakers that provided encouragement to all who minister through pregnancy help centers.
Brisbane Broncos winger Corey Oates has hosed down talks of a State of Origin call-up after another outstanding performance by the 21-year-old reignited speculation that he will make his debut for Queensland come Game One on June 1st.
Oates scored the first hat-trick of his career on Saturday night, helping Brisbane to a 53-0 rout of the Newcastle Knights at Suncorp Stadium.
Injuries to Queensland stars Billy Slater and Will Chambers has opened the door for Oates and his form warrants selection, scoring six tries in five games this season.
Despite talk of an Origin debut, Oates says he is just focused on performing to the best of his ability for the Broncos.
"I just want to keep playing good footy. It's a dream of mine to play Origin, but I'm just happy to be playing footy at the moment," Oates said.
"I need to keep producing performances like tonight and whatever comes from that I'll take with both hands and try my hardest.
"I had my first full pre-season this year so just getting through that without a surgery made me happy.
"I'm happy with the way my year started and I'm just trying to find the form I had before I injured my shoulder a few weeks ago.
"Hopefully I can keep playing good footy for the Broncos every week and we can keep seeing results like tonight."
Oates has struggled with injury throughout his short career, undergoing nine surgeries on various joints.
He injured his AC joint against the New Zealand Warriors in Round 2 this year and was expected to miss 4-6 weeks because of it.
Luckily, Oates escaped a tenth surgery and returned early to face the Gold Coast Titans just three weeks later.
Last night's win was Oates' third game back and the hulking winger admits his shoulder has been plaguing him since he made his return.
"The shoulder felt gold out there tonight. It felt a lot better than last week and I didnt really feel it at all tonight," he said.
"That's a positive sign for me and I can now go into next week without worrying about it. Hopefully we can get a similar result next weekend.
"I was a bit worried about the shoulder when I first came back. I hurt it a bit last week, but I turned a corner this week and it's feeling pretty good. It's not phasing me anymore and I'm a lot happier now."
The Brauer Museum of Art opens the first of three spring shows this afternoon from 2 to 4 p.m. with an exhibit reception featuring colorful folk art and impressionist paintings by Indian-born artist Kartik Trivedi. Opening at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sacred Spaces and Objects, curated by George Pati, Ph.D., features photographs and objects relating to religious rituals and ceremonies in India. The week ends with an exhibit featuring work by VU art faculty opening at 7 p.m. Friday. (219) 464-5365 or www.valpo.edu/brauer-museum-of-art/
27th Annual Potpourri of Literature
Purdue University Northwest will host the 27th Annual Potpourri of Literature Readers Theatre at 11 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. Tuesday and at 2 p.m.April 24 in the Library Building Assembly Hall. This years literary potpourri celebrates Indianas Bicentennial with an original script combining music and literature, written and edited by Daniel Padberg. A visual presentation will feature photos of Indiana artists, musicians, personalities and historic sites. (219) 785-5384 or www.pnw.edu
'Mary Poppins' drops into Region
The Drama Group of Chicago Heights, one of the oldest volunteer community theatres in the country, presents the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious musical adventure of everyones favorite, practically perfect nanny. Chimney sweep Bert introduces us to England in 1910 and the troubled Banks family. Young Jane and Michael have sent many a nanny packing before Mary Poppins arrives on their doorstep, taking the children on a whirlwind of magical adventures. April 29 through May 1. (708) 755-3444 or www.dramagroup.org
'The Odd Couple' bring laughs
Memorial Opera House revives The Odd Couple, April 29 through May 15. It's said that opposites attract, and there are no two men more unalike than Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. This classic Neil Simon comedy reveals the hilarious results when a clean-freak and a slob decide to live together. (219) 548-9137 or www.memorialoperahouse.com
200 Years of Indiana Art: A Cultural Legacy
Now through Oct. 2, the Indiana State Museum presents a broad range of historical and contemporary work by artists who have shaped Indianas view of the world and the worlds view of Indiana. Representing work from across the state, the exhibition features paintings, sculpture, textile and glass by artists ranging from Indianas Pioneer Painters to T.C. Steele and his fellow Hoosier Group to those working from the 1930s to present day, including Robert Indiana and our very own Northwest Indiana-based Kay Rosen of Miller Beach! (317) 232-1637 or www.indianamuseum.org
Check the Regional Arts Calendar for information on current exhibits, concerts, plays and more at www.SouthShoreArtsOnline.org. Watch the new half-hour edition of Eye on the Arts every first Friday of the month on Lakeshore Public Television. Eye on the Arts interviews can be heard on Lakeshore Public Radio, 89.1 FM, at 8:45 a.m. Monday.
Nebelsiek is a Hammond artist who began her fascination with nature as a child. Her watercolors are inspired by nature and her environments. In 2015, Nebelsiek participated in Park Full of Art in Griffith, winning both Best New Artist and first place for Best Watercolors. Her pieces have been accepted in various shows and venues throughout the Region. Although she put painting aside for 35 years to attend to family needs, Nebelsiek has re-entered the art world with passion. From May through October she demonstrates at the European Market in Chesterton. She is a member of the Chesterton Art Center, Lacare Art League, South Lake Artist Co-op and 18 Artist.
LOS ANGELES Sean Parker was a pioneer in music sharing when he co-founded Napster and in social media as the early president of Facebook. Now he wants to pioneer in a field that is already jumping with activity: cancer immunotherapy.
Mr. Parker is announcing Wednesday that he is donating $250 million to a new effort that will bring together six leading academic centers to develop ways to unleash patients own immune systems to fight cancer.
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will try to spur collaboration among the centers, having them share research materials and discoveries and jointly conduct clinical trials to try to accelerate progress.
How do we get more therapies to market faster and more cheaply? Mr. Parker said in an interview, adding that his effort represented a new blueprint for biomedical research funding.
Season 2, Episode 2: Not in Scotland Anymore
Sex in pop culture often lacks variety. Usually its only tenor is unadulterated lust and pleasure or on the opposite end of the spectrum, disappointment. But in real life, sex has incredible variety. It can start out tentative or coy then sway into outright passions. Lovers can pause for laughter or switch positions when something is uncomfortable. Nothing in life, especially sexual encounters, is one note. One of the greatest strengths of Outlander is its keen, honest understanding of sex between men and women filtered through the relationship of Claire and Jamie. Their sexual chemistry has proved to be a cornerstone of their relationship providing a window into their loyalty for one another. While last weeks episode curiously didnt touch on Jamies abuse and how it currently shapes their relationship with much depth, it takes center stage in Not in Scotland Anymore.
The episode opens in the middle of a sex scene between Jamie and Claire. Its sexy yet slightly off. It seems like Jamie is perhaps a bit too wrapped up in his own thoughts. Thats because he is. Its a dream. Just when were getting comfortable in the dynamic between the pleasure on his face and Claires slight laugh, the scene dives into darker waters. Her voice gives way to Randalls. He breathlessly murmurs dont stop while lying beneath Jamie. In an instant a setting that was once warm and alluring tips into horror as Jamie stabs Randall again and again. Blood soaks into the sheets, drips from Jamies hair, covering both men almost completely. The wounds of his body may be healing but Jamie is still reeling from what Randall has done.
Even in his waking life, Jamie struggles to be intimate with Claire. After having her legs and other areas waxed she initiates sex with Jamie. Its both tender (in the way Claire kisses Jamie) and mildly hilarious (Jamies reaction to Claires hairlessness). When they start having sex it feels like maybe theyre making progress. Then just as soon as they find their rhythm images of Randall jut into Jamies mind. At the end of Season 1 Jamies abuse was unflinching and brutal in ways that perhaps contradicted its intent. But its aftermath provides the opportunity to depict a subject matter not seen enough in television: male vulnerability. Sam Heughans performance finds incredible nuance in Jamies current state, imbuing even his quietest moments with an awareness of how it has wrecked his identity.
Jamies struggle is just one of the many ways Outlander plays with both masculinity and duality. Yes, there is Jamie who on the surface is the picture of a dashing romantic hero but he has a kindness and a vulnerability that has only been magnified by his trauma. Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Andrew Gower) speaks of the incisive nature needed to lead but in actuality is foolish and quite simpering. Even Murtagh who seems like a brute to the aristocratic circles of French society that hes moving through is a man of surprising depth and loyalty.
Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking five days a week to talk about food and suggest recipes. That email also appears here. To receive it in your inbox, register here.
Good morning. Close readers of this newsletter will recognize our Sunday refrain: Shop and cook today for tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The time invested pays off handsomely in days to come.
For dinner tonight, perhaps you will consider my column in The New York Times Magazine, on the joys of chicken paprikash, with an accompanying recipe for the dish.
The meal comes together relatively quickly, which leaves time in the afternoon for other kitchen work. Melissa Clark has an excellent new guide to cooking beans up on Cooking that I hope youll read and use in days and years to come, as it allows the student both to freestyle interpretations of various legume-based cookery, and to drill deep into our excellent recipes for them as well.
Jessica Emily Schumer, a daughter of Iris Weinshall and Senator Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn, is to be married April 17 to Michael Paris Shapiro, the son of Lissa J. Paris and Robert B. Shapiro of Avon, Conn. Rabbi Andy Bachman is to officiate at the Liberty Warehouse, an event space in Brooklyn.
Ms. Schumer, 31, is keeping her name. She is the chief of staff of the Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New York that funds antipoverty programs. Until August 2015, she was the chief of staff and general counsel to the Council of Economic Advisers in Washington. She graduated cum laude from Harvard and received a law degree from Yale.
Her father, a Democrat, is the senior senator from New York. Her mother is the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library and was New Yorks commissioner of transportation under Mayors Rudolph W. Giuliani and Michael R. Bloomberg from 2000 to 2007.
Mr. Shapiro, 29, is an economic-policy adviser for Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, and is studying for a law degree at Yale.
Lucy Chapman Hayes, a daughter of Maggie K. H. Hayes and John R. Hayes of Brooklyn, was married April 16 to Daniel Ethan Solomon, a son of Leslie B. Solomon and Gregg M. Solomon of Manhattan. The Rev. Ingrid Marcroft, an interfaith minister ordained by One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, officiated at the Green Building, an event space in Brooklyn.
The couple met at Hunter College High School in Manhattan and later both graduated from Georgetown.
Mrs. Solomon, 26, is an associate at Hilltop Public Solutions, a Democratic political consulting and public affairs firm in Washington, where she conducts research and helps clients shape federal legislation and regulations affecting them. Her father is a financial research analyst for two investment partnerships: LFL Advisers in Evanston, Ill., and Makaira Partners in San Diego.
The groom, 25, is a research assistant at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, part of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington. His mother is the chief operating officer of VRSim, a software company in East Hartford, Conn., that develops training products for the construction and manufacturing industries. His father is a managing director of Touchstone Group, a financial services firm in Manhattan.
Tommy Gabriel DiDario, the son of Karen A. DiDario of Berkeley Heights, N.J., and Thomas G. DiDario of Basking Ridge, N.J., was married April 16 to Gio Benitez, the son of Lourdes Perez and Javier Benitez, both of Miami. Mr. DiDarios sister, Megs A. DiDario, who became a Universal Life minister for the event, officiated at the Walton House, a historic English-style cottage in Homestead, Fla.
Mr. DiDario (left), 30, owns a company in New York bearing his name that manages social-media strategies for various brands. He is also a model with the Bella Agency in New York and an actor who most recently appeared in February in an episode of Broad City, on Comedy Central. He graduated from N.Y.U.
His mother is an assistant editor at Information Today, a publisher of Internet and technology magazines, newsletters and books, based in Medford, N.J. His father owns Landscape Maintenance Services in Hillsborough, N.J.
Mr. Benitez, also 30, is an ABC News correspondent based in New York. He reports for all ABC News programs and platforms, including Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline and 20/20. He graduated from Florida International University.
A man wanted for questioning in the death of a man in a Manhattan homeless shelter may be connected to the slashing and attempted robbery of a livery-cab driver on Saturday, the police said.
The police said they were looking for William Smith, 53, after a 56-year-old man was found dead with a deep cut in his neck on Friday in the shelter. The Associated Press reported the victim was Marcus Guerreiro.
Mr. Guerreiro was discovered in his third-floor room in the shelter, which is at 400 East 30th Street in Kips Bay, around 8:30 a.m. on Friday. His neck was wrapped in wire, and blood covered his mattress. Five other people have been killed this year in New York Citys overcrowded homeless shelter system, which is pursuing efforts to reduce violence and improve conditions.
Mr. Guerreiro died as a result of sharp force trauma to the neck with an injury to his jugular vein, said Dr. Barbara Sampson, the citys chief medical examiner, The Associated Press reported. His death was ruled a homicide.
Airlines know this sector and are ready to play, he said.
While some previous forest projects have been criticized for not delivering the reductions that were claimed, now we have new rules about how to do forests in a way that as we scale up we maintain integrity, Mr. Purvis added.
Aviation and shipping each contribute a little more than 2 percent of annual worldwide human-produced emissions of carbon dioxide. Together that is more than the emissions from Japan, the worlds fifth-largest emitter.
Both industries are expected to grow over the next few decades, and their percentages of worldwide emissions may increase significantly as emissions are reduced elsewhere. Environmental groups say steps the industries have already taken, including regulations to reduce emissions from new aircraft and ships, will not help much because they are tied to baselines for improvement that are too low.
Yet after being included in initial drafts of the climate treaty, a paragraph on limiting or reducing emissions from the two industries was eliminated from the final version, which was agreed upon in Paris in mid-December.
The treaty commits nations to setting emissions-reduction targets, with a goal of keeping global warming well below a target of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.
Experts cite several reasons that aviation and shipping were not in the treaty, including a desire to keep the text as concise as possible to improve the chances of reaching an agreement. The issue also would have exacerbated disputes about the responsibilities of developed versus developing nations that could have threatened the overall accord, they said.
As in many of the incidents, a video has played a crucial role, raising questions about the officers explanation of the shooting. Officer Proctor told investigators that he saw Mr. Glenn grabbing for his partners holster as the two officers were trying to handcuff him outside a nightclub. With Mr. Glenn on the ground but resisting, Officer Proctor shot him twice in the back, according to a report from Chief Beck on the shooting, which was released this week.
But a surveillance video showed that Mr. Glenns hand was never on or near the gun, the report said. And Chief Beck concluded that the evidence did not support Officer Proctors perception that a deadly threat was present.
Criminal charges for on-duty police shootings remain rare, nowhere more so than in Los Angeles, where no officer has been charged with murder or manslaughter for an on-duty shooting for more than 15 years.
From 2005 until the end of 2014, nonfederal law enforcement officers across the country were charged with murder or manslaughter only 47 times, though officers kill around 1,000 people each year, according to Philip M. Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who has tracked fatal police shootings.
But activists see evidence that public officials are increasingly sensitive to the national outrage over shootings of unarmed black people, which has grown since the death of Mr. Brown in Ferguson two years ago. Mr. Glenn was also black and unarmed.
Last year, 18 officers were charged across the country, and four more have been charged so far this year, Professor Stinson said.
The Impact
The ad marked a new moment for Mrs. Clinton, who, even as she is locked in a primary battle with Senator Bernie Sanders, has turned her attention to a general election matchup with Mr. Trump. He has been a frequent target of the Democratic candidates on the campaign trail Mrs. Clinton made not-so-subtle references to Mr. Trump in an ad she began running in New York two weeks ago. But before now, her campaign has not displayed his name or mentioned him directly in a paid ad.
Takeaway
By focusing on the Republican front-runner, Mrs. Clintons campaign is projecting an aura of victory, and the ad has a general-election feel to it. But the closing seconds bring the argument back to her primary opponent, as the narrator says, With so much at stake, shes the one tough enough to stop Trump.
Changing channels
Check the Credits
The faces are familiar: Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, who died after police officers put him in a chokehold; the entertainer Harry Belafonte; the activists Shaun King and Linda Sarsour, all speaking in support of Mr. Sanders on civil rights issues. But if the scenes and camera angles feel slightly different, its because the campaign brought in a ringer Spike Lee to produce it.
Earshot
The ad is titled Crazy. It opens with a picture of Senator Ted Cruz looking mischievous and Mr. Trump with mouth agape, seemingly mid-rant. But leveling the actual crazy accusation is not the role of the narrator in this ad from New Day for America, the super PAC supporting Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. That falls to Patsy Cline, whose 1961 recording of Willy Nelsons Crazy provides the ads soundtrack. The rest of the lyric: Im crazy for trying, and crazy for crying. And Im crazy for loving you, is barely audible under the narrators voice.
Going Local
The New York Post and The Daily News are chock-full of headlines ripping Mr. Cruz for his statement about New York values. But, in an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend moment, Mr. Cruz used more than 20 covers and stories from the two tabloids, most highly critical of Mayor Bill de Blasio, to offer a counter illustration to audio of Mr. Trump praising the mayor, saying he will make New York great. The ad closes with a line that may soon find its way to Mr. Cruzs stump speech: Perhaps Donald doesnt know what the word great means.
A college student who came to the United States as an Iraqi refugee was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in California earlier this month after another passenger became alarmed when she heard him speaking Arabic.
The student, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, was taken off a flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Oakland on April 6 after he called an uncle in Baghdad to tell him about an event he attended that included a speech by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
I was very excited about the event so I called my uncle to tell him about it, he said.
He told his uncle about the chicken dinner they were served and the moment when he got to stand up and ask the secretary general a question about the Islamic State, he said. But the conversation seemed troubling to a nearby passenger, who told the crew she overheard him making potentially threatening comments, the airline said in a statement.
Mr. Makhzoomi, 26, knew something was wrong as soon as he finished his phone call and saw that a woman sitting in front of him had turned around in her seat to stare at him, he said. She headed for the airplane door soon after he told his uncle that he would call again when he landed, and qualified it with a common phrase in Arabic, inshallah, meaning god willing.
QUITO, Ecuador A 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the central coast of Ecuador on Saturday, killing at least 77 people, officials and news reports said. The effects could be felt as far away as the capital, Quito, which lies some 105 miles from the epicenter.
Vice President Jorge Glas said that in addition to the 77 dead, more than 570 people were wounded, The Associated Press reported.
The quake was centered 16 miles southeast of Muisne, Ecuador, the United States Geological Survey said.
Officials declared a nationwide state of exception, which gives the government expanded authority, and a state of emergency in six of the countrys 24 provinces. Deaths were reported in the northern provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabi and Guayas, along the northern border with Colombia.
MEXICO CITY President Raul Castro of Cuba on Saturday offered a somber assessment of his nations economic advances and warned that the United States despite the historic thaw in relations was still intent on changing Cubas communist system.
In a two-hour speech at the opening of the Cuban Communist Partys three-day congress, President Castro said that the United States, in promoting the islands small private sector, was using other means to undermine the system. Islanders needed to be alert, more than ever, he said.
The comments, in a wide-ranging speech, amounted to a pushback against President Obama, who made a groundbreaking visit to Cuba less than a month ago.
We are not naive, Mr. Castro said, adding that powerful external forces hoped to create agents of change to end the revolution.
The United States, Russia and China are now aggressively pursuing a new generation of smaller, less destructive nuclear weapons. The buildups threaten to revive a Cold War-era arms race and unsettle the balance of destructive force among nations that has kept the nuclear peace for more than a half-century.
It is, in large measure, an old dynamic playing out in new form as an economically declining Russia, a rising China and an uncertain United States resume their one-upmanship.
American officials largely blame the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, saying his intransigence has stymied efforts to build on a 2010 arms control treaty and further shrink the arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers. Some blame the Chinese, who are looking for a technological edge to keep the United States at bay. And some blame the United States itself for speeding ahead with a nuclear modernization that, in the name of improving safety and reliability, risks throwing fuel on the fire.
President Obama acknowledged that danger at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit meeting in Washington early this month. He warned of the potential for ramping up new and more deadly and more effective systems that end up leading to a whole new escalation of the arms race.
LONDON The chief of Britains digital espionage agency has apologized for the organizations historic prejudice against gays, saying it failed to learn from the treatment of the World War II codebreaker Alan Turing.
In a rare public speech, Robert Hannigan, the director of the agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, told a gathering organized by the human rights group Stonewall that its ban on gays like Turing had caused long-lasting psychological damage to many and hurt the agency because talented people had been excluded from working there.
The fact that it was common practice for decades reflected the intolerance of the times and the pressures of the Cold War, but it does not make it any less wrong and we should apologize for it, Mr. Hannigan said Friday at the Stonewall Workplace Conference.
The speech offered a poignant tribute to Turing, a computer science pioneer and the architect of the effort to crack Nazi Germanys Enigma cipher. Turing was convicted of indecency in 1952 and stripped of his security clearance. He later killed himself.
A group of protesters critical of labor practices in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said they would resume demonstrations aimed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which is planning to expand there. The group, Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction, or G.U.L.F., held several protests inside the museum in Manhattan in 2014 and 2015, which included the installation of fake artworks and the display of long banners.
Such actions would begin again after a hiatus of about a year, the protesters said in an email, because last week museum officials, including Juan Ignacio Vidarte, the deputy director and chief officer for global strategies, told members of a related group, Gulf Labor, that they would no longer meet with them.
Since the Guggenheim has unilaterally broken off negotiations with Gulf Labor, G.U.L.F. considers that its self-imposed moratorium has ended, said the email, which was provided by a Gulf Labor member, Andrew Ross. It will resume direct actions against the museum in New York and elsewhere.
The museum replied with a statement saying officials had begun meeting with Gulf Labor six years ago but recently concluded that further meetings would be unproductive, and describing the protesters as being fixated on the Guggenheim.
Gulf Labor continues to shift its demands on the Guggenheim beyond the reach of our influence as an arts institution while spreading mistruths about the project and our role in it, the statement, which was provided by Tina Vaz, a spokeswoman, read in part. This threat is more proof of their singular focus on the Guggenheim rather than a sincere attempt to deal with an issue of global complexity that involves many players.
A Gulf Labor member, the artist Walid Raad, said that the group had been consistent in its demands and accurate in its depictions.
Over the past year Gulf Labor members had attended three meetings with museum officials including its director, Richard Armstrong and senior trustees, to discuss concerns about workers on Saadiyat Island, a luxury enclave being developed by the Emirates government. Most work there is done by foreign migrants, who are required to pay large recruitment and transit fees, critics say. Laborers helping to build a New York University campus there said that they had been subject to police raids, beatings and deportations after going on strike.
Gulf Labor members said they, along with other rights advocates, had provided the museum with examples of contract language that could help address issues related to recruitment fees, wages and the ability to organize. Museum officials have said those areas were beyond their direct influence. Those officials have added that they remained committed to advocating for workers and said that over the past year new rules by the Emirates Ministry of Labor and development arm had improved conditions there.
The protests at the Guggenheim have been highly visible. In 2014 demonstrators threw thousands of pieces of fake currency from upper levels of the museum. Two months later they placed their own politically tinged works in a show of Italian Futurism. And last year protesters dropped 10,000 fliers about workers rights from the museums spiral rotunda.
Mahlers big salute to spring in Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) is decidedly backhanded.
In Der Trunkene im Fruhling, set to an ancient text by Li Po (or Li Bai), a bird chirps: Yes! Spring is here. It arrived during the night! The drunken hero ponders deeply but ends by rejecting seasonal joys in favor of continued sleep and stupor.
Still, there was the song, at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the San Francisco Symphony in Das Lied. And there it will be, at David Geffen Hall on Wednesday, when Alan Gilbert leads the New York Philharmonic in the same work.
But that is only half of the Mahler mini-festival that has sprouted unbidden and unannounced in New York this spring. The Philharmonic, in its current program, is performing Mahlers Ninth Symphony, conducted by Bernard Haitink; and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra played Mahlers Fifth Symphony on Saturday evening at Carnegie, led by Marin Alsop.
When Joyce A. Rivera decided in 1990 to confront the AIDS epidemic that had claimed her brothers life, she teamed up with unlikely allies: two drug dealers in the South Bronx. First, she educated them on how dirty needles and unprotected sex spread H.I.V., which causes AIDS. Then, she wound up distributing clean syringes to their customers in Mott Haven.
I put my time and effort into seeing the drug dealers as real persons who had access to so many users that I could make a dent in the epidemic if I won them over, she said. I never said they were nice guys. But they were educable.
Back then, her needle exchange program St. Anns Corner of Harm Reduction operated on the fringes of an impoverished minority community. The public saw her efforts as enabling drug users who would be better off behind bars. Today, her methods are viewed as part of an effective public health strategy that prevents the spread of disease and offers addicts help.
She suspects that her once-unorthodox approach has gained acceptance now that opioid and heroin addiction has exploded in white, suburban communities (almost 90 percent of new users are white, according to one national study). Compassion, rather than criminalization, is the keyword, with some police departments and politicians reassessing strategies developed during the war on drugs (which one former aide to President Richard M. Nixon was reported to have said had been mounted, in part, to target African-Americans).
CAIRO On Wednesday, three judges in Cairo will decide whether to allow prosecutors to pursue their case against me and my co-defendant, the journalist and human rights advocate Hossam Bahgat, in the governments continuing attack on nongovernmental organizations in Egypt. The case against me has centered on my role in founding the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which aims to educate the Egyptian public about their civil and human rights.
As for Mr. Bahgat, it is widely known that his investigative reporting has rattled the government. But the case against him has focused on the activities of the organization he founded, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
We have been targeted because our groups provide critical resources to those facing human rights abuses in Egypt. We have represented victims of torture from across the spectrum: Muslim Brotherhood members, liberals, leftists, victims of arbitrary arrest and even government supporters. We have stood for the ideas that human rights belong to all, no matter their ideology, and that civil rights belong to all citizens, no matter their wealth or power.
Yet a close reading of Mr. Cruzs policy prescriptions, influences and writings over two decades, combined with interviews with conservative intellectual leaders and Cruz allies, suggest two powerful truths about the man who might yet assume the mantle of modern conservatism.
He would be the most conservative presidential nominee in at least a half-century, perhaps to the right of Barry Goldwater, testing the electoral limits of a personal ideology he has forged meticulously since adolescence.
And he has, more effectively than almost any politician of his generation, anticipated the rightward tilt of the Republican Party of today, grasping its conservatism even as colleagues dismissed him as a fringe figure.
Now, even Mr. Cruzs staunchest Republican enemies tend to criticize him most forcefully on tactics lamenting his leading role in the 2013 government shutdown, for instance but not on substance, where they have generally arrived at equivalent positions.
Nobody has been more assiduous than Cruz at staying on the same page as the conservative base of the Republican Party, said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative author and senior editor of National Review, who first met Mr. Cruz when they were students at Princeton University. That said, it was also the man meeting the moment. He was always a constitutionalist conservative, and then constitutionalism became cool among conservatives.
BRASILIA Brazilian legislators voted on Sunday night to approve impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the nations first female president, whose tenure has been buffeted by a dizzying corruption scandal, a shrinking economy and spreading disillusionment.
After three days of impassioned debate, the lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, voted to send the case against Ms. Rousseff to the Senate. Its 81 members will vote by a simple majority on whether to hold a trial on charges that the president illegally used money from state-owned banks to conceal a yawning budget deficit in an effort to bolster her re-election prospects. That vote is expected to take place next month.
Those pressing for impeachment had to win the support of two-thirds of the 513 deputies in the lower house; the decisive 342nd vote for impeachment happened at about 10:10 p.m. Eastern time. The final vote was 367 for impeachment, 137 against and 7 abstaining. Two deputies did not vote.
If the Senate accepts the case, Ms. Rousseff will step down temporarily while it deliberates her fate. Vice President Michel Temer, a constitutional law scholar and seasoned politician, will assume the presidency.
We were preparing to transmit a local football game when everything started to shake and the people fled in panic, he said of a game in Portoviejo. I had to to avoid being crushed by the people. I have some scrapes. But what I see around me is really terrible, startling and very sad.
Ecuador has a history of destructive earthquakes, but the one on Saturday, which by some accounts lasted more than a minute, is believed to have been one of the most powerful since the 1970s. Some geologists said its force was 20 times greater than the deadly earthquake that struck southern Japan early Saturday.
The quake had a depth of nearly 12 miles. Several aftershocks, some as strong as magnitude 5.6, followed. The earthquakes center was 16 miles southeast of Muisne, Ecuador, the United States Geological Survey said.
About 4,600 members of the National Police and 10,400 members of the armed forces were mobilized as part of the emergency response. Hundreds of doctors, health professionals and rescue workers were heading toward the hardest-hit areas.
The presidents emergency decree gives the government expanded authority and a state of emergency in six of the countrys 24 provinces. Deaths were reported in the northern provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabi and Guayas.
Among the dead were a youngster who fell down the stairs in a mall in the southern port city of Guayaquil and another who died after the collapse of a bridge in the city, according to reports from the television station Teleamazonas.
He was one of hundreds of thousands of victims of what has been called one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century: the state-sponsored purges of those suspected of being Communists and their sympathizers in Indonesia in 1965-66. Half a million people or more, many of whom had no connection to Communism, are estimated to have been killed, and hundreds of thousands of others were held in detention centers for years.
Survivors like Mr. Sukanta, now 76, have long demanded that the government give a full accounting of that dark period, to no avail. But some of them hope that a two-day symposium on the killings, starting Monday in Jakarta, will be a first step toward an official acknowledgment of what happened.
It will be the first time that a public discussion of the atrocities has been endorsed by the government, which for decades maintained that the bloodshed was justified to save Indonesia from a Communist takeover, while violently suppressing challenges to that official narrative.
The government is not organizing the symposium, but it has made its approval clear; Indonesias security minister, Luhut B. Pandjaitan, will deliver the opening remarks. Such official backing is rekindling hope among survivors and activists that a truth and reconciliation commission might be established to finally explain what happened half a century ago, and why.
We hope this is the start to revealing everything that happened during those days, said Atmadji Sumarkidjo, a special assistant to Mr. Luhut.
JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel led a cabinet meeting in the Israeli-controlled portion of the Golan Heights on Sunday, calling on the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the conquered territory and vowing that Israel would never give it back to Syria.
Mr. Netanyahu made his remarks at what his office described as a festive meeting of the cabinet in one of the Jewish settlements on the strategic plateau that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel later effectively annexed the Golan Heights in a move that was never internationally recognized.
Officially, the occasion for holding the first formal cabinet meeting in the territory was to mark a year since the formation of Mr. Netanyahus current right-leaning government. Yet the timing, according to experts, was more likely dictated by Israeli concerns arising from the recently resumed talks in Geneva over Syrias future or hopes that the talks might present an opportunity for Israel.
The Golan Heights have been an integral part of the land of Israel since ancient times; the dozens of ancient synagogues in the area around us attest to that, Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the meeting. And the Golan is an integral part of the state of Israel in the new era.
This is Sheila Davila. Shes a registered Republican who lives in New Yorks 15th congressional district in the southeastern part of the Bronx.
No district in the nation has fewer Republicans than Ms. Davilas, which is home to Yankee Stadium. Ms. Davilas vote on Tuesday will have as much influence over the Republican presidential nomination as the combined votes of 46 Republicans in parts of Illinois:
46 votes in parts of Illinois 1 vote in the Bronx 29 votes in Virginia 1 vote in the Bronx 1 vote in the Bronx 11 votes in Atlanta
The disparities reflect Republican Party rules. Every congressional district in New York is awarded three delegates, which means the Republicans who live in the most liberal areas end up with the most influence per person.
Ninety-six percent of the voters in Ms. Davilas district chose to re-elect President Obama in 2012. Mitt Romney won 3 percent of the vote a mere 5,315 ballots. The turnout in the primary will most likely be even lower: Just 1,632 of the district's registered Republicans voted in the 2013 mayoral race, and 1,697 voted in the 2014 midterm election, according to data from L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor.
By contrast, about 150,000 Republicans voted in Illinoiss 18th district, which includes conservative parts of central and western Illinois. Republican voters there have the least amount of influence anywhere in the country as measured by the number of primary voters per delegate.
Heres how much Republican votes are worth across the country, based on vote totals and each states delegate rules:
Most powerful voters District Estimated voters per delegate New York-15 721 New York-13 1,651 New York-5 2,416 New York-7 2,793 South Dakota 3,483 New York-8 3,626 California-34 3,731 Vermont 3,813 California-40 4,029 California-44 4,298 Rhode Island-1 4,565 California-13 4,730 Least powerful voters District Estimated voters per delegate Illinois-18 33,154 California-4 31,225 Wisconsin-5 31,074 All Ohio districts 30,955 Illinois-6 30,430 Illinois-15 30,268 Wisconsin-6 28,453 Illinois-16 27,915 California-1 27,877 Wisconsin-8 27,831 California-45 27,527 California-48 27,492
To find out how much your vote counts if you vote in a Republican primary, type in your address:
Of course, not all votes are created equal: Iowas small contest had an outsize influence because it was first. But whether Donald Trump wins in heavily Democratic districts in New York City and in future contests will play a big role in whether he can win the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination.
Will the Loneliest Republicans Vote for Trump?
So far, Mr. Trump has tended to fare well in districts with few Republicans. But many such districts have not yet voted.
New York's 15th District is notable for its above-average black population and its many Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Just 3 percent of adult citizens in the district are non-Hispanic white the lowest percentage in the country. Outside of a few Cuban districts in South Florida, there probably isnt anywhere else in the country where nonwhite and Hispanic voters will represent such a large share of the Republican primary electorate.
Mr. Trump could do well with Hispanic voters in the district. He carried every one of the 11 wards in Chicago where Hispanics represented a majority of the population. In the most heavily Hispanic ward the 22nd on the West Side, where 93 percent of the population is Hispanic Mr. Trump won 42 percent of the vote.
Slide 1 of 12,
New Yorkers will head to the polls on Tuesday for the states primary election. Hillary Clinton, who represented New York in the Senate, and Senator Bernie Sanders, who grew up in Brooklyn, clashed intensely in their debate last week, shouting over and interrupting each other. Leaders of the Republican National Committee will meet in Florida this week to set the rules for their convention, which looks like to be contentious if no candidate enters with the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.
Sacramento In one of my favorite Far Side comic strips, the first panel offers what people typically say to dogs: OK Ginger Ive had it. You stay out of the garbage! Understand Ginger? The next panel translates what dogs actually hear: Blah blah Ginger, blah blah blah Ginger.
I think of that comic sometimes when Im stuck on the floor of the state Assembly or Senate and hear a Republican legislator giving a speech about freedom. All I hear is, Blah blah Constitution, blah, blah limited-government. My comprehension skills are better than the average mutts, but Im trained to know blather when I hear it.
On two of the clearest liberty issues to come before the Legislature in recent years, most Republicans have sided with big-government secrecy. Those issues are back this year in the form of Senate Bill 1286, which calls for transparency by Californias law enforcement agencies, and SB443, which reins in some of the governments most corrupt property-taking tactics.
Because of a 2006 state Supreme Court decision, Californians have had virtually no access to information about police officers who may have engaged in pattern of misbehaviors or who have been involved in multiple shootings. In Copley Press v. Superior Court, the San Diego Union-Tribune sought access to the disciplinary hearing of a San Diego deputy sheriff who appealed his termination.
The far-reaching ruling blocked the publics access to information that previously was available and that remains widely accessible in most other states. A 2010 report by the Investigative Fund found that 25 of 27 Fresno police officers who were involved in repeated shootings remained on the force. The Copley decision meant the public had no right to learn who they were. That can allow bad officers to fester within a department.
In Tuesdays hearing, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, stood up for accountability, while Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Riverside County, did not. This is not an anti-law-enforcement bill, Leno said. This bill is not opening all personnel files for public consumption. Its an attempt to rebuild community and police trust through greater public access to sustained charges of egregious law-enforcement conduct.
Perhaps the nation wouldnt be facing so much turmoil over police use-of-force issues if there were fewer union prerogatives and more accountability. The bill recently was amended to deal solely with public records (and not personnel hearings), but even that wont mollify the secrecy lobby.
People need to be proven guilty before we disclose their identity and potentially enrage the public, Sen. Stone said.
However, members of myriad professions have their disciplinary proceedings open to the public. We mere citizens could have allegations publicly raised against us (in a court proceeding, for instance) before any finding of guilt.
On the encouraging side, Sen. John Moorlach is a co-sponsor of SB1286. The Costa Mesa Republican also supports reform of the asset-forfeiture process by which police agencies grab the property of citizens who have never been convicted, or even accused, of a crime. The process was designed to battle drug kingpins but has morphed into something despicable.
The tactic has turned into an evil itself, with the corruption it engendered among government and law enforcement coming to clearly outweigh any benefits, two U.S. Justice Department officials, who developed the program in the 1980s, wrote in a 2014 Washington Post column. New Mexicos governor last year limited the practice after a city attorney was taped bragging: We could be czars. We could own the city. We could be in the real estate business.
Californias current law has some fairly tough restrictions on these takings, so local agencies partner with the feds and operate under more lenient federal laws. Then they split the loot. SB443 would shut down that loophole. Last year, the bill had widespread support, but then police agencies fearing a loss of revenue began arm-twisting at the Capitol.
Only a handful of Republicans held firm in the final vote, with Orange County putting in the best showing. Assemblymen Bill Brough, R-Dana Point, and Matt Harper, R-Huntington Beach, were two of only four Republicans in the Assembly who voted yes on a bill that did little more than uphold the Fifth Amendments requirement for due process.
Politicians from the party of Reagan and Lincoln should instinctively know the dangers of giving government officials unaccountable power. That so few of them do is a reminder that, when many of them talk about liberty, all the rest of us should hear is blah, blah, blah.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director of 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.
Dan Ray flips through a picture book and points to a younger version of himself standing next to a 1966 VW bus.
The year was 1969, and Ray, then 18, was on a road trip up Pacific Coast Highway, like other hippies headed to San Franciscos famed Haight-Ashbury district.
It represents the most fun Ive ever had in my life. I drove all the way up and down the coast, I went to Mexico, I surfed, he said. I just had a good time. That was my life.
Ray wanted to relive his younger years, so he recently bought a 1963 VW bus for $16,000, and spent about the same amount restoring it to its shiny, cherry-red appearance, complete with a hula dancer on the dash and a Dewey Weber longboard on the surf racks.
He was among about 50 other owners of pristine VW buses gathered Saturday at the Huntington Beach Pier, their mint-condition VWs stopping admirers who were taken on a nostalgic trip back decades, when the VW buses hauled not only hippies, but surfers and families around the country, too.
Most of the VW buses were part of a newly-formed group called Kowabunga Van Klan, KVK for short, started last year by Huntington Beach resident Don Ramsey.
A few years ago, he traded in his classic Porsche for a VW bus. He started going to VW get-togethers and soon started coordinating his own gatherings.
He was surprised that few VW shows happened along the Southern California coast.
VW buses and surfing are like peanut butter and jelly, he said.
He teamed with Dukes Restaurant manager Brett Barnes to hold the event. Barnes walked around with a clipboard Saturday, trying to decide which four would get awards for most representing the Southern California lifestyle.
Theyre all so cool, he said.
Decades ago, the buses were the cheap version of the first minivan, but these days they can cost big bucks. Buses more than half a century old and in need of plenty of repair can fetch more than $10,000. Rare and restored vans can get $100,000. There were about a dozen on display Saturday that would demand the higher price tag.
VW buses first created in 1950 were made until 2013, when Brazil shut down production.
Chris Young, co-organizer of the event, has owned his bus for 32 years. He bought it as a graduation gift to himself after graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 1984. The 1964 VW cost him $3,000 and now is worth about $80,000.
I was looking for a Woody and couldnt find one, couldnt afford one, he said. I liked the idea of the bus.
He said it was about five or six years ago that the Volkswagen van started shooting up in value.
We think what it is, the Germans want them back. They were paying higher money for ones and exporting and restoring them, he said.
A few years ago, a deluxe 23-window bus made in 1961 sold for nearly $200,000, he said.
This, I think, cemented the VW van in the collectors market, Young said. We never expected this. Its a nice problem to have, I tell you that.
Young has been doing shows for 30 years, and from conversations with folks, he thinks he knows why the VWs evoke strong emotions.
Either their parents had one, their neighbors had one, or they rode around with their friends in one, he said.
People can relate to them. They were more of a family vehicle, he said. The Volkswagen was a family car. It was a peoples car.
Chris Warden went to check out the surf when he came across the VWs on display. The Las Vegas resident visiting his hometown rushed to wake up his 14-year-old son, Dane, so he could come out and admire the buses.
Flashbacks of his years as a surfer in Huntington Beach in the 1970s and 80s came flooding back.
I never had one growing up. All of my friends did, he said. I always wanted one.
He couldnt pick a favorite, teetering between the surf-style buses and the custom low riders, all of which, to him, represent Southern California.
Youre not going to see this many that are in this kind of condition anywhere but in Southern California, he said. Youre not going to go to Kentucky and see this.
For Ray, his investment has paid off. After his extensive restoration, his VW has been valued between $40,000 and $60,000. Hes blown away at the kind of draw it has.
When youre driving down the road, you get this everywhere you go, he said, throwing up the surf shakas sign with his pinky and thumb sticking out. Its incredible the amount of attention you get in this thing.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
Say what you will about Donald Trump, he has stirred up interest in primary elections all across the country including now in Californias contest, normally made irrelevant by its spot at the end of the primary calendar.
In a recent memo to all county clerks/registrars of voters, Secretary of State Alex Padilla alerted them that the increase in public interest in the upcoming presidential primary election and the rise in the number of online voter registration applications means the voter turnout in the June 7 election could be yuge!
OK, actually, he wrote turnout could significantly increase.
Mr. Padilla urged county elections officials to plan accordingly to ensure your county has an ample number of ballots, including any number of multilingual ballots and other voting materials.
Tuesday, Mr. Trump is expected to win his home state of New York as easily as top rival Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas. But the real estate mogul soon will be holding his typically large, boisterous Make America Great Again campaign rallies in arenas out here.
Meanwhile, Sen. Cruz already has barnstormed across California, stopping in Orange County on Monday for an enthusiastic reception from supporters at the Hotel Irvine. He pointedly attacked Mr. Trump: Its easy to talk about making America great again.
The real question is whether you understand the principles and ideals that made America great in the first place.
He added, California is going to decide the Republican nomination.
Mr. Trump has garnered support for his proposals to build a wall along the border with Mexico and to deport illegal immigrants. But much like Proposition 187, the 1994 California initiative to ban state benefits for such immigrants, he has stirred up strong support and opposition, including a larger expected turnout of Latino voters.
As Republican strategist Mike Madrid recently wrote in Capitol Weekly, There are 657,684 Latino Republican voters in California, more than all Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Its also important to note that, outside of Texas, Cruz has performed worse than Trump with Latino Republicans in Nevada, Puerto Rico and Florida, though recent surveys have shown him doing better in California.
For Democrats, Hillary Clinton continues to lead in polls as Sen. Bernie Sanders works to extend his recent primary winning streak. But their surprisingly close contest will bring out more voters than usual, helping fellow Democrats in down-ticket races.
Its a messy, often crude process. Its also democracy in action.
There was a time in America and it wasnt even so long ago that liberals cared a lot about working-class people. They may have been misguided in many of their policy solutions i.e., raising the minimum wage but at least their heart was in the right place.
Then a strange thing happened about a decade ago. Radical environmentalists took control of the Democratic Party. These leftists care more about the supposed rise of the oceans than the financial survival of the middle class. The industrial unions made a catastrophic decision to get in bed with these radicals, and now they and all of us are paying a heavy price.
The latest evidence came last week when another coal giant in America, Peabody Energy Corp., filed for bankruptcy. This is the same fate suffered by Arch Coal Inc., Alpha Natural Resources Inc., and other coal producers that have filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors.
This isnt a result of free-market creative destruction. This was a policy strategy by the White House and green groups.
They wanted this to happen. This was what Clean Power Plant rules from the Environmental Protection Agency were all about. The EPA set standards by design that were impossible to meet and even flouted the law that says the regs should be commercially achievable. This was a key component of the climate change fanaticism that pervades this White House.
Ideas have consequences. Obama has succeeded in decimating whole towns dependent on coal in Wyoming, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Hillary Clinton recently vowed she will put all of coal out of business. This is how you win a Democratic primary these days. What kind of political party dedicates itself to destroying an entire domestic industry.
No one in the progressive Democratic Party seems to care that an estimated 31,000 coal miners, truckers, engineers, construction workers and others have lost their job since 2009 as a result of this fanaticism. Another 5,000 or so could be given pink slips at Peabody. To the Left, the families whose lives are ruined are collateral damage to achieve their Utopian dream of saving the planet. The people who now run the Democratic Party believe the ends justify the ruthless means.
Investors have gotten crushed, too, as a result of coals demise. The coal industry has lost more than $30 billion in stock value since 2009, with many of these losses showing up in union pension funds and private 401(k) plans.
What is maddening about all of this is that coal is much cleaner than ever before. EPA statistics show that emissions of sulfer, lead, carbon monoxide and smog from coal plants have been reduced by 50 percent to 90 percent in the past 40 years. The air we breathe is cleaner than ever. Carbon dioxide, by the way, is not a pollution it doesnt make you sick.
Clean coal is a reality, but that fact never slowed the greens down. The Natural Resources Defense Council now wants the EPA to slap $700 million in environmental fines on Peabody. These people just never stop.
Global warming advocates should ask themselves what they are accomplishing. For every coal plant we shut down, China and India build another 10 or so. Donald Trump is right: The rest of the world really is laughing behind our backs at our economic suicide pact.
Our coal is much cleaner, and our environmental laws much stricter, than Chinas and Indias, so this shift of output and jobs from the U.S. to our rivals succeeds in making us poorer and the planet dirtier.
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal; we have an estimated 500 years supply. So for economic and ecological reasons, we should want American coal to dominate the world market, but the environmentalists rallying cry is: Keep it in the ground.
Do liberals care that the demise of coal could lead to major disruptions in Americas electric power supply? Coal still supplies more than one-third of our electricity, because it is cheap and highly reliable much more so than wind and solar energy.
America was built on coal. Kathleen Hartnett-White, an energy expert at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, notes that the Industrial Revolution was made possible because of coal and other fossil fuels that replaced green energy like windmills.
Perhaps the millenials will realize their mistake when they wont be able to power up their PlayStations, their iPhones and their laptops.
Republicans in Congress arent blameless here. They have controlled the House for five years, and both chambers since 2015. But they have sat by while the EPA destroys an iconic American industry. Why has Congress not overruled EPA rules on carbon which is not a pollutant? Every poll shows that Americans care most about jobs and the economy and only about 3 percent care most about climate change. Yet, they refuse to stand up to Obama and take the side of the American worker.
Republicans should remind coal workers and the union brass every day that the GOP is the party that wants to save this industry, and Democrats are firmly on the side of layoffs and unemployment.
Stephen Moore is an economic consultant with Freedom Works and a Fox News contributor.
DAVIS The association that represents 240,000 University of California students statewide is calling for the head of the UC Davis to step down over the schools public relations spending to clean up the universitys online image.
The UC Student Association voted Friday to seek Chancellor Linda Katehis ouster, joining seven state lawmakers and student protesters who say she must go, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday.
The demands came after the newspaper reported that UC Davis paid image consultants at least $175,000 to repair the damage online to the universitys reputation after campus police pepper-sprayed student protesters in 2011. Video of the incident gained nationwide attention.
The students are free of course to express their opinions, and I appreciate it, Katehi said Saturday at the campus annual Picnic Day festival. She said the Bee misrepresented the facts, but she didnt elaborate.
UC Davis Provost Ralph Hexter said in a statement to the campus Friday that the university used no public or student funds when it hired consultants to optimize search engine results in order to highlight the achievements of our students, faculty and staff.
Even if such a thing as eliminating stories and images from the Internet were possible, pepper-spray will always be part of UC Davis history, the statement said.
FULLERTON A man acquitted of abducting his then-girlfriends 15-year-old daughter and forcing her to marry him and live together for a decade was sentenced Friday to four years, four months in prison for having sex with the underage girl.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Leversen ordered Isidro Garcia to serve the maximum time possible for his convictions on three felony counts of lewd acts with a child, despite pleas for leniency from more than a dozen of Garcias friends, neighbors and co-workers who attended Fridays hearing.
With credit for time served and good behavior, Garcia likely will spend about four more months behind bars.
On Friday, Deputy District Attorney Whitney Bokosky urged the judge to give Garcia the maximum sentence available.
He just wreaked havoc on this womans life and on her family, the prosecutor said.
Seth Bank, Garcias attorney, asked the judge to consider Garcias upbringing in rural Mexico, where the lawyer said that relationships between adults and teenagers are more accepted.
The perception of a 15-year-old woman being able to participate in a consensual relationship is different in that part of that world than here in California, the defense attorney said.
The judge was unconvinced, noting that Garcia took advantage of a vulnerable 15-year-old who was unfamiliar with her new country and going through a difficult time with her mother.
They are talking about the defendant they knew, Leversen said of Garcias supporters. I am sentencing on charges of an adult 10 years older than a child having sex with her. And there is no excuse for those types of actions.
A jury last month found Garcia not guilty of kidnapping. The jurors deadlocked on whether Garcia raped the girl, leading the judge to declare a mistrial and the prosecutor to drop the charge.
The case drew national headlines after a woman in her mid-20s reached out to police with a dramatic story of Garcia grooming her and then kidnapping the girl from her familys Santa Ana apartment a decade ago.
But Bank told the jury that the teen was in a consensual relationship with Garcia and wanted to get away from her mother, who had left the girl and a sister in Mexico for several years while she gained a foothold in the United States.
The lewd-act felonies occurred when the girl was in her family home.
Garcia is now 42, and the woman is 26.
Garcia must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and he was ordered to avoid contacting his ex-wife. His lawyer and family have said that Garcia plans to return to Mexico upon his release.
Contact the writer: semery@ocregister.com
We have an obligation to take care of the most vulnerable in our communities, and there are few who are more vulnerable than our homeless youth.
The homeless population in Orange County is growing, and there is a great need for more resources to help them get back on their feet. I was happy to see the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently award Orange County and local nonprofits $17.6 million to help our homeless population.
Without these dollars, many people would be left without a roof over their head or the services they need to transition into housing. We will now be able to invest in long-term solutions that will help get more people off the streets permanently.
While this infusion of federal money will go a long way, more must be done to help the most vulnerable segment of this population: homeless youth. We cannot treat homeless youth the same as chronically homeless adults, because they have different backgrounds, different needs, even different risks.
According to the California Homeless Youth Project, approximately 298,000 kids in the state will experience homelessness during the school year. And according to the Annual Report on the Conditions of Children in Orange County, more than 32,000 of our countys kids are homeless. This is a tragedy.
Many of these kids come from a background of violence, neglect and poverty. They typically end up on the streets, exposed to risks that jeopardize their health and well-being.
That is why it is imperative we provide different programs and services to help homeless youth so we can earn their trust, transition them into permanent homes, and help them achieve successful lives. Through intervention at an early age, we can get them the tools they need to ensure that homeless children do not grow up to be homeless adults.
I am leading the fight in the Legislature to address this growing problem. First, I introduced Assembly Bill 1699, which passed the Assembly Human Services Committee with bipartisan support and would set aside $25 million for homeless youth emergency service projects. These projects would provide transitional living for up to 36 months and create access to education and employment assistance. They would also teach independent living skills, family engagement, and interventions.
I also have asked the Budget Committees in both houses to allocate the funds that my bill calls for, and just last week the relevant budget subcommittee held a hearing to discuss the $25 million that I requested for homeless youth.
I am hopeful that by tackling this issue in both the legislative process and the budget process, we will be able to provide the help that these children need. And it cant happen soon enough.
With nearly 30 percent of the nations homeless youth living in California, this comprehensive service plan is badly needed. By providing the necessary tools and addressing their needs early, we can help our most at-risk youth and prevent them from becoming chronically homeless adults.
Along the way, someone, somewhere let these kids down. There is no one more deserving of our love and assistance than our homeless children, and with these programs we will be able to give them the help they so desperately need.
Young Kim, R-Fullerton, represents the 65th Assembly District, which includes the communities of Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Palma, and Stanton.
DANA POINT About 30 false killer whales jumped out of the water catching large white sea bass to the delight of boaters, stand-up paddlers and whale watchers Saturday afternoon.
The pod was traveling north off the coast of Dana Point when Todd Mansur, a captain on the Ocean Adventure, caught a glimpse of the large creatures heaving themselves out of the water. He had been tipped off by Tom White, a captain on the Dana Pride, who spotted them first.
They were jumping in the air like dolphins catching 25-pound white sea bass one after the other, Mansur, a longtime captain with Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watch, said Saturday afternoon. Its just amazing.
Mansur said sea lions were in the mix, too, trying to snatch the fish out of the mouths of the false killer whales, which are actually tropical dolphins.
Some of the whales were trying to chase the sea lions away, he said.
Seagulls were flying overhead to pick up the scraps.
Theyre called false killer whales because they have a physical structure and size similar to the black and white orcas, though they dont have the same markings.
While it doesnt look like a killer whale externally, its skull is of similar size, Karin Forney, a marine mammal ecologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. Both killer whales and false killer whales are predators, they have large teeth and can open their mouth really wide.
False killer whales are highly unusual in this area. A March sighting of a baby being born next to a whale watching boat off Dana Point drew national attention and had experts amazed.
The calf was born when a pod of about 15 females pushed their way across the ocean near the Dana Point Headlands and huddled against the Manutea, a sailboat operated by Captain Tom Southern, with Capt. Daves Dolphin Safari and Whale Watch. Videos of the live birth went viral.
Forney is a false killer whale specialist. Mostly, she has studied the tropical species in Hawaii where they are more commonly found.
The unusually warm water off Southern California in the last four years has brought the tropical dolphins to the area along with a host of other warm-water species such as the loggerhead turtles, pelagic red crabs, sharks and by-the-wind-sailors a sort of jellyfish.
Those oddities have also brought a host of sport fish such as yellow fin tuna, dorado and marlin. Those game fish are just what false killer whales hunt. Like the real killer whales, false killer whales are smart and formidable hunters.
Like killer whales, false killer whales also have a tight family structure. Likely, what boat passengers observed was a pod of multiple generations grandmothers, aunts, nieces and sisters all helping the newborn stay afloat and learn to swim and breath, Forney said.
Click here to see a video link of the baby false killer whale learning to swim.
Young animals stay with their mothers for up to seven years learning how to become a successful predator. Daughters remain with their mothers for life. Older females that are no longer producing offspring will stay with the pod teaching the younger animals to hunt.
False killer whales reach sexual maturity at about 8 years old. Their life expectancy can be 60 years. Adult females can grow up to 14 feet, males get to about 18 feet. They can weigh as much as 3,000 pounds.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@ocregister.com or Twitter:@lagunaini
A change is in the air. I can feel it. We have experienced a rather robust commercial real estate market since 2010 and a heated market since January 2013. But my senses tell me that our market is changing.
Why do I channel this premonition you may ask? I look at four metrics residential activity, inbound calls, buyer/tenant reaction, and lender behavior.
This is an unscientific opinion and not based on any empirical data just a guy reading the tea leaves; someone who has seen his fair share of commercial real estate activity for the past four decades.
Residential activity
I bumped into a young residential agent and friend of mine a few weeks ago and asked how things were going with his practice. I expected to hear things have never been better, we are sooo busy, etc. What he said startled me: we have a lack of entry level homes, affordability is at an all-time low; there is no place for trade-up buyers to move; banks are behaving conservatively (he actually said getting a loan these days is a nightmare). I marked the date carefully, as my experience suggests we would encounter a similar slowdown in six to nine months.
Inbound call activity
Signs, listings in the multiples, social media, newspaper columns, internet ads. All are meant to generate inbound call activity from potential occupants and cooperating brokers. The holidays are traditionally slow. But once the calendar dawns a new year and folks get back to work, the calls start with a vengeance. Not this year. This January was fraught with Chinas implosion, the stock market declines, the presidential primary season, and plunging commodity prices. Call volume this year has been tepid at best.
Buyer/tenant reaction
In a healthy market a buyer or tenant outlines their wish list: find a building with X amount of square footage, this percentage of office space and in this location. We then busy ourselves finding said building.
Once found, the properly motivated occupant submits an offer and negotiations soon result in a new home for the business. Today, we see a lack of reaction even when the seemingly perfect opportunity arises. My suspicion is that something in the business owners crystal ball is causing concern. Possibly sales are flat, his industry is contracting, a piece of business he counted on cratered, or he is uncomfortable with prices. Regardless, this lack of reaction portends a changing market.
Lender behavior
In 2008, leading up to the great recession, we witnessed a change in the way banks underwrote loans. In the freewheeling years preceding 2008, we were spoiled. A bank might look at a business customer that represented a big piece of sales and assume it wasnt a deal killer if there were long term agreements in place. As 2008 progressed, banks became concerned with the business ability to repay if the customer was lost. Beginning in 2011, lenders loosened their restrictions. Recently, we have noticed a shift back toward conservative underwriting. Now, as in 2008, lenders seem to look for reasons not to loan vs. reasons to loan.
But what about all of the contradicting data? Folks asked the same question at the beginning of 2008 as we sped toward the cliff ala Thelma & Louise. Am I predicting a catastrophic end to this year? No, but there are enough data points to cause a bit of concern and proceed cautiously through the next few months.
Allen Buchanan is a principal and commercial real estate broker at Lee & Associates, Orange. He can be reached at 714.564.7104 or abuchanan@lee-associates.com. His website is www.allencbuchanan.com
When his tenant gave notice, Ron Jones hiked the rent up 12 percent on the one-bedroom Santa Ana condo she had been renting and placed an ad on Craigslist.
Within weeks, he had 10 inquiries and four applications. His new tenant signed a lease Wednesday at the asking rent of $1,425 a month, a $150 increase.
And Jones could have raised the rent even higher.
Ive actually seen a comparable unit advertised on Craigslist for $1,495. I decided that was too big a jump, said Jones, 61, a business owner who also rents out one other Orange County condo. The demand seems to be pretty high. Thats why all the increases are occurring.
Rent has been rising steadily in Southern California for six years, driven by low vacancy, job growth and a 15 percent increase in rental households over the decade ending in 2014.
Those gains continued this year, hitting record highs across the region.
Asking rents for Orange County apartments averaged $1,753 a month during the first quarter of 2016, according to Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate and economic data firm. Thats up 3.7 percent or $63 a month from the same quarter of 2015.
In Los Angeles County, asking rents hit $1,630 a month in the first quarter, up $85 or 5.5 percent from a year before. In the Inland Empire, asking rent totaled $1,193 a month, up 3.6 percent or $41 a month.
The numbers represent the average rent for all apartment sizes in complexes with 20 or more units.
Orange County asking rents were the 10th-highest among 82 populous metro areas Reis tracks. Los Angeles County rents ranked 12th among the big metros.
Inland Empire rents, while relatively low by Southern California standards, were the 25th-highest in the Reis survey.
Economist Chris Thornberg, a former UCLA professor and a founding partner with Beacon Economics, gave an academic answer when asked whats driving up rent.
Supply and demand, Thornberg said in an email Thursday. While stock is coming online, jobs are coming on even faster. Almost 2.5 percent growth in the region for jobs.
A Register survey last fall found that more than 9,000 new apartment units came on the market or were under construction in Orange County last year. Thornberg reported Tuesday in the USC Casden Multifamily Forecast that 38,000 new multifamily building permits were issued in all of Southern California in 2015 the most for any year since the recession.
But a decline in homeownership following the foreclosure crisis and increased hiring swelled the ranks of renters in the region.
For example, U.S. census figures show the number of Southern California renters increased by 347,000 households from 2005 through 2014, a 15 percent jump. During the same period, the number of owner-occupied homes fell by nearly 108,000 households, a 3.6 percent drop.
The Inland Empire had the biggest percentage gain: up 30.8 percent or 121,000 new renter households. Orange County had an increase of 65,000 renter households, up 17.6 percent, followed by a gain of 9.9 percent or 161,000 rental households in Los Angeles County.
O.C. is actually building faster than many places, but it also has one of the largest current shortages, Thornberg wrote.
As a result, the region has some of the lowest vacancy rates in the nation.
With just 2.8 percent of apartments empty, the Inland Empire had the seventh-lowest vacancy rate among the 82 metros Reis tracks. Los Angeles Countys vacancy rate of 3.2 percent was in a three-way tie for 15th-lowest, and Orange Countys 3.3 percent rate tied Long Island and New York for 18th-lowest.
In Orange County, theres no question that demand is really strong, said Michael Steinberg, a senior research and economics analyst for Reis.
Unlike the Casden Forecast, Reis predicted new construction will outstrip the increase in demand slightly in both Orange and Los Angeles counties.
That being said, Orange County is still pretty tight. Same for L.A., Steinberg said. The outlook is still strong for landlords. But fundamentals will start to revert to historical norms as the wave of new supply comes online this year.
Although the bulk of the new construction is for luxury Class A apartments, the increase in supply will have a ripple effect, helping to moderate rent hikes across the spectrum of Orange County rentals, said Nicholas Dunlap, president of the Apartment Association of Orange County.
(Class) A product will compete with B product, and B product will compete with the C market, Dunlap said. I dont think well see rents decrease, but we are going to see concessions. We are going to see move-in specials, and I think well see a more friendly summer season than weve seen in the past.
Dunlap also disputed the Casden Forecasts finding that Orange County apartment rents will increase 9.4 percent by 2018 from 2015 levels, saying rent hikes wont be that steep.
New York, San Francisco, Boston and the Silicon Valley had the nations highest asking rents during the first quarter, Reis figures show. A Big Apple landlord asked new tenants to pay, on average, $3,474 a month, followed by $2,570 in the Bay Area, $2,098 in Boston and $2,093 in Silicon Valley.
The U.S. average monthly rent, based on the 82 metros tracked, was $1,239, up 4.5 percent or $53 a month from the year before, Reis figures show.
The U.S. apartment vacancy rate climbed to 4.5 percent from 4.2 percent a year earlier due to a record number of new apartments being brought to market, Reis Chief Economist Victor Calanog said in a report out Friday.
The first-quarter increase was the third consecutive rise in vacancy rates in nationwide figures.
This is the first time since the recovery began in 2010 that occupancies have deteriorated for three consecutive quarters, Calanog said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7734 or jcollins@ocregister.com
A 43-year-old man who was trying to return stolen merchandise to a Costco in Fountain Valley over the weekend injured a police officer during his arrest, police said.
Authorities responded at 12:20 p.m. Saturday to the Costco in the 17900 block of Newhope Street, where Chad Michael Mishler of Anaheim was trying to return the stolen goods, Fountain Valley police said.
Police did not say how much merchandise Mishler was trying to return.
Mishler was forcibly detained by an officer and a loss-prevention employee as he tried to leave the store.
During the struggle, one of the officers shoulders was injured, police said.
The officer was taken to a hospital. Fountain Valley police did not immediately return calls for comment.
Mishler is being held on $120,000 bail in Orange County Jail. A court appearance is set for Tuesday.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2478 or lcasiano@ocregister.com
PORTOVIEJO, Ecuador It was supposed to be a family reunion to celebrate a young relatives start of college. But the gathering ended in tragedy when a collapsing building crushed 17-year-old Sayira Quinde, her mother, father and toddler brother in their rusting Chevy Blazer.
A grief stricken aunt, Johana Estupinan, now is making the longest journey of her life in a funeral hearse to the town of Esmeraldas, where she will bury her loved ones and break the news of the loss to her sisters three now orphaned children.
As Ecuador digs out from its strongest earthquake in decades, tales of devastating loss are everywhere amid the rubble. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake left a trail of ruin along Ecuadors normally placid Pacific Ocean coast, buckling highways, knocking down an air traffic control tower and flattening homes and buildings. At least 262 people died, including two Canadians, and thousands are homeless.
Portoviejo, a provincial capital of nearly 300,000, was among the hardest hit, with the towns mayor reporting at least 100 deaths. The Quinde family drove there from their home hours north up the coast to drop off Sayira at Estupinans house a week before she was to start classes at a public university on a scholarship to study medicine.
She was my favorite niece, Estupinan said, emotionally torn apart after waiting at the citys morgue for hours. I thought I was getting a daughter for the six years it was going to take her to earn a degree.
I never thought my life would be destroyed in a minute, she added.
Estupinan watched as her loved ones were loaded onto a truck-sized hearse for the nighttime drive, the three older ones in dark mahogany coffins and 8-month-old Matias in a casket painted white. It was supposed to be a short moment of family happiness but it converted into a tragedy, she said.
She hoped to bury her relatives in Esmeraldas on Monday, but devastation there is also severe and she worried about whether the hearse could make it along roads torn apart by the quake.
The Saturday night quake knocked out power in many parts along the coast and residents who fled to higher ground fearing a tsunami had no home to return to, or feared structures still standing might collapse. With makeshift shelters in short supply, many hunkered down to spend a second straight night outdoors huddled among neighbors.
President Rafael Correa, who cut short a trip to the Vatican, flew directly to the city of Manta from Rome to oversee relief efforts. Even before touching Ecuadorean soil he signed a decree declaring a national emergency. Speaking from Portoviejo late Sunday he said the earthquake was the worst natural disaster to hit Ecuador since a 1949 earthquake in the Andean city of Ambato, which took over 5,000 lives.
Our grief is very large, the tragedy is very large, but well find the way to move forward, Correa said. If our pain is immense, still larger is the spirt of our people.
As rescuers scrambled through the ruins near the epicenter, in some cases digging with their hands to look for survivors, humanitarian aid began trickling in. More than 3,000 packages of food and nearly 8,000 sleeping kits were being delivered Sunday. Correas ally, Venezuela, and neighboring Colombia, where the quake was also felt, organized airlifts. Mexico and Chile sent teams of rescuers.
For gods sake help me find my family, pleaded Manuel Quijije, 27, standing next to a wrecked building in Portoviejo. He said his older brother, Junior, was trapped under a pile of twisted steel and concrete with two relatives.
We managed to see his arms and legs. Theyre his, theyre buried, but the police kicked us out because they say theres a risk the rest of the building will collapse, Quijije said angrily as he looked on the ruins cordoned off by police. Were not afraid. Were desperate. We want to pull out our family.
Correa said the death toll was likely to rise because many people remain unaccounted for, though he said there was evidence some survivors remain alive under the rubble. More than 2,500 people are injured.
On social media, Ecuadoreans celebrated a video of a baby girl being pulled from beneath a collapsed home in Manta.
But fear was also spreading of another night of looting after 180 prisoners from a jail near Portoviejo escaped amid the tumult. Authorities said some 20 inmates were recaptured and some others returned voluntarily, sensing that life on the outside was just as deprived.
Seeking security from any unrest, about 400 residents of Portoviejo gathered Sunday night on the tarmac of the citys former airport, where authorities handed out water, mattresses and food. The airport was closed in 2011 and flights diverted to a larger facility in nearby Manta after Correa kicked out a U.S. drug interdiction operation stationed there.
Shantytowns and cheaply constructed brick and concrete homes were reduced to rubble along the quakes path. In the coastal town of Chamanga, authorities estimated than 90 percent of homes had damage, while in Guayaquil a shopping centers roof fell in and a collapsed highway overpass crushed a car, killing the driver.
The government said it would draw on $600 million in emergency funding from multilateral banks to rebuild.
But for now the digging and hoping against the odds continues.
In downtown Portoviejo, a few blocks from where a four-story hotel fell onto the Quinde familys car, the six-story social security building is a pile of debris. Downed power cables were strewn across the street.
The situation is heart-rending, Jaime Ugalde, editor of El Diario, the citys most-important newspaper, said as he surveyed the damage. Im going to return home and hug my wife and two kids. Were the lucky ones. Were alive.
Price controls and other regulations could be coming to ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft in California, if a state senator who just happens to have family ties to the taxi industry has his way.
Senate Bill 1035, introduced by state Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, reiterates the California Public Utilities Commissions authority to fix the rates and establish rules for such transportation network companies. It would also require the commission to study for possible additional regulation issues such as drivers insurance, stricter driver background checks and accessibility for the disabled. The bill would, additionally, allow police to impound ridesharing vehicles and otherwise enforce CPUC rules against them.
And this is just the beginning. This is a very, very small start to create some very necessary consumer protections, Sen. Hueso told the Los Angeles Times. Without regulation, you create a scenario in which only certain businesses can stay in the market, he said.
Of course, with regulation, you also create a scenario in which only certain businesses survive. The difference is that with little or no government interference, the businesses that thrive are the ones that best serve their customers; under government regulation, those with the best political connections tend to do the best, regardless of how well they serve their customers (and, in cases like the taxi market, the use of regulation itself has served as a business model to shield it from competition).
Sen. Hueso certainly knows the taxi industry well. He once worked as a driver for USA Cab, operator of the largest fleet of taxis in San Diego, which was owned by his father and is now owned by two of his brothers.
It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that he proposes heaping regulations on those outcompeting the taxi industry while using his position as chairman of the Senates Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee to refuse to schedule a vote on two measures which had previously sailed through the Assembly virtually unanimously to explicitly exempt TNC drivers from needing to obtain commercial license plates and to allow the companies to offer carpooling services.
Sen. Hueso is apparently so interested in protecting Ubers and Lyfts customers that he is prepared to use regulation to destroy the service that they overwhelmingly prefer.
Some have complained about ride-hailing services demand-based variable and surge pricing. But if the prices are too high or if people feel unsafe or do not like the services for any other reason people will just use other alternatives, like taxis. We do not need the government to dictate the prices companies are allowed to charge and that customers are allowed to pay.
FRESNO The California farm labor board has upheld a court ruling that one of the nations largest fruit growers interfered as employees were deciding whether to reject union representation.
The decision Friday by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board marked the latest victory for organized labor in the decadeslong fight.
The board unanimously affirmed the ruling by Administrative Law Judge Mark Soble to set aside a 2013 election held by workers at Gerawan Farming Inc.
The board found Gerawan allowed employees who favored breaking from the United Farm Workers to gather signatures during work time to hold an election and unlawfully granted a wage increase during the decertification campaign to win the favor of workers.
The company hires thousands annually to harvest nectarines, peaches and grapes in the Central Valley.
It said it will appeal the farm boards decision.
Gerawan is confident that this undemocratic decision will not stand, the company said, adding that it would welcome a new election supervised by board chairman William Gould.
We truly want the workers to have a say since the last time they were asked their opinion was in 1990, the company said.
The dispute between Gerawan and the union dates back to 1992, when the UFW began to represent the workers but didnt negotiate a labor contract. Union leaders have said they backed off at the time because they were overpowered by Gerawan.
They recently returned to take on the company and represent its workers.
The UFWs national vice president, Armando Elenes, said the farm board decision shows there was illegal behavior.
The decision speaks for itself, Elenes said. Now we just want Gerawan to implement the workers contract, he said.
The state Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether the contract can be implemented.
CASPER, Wyo. Painstaking organization and in-person campaigning paid off again for Ted Cruz on Saturday as he nailed down all 14 delegates up for grabs at the Republican Party convention in Wyoming. The result leaves Donald Trump facing yet another loss in a string of defeats in Western states.
Saturdays sweep for Cruz follows his victory last month in Wyoming, when he scored 9 of 12 available delegates at county conventions. Trump and Marco Rubio each won one delegate last month in Wyoming while one remained undecided.
Trump still leads the overall delegate race. The AP delegate count: Trump, 744; Cruz, 559; and Kasich, 144. Needed to win: 1,237.
Cruz was the only candidate to address the convention in Casper on Saturday, promising to end what he called President Barack Obamas war on coal if hes elected. Wyoming is the nations leading coal-producing state.
Trump largely bypassed the state. In a telephone interview Saturday on Fox and Friends, he said: I dont want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming many months before to wine and dine and to essentially pay off these people, because a lot of its a payoff, you understand that?
Trumps defeat in Wyoming follows his shutout earlier this month in Colorado, where he failed to pick up a single delegate of the 34 in play. He has urged his supporters to protest the results to state officials in that state.
Campaigning in New York on Saturday, Trump said, I guess Im complaining cause its not fair to the people. In Wyoming and Colorado, he said, the people never got a chance to vote.
Cruz, in an interview with The Associated Press after his speech in Casper, said Trumps decision not to campaign in Wyoming is telling. The reason he decided not to show up is he recognized he couldnt win, he couldnt earn the support of conservatives in Wyoming, Cruz said.
Cruz has benefited from a deep, grassroots campaign effort in Wyoming, where the state GOP machine has detailed rules for the delegate selection process. Ed Buchanan, a former Wyoming House speaker, has served as chairman of the Cruz campaign.
Its just great to have the support of the Wyoming voters, Buchanan said after the delegate selection was announced. They share Ted Cruzs conservation principles, and thats why were successful today.
Clara Powers of Wheatland spoke for Trump on Saturday. She told the crowd she has three grandchildren. I do not want any of them working with next-generation science, Powers said. I do not want my grandchildren to believe in evolution. I do not want my grandchildren thinking that global warming is more important than our national security.
On the issue of coal, Wyoming has seen hundreds of coal industry layoffs in recent months as several of the nations largest coal companies have filed for federal bankruptcy protections.
Calling America, the Saudi Arabia of coal, Cruz promised in his speech to roll back federal regulations he says hamper coal production. The Obama administration recently imposed a moratorium on new coal leases.
Wyoming and other states, meanwhile, have mounted legal challenges in recent years to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations tightening emission limits on coal-fired power plants.
Hillary Clinton promises that if shes elected, shes going to finish the task and bankrupt anyone associated with coal, Cruz said. I give you my word right now, we are going to lift the federal regulators back, we are going to end the war on coal.
Obama, in announcing the restrictions in 2014, said carbon emission cause health problems and contribute to global warming. For the sake of all our kids, weve got to do more to reduce it, he said of emissions.
Cruz, however, told the AP that hes not remotely concerned that rolling back federal restrictions on coal could contribute to an increase in global warming.
The war on coal is driven by an ideological extremism on the part of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and todays modern Democratic Party, he said.
On other issues, Cruz drew applause for promising to protect gun rights and turn federal lands in the West to the states.
Cruz told the crowd he was pretty sure, here in Wyoming, yall define gun control the same way we do in Texas and that is hitting what youre aiming at.
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in Watertown, N.Y., contributed to this report.
Mater Deis boys swim team returned to its winning ways Saturday at the Palm Springs Invitational.
The second-ranked Monarchs captured the 400-yard freestyle relay and received a pair of victories from Christian Hockenbury en route to capturing a team title.
Mater Dei fell to top-ranked Santa Margarita, 102-68, on Thursday but bounced back to score 433.5 points to outdistance runner-up Redlands at 406.
The Monarchs 400 relay of Payton Thomas, Jack Lucero, Clint Hurdle and Hockenbury clocked a winning time of 3 minutes, 14.74 seconds.
Hockenbury also swept the 50 (21.40) and 100 (47.19) freestyles.
Mater Deis girls finished third in the team race behind Redlands East Valley and Redlands. The Monarchs duo of Stephanie Su (200/500 free) and Aislinn Light (100 free/back) each won twice.
At the Estancia Invitational :
Sophomore Andrew Koustik of Calvary Chapel set meet records in the 200 free (1:44.28) and butterfly (51.32) while Huntington Beach sophomore Natalie Crocker added a meet record in the 100 free (53.99). The duo was selected swimmers of the meet. Estancias Cobi White also was a doube-winner with the 50 free (22.85) and 100 back (58.57).
Contact the writer: dalbano@ocregister.com
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It is 10:30 at night and my 4-year-old should be asleep. Instead, she's waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Lately she looks so big little girlish with long legs and a defiant smile. But right now, she seems like my baby again, zipped up in pink footie pajamas and clutching her blanket.
"What is it?" I ask, kneeling next to her.
She leans into me and whispers, "I keep thinking you might die."
I hold her close and kiss her head.
I used to think that the worry that courses through me was a result of years of trauma that left my family torn and divided. When I had my own children, I worked hard to create a home where they could depend on routine and structure. Where mom and dad were always there. "Give me a place to stand and I will move the world," the Greek mathematician Archimedes is often quoted as saying. For my children, their home is that place to stand. I want it to be their sure footing in a world of uncertainty and fear.
And yet, lately I've watched my daughter begin to bite her nails. She comes home from school worried she hasn't followed the rules. That she's broken an invisible rule that she didn't know. In October she refused to go to school because she thought she was putting the toys away incorrectly and didn't want to get in trouble. I let her have a day off before we went together to talk to the teachers and sort things out.
A few days ago, she asked to have a pie fight in the backyard. Before I could answer she said, "But we should wear our swimsuits so we don't ruin our clothes. Maybe we should wash off in the pool. But it's too cold. Will the pie ruin daddy's grass?'
I want to laugh. She's 4 and already planning her spontaneity. But I know her fears. I am 33 but I often spend my quiet moments attending funerals that have yet to happen, mourning lives that haven't yet dropped away. When I go for a run in the morning, I conjure pain waiting to be felt and blood waiting to be spilled. I often envision returning to find my house engulfed in flames, or my family murdered in their beds. My heart catches when I turn the corner from the park, and it finally beats again when I can see down the street and there are no flames.
These are the little talismans of fear that I collect to ward off future ills. The horror you imagine will not happen, is one of the horrible Hallmarkisms I live my life by. I believe that if I can see my way through these scenarios, perhaps the terrible will hold no terror. Perhaps when that other shoe drops, I will survive. Therapists have told me this is common for adults who have seen the people they love hurt and maimed scarred inside and out. I've had prescriptions to manage the panic and anxiety. And for most of my life, I've tried to become a person who never cracks beneath the fear of it all.
But here now is my daughter, who has experienced no trauma, sitting on the stairs, doing the same thing. And suddenly, I am afraid again. Have I not made a safe enough home? Did my worry slide down my DNA and into her? Did my husband give her blue eyes, while I gave her fear?
Trying to comfort her, I remember being 5, sitting in the doorway of my room, listening to my mom talk on the phone, crying because I was afraid she could die at any moment. I tried to imagine what my life would be like without a mom. If I imagined my life so that I was okay, maybe it would be fine. But no matter what I did, I couldn't imagine away the pit of desperate grief in my stomach. I sobbed until I finally exhausted myself and went back into my room. Here, on the stairs, I am holding two little girls, one past and one present.
Parenting is living two lives seeing your past self projected into the future, while your present self looks on. And yet, as much as I am in my daughter, she is not me. While worry courses through both of us, her fears belong to her now. They are for her to shape, and to decide their weight. But for now, she just needs to be held and loved. So that's what I do.
My daughter is done crying, but I've only just begun. "I know how you feel, sweetie," I say. "Sometimes I worry too."
This is all I can do, and I hope that it will anchor both of us. In her book "The Monster Within," Barbara Almond writes that within motherhood there is gratification to be found "from mutual pleasures between mother and child in which the mother's needs are also gratified." Sitting on the steps, I am able to reach through time, to comfort two little girls and help them both find a little peace in the swell of their anxiety. This is not the point of motherhood, but it is it's own surprising grace.
***
Lyz Lenz is a writer and blogger who lives in Iowa. She blogs at LyzLenz.com. Follow her on Twitter @lyzl.
After months of back-and-forth, HDRs proposed 16-story, $152 million downtown headquarters finally crashed under the weight of 100 valet parking spots.
There were other unresolved points of contention between Omaha Performing Arts and HDR by the time the architecture and engineering firm rejected the downtown site early this month. And HDR has said a rising cost of the entire project also contributed to the decision to pull the plug.
But several people close to the situation say a disagreement over 100 valet parking spots for arts patrons was a tipping point that came before HDR pushed the project off the 11th and Dodge Streets site.
OPA pressed for a 100-year lease on the parking spots, which were to be built in a garage as part of HDRs new headquarters; HDR wanted a 70-year lease.
Even as the HDR plan unraveled, Mayor Jean Stothert tried two last-minute sweeteners to save the project: The city would pay nearly $20 million for a new parking garage across the street from the proposed HDR headquarters site, or the city would build HDRs own garage to the tune of $20 million to $25 million.
The sweeteners didnt work.
HDR said it still will build its new headquarters in Omaha, just not on the 11th and Dodge Streets site. Parking on that site has been a thorn in the side of the project from almost day one.
The 11th and Dodge site HDR picked for its headquarters is now a parking lot. The parking was set to be replaced and more spots added by a parking garage and educational facility OPA had proposed to build on the site of three century-old buildings east of the Holland Center, which OPA operates.
When OPA in February backed off a controversial plan to demolish the three buildings, it set off a scramble to replace the more than 500 spaces that would have been in the OPA parking facility. OPA didnt consult HDR about scrapping the demolition and related expansion plan, the arts group said. It also didnt consult the city, Stothert said.
The arts group was set to lose more than 250 spots in selling its 11th and Dodge land to HDR. Because OPA wouldnt be able to build its own parking garage, the arts group told HDR it wanted 300 spots in the garage HDR was set to build as part of the tower project, Stothert said.
HDR, in turn, said it would need spots in a garage under construction at the Capitol District across the street, she said. Thats the garage Stothert offered to buy.
According to sources who wouldnt be named, the performing arts group wouldnt settle on details to seal the deal. A sticking point was the terms of the lease for 100 valet parking stalls that OPA wanted for Holland Center patrons in the HDR garage.
The only question we had left on the deck, said OPA Chairman John Gottschalk, who was involved in the negotiations with HDR, was whether this valet parking was going to be 50 years, 75 years or 100 years, referring to the length of the lease term.
Gottschalk said he thought the hang-up could have been resolved. He said there must have been other issues unrelated to the lingering parking questions that killed the deal.
HDR Chairman and Chief Executive George Little declined to comment for this story.
In a statement earlier this month, Little said the downtown deal fell through because of escalating costs and because of delays resulting from the loss of previously planned parking the parking facility OPA was to construct east of the Holland Center.
Meanwhile, contributing to conflict between HDR and OPA, the sources say, was OPAs pressing on points that were viewed as quibbles like HDR paying for fencing and lighting to surround a temporary parking lot during construction.
Eventually, HDR gave up on the 11th and Dodge site.
Stothert tried to save the project, she said, by offering to have the city buy the parking garage under construction at the Capitol District project on 10th Street at Capitol Avenue. Thats the garage where HDR was to have about 300 spots, Stothert said.
She said the $19 million garage would have been paid for with city redevelopment bonds, or by revenue bonds, whereby fees from parkers would be turned back to pay off the bonds issued for the construction of the garage. She said the public would have been able to park in the city garage.
Of course we understand that parking is an issue downtown, she said. And thats what weve been working on since this started.
City planning consultant Steve Jensen said the city also made a last-minute offer to build a city-owned garage on the HDR site instead of the company building its own. He said the proposal was made so late he didnt know if the company even considered it.
Stothert said she still would be willing to buy the Capitol District garage if it would help HDR move to another downtown site.
Mike Moylan, whose Shamrock Development is leading the $205 million Capitol District project which includes a new Marriott Hotel said HDR came to him looking for additional parking. He said his project still is willing and ready to accommodate HDRs needs.
HDR had wanted to begin construction downtown in June. The lease on its current headquarters near 84th Street and West Dodge Road expires at the start of 2019.
OPA officials have said they wanted HDR as a neighbor but they also had to protect a vision to expand the performing arts campus in the future. They also needed parking, they said.
Gottschalk, chairman of the performing arts group and a former publisher of The World-Herald, said in a statement that he and HDRs Little verbally had agreed to new sale terms on March 11. He said they turned over the details to their respective administrative and legal teams, and then each left town for several days.
At the time, Gottschalk thought the lease length of the 100 valet parking spots was the only issue yet to be resolved between OPA and HDR, he said in an interview.
I didnt feel we had a big, lingering issue when I left, he said.
OPA board member David Slosburg also was involved in the negotiations. He didnt return requests for comment.
At some point while Gottschalk was away, OPA stalled the negotiations.
Upon Gottschalks return on April 5, he said, he learned there were no signed documents for the sale of the 11th and Dodge lot.
HDR pulled out of the site two days later.
On Friday, Gottschalk said he would have accepted a shorter lease length than the 100 years on the valet spots.
The parking issue was contentious, Stothert said, because OPA wanted stalls in HDRs garage basically for free for 100 years.
And a parking stall costs money: $17,000 to $20,000 per stall to construct a parking garage, according to the citys parking manager, Ken Smith. Each stall costs between $450 and $500 to maintain annually, he said.
Stothert said she met with Little in her office the day before HDR pulled out of the site. She said Little told her the company had not reached an agreement with OPA.
It sounded like the frustration of still not having the property secured was a problem, she said.
Stothert didnt take part in all of the negotiations, but her administration worked on broader downtown parking issues for both HDR and OPA.
Architectural and engineering giant HDR now is back to the drawing board, leaving downtown supporters upset by an abrupt about-face on the decision announced almost a year ago to build on the downtown surface lot mostly owned by OPA. (The city also owns a small portion of the lot.)
According to city records, OPA owns about 180 stalls in the lot bounded by Dodge Street and Capitol Avenue, 11th to 12th Streets. The City of Omaha owns the rest of the 263-stall lot and leases those stalls to OPA.
The performing arts group leases some of the spaces on the lot to employees and tenants of The World-Herald, whose headquarters is a few blocks away.
The World-Herald did everything asked of it by HDR, Omaha Performing Arts and the city to find a solution that worked for everyone, the newspaper said in a statement.
The 100-year-old HDR, founded in Omaha, pledges to stay in its hometown, but its now searching for a different place to grow its more than 900-member local workforce perhaps a site with no parking issues.
Giant ConAgra Foods a member of the Fortune 500 is in a legal face-off with tiny Vermont the U.S. state with the fewest people other than Wyoming.
Its all about food labeling the notices of genetically modified ingredients some people want put on edibles that contain them.
Vermont lawmakers in 2014 passed the first law in the country requiring such labels, meaning food manufacturers such as ConAgra would be required to plainly identify products containing ingredients that were modified by genetic engineering.
That same year, the food industry objected to the Vermont law. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association and National Association of Manufacturers sued in U.S. District Court in Vermont to prevent enforcement.
That suit is ongoing. But now, as Vermont tries to beat the challenge, it wants its hands on some consumer-survey data it says ConAgra has.
The Omaha-based maker of dozens of widely known grocery brands, the court documents say, has conducted surveys that spell out consumer views on genetically modified ingredients.
Vermont this month filed papers in U.S. District Court in Omaha asking a judge to order ConAgra to hand over some of that consumer survey information as the state defends its labeling law.
Vermont isnt skimping on the effort when it comes to defending its labeling law. The state this month also asked judges in other federal courts to order seed and food companies to turn over internal research on genetically modified crops. They include Monsanto and DuPont.
And ConAgra isnt alone in being targeted for its consumer research by Vermont, with Kellogg also being asked to hand over survey information.
Meanwhile, Omaha-based ConAgra Foods and other major food manufacturers already have said theyll label GMOs ahead of the Vermont law set to take effect on July 1. But the industry is fighting the law, saying it is expensive and unwieldy to make and distribute products based on state-by-state labeling laws.
This isnt the first attempt by Vermont to get ConAgras internal reports. The court papers filed by Vermont in Nebraska this month say ConAgra has objected to subpoenas for the survey information and not responded to other attempts to get them.
ConAgra has refused to produce even a limited subset of documents namely a discrete set of survey research that would not otherwise be publicly available and that are directly relevant to whether consumers know of or are confused about the presence of genetically engineered materials in food products, reads the motion to compel the sharing of the consumer-survey information, a motion signed by state officials, including Vermonts governor and attorney general.
ConAgra declined to comment on the pending litigation, a spokesman said.
The topic is a contentious one. Many common ingredients such as corn and soybeans have been genetically modified to increase harvests, nutritive characteristics and resistance to herbicides, at least according to supporters of such efforts.
Many scientists, large farmers and food manufacturers say there is no danger from genetically modified ingredients. The federal Food and Drug Administration agrees.
But some people have an aversion. They say messing with Mother Natures gene pool is rife with the prospect of unintended consequences and encourages use of increasing amounts of herbicide, among other criticisms.
ConAgra has defended the use of genetically modified ingredients. It says on its website that such efforts reduce prices for corn, soybeans and sugar beets by as much as 30 percent, citing information from the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
ConAgra Foods would be supportive of federal guidelines for a uniform approach in this area, the companys website says. ConAgra Foods does not support mandatory labeling on a state-by-state basis, as this presents significant complication and costs costs the consumer may share.
Contact the writer: 402-444-3197, russell.hubbard@owh.com
The Mid-Plains Community College chapters of the Nebraska State Student Nurses Association and Licensed Practical Nursing Association of Nebraska hosted a Run For Your Life! 5K and Kids Mile run/walk. The event at the North Platte Community College south campus drew in 70 contestants. A total of $2,000 was raised for Aiden Solon, 7, who has bone cancer, through a combination of entry fees and the sale of bracelets and tutus.
Other fundraisers, donations and charitable events in the Midlands:
Hy-Vee donation: Omaha and Council Bluffs Hy-Vee locations recently donated $15,000 to Childrens Square in Council Bluffs. The donation includes $10,000 for Hy-Vees annual sponsorship of Childrens Square and $5,000 for the organizations Better Spaces, Brighter Futures Capital Campaign.
Lymphoma Walk: Nebraskas seventh annual Lymphoma Walk will be held Saturday at Mahoney State Park. The free event, which is hosted by the Lymphoma Research Foundation, will begin at 10 a.m. with registration at 9 a.m. at the park pavilion. Mahoney State Park is located just off Interstate 80 at Exit 426, between Omaha and Lincoln. Though the event is free, vehicles need to purchase a $5 park permit at the park gate. Those interested in participating can start a team, join a team, sign up as an individual or make a donation by going online to lymphoma.org/activeevents. At the bottom of the page, click Find an Event, then enter Nebraska. For more information, contact Martin Bast at 402-559-6203 or mbast@unmc.edu. Strollers and friendly leashed pets are welcome. A free picnic for participants will follow the walk.
Spaghetti feed, book sale: The Millard Lions and Millard Lioness Clubs are having a spaghetti feed, book sale and raffle on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Millard South High School, 144th and Q Streets. Tickets will be available at the door. Tickets are $7.50; children ages 6-10, $4; children age 5 and younger are free. Proceeds go to support the clubs vision programs, including KidSight Ne.
SpartanNash fundraising: SpartanNash, which operates Bag N Save, Econofoods, Family Fare Supermarket, Family Fresh Market, No Frills, Sun Mart and Supermercado Nuestra Familia stores, is spearheading two fundraising efforts:
Its Family Fare Supermarkets are partnering with Goodwill Industries in Omaha for donation drives as part of its Earth Week events. On April 23 and 24, from 9 a.m. 5:30 p.m., Family Fare 238 S. Eighth St., BlairFamily Fare 1221 S. 203rd Road St.Family Fare 5019 Grover St.Family Fare 5101 Harrison St. Family Fare 1230 N. Washington St., PapillionFamily Fare 820 N. Saddle Creek Road Goodwill staff will be on hand at various Family Fare stores to help load the donations and to provide tax deductible receipts and thank you coupons good for a Full Circle item at SpartanNash stores. To see a complete list of donation locations, go online to spartannash.com/Goodwill.
From April 27 through May 8, all Nebraska stores are participating in a fundraising campaign for Special Olympics programs. Customers will have the opportunity to donate $1, $5 or $10 to Special Olympics Nebraska at the checkout lane. When customers make a donation, they will receive four coupons toward Our Family brand products. All the donations will support Special Olympics Nebraska athletes.
Medal of Honor Walk: The Medal of Honor Walk and Run will be held April 24 at Lake Zorinsky Park, 156th and F Streets, Shelter 5. Participants will run or walk the four-mile, hard-surface course. Cost is $20. Registration will take place between 8 and 8:45 a.m., or register online at raceit.com/medalofhonor. The run begins at 9 a.m. with the walk starting at 9:05 a.m. Water and refreshments will be provided. The event will be held rain or shine. Proceeds will help support the Medal of Honor Wall being built at the Heartland of America Park. For more information, call Lt. Col. Michael DeBolt, 402-980-0554.
Spirit of Service Day: College of St. Mary students, faculty, staff and alumnae spent last Thursday giving back to the Omaha community in this annual giving event. Crews of volunteers worked with several Omaha organizations and programs, including Habitat for Humanity, Heartland Family Service, Keep Omaha Beautiful park clean-up, Omaha South High School Prom Drive, Open Door Mission and Together, Inc.
Eco Team award: The Eco Team at First United Methodist Church in Omaha was the winner of the Cool Congregations Challenge Sacred Ground Award for its work toward a sustainable future. The challenge, an annual contest sponsored by Interfaith Power & Light, is an effort by religious congregations across the country to address global warming by reducing their carbon footprint and by becoming inspirations to their members and communities. The First Methodist team recruited about 80 families at First United Methodist to bring their food scraps each week to church and place them in a barrel for pick up for worm food. The church has collected over a ton of food waste, saving and estimated 5 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere.
Seeking volunteers: Are you retired and looking for a volunteer opportunity? Volunteers Assisting Seniors, a local senior serving nonprofit organization, is seeking volunteers to review the required annual reports submitted by guardians and conservators and to report any discrepancies to the court. This opportunity is ideal for someone with an interest in working with numbers and a desire to ensure that the finances of vulnerable individuals are being well managed. For more information call: 402-444-6617.
Haiti Companions: The dental health-care team from St. Albans Episcopal Church in Spirit Lake, Iowa, returned to Haiti this month to assist with another Healthcare Mission with Haiti Companions. Dr. Terry Shively is a dentist, Stevie Shively serves as dental assistant and Jane Wiest is in charge of dental sterilization. This was the fifth Healthcare Mission to Haiti for the church team.
Disney programming: Omaha Performing Arts has been awarded a $100,000 grant from Disney to help bring the Disney Musicals in Schools program to Omaha. The grant funds two years of programming. Omaha Performing Arts will select up to five area public elementary schools to participate in the 2016-17 school year and an additional five schools will be selected for the following year.
STEM donation: U.S. Cellular has announced a $25,000 donation to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands for 2016 science, technology, engineering and math programming. This contribution will expand programming to help Omaha and Council Bluffs area students. This is the second year U.S. Cellular will support academic programming at the Boys & Girls Clubs. U.S. Cellular will assist nearly 60 additional clubs nationwide this year, with an emphasis on promoting literacy, STEM learning and career exploration and preparation.
Send your good deeds news to goodnews@owh.com.
Donald Trump is getting some unlikely assistance from his opponents in his uphill effort to win a majority of Republican presidential delegates. Ted Cruz and John Kasich remain too busy battling each other to unite in opposition to the front-runner.
Cruz and Kasich have the same goal: to prevent Trump from getting close to the 1,237 delegates he needs for the nomination. Yet in remaining contests in New York, California, New Jersey and elsewhere, the battle between the two of them sets back that effort.
Instead they could be colluding thats perfectly legal effectively dividing up some states, playing to their respective strengths.
Take New York, which has its primary Tuesday with 95 delegates at stake. Under the Republican rules, if Trump wins more than 50 percent of the statewide vote he gets all 11 at-large delegates. Additionally, majorities in any of the 27 congressional districts would give him all three of that districts delegates.
Hes being challenged in some places by Kasich, the governor of Ohio. If, as Cruz has demanded, Kasich dropped out, it would ensure a Trump sweep in New York.
If Cruz and Kasich were to focus their time and resources in different venues the Texas senator in more conservative upstate districts and the Ohioan in several New York City and in suburban districts they would have a better shot at denying the front-runner half the votes in a number of districts. Trump almost certainly will win a majority of New Yorks delegates, but the difference between, say, 85 and 60 could matter a lot in his quest for 1,237.
Similar allocation formulas apply the following week in Connecticut and Maryland, where polls show Trump ahead. Kasich could challenge him more effectively in some suburban areas and Cruz in regions where there are more Christian conservatives.
But in the past several weeks, Trumps rivals have been throwing as many punches at each other as at Trump. Cruzs strategy has been to get to a one-on-one contest with Trump, while Kasichs has been to win late primaries to demonstrate electability in hopes of being chosen at a deadlocked convention in Cleveland in July.
These plans have been overtaken by events; sticking to them helps Trump.
The writer is a son of former President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant and the author of The New Reagan Revolution.
Its now all but certain the Republican convention is going to be contested.
Donald Trump is going to come close to winning the delegates hed need to win the nomination on the first ballot, but I dont see him getting the GOP cigar.
Someone else will, Im guessing. And dont be shocked if his initials are not TC or JK.
The big question for right now is how the conventioneers in Cleveland and the Republicans watching on TV will react when their partys intramural cage match is over.
As Ive said before, its time for Republicans to relax and let the nominating process play out. Its not time to unite behind a Ted Cruz, a John Kasich or a Trump. Its too late for any of them to throw in their towels.
Most people cant imagine what a contested convention will be like, but I can.
I was at the last one in 1976, when my father and his team did everything they could to stop a sitting Republican president from getting the number of delegates he needed.
To stop Gerald Ford, my father tried to get delegates by shaking up the delegations from New York and Pennsylvania any way they could. Before the convention he said hed pick Pennsylvanias liberal Republican Sen. Richard Schweiker for vice president.
The Reagan team schmoozed and badgered the New York delegates so hard it drove Gov. Nelson Rockefeller mad. At one point he ripped a phone out of the floor of the convention stage and, emitting a string of obscenities, threw it halfway across the hall.
My father fought hard in 1976 but lost that process. His people fought hard, too.
After all the backroom deals and fights over rules, they were disappointed and went home angry. But in November they united behind the partys nominee and showed up at the polls to vote for Ford.
The lesson here is that you dont get so angry about your guy losing that you dont vote for the other guy who wins.
Your guy might have the most delegates going into the convention, but if he doesnt have 1,237 delegates, its not enough. Thems the rules.
To win the nomination at a contested convention, your guys got to start making deals. Maybe with the Rubio delegates or the Kasich delegates or the Cruz delegates.
If anyone should understand this, its Donald Trump.
Hes the guy who keeps telling us hes the greatest dealmaker on the planet and cant wait to start making trade deals with the Chinese and the Mexicans. Hes the brilliant business guy, in case you havent heard him say it since noon, who wrote The Art of the Deal.
If hes incapable of making a deal at the Republican convention to win the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination, maybe the GOP should look for the real author of The Art of the Deal.
India-UAE sign MoU to Combat Human Trafficking
Feature
oi-Lisa
By Lisa
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently gave its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and United Arab Emirates (UAE) on cooperation in preventing and combating of Human Trafficking.
The MoU is expected to be signed very soon after the approval. The MoU will strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries and increase the bilateral cooperation on the issues of prevention, rescue, recovery and repatriation related to human trafficking especially women and children expeditiously.
The following are the salient features of the MoU:
To strengthen cooperation to prevent all forms of human trafficking, especially that of women and children and ensure speedy investigation and prosecution of traffickers and organized crime syndicates in either country.
Taking preventive measures that would eliminate human trafficking in women and children and in protecting the rights of victims of trafficking.
Anti-trafficking Cells and Task Forces will work on both sides to prevent human trafficking.
Police and other concerned authorities will work in close cooperation and exchange information which can be used to interdict human traffickers.
The repatriation of victims would be done as expeditiously as possible and the home country will undertake the safe and effective re-integration of the victims.
A Joint Task Force with representatives from both sides would be constituted to monitor the working of the MoU.
Background:
As a destination of trafficking, South Asian countries are mainly affected by domestic trafficking, or trafficking from the neighboring countries. However, South Asian victims are also increasingly detected in the Middle East.
India is a source and transit country as far as trafficking to UAE is concerned, whereas UAE is a destination and transit country for men and women, predominantly from South, Southeast and Central Asia and Eastern Europe who are subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.
Migrant workers, who comprise over 95 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce, are recruited primarily from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and East, South and Southeast Asia. Some of these workers face forced labour in the UAE.
Women from some of these countries travel willingly to the UAE to work as domestic workers, secretaries, beauticians and hotel cleaners, but some are subjected to forced labour by unlawful withholding of their passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats and physical or sexual abuse.
The reinforcement of anti-trafficking efforts at all levels between the UAE and India is essential for prevention and protection of victims.
This requires mutual cooperation among both the countries for intelligence sharing, joint investigation and a coordinated response to the challenges of human trafficking. For this purpose, it is proposed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with UAE.
India has already signed one MoU to prevent trafficking with Bangladesh and another with Bahrain is to be signed during this month.
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Story first published: Sunday, April 17, 2016, 11:29 [IST]
With AQI of 259, Delhi's air on day before Diwali least polluted in 7 years
Narendra Modi to Award Exemplary Civil Servants
Feature
oi-Lisa
By Lisa
The 10th Civil Services Day function will be organised at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on April 21, 2016 by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, PG and Pension.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will confer awards to civil servants for excellence in implementation of Priority Programmes of the Government of India namely Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY), Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), Swachh Vidyalaya and Soil Health Card Scheme.
PM Awards for Excellence in Public Administration have been instituted with a view to acknowledge, recognise and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by officers of the Central and State Governments for the welfare of common citizen.
This is for the first time a new category of Excellence in implementing a Priority Programme has been added to the Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Administration.
A total of ten districts will be awarded the Prime Minister's Awards this year under the four Priority Programmes. These awards will be given in three Groups, - the first group consists of eight North-Eastern States and the three Hill States of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The remaining 18 States constitute the second Group while the third Group comprises of the seven Union Territories. Eight awards will be given to the first and second Group under the four Priority Progammes.
However, no award will be given for two Programmes, - Swachh Bharat (Grameen) and Soil Health Card for the Group comprising seven Union Territories.
Nominees short listed:
The Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) has conducted an exhaustive analysis and assessment for short listing the awards.
Ministries concerned with the four Priority Programmes were involved at each stage. Line Ministries submitted a list of top ranked 74 districts in all the four Priority Programmes, - PMJDY - 20, Swachh Vidyalaya - 20, Swachh Bharat (Gramin) - 17 and Soil Health Card - 17. This was followed by presentations by each District Officer.
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances hired an expert agency, Quality Council of India (QCI), to analyse the feedback taken from the citizens.
A call centre was set up through BSNL and more than 3 lakh surveys were conducted across the four priorities programme.
Citizen feedback was analysed and it was incorporated into the evaluation process. A two member team consisting of Director or Deputy Director level Officers were sent for Field Study Visits to 38 shortlisted districts during March 9-12, 2016.
These teams held multiple interactions with various stakeholders. Based on first hand experience which helped validate the claims made during presentations by district officers, the Experts Committee headed by Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Mr. Devendra Chaudhry recommended 24 districts to the Empowered Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary Mr. Pradeep Kumar Sinha. This committee made final recommendation to the Prime Minister.
This year's tentative programme:
Like the previous year, the Civil Services Day function will be an elaborate affair spread over two days. The Union Minister of Railways Mr. Suresh Prabhu will be the Chief Guest at the inaugural function on April 20, 2016.
The Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh will preside over the function.
The inaugural session will be followed by eight panel discussions on the replication of PM awarded initiatives during last year and four priority programmes. These sessions will be chaired by Union Ministers or persons of eminence.
Civil Services Day:
Civil Services Day is organised on 21st April every year, when civil servants rededicate themselves to the cause of the citizens and renew their commitment to public service.
This day coincides with the date on which Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel had addressed the first batch of probationers at the All India Administrative Service Training School at Metcalfe House, New Delhi in 1947.
The Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Administration are also given away on this day. Civil Services Day was organised for the first time in 2006.
Since then every year the function is being organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.
For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications
Story first published: Sunday, April 17, 2016, 7:47 [IST]
Couple killed as their bike hit by speeding vehicle on Delhi-Dehradun highway
1 killed and 4 injured in Lucknow bridge collapse
India
oi-Shalini
Lucknow, April 17: After Kolkata, it is Lucknow. A section of an under-construction Metro Railway bridge collapsed in Alambagh area here around 8 am on Sunday. A labourer was reportedly killed in the incident while four others were injured.
The ill-fated bridge was under construction since December last year.The concrete slab collapsed at Sujanpura near the bus station, said the police
Eyewitnesses said the impact could have been worse had the incident took place at the peak hour. The injured were rushed to the hospital.where condition of one is stated to be critical. Others are being treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Over 25 people were killed when an under-construction flyover collapsed in North Kolkata during the peak hours on March 31. Several were also injured.
An auto rickshaw damaged after part of an under-construction Lucknow metro pillar collapsed in Sardari khera area. pic.twitter.com/Sg9nRkMo8L ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 17, 2016
2 injured after part of an under-construction Lucknow metro pillar collapsed in Sardari khera area of Alambagh (UP) https://t.co/IG6IuJtmLY ANI (@ANI_news) April 17, 2016
Oneindia News
4 CPI(M) workers injured in clash with BJP activists in Kerala
India
oi-PTI
Kannur (Ker), April 17: Four CPI(M) activists were injured, one of them critically, in a clash between their party workers and BJP activists at Vannathimoola here today, police said.
The seriously injured person, who suffered deep cut wounds on his knees, was shifted to Manipal Hospital in Karnataka for treatment, while the other three were admitted to the cooperative hospital here, they said.
A search was on to nab the culprits, police said, adding a case has been registered under IPC 307 (attempt to murder). In the run up to the May 16 assembly polls, rival party workers have clashed in various parts of the state.
On March 15, a Youth Congress worker was hacked to death allegedly by DYFI workers at Evoor in Alapuzha BJP and CPI(M) workers had clashed in Thiruvananthapuram district on March 14, leaving at least 30 injured, including former Kerala BJP chief V Muraleedharan.
An RSS worker was hacked to death last month in Pappinesseri and a BJP worker escaped with serious injuries in Panur, both in Kannur district, after they were attacked allegedly by CPI(M) workers.
PTI
With AQI of 259, Delhi's air on day before Diwali least polluted in 7 years
GAIL to use drones to secure gas pipelines
India
oi-PTI
New Delhi, Apr 17: Gail India, the country's biggest gas transporter, will deploy drones on pilot basis on its main trunk pipeline as part of higher safety measures it is implementing to secure its vast network.
In the aftermath of the June 2014 accident at its pipeline in Andhra Pradesh that killed at least 18 people, the state-owned firm has taken a number of initiatives to raise safety standards including replacing old pipelines and using advanced technology.
"We plan to use drones on a pilot basis on a 200-km stretch of the HBJ pipeline in the Chambal Ravines in Madhya Pradesh," GAIL Director (Projects) Ashutosh Karnatak told PTI. The company has already tendered for drones and the response has been encouraging. "We hope to award the tender in a months time," he said.
The drones will be used to patrol the pipeline to detect physical abnormal activity like encroachment or intrusion on the pipeline. GAIL India has also started using satellite surveillance to monitor its 13,000-km of gas pipeline network.
A government probe into the June 2014 accident had highlighted safety lapses at the firm and prompted sector regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to slap a penalty.
Karnatak said drones will be used to detect encroachments around pipelines as they are a big safety hazard. In the pilot, a drone will fly over the pipeline, capturing pictures and other data using smart technology.
The data will be analysed to detect any potential hazard. "We estimate a drone may cost Rs 2.5 crore or so," he said adding the company is experimenting if technology can replace patrolling. If successful, drones will be used on other key pipelines.
GAIL, at present, uses foot patrolling to spot encroachments and seeks local administration's help in getting them cleared. Drones will however not be able to detect any leakage, for which the company will continue to reply on sensors and patrolling, he said.
"We started using live satellite monitoring of the pipelines this year and we are now integrating advance Unmanned Ariel Vehicle (UAV) with this system," he said.
Pipeline securities is a major issue across the world and with recent progress in satellite sensing technology, availability of new high resolution satellites and object oriented image analysis, there is a possibility to introduce space technology for pipeline monitoring applications. GAIL did pilot project on satellite monitoring on its 610 km DahejVijaipur pipeline.
PTI
Who is Pushkar Singh Dhami, the new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand
Pushkar Singh Dhami to take oath as new Uttarakhand CM today, swearing-in ceremony at 6 pm
PM Modi to interact with Chief Ministers of six states on COVID-19 situation today
A Look back at CMs who completed full 5-year term in history of Karnataka
Nitish Kumar, the 8th time Bihar CM in 22 years | A look at sushasan babu's turns and u-turns so far
Karnataka: H D Kumaraswamy named as CM candidate for JD(S)
India
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
Bengaluru, Apr 17: In a swift reaction to BJP's move of placing former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa in the helm of state affairs, the JD(S) has unanimously selected it's state chief, H D Kumaraswamy as chief ministerial candidate for 2018 assembly elections.
In a meeting held at a resort in Mysuru, the JD(S) members unanimously resolved to chose party president Kumaraswamy as their chief minister candidate. This fresh move has come after BJP on April 14 made one of party's stalwarts B S Yeddyurappa as the president of the state.
The decision of the BJP would certainly facilitate the party to consolidate Lingayat community ahead of 2018 elections in the Karnataka. Yeddyurappa being a Lingayat enjoys strong support base from his community.
In a bid to counter this strategy, the JD(S), which is being run by Gowda family (Dynasty), was quick to announce Vokkaliga leader, Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister candidate. In a day long meeting at a resort in Mysuru, this decision has been taken. This would facilitate the party to galvanise support from Vokkaliga base.
On Saturday evening, after a meeting at a resort in Mysuru, this decision was made by JD(S) MLAs and leaders. "The party , in its legislature party meeting, has unanimously decided to nominate H D Kumaraswamy as our chief ministerial candidate for the 2018 elections," said NH Kona Reddy , JD(S) spokesperson and MLA from Navalgund.
All is not well in JD(S)
For a meeting held in Mysuru, as many as 10 JD(S) MLAs marked their absence. The absence has casted spell of conspicuous, with even close friends of Kumaraswamy, Chamarajpet MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan and Nagamangala MLA Cheluvarayaswamy not attending the meeting.
However, Kumaraswamy told press that 7 MLAs did not attend the meeting citing health issues and information on 3 other absentees has not been conveyed to the party.
OneIndia News
Couple killed as their bike hit by speeding vehicle on Delhi-Dehradun highway
12-year-old girl found dead with rope around her neck
Teenage girl raped by two in UP's Sultanpur
Dengue patient dies after fruit juice transfused instead of platelets
Woman, her daughter-in-law killed in a bike-truck crash in Ballia
Trouble for Yoga guru Baba Ramdev and Patanjali Ayurved?
India
oi-Reetu
New Delhi, April 17: In what may cause a serious problem for Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, some samples of Patanjali's cow desi ghee have failed the test.
According to a report in India Samvad, it is suspected that in the cow's ghee, colour was added.
According to a Zee news report, "A Lucknow resident - Yogesh Mishra - has complained about the Patanjali's cow desi ghee after he found fungus in the ghee.
Baba Ramdev booked over 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' slogan remark
According to Yogesh, the Patanjali ghee that he purchased from market was yellow in colour. He raised a complaint based on the samples."
On Jan 7, 2016, the samples of the ghee were sent for tests.
Earlier, Patanjali murabba also ran into troubled waters after wrong manufacturing dates were found on the boxes of the same.
Recently, Yoga guru Ramdev, who had said that he would have beheaded lakhs of people for not chanting 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' slogan, was booked by the Hyderabad police.
OneIndia News
For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications
Story first published: Sunday, April 17, 2016, 18:38 [IST]
Australians killed in Vietnam War to be brought home
International
oi-PTI
Sydney, April 17: Australian soldiers killed in the Vietnam War and buried in Malaysia and Singapore will be brought home in June with a full military ceremony, it was announced on Sunday, Aril 17.
Thirty-five soldiers who died in the conflict lie in Malaysia's Terendak Cemetery, which sits inside a large, operational military base, and one other in Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore. In May last year, then prime minister Tony Abbott offered repatriation to the families and more than 30 of them have accepted the offer.
"The homecoming of their family member will be a very moving and emotional time, and their right to privacy, grief and reflection has been central in the government's planning," said Australia's Veterans' Affairs Minister Dan Tehan in a statement.
For families who decided not to take up the offer, their relatives' graves will be maintained in perpetuity as is the standard for all Australian war dead in cemeteries around the world, the government said.
Royal Australian Air Force planes will fly the remains back to a military base outside Sydney on June 2 where they will be received in a formal ceremony, followed by a private memorial service for their families.
Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia president Ken Foster said the families and the veterans community had been asking for the bodies to be reinterred for some time.
"It was the family members who started putting pressure and raising all sorts of questions about, 'Is there some way we can have these veterans brought home?'," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Foster added that the move would enable not just family but those who fought alongside the fallen to pay their respects. "A lot of the veterans would not be in the situation where they could go to Malaysia and visit the graves," he said.
"Now the families will have the choice of where they're reinterred and the local veteran community within Australia will be able to visit those graves whenever they want." Australian soldiers killed in World Wars I and II and the Korean War were buried near to where they fell but around the time of the Vietnam engagement this policy changed and bodies were usually brought home.
Almost 60,000 Australian military personnel fought alongside the United States in Vietnam, with 521 losing their lives. Of these, all but the 36 in Malaysia and Singapore were returned home.
IANS
Partial Solar Eclipse 2022: City-wise timings, when and where to watch
With AQI of 259, Delhi's air on day before Diwali least polluted in 7 years
Beijing backs Delhi's odd-even scheme
International
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Beijing, April 17: China has come out in support of the odd-even traffic scheme, the second phase of which began on Friday in Delhi with a view to battle pollution.
"The traffic situation in Delhi can become better and traffic structure be optimised if the odd-even license plate formula is followed properly," a top official in Beijing's transport department said.
"The life of people can improve (in Delhi)," said Zhou Tian, deputy director in Decongestion Department of Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport.
With the income of middle class groups rising in both Delhi and Beijing, the demand for cars has shot up, adding to traffic woes and worsening pollution.
Smog hits both cities during peak winter, seriously affecting people's health.
Though Beijing resorted to the odd-even traffic restriction scheme ahead of the 2008 Olympics, Delhi tried it out successfully in January after the judiciary called the Indian capital a virtual gas chamber.
Zhou admitted that the scheme did affect the daily life of people in Beijing.
"We adopt odd-even license plates formula only when there are major events in Beijing. It has been very successful, but it affects the daily life of citizens in Beijing," he said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who figured in the Fortune Magazine's list of world's 50 greatest leaders for experimenting with the idea which many were sceptical of, wants the odd-even traffic scheme to be implemented every month.
Of the nearly nine million vehicles in Delhi, almost a third are cars. Beijing hosts 5.5 million cars but the Chinese capital boasts of a far better public transport than Delhi.
While Beijing's subway network is the second longest after Shanghai, there are nearly 25,000 public transport buses against the fleet of some 4,500 in Delhi.
Over the years, Beijing has been encouraging people to take to public transport. It is also promoting e-bikes that have largely replaced petrol-driven two vehicles.
IANS
Bihar: When asked to take off hijab to check for bluetooth device, Muslim student leaves exam centre
To wear or not to wear hijab is the dilemma confronting Muslim women the world over
Hijab-clad Muslim woman removed from US plane
International
oi-PTI
Chicago, Apr 17: A hijab-clad Muslim woman in the US was reportedly removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after she asked for switching seats with a flight attendant saying she "did not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Hakima Abdulle, a Muslim woman from Maryland, said she was removed from the flight from Chicago to Seattle "without any credible explanation". Abdulle said she wanted to switch seats but instead, she ended up being removed from the flight.
This was the second such incident involving the carrier this month after an Iraqi man claimed that he was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after a fellow passenger heard him speaking in Arabic.
Zainab Chaudry, an official with the Council on American- Islamic Relations, said in a news conference that Abdulle had boarded the Seattle-bound aircraft on Wednesday when a flight attendant told her she would not be permitted to remain on board.
Airport police then escorted Abdulle, who is of Somalian descent and was wearing a hijab, to the ticket counter, where she waited several hours for a later flight, Chaudry was quoted as saying by The Baltimore Sun.
The flight attendant and Southwest employees inside the terminal were unable to provide "any reasonable explanation" for their action, Chaudry said, adding that Abdulle, who speaks little English, was reduced to tears and "suffered extreme distress and anxiety as a result of this experience."
When police asked the flight attendant at the gate if there was any reason why Abdulle had been taken off the plane, the flight attendant reportedly replied, "No" and that she did "not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Brandy King, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, was quoted as saying that the "information available, collected at the time of the event, indicates that our employees followed proper procedures in response to this customer's actions while on board the aircraft".
"We are not in the business of removing passengers from flights without reason," King said. Abdulle's husband Abukar Fidaw said, "She was humiliated because of her religion and the way she dressed."
In a similar incident on April 6, UC Berkeley senior Khairuldeen Makhzoomi was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland.
Instead, Makhzoomi was removed from Southwest Airlines flight after speaking Arabic before his flight took off, the Daily Californian reported.
PTI
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Hillary's Hidden Transcripts
My guest today is Seth Abramson, Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire.
Joan Brunwasser: Welcome back to OpEdNews, Seth. You and I did an interview not long ago entitled: Abramson Claims: "Sanders is Winning;" Could He Be Right? [3.27.16] with an interesting, new perspective on the Democratic primary race. Most recently, you wrote an article Release of Clinton's Wall Street Speeches Could End Her Candidacy for President which was headlined when it appeared this week on OpEdNews's front page. You're given to sweeping statements which draw the reader in to learn more. Are you serious or is this mostly wishful thinking?
Seth Abramson: Secretary Clinton's penchant for secrecy is not only very real but has been the subject of media scrutiny for years. As recently as two weeks ago, the largest paper in the State of Wisconsin attempted to sway the outcome of the Democratic primary there by publishing--in an essay undersigned by the entire Editorial Board--a lengthy retrospective on Mrs. Clinton's aversion to transparency in government. Arguably, the ongoing investigation into her private email server is a byproduct of her own discomfort with letting voters have access to the government records over which she holds sway; certainly, one of her own primary-campaign surrogates, former Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, has leveled this very accusation at her.
More broadly, I think we should keep in mind that both Democrats and Republicans are particularly wary of secrecy in federal government after one of the longest--and most unnecessary--wars in American history, a blunder many feel was the product of unaccountable backroom machinations. That Mrs. Clinton voted for this blunder further tarnishes, I feel, her reputation in all matters touching on accountability and transparency.
But as for the speech transcripts themselves, I think the only honest answer any of Secretary Clinton's critics can give to the question of how damaging their content may be is that we do not yet know--which is, of course, the point of our concern in the first instance. I take little comfort from the idea that Mrs. Clinton is willing to lose a large bloc of votes in order to preserve the secrecy of these transcripts; she is more than intelligent enough to realize that it only behooves her to do so if she would lose many more votes should the transcripts be revealed. A loss of support of that magnitude could only be justified by some seriously damaging--up to "scandalizing"--material.
Right now this is, according to RealClearPolitics, a 1.2% race--with Secretary Clinton ahead of Senator Sanders by just a hair--so it's by no means unreasonable, or the product of some paranoid mania, to think that whatever is hidden in those transcripts could shift the national polling to (at a minimum) a slight edge in Senator Sanders' favor. Likewise, many of the upcoming states will be decided by just a few percentage points; I think Mrs. Clinton believes that what's in those transcripts she's hiding so assiduously could lose her one or more of the upcoming primaries--simply as a matter of simple math. Given that I personally don't think Mrs. Clinton has much room for error in these final twenty primaries and caucuses, lest she appear to super-delegates to be so wounded a front-runner as to be non-viable, yes, I think the release of these transcripts could seriously endanger her campaign.
Again, I say so largely from reading the tea leaves Mrs. Clinton has herself strewn in our path. And I say so mindful of the fact that, no matter her pledged-delegate lead, her poor favorability ratings and even worse performance in polling against the remaining Republican candidates makes any additional damage to her reputation and electoral standing--as she would suffer, for instance, were she to permanently slip behind Senator Sanders in national polls--something the Secretary must do everything within her power to avoid.
JB: Regarding those mystery-shrouded Wall Street speeches, the Clinton campaign has put voters in the terrible bind of being asked to trust her while not providing them with any actual evidence to do so. I read numerous places that the condition for giving the speeches was that she would have sole ownership of any transcript. Is that commonly done? It sounds so paranoid.
SA: I think the arrangement she reached, with respect to ownership of the texts, is probably not such an unusual one for someone in her position, who might be expected to want to publish any prepared speeches at a later date, or excerpt them as part of a future book. I think public figures are often guarded about their intellectual property, as it does usually have some value on the open market.
All of which makes Mrs. Clinton's behavior in this instance so strange. She knew herself to be a public figure, indeed one of the most well-known people alive anywhere on Earth; moreover, she knew full well that she was likely to re-enter politics at some time in the near future; and yet, nevertheless, she gave speeches that clearly she believed at the time, and believes still, could not only significantly damage her political ambitions but also suggest that she exercises little care about speaking in a public manner in private spaces--that is, to be self-possessed enough not to speak off the cuff during speeches she clearly must have prepared extensively for.
All of this is why I must agree with Senator Sanders that in this instance, as in many others, her judgment should be called into question. At this point, the fault in her judgment is threefold: one, she should not have taken such a sum as she did from Goldman Sachs, particularly to speak to such a group at a time when she was aware that politics might again be in her future; second, having taken that sum to speak to that audience, she ought to have prepared a speech that could as easily have been delivered publicly as privately; third, having wrongly chosen to speak to that group for that sum at that time, and having wrongly chosen to speak in a manner that could publicly embarrass her later on, she then set about doing what she's still doing now: failing to provide American voters with an adequate explanation--or even a semblance that she cares to provide an adequate explanation--for being unwilling to release the transcripts. In short, she's bungled this entire affair so badly that it's reminiscent of...well, her conduct in numerous other instances.
And that's the thing, or rather the sort of thing, that I think so many of us are afraid to say: Mrs. Clinton, while as intelligent a person as any of us could ever hope to be, was not, in fact, a suitable candidate for the Senate when she ran in 2000. I say this mindful of the sort of qualifications that anyone without the surname Clinton would have needed to have to run for the post: for instance, time in the House, or at the highest levels of state government, or (at the outside) as the CEO or COO of a multinational corporation. She had none of those experiences under her belt in 2000.
While she performed admirably enough in the Senate during her very brief tenure there, I don't have any sense that she distinguished herself--merely that she was without question adequate to the task. Her appointment as Secretary of State came because she lost a presidential election, not because, in 2008, she had significantly more foreign policy experience than Senator Sanders, say, does now (travelling abroad as First Lady, and acting as an emissary, is simply not the same thing as working abroad in federal service as a functionary). Instead, she was given the position because President Obama needed to unify the Democratic Party and it was obvious that Mrs. Clinton wouldn't have accepted or been a good fit for the Vice Presidency. Her tenure as Secretary of State was above-average, as I understand it, but certainly not without blemish.
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OIT.JPG
The Oregon Institute of Technology in Wilsonville offers several four-year degrees. Jay Kenton will be the interim president of the school, starting in July.
(The Oregonian/2012)
Jay Kenton, the one-time interim president of Eastern Oregon University, is returning to the state's higher education world to work as an interim leader for a second university.
Kenton, 58, is expected to step in as interim president of Oregon Institute of Technology on July 1.
The appointment means Kenton will have served as a short-term president for two of Oregon's seven four-year universities. In 2014, he was appointed to lead EOU. Kenton worked there for a year, instituting dramatic cuts to reverse a budget deficit. President Tom Insko was hired as the president of EOU and took over from Kenton in July, 2015.
OIT President Chris Maples said last month year he will leave the Klamath Falls-based university at the end of June.
This week, a OIT governing committee tabbed Kenton as their choice to serve as the interim president of OIT starting in July. The full OIT Board of Trustees will vote on the proposal later this year.
Kenton was already working at OIT in an interim capacity. Maples asked him to step in to help the finance department. He'd been working at the school since February 22.
He started his career at EOU, but also worked for Portland State University and the now defunct Oregon University System.
"These institutions, I've worked with them for a number of years, I care deeply about them," Kenton said in an interview.
He said he expects to work at OIT until they hire a new president, which he said could be by January, 2017.
OK, here are your links:
Sac Bee: UC-Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper-spray references from Internet
Lewis & Clark College: Eve Lowenstein wins Goldwater scholarship
Portland Tribune: PSU needs help, vote yes on payroll measure (OPINION)
PCC Bridge: Oregon Promise law should lead to an enrollment increase
Willamette Week: 4 questions for PSU Students for Trump founder
The Oregonian: A look at the PSU program to offer free food to Portlanders
Around the O: UO student presents rocket science research in DC.
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen
Tim Leavitt
Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt, seen here in June 2014, said the city faces a housing crisis.
(Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian)
The region's housing emergency has migrated north of the Columbia River.
The Vancouver City Council last week officially declared a housing emergency, mirroring a move Portland made last fall and setting the stage for a potential ballot measure in November that would ask residents to fund an affordable housing initiative.
"We're facing a serious crisis," said Mayor Tim Leavitt.
Vancouver has been anything but immune to the region's skyrocketing rents. Last summer, the online rental marketplace Apartment List found the Southwest Washington city had the fastest-rising rents in the nation, with tenants paying 9.8 percent more than a year before.
And take-home pay hasn't come close to keeping pace with increased housing costs. Over the past five years, the average apartment rent in Vancouver increased by over 38 percent, while the rise in median household income barely scratched 3 percent, according to a resolution passed by the City Council on April 11.
The emergency declaration is a legal mechanism that allows the council to put a ballot proposition before voters this year. Washington state law requires cities to declare an emergency before imposing levies for affordable housing. The measure would ask taxpayers to approve a property tax levy that would fund housing for "very low-income households," the resolution says.
Details aren't yet firm, but Leavitt said there is political will to put something on the ballot.
"It's fair to say there are a majority of council members who appear to be supportive of asking voters for investment in an affordable housing fund," Leavitt said.
The Vancouver Council for the Homeless, which is supporting the potential ballot measure, said the emergency declaration "paves the way for the biggest investment in affordable housing in the history of Vancouver."
"Many people who cannot rent become or remain homeless," the group said on its website.
Another phenomenon that will sound familiar to Portlanders: Not only are rents rising quickly, but it's also difficult to find an apartment in Vancouver. The city's rental vacancy rate is below a minuscule 2 percent, the council found.
To try and protect tenants, the council last September required landlords to start giving 45 days' notice when raising rents 10 percent or more. For landlords who own five or more units, the council demanded at least 60 days' notice to vacate.
"Trying to find another place in Vancouver is a real ordeal," Leavitt said. "And it's a real hardship, and as a result, we're finding that more and more families are ending up in difficult positions."
Residents priced out of Vancouver often have to move far away, Leavitt said, with some commuting to jobs from as far as Woodland or Longview. Leavitt accused neighboring communities of failing to prepare for population growth.
"The other communities in Clark County really have not, frankly, fully embraced the need to have a diversity of housing, including multifamily," Leavitt said.
-- Luke Hammill
lhammill@oregonian.com
503-294-4029
@lucashammill
Sure, Timberline Lodge starred in the movie version of Stephen King's horror classic "The Shining."
But King actually drew inspiration for the paranormal story, featuring ghosts, extrasensory powers and "redrum," during a stay at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.
Maybe a real ghost was whispering in his ear during his stay.
The hotel appears to be teeming with ghoulish spirits.
Earlier this week, guest Henry Yau snapped a panorama photo of the Stanley Hotel's famous lobby, including the grand stairwell. No one was on the stairs when Yau took the photo, he said.
But check out what his camera captured: An apparition in period clothing standing on the stairwell.
"When I took it, I didn't notice anything," Yau, director of public relations at the Children's Museum of Houston, told Click2Houston.com.
Actually, according a paranormal expert, there are two ghosts in the photo: The woman in black on the stairs and a child to her left.
<span id="mce_marker" data-mce-type="bookmark">E</span>
What does a paranormal investigator see in this Stanley Hotel picture? https://t.co/7FEnvVOBk5 pic.twitter.com/hzt4kQYPI1 KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) April 15, 2016
On his official website, King wrote about how he got the idea for "The Shining" while staying at the hotel in 1974.
"In late September of 1974, Tabby and I spent a night at a grand old hotel in Estes Park, the Stanley. We were the only guests as it turned out; the following day they were going to close the place down for the winter. Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect--maybe the archetypical--setting for a ghost story. That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in the chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind."
Actually, this is far from the first time a guest has spotted a spook at the Stanley. In fact, there's a haunted history section on the hotel's website.
"After a century of collecting spirits, the hotel has become renowned by specialists and experts in the field of paranormal investigation as one of the nation's most active sites," the site reads.
Creeped out yet?
-- Joseph Rose
503-221-8029
jrose@oregonian.com
@josephjrose
Cynics scoffed when shipping containers were first outfitted into offices and tiny houses. Now, the durable modules are everywhere, stacked as multi-level structures and seen in architectural magazines.
People who live in retrofitted tugboats, cabooses, school buses and other re-purposed vessels have also had to brush off doubters.
So Bruce Campbell, an electrical engineer and not the actor, isn't worried when people laugh about his dwelling: A retired Boeing 727-284 parked in a forest outside of Hillsboro.
Campbell believes retired airplanes can be used as affordable housing and as airtight, floating shelters after tidal waves have washed out homes.
"Why should we throw away this high level of technology to nail sticks together to live in?" asks Campbell, 66, who spends half of his year in Japan, a country that has been rocked by earthquakes and roiled by tsunamis.
He says three commercial planes are decommissioned every day in the world, and salvage companies just want the engines.
He bought his plane in 1999 for $100,000, then spent another $120,000 moving it from the Hillsboro airport and setting it up on his undeveloped property.
The engine is gone and so are the flight attendants, but he kept the landing gear to use as an earthquake damage prevention system since he is perched on the Cascadia fault.
Slowly, he has customized the inside so he can roost there full time when he's not in Japan.
On Saturday, April 16, he took seven strangers on a tour of his long and narrow home. They tested the intact bathrooms. Pointed at the vintage flight attendant beverage cart stacked with soup cans and other food supplies near the microwave.
They kicked back in the seats, still upholstered in Greece's Olympic Airways fabric.
Then they walked out onto the wings.
Nathan and Kristen Rix of Tigard were there to celebrate Obscura Day, in which people worldwide are encouraged to discover something offbeat. They found it.
After they emerged from the back of the cabin and descended the airstairs, Nathan Rix said he could see how old airplanes could be turned into creative spaces or habitats.
Kristen Rix confessed she couldn't image a city lot being long enough.
Preschool teachers Erika Unruh and Aaron Levine, both of Portland, spent a long time inside the cabin and the flight deck, where the pilots' chairs still face forward and windows frame tree trunks as if there had been a gentle crash landing.
Levine has been curious about the airplane home after seeing an aerial photo of it online. He emailed Campbell and was welcomed to join the tour.
"It's unique as hell," said Levine. "Think how we generally have to act around airplanes. Would we be allowed to walk under the wing? No. This is like plane freedom."
Pilot John Gully and his wife, Joanne, who live in New York, decided to see Campbell's famous formerly flying home while visiting their daughter, Alexa Gully, a textile designer in Portland.
"Converting this plane into a home is a nice way to honor the technology and craftsmanship that went into making this plane," said John Gully.
Would he live in it? With respect, he said Campbell, a bachelor, might benefit from a woman's touch. "Maybe a visit from Amelia Earhart?" he joked.
-- Janet Eastman
jeastman@oregonian.com 503-799-8739 @janeteastman
Merkley endorses Sanders: Whatever other reasons Sen. Jeff Merkley may have for endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, it's particularly puzzling that he cites Sanders' opposition to free trade. From agricultural exports to software developers to Nike, Oregon companies and workers are direct beneficiaries of the international trade order promoted by every president since Franklin Roosevelt.
Who is Sen. Merkley representing?
Leonard E. Santos
Southwest Portland
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Merkley endorses Sanders: Judging by the letter "Merkley endorses Sanders" (April 13), The Oregonian now offers four pages of comics. We are asked to accept that years of being in the public eye is sufficient to assign a politician the description of "highly qualified."
Good thing I'd already finished my coffee, or it would have been sprayed all over the table.
Our presidential choices in both wings of our Single Party are the worst they have been in decades. No matter who wins this fall, it's a virtual certainty that things for the average citizen will get worse, not better.
Brewster Gillett
Southwest Portland
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Merkley endorses Sanders: David Imhoff (Letters to the Editor, April 13) faults Bernie Sanders supporters for being against free trade. He points out that "free trade results in net gains for both countries involved" and speaks glowingly of the improved quality of life for "average" people in China and India.
Those mean ol' Bernie Sanders supporters begrudge those people their good fortune, Imhoff implies. Nice little piece of sophistry there.
At least Imhoff included the word "net" in his claim that everyone gains from free trade. American workers lost, while investors gained. That's what those of us critical of free trade object to.
If Imhoff would like us to altruistically accept that improving the lot of foreign publics is a noble product of free trade, then how about asking the winners to foot the bill instead of the losers? Investors gained far more than workers lost, thus producing the "net gains" Imhoff refers to. Why not ask them to cough up their profits to benefit the less affluent both here and abroad?
Charla Hatton
Northwest Portland
Photo by Maxine Bernstein/Staff
Better enforcement upon the homeless will help Portland reach its goal: Editorial Agenda 2016
The citys experiment allowing homeless people to camp and sleep in public spaces has gone off the rails with lax enforcement, the editorial board writes. A shooting recently near a preschool underscores the need for immediate correction.
'Portland's compassion, if not channeled to produce smart outcomes, could be its undoing,' the editorial states. 'The city's best chance of succeeding in this experiment is that it not forsake what already works: walkable neighborhoods and a navigable downtown. Judicious, consistent enforcement is the key.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by Lacey Jarrell/Klamath Falls Herald & News
Klamath dam removal a good first step toward fixing water woes: Editorial
The agreement between Oregon, California and Pacificorp to remove four dams is a promising sign of progress to finding a long-term solution to water-use agreements in the Klamath Basin, the editorial board writes. But hard work remains ahead to hammering out those agreements.
'Addressing the water shortage represents a delicate, emotionally charged give-and-take that involves farmers, ranchers, local and state elected leaders, members of Congress,' the editorial states. '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.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by The Associated Press
Zimmerman, Vega Pederson, Stegmann for Multnomah County Commission: Editorial endorsement
The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board recommends Eric Zimmerman and Lori Stegmann as the best picks in the contested races for two seats on the Multnomah County Commission. Vega Pederson, a state legislator from East Portland, is running uncontested for a third seat.
'An Army veteran and captain in the Oregon Army National Guard, Zimmerman holds a key advantage over the other candidates for the position,' the editorial states. 'He has served as the chief of staff for current Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel for the past three years, developing a fluency on the issues facing the county that none of his competitors can match.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by Erik Lukens/Staff
Nick Fish and a broken promise: Editorial Agenda 2016
A recent editorial detailing how the city broke its promise to two Lents residents to allow them to access their former property with their dog if they sold it to the city elicited an unexpected response from Commissioner Nick Fish, the editorial board writes. He was angry - not on behalf of the two constituents but about the editorials characterization of the response by Bureau of Environmental Services director.
'What should Portlanders think about a city that ignores a commitment that may have helped it save money when living up to it becomes inconvenient and when plausible deniability exists?' the editorial states. 'Trust and good faith aren't words that come to mind.' Read the editorial here.
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Dirksen, Chase and Stacey for Metro Council: Editorial endorsement
The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board endorses incumbents Craig Dirksen and Sam Chase to their seats on the Metro Council. Bob Stacey, another incumbent, is running unopposed.
'Impossibly, Metro is expected by many to fix these things, along with seeing after solid-waste management and venues such as the Oregon Zoo,' the editorial states. 'But a big piece of the agency's charge to rationally coordinate growth in the region while helping client governments meet the challenge requires of its leaders not only technical competencies but political savvy.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by Beth Nakamura/Staff
It's not just 'cultural' competence at issue in Black Lives Matter surveillance: Editorial
A report detailing one state justice departments collection of social-media postings by the civil rights unit director shows a host of problems that need to be addressed, the editorial board writes. The problems range from suspicion and misinformation about the Black Lives Matter movement to the failure to conduct basic research.
'It shouldn't take education and training for intelligence unit employees to not assume that #blacklivesmatter, which is ultimately about holding police accountable for their actions, is a threat,' the editorial states. 'It shouldn't take "education and training" to know that you don't jump to wild conclusions without some basis in fact and research.' Read the editorial here.
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Photo by The Associated Press
Overheard chatter in La Grande; Throwing good money after bad at PSU: Editorial peaks and valleys
The timely action by students at La Grande High School to seek help after hearing conversations about a possible attack by other students is this week's peak. The decision by the Portland State University Foundation to once again use money that could go to scholarships to back a flawed tax proposal instead is this week's valley.
'The campaign makes a logically-deficient argument that businesses should pay a special tax because they will benefit from a better workforce if PSU does its job of educating students,' the editorial states. 'This ignores, of course, that businesses hire workers from a wide range of educational backgrounds, some of which don't include PSU at all... And it ignores that a selective payroll tax to benefit one university is a terrible way to fund public colleges and universities.' Read the editorial peaks and valleys here.
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A man fell into the ocean near Depoe Bay Friday morning and members of the U.S. Coast Guard are continuing to search for him, fire officials said in a news release.
(Depoe Bay Fire District )
U.S. Coast Guard officials this weekend continued to search for signs of a 26-year-old Georgia man who was swept out to sea Friday but turned up nothing.
Oregon State Police officials on Sunday said the Coast Guard searched for Kelly Bennett Smith early Saturday. The Coast Guard participated in the search for Smith on Friday as well.
Smith was visiting the Oregon Coast for the first time when he fell into rough ocean waters Friday morning near Depoe Bay, according to fire officials. The man's friends told authorities that he was on the rocks when a large wave knocked him into the water about 10:45 a.m.
He was unable to climb out of the water because of the heavy surf, officials said.
Emergency responders arrived in the area of Rocky Creek State Scenic Viewpoint and initially saw Smith in the water but quickly lost sight of him.
-- The Oregonian
Bay Countys economic development organization has officially kicked off its $1.2 million capital campaign by announcing it has already raised $801,405. More than 100 community leaders gathered last week at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Bay City to hear Bay Future Inc.s plan to create 600 jobs by attracting $300 million in new capital investment in Bay County.
U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, spoke at the event, telling the audience that Bay Futures efforts are critical to spurring job growth in the region.
The Great Lakes Bay Region is an important part of our state that is uniquely positioned to attract new investments and new jobs, Kildee said. Having a multi-year economic development plan for growth is critical to expanding business and hiring new workers.
Auburn Mayor Lee Kilbourn attended the campaign kick off and came away impressed with Bay Futures ambitious job plan.
I support Bay Futures fundraising campaign completely, Kilbourn said. Its great to see people from all walks of life working together to make Bay County better. Its also great to hear we have already reached 2/3 of our fundraising goal.
Mark Litten, with over 25 years of successful economic development experience, immediately embarked on creating a strategic plan to retain and attract industry to Bay County when he was hired as Bay Futures new president and CEO in January 2015.
The public and private sectors are buying into Bay Futures campaign because we now have a strategic action plan, with measurable goals, that Bay Future can be held accountable to, Litten said.
These goals include but are not limited to:
Increase the shovel-ready sites/acres in Bay County and targeted available building space/square feet.
Retain and expand the existing business base in greater Bay County.
Establish and reinforce the image of Bay County as a pro-growth location within the Great Lakes Bay Region.
Said Kilbourn, Its job is to help the entire county by helping to save current jobs in manufacturing and by helping to create new jobs by doing what it can to help find the right businesses to move into Bay County and hire people in good-paying jobs. These are not the folks that will bring a Taco Bell into your area. Bay Future wants to bring in industry with a working wage over $19 an hour, a living wage so folks can buy a home and raise a family.
Targeted industries, Litten said, are agribusiness, advanced manufacturing, logistics/warehousing/distribution, and IT data centers.
Were extremely pleased at the support we are receiving and people who are investing in economic growth in Bay County, he said.
Tim Rokosz, Bay Future Inc. board chair and controller for Michigan Sugar Co., said, As Bay Countys largest manufacturer, growth is important to us at Michigan Sugar, in more ways than one Michigan Sugar has been here for more than 100 years and we plan to be here for the next 100 years. This plan and this campaign is a step in making that statement a reality.
Litten said location, proximity to outstanding infrastructure (water, rail, I-75) and quality of life amenities make Bay County a great place to do business. While the City of Auburn may not have the land on which a manufacturing facility could be built, Bay Futures strategic initiatives can benefit Auburn, Kilbourn said. We can enjoy the benefits of decreased unemployment in the county and see new residents as people move to Auburn because they have a new job. They may want to start new businesses in Auburn, attend our churches, eat at our restaurants and shop at our stores.
At the kick-off event, Litten praised campaign leadership and those in attendance for supporting the strategic action plan.
We would be unable to implement this plan without the public and private sectors generous support, Litten noted. We aim to work with community leaders on the successful implementation of this plan over the next three years. The staff and board of Bay Future are committed to seeing Bay County grow its business base, job base, and wage base, with living wage opportunities for our residents.
A rising tide lifts all boats and we aim to lift high, Kilbourn, a Bay Future board member, said.
Established in 2004, Bay Future Inc. is a public-private alliance of government, business and other organizations that support economic growth in Bay County and the Great Lakes Bay Region.
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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) Experts back from assessing damage at the museum in Palmyra offered grim new details Saturday about the extent of the destruction caused by the Islamic State group during the 10 months it ruled the ancient town.
The museum was trashed and some of its best-known artifacts and statues were smashed by the extremists, who cut off the heads and hands of statues and demolished others before being driven out last month.
Bartosz Markowski, from the Polish Archaeological Center at the University of Warsaw, told The Associated Press in Damascus that most of the 200 objects which were exhibited on the ground floor were destroyed, many of them apparently with hard tools like hammers. Many artifacts have been stolen, he added.
He and his colleagues were the first specialists to visit Palmyra after it was taken over by the Syrian army, and spent a week collecting fragments of sculptures and preparing them for transportation to Damascus for conservation in a rescue mission.
"We collected everything we could. The fragments were spread around the whole museum among broken glass and furniture ... It is a catastrophe," he said.
Among the best-known statues destroyed was the famous Lion of Allat, which previously greeted visitors and tourists outside the Palmyra museum. The statue, which used to adorn the temple of Allat, a pre-Islamic goddess in Palmyra, was defaced by IS militants and knocked over by bulldozers.
On a visit to Palmyra on Thursday, The Associated Press saw the statue lying outside the building with its face cut and some of its broken pieces lying next to it.
"Fortunately we collected most of the fragments and I hope it can be reconstructed very soon," said Markowski, who in 2005 took part in a Polish archaeological mission that did renovation work on the statue.
His colleague, Robert Zukowski, said the lion should be the first thing restored and "it should stay in Palmyra as a sign of resistance against the barbarians. "
Long-time Midland resident, and former Dow High teacher, Cheryl Weeks-Rosten is director of an elementary school in Quiche, 150 miles north of Guatemala City. Weeks-Rosten is in the education division of Dallas-based HELPS International, established in the 1980s to provide medical help during the three decades-long Guatemalan Civil War. Today HELPS assistance goes beyond medical to include installation of vented stoves, an agronomy program and education.
Weeks-Rosten also coordinates a scholarship program for children who deserve to go on to high school, which requires leaving the community to attend a boarding school. Weeks-Rosten has been involved in the medical and stove teams but has found her passion helping educate the children. This year she will be making her 50th trip to Guatemala.
Twice a year in-service workshops are conducted for the benefit of the teachers, and arranged by Weeks-Rosten. Consultants from the U.S. are invited to conduct these, and the most recent one, in January 2016, was funded in part by the American Chemical Society (ACS), along with local contributions. Dr. Gina Malczewski, retired Dow Corning biochemist, applied for the ACS grant and spent the previous six months planning her week in Guatemala. With the help of Marlene Saotome, Malczewski developed and wrote 27 different experiments and prepared kits containing the needed materials for each one. Saotomes knowledge of Spanish was invaluable in translating ahead of time, and interpreting during the actual week in Santa Avelina. Saotome and Malczewski are both veterans of the HELPS stove team effort.
Two other young people, interpretation and translation majors at San Carlos University, also took turns helping with in-class Spanish and being hands-on helpers. The team of seven accomplished very practical tasks, such as putting up a new weather station, and taking photos of all 160 students. Weeks-Rosten, along with the faculty, also worked on editing books the teachers have written in Ixil, one of 22 Guatemalan languages. Very little written material is available in Ixil, and these books (as well as many they have authored previously) are offered free on the internet.
Educator training is minimal in Guatemala, so teaching the teachers focuses on both methods and content. Since the goal of the science workshop was for them to be confident in duplicating the experiments with 20 children in a classroom, teachers (including those invited from other nearby schools) were arranged in groups of four or five. The hands-on approach, using hot plates, balances, safety glasses, beakers and other equipment was a new experience for them as some had never held a thermometer.
Anything that had to do with water seemed especially fascinating, but the catalogue of experiments included experience with mixtures, separations, chemical and physical reactions, air pressure, density, and light phenomena. Use of the scientific method was stressed throughout the workshop, and feedback was very positive.
Many villages in Central America offer public education only through sixth grade. In Santa Avelina, students may attend through 9th grade. Not only do American consultants offer practical assistance, but they come away grateful for their own educational experiences. The next HELPS in-service (focused on writing) will be the week of the July 4. Anyone interested in knowing more about the HELPS International education division should take a look at: www.helpsinternational.org or contact cwrosten@gmail.com.
Dr. Robert Townsend has decided to run to represent the residents of the 97th House district as a Democrat.
Incumbent Joel Johnson, R-Clare, is term limited and cant seek reelection for the district that covers Arenac, Gladwin, Clare counties along with the eastern portion of Osceola County.
I am not a politician. I am a working physician. I have real life experiences building a small business, Townsend said. Ive worked with public defenders and heard their frustrations about the lack of funding for trials; Ive worked with pain patients and insurance companies.
Townsend grew up in Gobles, a small town of about 2000 near Kalamazoo and graduated from Gobles High School in 1980, according to a press release. His father and stepfathers were role models and taught him the lessons of life. Growing up he was active in sports, hunting, fishing and ran a lawn service, which he said seemed to mow half the lawns in Gobles.
After high school, Townsend attended Michigan State University and participated in Army ROTC, earning a commission in the medical service corps upon graduation. It was at MSU where he met his future wife, nursing student Lori Haring.
Upon graduation from MSU, Townsend attended medical school in Florida, completed his residency in internal medicine and entered practice in South Carolina. He and Lori returned to Michigan in 2005 where he founded Denali Healthcare and has been working with pain and addiction patients since 2010.
I have real life experience I can bring to the House. My concentration is not going to be on getting elected next, but what I want to accomplish as long as you want to keep me in Lansing. Then I plan on going home. Being a doctor and helping people is what defines me, not politics, Townsend said.
Townsend would like to work across the aisle to pass legislation.
I am strongly opposed to the constant block voting we see if the Democrats vote for it, the Republicans vote against it, he said. This is not how things are accomplished. I prefer to work with people to get good legislation passed, and I have experience working across party lines as part of my advocacy for patients in Lansing. I understand the concept of living to a budget, of building a business from scratch, and I understand responsibility.
For more information on Townsends campaign, visit RobertTownsendfor97.com
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AKAROA, New Zealand (AP) The wedding rings were made of pasta, the ceremony was held on a pirate boat, and when it came time for the kiss, the bride and groom slurped up either end of a noodle until their lips met.
New Zealand on Saturday hosted the world's first Pastafarian wedding, conducted by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The group, which began in the U.S. as a protest against religion encroaching into public schools, has gained legitimacy in New Zealand, where authorities recently decided it can officiate weddings.
Saturday's ceremony was all about having fun. The guests came dressed as pirates and shouted plenty of hearty "Aaarrrhs." The groom, Toby Ricketts, vowed to always add salt before boiling his pasta, while bride Marianna Fenn donned a colander on her head.
The church claims that global warming is caused by pirates vanishing from the high seas, and that there is a beer volcano in heaven.
"The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. We know that," said marriage celebrant Karen Martyn, aka the Ministeroni. "We weren't around then and we didn't see it, but no other religion was around to see it either, and our deity is as plausible as any other."
The church has been battling to gain legal recognition around the world, with mixed success. It was formed in 2005 as a way to poke fun at efforts in Kansas public schools to teach not only evolution, but also "intelligent design" the idea that the universe must have had a creator.
Church founder Bobby Henderson said in an email that he thought it was odd that most weddings still have such an entanglement between religion and government.
"It's sad that so many people feel pressured to do the traditional Christian wedding even when they don't relate to much of the religion," he said. "If people can find some happiness in having Pastafarian weddings, that's great, and I hope no one gives them any flack about it."
Ricketts, 35, a voiceover artist, and Fenn, 33, a lawyer and photographer, said they've been a couple for four years but decided just three weeks ago to get married, after another Pastafarian couple's plans to be first to wed fell through.
Ricketts said he found out about the church because he's been making a documentary about why religions don't pay taxes.
Fenn said she grew up on a small New Zealand island where people had alternative ideas about how to lead their lives.
"I would never have agreed to a conventional marriage, but the idea of this was too good to pass up," Fenn said. "And it's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate my relationship with Toby, but in a way that I felt comfortable with."
The wedding feast was an all-pasta affair, while the wedding cake was topped with an image of his noodliness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Martyn said she hoped people could find happiness in eating, drinking, being with friends and being kindhearted.
"That be what we're all about," she said.
Permitted to discriminate
To the editor:
After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage on June 26, 2015 here in Michigan, I would assume that same-sex couples would have the same rights as heterosexual couples. For the most part same-sex couples do, except when it comes to adopting children through Michigan foster care system. In Michigan there are approximately 13,000 children in foster care. Of those children, nearly 3,000 are available for adoption.
In 2015, Gov. Rick Snyder signed the controversial legislation, Religious Freedom Restoration Act for Adoption, allowing faith-based adoption agencies that contract with the state to deny services to prospective parents on religious grounds. I believe that this legislation targets same-sex couples, denying them the right to adopt from the Michigan foster care system.
Same-sex couples are not exempt from paying Michigan state taxes, so why are the faith-based adoption agencies, which are funded by the state, permitted to discriminate against tax paying parents who are same-sex couples? I understand that these adoption agencies are supposed to refer same-sex couples to other agencies that will allow them to adopt, but currently there are very few in Michigan.
Call your senators to stop wasting your tax dollars; tell them to let families adopt children out of the foster care system and take the burden of raising these kids off the state. Every child deserves a loving family.
SUSAN WILLIAMS
Midland
Incidence of sexual assault on campus has risen to such rates that the problem has become a real epidemic. Recent findings. however, suggest that high school health class may hold the key to reducing these sex-related attacks on school grounds.
The Washington Post reports that both US President Barack Obama and US Vice President Joe Biden cited that one in every five women in the U.S. will experience being assaulted during college. Vice President Biden recently enlisted Lady Gaga into his crusade against sexual offense and violence in the country.
According to Teen Vogue the crusade, the "It's On Us" campaign, calls on all men and women in the US to intervene in situations of sexual assault. Through "It's On Us," both schools and law enforcements are also asked to take a bigger role in dealing with cases of rape and sexual assault on campus. Enforcing the proper disciplinary action against perpetrators, providing victims safe avenues through which to see help or report their attack, development of support groups and propagating information on student rights are among the tasks that schools and the authorities can take on.
Business Insider reports that schools can take a key preventive measure that might address the rising statistics of sexual assault on campus. Developing a health class program, which would effectively equip students with an understanding of consent, violation of rights and sexual assault may reduce current statistics. Furthermore, such a program will not only address the problem of sex-related attacks on campus, but also with teenage pregnancy.
. @ASSacappella is ready to take a stand against sexual assault at the #whitehouse. Join https://t.co/S13gtmAWbF. pic.twitter.com/7f9h9JvWft It's On Us (@ItsOnUs) April 14, 2016
Findings by Guttmacher Institute suggest that an informative reproductive health program in high school will create an awareness and a better sense of responsibility among teenagers of their body, their interactions and their relationships. The "no means no and yes means yes" training is better begun long before a student steps onto a college campus. Students develop the street smarts, so to speak, on the issue of sexual consent, sexual responsibility, sexual assault and sexual violation by beginning this conversation during high school health class.
Some people really know how to turn a negative event into a positive one. A heroic mother in San Antonio Texas was able to donate a record-breaking 15.5 gallons of breast milk to a hospital after delivering her premature baby in January.
Micah Duncan's baby, Cash, was born three months early and all she could do was pump breast milk in order to help other babies, ABC News reports. "I couldn't touch him, I couldn't hold him," the mother told ABC News. "So I decided I was going to pump my heart out. It was all I could do."
Mom's 15-gallon breast milk donation is record for hospital. "It feels amazing just to help" https://t.co/reYTUJWXtk pic.twitter.com/jkT3saTIXM ABC News (@ABC) April 14, 2016
Instead of allowing this terrible situation to get her down, Duncan decided to help other babies by donating her unused breast milk. The mother started to pump breast milk every few hours over a period of three months and stored the bottles in the freezer. The total count was 15.5 gallons of breast milk which is a record amount in Texas.
Fortunately, baby Cash has been discharged from The Children's Hospital of San Antonio. The doctors told Duncan that her baby needs to be bottle fed.
Mom donates 15-gallons of breast milk after son is born premature. "It was all I could do." https://t.co/wcRwsxySWu pic.twitter.com/fDjH3rwonU Good Morning America (@GMA) April 14, 2016
However, baby Cash eventually became healthy and strong enough to breastfeed. "I didn't think it would ever happen," Duncan explained. "And then, little by little, it did happen."
Breast milk provides many benefits for babies. It has plenty of vitamins, protein and essential fats for the baby's growth and development, WebMD shares. Breast milk is also rich in antibodies that can help prevent infections and different kinds of diseases. It can also help decrease a baby's risk for asthma, allergy, diarrhea and respiratory disorders.
The Zika virus outbreak has spread across many countries in Latin America including Brazil and Colombia. Unfortunately, many experts believe that the spread of Zika virus in the U.S. this summer seems inevitable as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also commented that the number of states that have the presence of Zika-carrying mosquitoes was bigger than initial estimates, NPR reports. The best way to predict how big the Zika virus outbreak will be this summer is to compare Zika's spread and behavior in other countries with its spread and behavior in the U.S.
The biggest reason for this contagiousness is the number of mosquitoes that can pass the Zika virus from one person to another. Effective mosquito control in the U.S. can lower the Zika virus' level of contagiousness.
Here is @CDCgov today @WhiteHouse discussing what we know about the spread of #ZikaVirus: https://t.co/e9lY5ifqdK WH National Security (@NSC44) April 11, 2016
Scientists have studied how contagious Zika virus is in Colombia. They found out that a person infected with Zika can usually spread the virus to approximately four other people during the course of the outbreak.
This method of controlling the Zika virus outbreak in the U.S. might also be similar to how Dengue virus has been controlled in the country. Dengue infects millions of people in Western countries. However, there are only very small Dengue outbreaks in the U.S.
"It's true - periodically people come back to the states with diseases, like dengue. And periodically, we have a small outbreak," Dr. Scott Lillibridge told NPR. "So why worry about Zika?"
There are several ways to prevent Zika virus infection despite not having any available Zika vaccine. The CDC reports that wearing shirts with long sleeves, wearing pants, proper application of insect repellent, sleeping under a mosquito bed net and treating clothes with permethryn can help reduce a person's risk for Zika virus infection. Closing all doors and windows and making sure that there is no stagnant water around the house can also help prevent Zika virus spread.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wowed a lot of people when he explained about quantum computing. Trudeau showcased his experience as an educator prior to being elected as Canadian prime minister.
Growing Knowledge On Quantum Physics
In a video (see footage below), Trudeau was seen sharing his knowledge about the important but vital aspect of quantum physics before an audience at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo. He expressed in his speech that he devoted time to learn about the subject when he was still a professor.
"When we get to the media questions later I'm really hoping somebody asks me how quantum computing works because I was excited to deepen my knowledge this morning," he was quoted by 9 News as saying. A journalist indeed asked him the question during the Q & A segment.
Justin Trudeau Explains Quantum Computing
Instead of giving his general knowledge on the subject, 9 News said Trudeau an impressive "near perfect" explanation about how cloud computing works. "The uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer. That's what's so exciting about quantum computing," Trudeau explained.
He also explained how binary systems of usual computers and that of the quantum differs. Trudeau's familiarity on the complex subject stunned reporters and employees during the press conference.
Professor Supports Justin Trudeau
Quantum Foundations professor Dr. Lucien Hardy, who personally heard the prime minister's explanation about quantum computing said that he was able to express great ideas about the subject. "[I've] never seen a prime minister attempt anything like that. He did a pretty good job of explaining it," Hardy told Daily Mail.
It was also highlighted in the same report that what happened during his latest appearance only shows that the Canadian Prime Minister is more than just a pretty face. Aside from showcasing his great knowledge about physics, the same report said that Trudeau also announced during the event that the government will invest $50 million to the institute in a span of five years.
Patna: A 5.1 intensity quake shook Bihar once again on Monday evening keeping the residents on their toes for the third consecutive day as number of casualties in the state continued to rise with the latest official number of deaths standing at 57.
Earlier a minor quake was felt in the state capital at around 6:00 am though most people did not feel it. However, twelve hours later at 6:05 pm, another aftershock measured 5.1 on the Richter scale sent people panicking while forcing them to rush to open spaces to avoid being hurt by falling debris.
The latest casualty of the deadly quake was a five-year old girl from Phulwarisharif who succumbed to her injuries at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on Monday. She had received serious head injuries after the ceiling of her home collapsed on Sunday.
On Monday, 30 victims of the earthquake from various parts of the state were brought to the PMCH out of which three remain in critical condition, hospital Deputy Superintendent Dr. Sudhanshu Singh said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held yet another meeting of top officials to review relief and rehabilitation process of the victims.
Talking to the reporters, Kumar announced compensation for Nepalese citizens who died in the earthquake in Bihar and Biharis who perished in Nepal.
"Relief and rehabilitation work is going on at full speed and district officials have been directed to identify all those houses and other buildings that have suffered structural damages so as to avoid further injuries," the Chief Minister said.
Patna Meteorological Department Director A. K. Sen said the worst was over and though the state could still experience some aftershocks, they won't be powerful enough to cause any substantial damage.
"The first 48 hours after a major quake, like the one in Nepal, is the most crucial period in terms of aftershocks. After that, it can be safely said that the worst is now over. There may be more aftershocks in the next couple of days but most people would not be able to feel them," Sen said.
Meanwhile, a candle-light vigil was taken out by the Nepalese community in Patna in remembrance of those who died in the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal last Saturday killing more than 4,000 people.
A team of doctors and para-medicals constituted by the state government left for Nepal from Raj Bhawan in Patna on Monday to assist the quake victims.
Patna: Volunteers worked round the clock at the Sri Krishna Memorial Hall in Patna on Tuesday to prepare relief package for the surviving victims of the Nepal earthquake where a large number of people are living in makeshift camps for the last three days amidst very difficult conditions.
The packet consists of two kilograms of 'chura' (flattened rice), sugar, salt, Brittania biscuits, milk powder by Sudha Dairy and a working flash light, officials said adding the goal was to prepare at least 10,000 packets each day for the next 2-days.
Disaster Management ADM Shivshankar Mishra leading the relief work said that all the edible items had been ensured for quality and were ready to be dispatched to Kathmandu and other quake-affected areas as soon as the government confirms the mode of transportation.
Meanwhile, the state government flagged off 30 buses to Nepal to bring back injured Indians home. This was on top of 18 buses that were dispatched alongside ambulances and team of doctors on Monday, officials said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who left for Raxaul this afternoon to survey the relief camp, said that the government will give compensation to Nepalese citizens who died in earthquake while visiting their relatives in Bihar.
Former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi also met with quake victims at a Purnia hospital on Tuesday.
Patna: After experiencing what could easily be the most harrowing time of their lives, 30 people including women and children arrived at Patna Junction on Tuesday after making a safe escape from the neighboring country of Nepal where a 7.9 magnitude earthquake last Saturday killed more than 4,000 people while injuring thousands others.
Coming out of Delhi-Islampur Magadh Express at 2:55 pm on Platform # 1 of Patna Junction, the thirty passengers who were evacuated from Nepal on Monday and brought to Delhi, gave detailed account of their attempt to survive when the quake hit Kathmandu and its neighboring areas last Saturday.
"We kept feeling tremors every ten minutes or so. At times they were so intense that we thought we would not come out alive from it. All of us ran out of a shop that was trembling badly and came out in open where thousands of people had already gathered. Some of the buildings collapsed right in front of our eyes burying people underneath the falling debris," said a youth from Chhapra.
Later, all 30 arrived at the bus stand from where they left for their respective home towns of Chhapra, Raxaul, and Siwan.
Meanwhile, attempts to evacuate other Indians stranded in Nepal were underway. The state government has dispatched ten buses, along with medical help, to bring back Biharis and other Indians out from the danger zone to safety, a senior official said.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, seen at a campaign event at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York, on April 12.
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The text of Riversides Measure A, a June 7 ballot initiative that would create a city prosecutors office, isnt entirely clear on how the city attorneys office would be affected.
Nor does it describe the expected impact on the Riverside County District Attorneys office, which now handles misdemeanor crimes the measure would transfer to city lawyers.
The contradictory political rhetoric circulating in the city, including pro and con Facebook pages, hardly helps sort out the matter.
Measure A would change the city charter to give the city attorney power to prosecute misdemeanors such as assault, prostitution, commercial burglary, animal cruelty, graffiti, child abuse and domestic violence, which are now overseen by the district attorney.
Around the state, 12 cities have city prosecutors, including Anaheim, Burbank, Long Beach and San Diego. Some gained that power through an agreement with their countys district attorney, but Riverside city and county officials gave up on that idea when they couldnt agree on terms.
A lawsuit to block the measure from the ballot resulted in the city making minor changes to the initiatives title and text. City officials appeal of the ruling, which also found that they failed to follow procedures in placing the measure on the ballot, was denied Tuesday, April 12.
Riverside City Attorney Gary Geuss, who proposed Measure A to address the City Councils concern about quality of life crimes, said that if it passes he would hire 12 more attorneys and five support employees, including a victim services advocate. They would handle about 5,000 to 6,000 cases a year at an estimated annual cost of $2.23 million.
Opponents including Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and former DA Grover Trask have said they believe it would cost Riverside significantly more to prosecute those cases possibly as much as $12 million. But Geuss countered that Anaheim, which is slightly bigger than Riverside, spends about $2.3 million a year on a 14-member staff that handles more than 8,800 cases.
Hestrin said that, if voters approve Measure A, he would reassign his attorneys responsible for Riverside misdemeanors, but beyond that its unclear how his office might be affected.
I assume our budget would be reduced, but its premature to discuss that, Hestrin said.
Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, whose district includes about two-thirds of the city, said shifting cases to the city wouldnt necessarily mean cuts to Hestrins funding, but We may not have to fund additional growth in his budget.
BETTER RESULTS?
How the measure would affect misdemeanor cases in Riverside is also unclear and disputed.
Some residents have questioned the need for the measure, arguing that the city attorney can already prosecute misdemeanors.
Thats only true if the crimes are violations spelled out in the citys municipal code, Geuss said. That includes offenses such as panhandling, illegal possession of a shopping cart and having an open container of alcohol.
The idea behind adding more crimes to the city attorneys jurisdiction is You need the teeth in a penal code violation to try to dispose of cases before they actually are filed, he said.
If someones caught tagging, the citys ability to file charges provides leverage to ask for restitution or some other alternative penalty, Geuss said.
With cases such as prostitution at massage parlors or lewd conduct in a public park, he said the district attorneys office sometimes reduces charges or doesnt file them because they dont have the resources to do that follow-through. A city prosecutor would, Geuss said.
Hestrin disputed the idea that Geuss would get better results on crime and added that his office is about as aggressive as you can get on these livability crimes. Hestrins attorneys file about 90 percent of misdemeanor cases forwarded by Riverside police, compared to a statewide average of 50 to 60 percent, he said.
DISPUTED FACTS
Others have worried the city would misuse the power to prosecute minor crimes to issue citations and fines to plump up city coffers.
As resident Gurumantra Khalsa wrote on Facebook, This sounds like another red light camera scam to squeeze money out of a community that can least afford it.
Geuss said that, in the states other 12 cities that prosecute misdemeanors, he hasnt heard of a case in which the criminal justice system was used to raise revenue.
You have your higher duty, your higher responsibility as a prosecutor than you do as an individual working for the (city) council, he said.
But opponents question whether the city could competently handle criminal misdemeanors. Trask, the former DA, said that since Geuss became city attorney about a year ago, the city dismissed 85 percent of the municipal code misdemeanor cases it filed.
Why do they want more when they cant even (handle) what theyre doing? Trask said.
Geuss said that statistic, which has been widely cited by Measure A foes, is inaccurate. Of the 322 cases on a list used by opponents, 170 were filed by his office, Geuss said. Others were filed by Riverside police, some were for crimes committed in other cities and a handful had been filed by Hestrins office.
Of the 170 cases he handled, 104 were dismissed because the defendant pleaded guilty or also was being prosecuted for more serious charges, he said. The remaining 66 cases were reduced to an infraction or dismissed, Geuss said.
That 66 cases is a big difference from the 322 cases opponents suggest he dismissed, Geuss said, adding that he believes their arguments are baseless and largely political.
It has nothing to do with whether a city prosecutor is a good idea or a bad idea.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9461 or arobinson@pressenterprise.com
I
t was during a summer trip to a Northern California Native American reservation that Santiago High School junior Maddie Smitley became inspired to design an elaborate headdress.
That design, titled Piloqutinnguaq, won the national Scholastic Art and Writing Gold Medal in Fashion and Smitley will be traveling to New York for the awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in June. Another piece she created, a sculpture of a head constructed from paper clips, won a regional award.
Its so crazy to have won this award, Maddie said as she fluffed up a white lace dress she designed. Its a really big deal.
Design and fashion have been in her life since she was a young girl; she started her own company, Cutie Pie Aprons when she was 10 years old.
They were three-tiered 50s inspired retro-style aprons, she said.
With five sewing machines at home, Maddie is typically working on something at any given time. Her top choice of clothing to design and sew are ball gowns.
My favorite designer is Alexander McQueen because his style is very avant-garde and he creates beautiful works of art portrayed through clothing, Maddie said.
And although she has progressed from making aprons which she still makes and sells on her online shop via Etsy several gowns now round out her collections, including lacy creations and a dress with a 10-foot train.
One dress is currently on display at the Corona Public Library.
Ive been to fashion shows at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and her stuff is right up there, and shes only 16, Carlotta Maggi, art instructor and fashion director at Santiago High School said. I mean, the headdress will tour the country for two years and will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The headdress is an intricate combination of decorative twigs, pine cones, wax thread, leather and turquoise beads. When worn, the whimsical piece resembles long, wavy tresses blowing in the wind.
I was totally inspired during our trip to the Smith River (in Northern California), Maddie said. We dont have our phones, its super peaceful and we listen to storytelling from tribal members.
The natural elements, along with the time to reflect and take in the trees, water and sky around her were a big influence on the headdress, which proved a little tricky to construct.
Even still, she did so in just three days.
It was both hard and fun to make, Maddie said. I love to challenge myself by working with new objects and figuring out how to mold those elements to form one consecutive piece.
She also designed a Native American-inspired outfit to be worn with the headdress, including a skirt, top, neck piece, and leather knife sheath. She said the components were difficult to make, as every aspect was handmade.
Through it all, Maddie remains humble and said she is excited and honored to have achieved an award for her hard work and passion for art and design.
You hear about the band or choir going to Carnegie Hall, Maddie said. Art isnt a huge deal in the Western states, so its great to know I am able to do this.
Contact the writer: sschulte@pressenterprise.com, 951-368-9457
Riverside County sheriffs officials are looking for a 23-year-old Indio man who they say is wanted as a person of interest in another mans death and are asking for the publics help.
Abel Arellano is described by Sheriffs officials as a Hispanic male adult who is 5-feet-7-inches tall and who weighs 250 pounds. Arellano has black hair and brown eyes.
Sheriffs officials say Arellano is being sought in connection with an incident where one man died and another suffered injuries on Saturday morning, April 16.
Shortly before 5 a.m., deputies went to the 85-400 block of Middleton Street in Thermal after getting a report of an assault, according to a Riverside County Sheriffs news release.
When deputies went to the location, they were told that two people had been taken to John F. Kennedy Hospital in Indio by acquintances. The deputies then went to the hospital, according to the release.
One of the two men who had been admitted had died after medical intervention failed, the release says, but the other man was still being treated. The name of the man who had died was being withheld until his family members could be notified.
The Sheriffs Thermal station and Central Homicide Unit are now investigating.
Sheriffs officials ask that anyone with information on what happened, or about Arellanos whereabouts, call Investigator Martin Alfaro of the Sheriffs Central Homicide Unit at 760-393-3528, or Investigator Damen Butvidas of the Sheriffs Thermal station at 760-863-8990.
Contact the writer: agroves@pressenterprise.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter.
Yesterday, you all positively frothed about Greg Peck, Australias premier and possibly only professional Jarrod Toadfish Rebecchi impersonator, who will being a touch of 90s Neighbours magic to your next function for a very reasonable price.
Greg comes with his own Hawaiian shirt and pony tail, and will regale you and your friends with with all the goss as he dishes the dirt on the citizens of Ramsay Street, circa 1995.
Weve since caught up with the Brisbane native to find out what it takes to pull off a good impression of such an icon (if indeed such a thing is possible), and how much a night with Toadie will set you back. Heres what he had to say:
PTV: What inspired your love of Toadie?
GP: The inspiration came when I stumbled upon the stunning picture of young Jarrod Rebecchi that is displayed on my Gumtree ad. I connected with the picture immediately because it reminded me of the bumbling teenager that stole the hearts of every Neighbours fan in the 90s, not the suave and astute lawyer-type we associate with contemporary Toadfish.
PTV: What would you say is key to a good Toadie impression?
GP: Well thats an interesting question, considering that I dont really class this as a good impression. I certainly think a likeness in appearance is necessary; a ponytail doesnt hurt, nor does a Hawaiian shirt. A jovial attitude is also a given. I am also interested to know if there are any other Jarrod Rebecchi impersonators out there imitating the man at different times of his life. I definitely think there is a market for that.
PTV: Have you had many Toadie gigs thus far?
GP: The Toadie ad has been up for about 3 months now and while I have received a handful of phone calls and messages, I havent managed to book any gigs. The same goes for my others ads, which offer my services as a fortune teller and card reader, matchmaker, choreographer and private investigator. In fact I have had to take down my original ad for private investigations (first posted 2013) due to a lack of interest. I guess people are looking for professional assistance in their Gumtree services for hire searches, which is a real shame because I truly believe that a well-trained jack of all trades is capable of performing the same services for a lesser fee.
PTV: How much for the full Toadfish experience?
GP: Well my rates are open to negotiation depending on the time, location and duration of the function. Im a pretty diplomatic fella, so I would be happy to do a function for a call out fee of around $50, I would also encourage the client to make a small donation to charity, but I guess thats at their own discretion.
PTV: Whats your all-time favourite all-time Toadfish moment?
GP: Its hard to just pick one. The Toadfish has been such a lively character. I guess what stands out to me are what I consider Toadies two worst moments; the death of his long-time love Dee and the jumping castle incident that has left him paralysed. Seeing him plot about in a wheelchair is just heartbreaking. It was such a cruel plot twist by the Neighbours writers and I still havent forgiven them for it.
#WheresDee #NeverForget
PTV: Do you do any other Aussie icons apart from Toadfish?
GP: Nah, I dont impersonate any other Aussie or international icons. I have been working on a John Lennon imitation but I cant manage to perfect the Liverpudlian drawl.
You can check out the Brisbane-based Gregs Gumtree listing here to see if his services are right for you.
Photo: Gumtree.
UPDATE: A parent has confessed to shooting the girl
Multiple media sources are reporting that a 4-year-old girl was shot and killed by her 5-year-old sibling after he picked up a gun belonging to their mother's boyfriend.
NBC10.com reports that the shooting occurred in a home in the Upper Kensington neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia shortly before 2:30 p.m. on Saturday:
Police determined the 4-year-old girl's 5-year-old sibling grabbed a gun belonging to their mother's boyfriend and the weapon went off. The girl was struck once in the face and died from her injuries.
According to CBS Philly, the boyfriend fled the scene after the shooting. Police are searching for him but have not revealed his identity.
This story has been updated to correct a typo.
As the Pennsylvania primary nears, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is set to host a rally at Penn State this week.
He will speak at the rally 7 p.m. Tuesday at Penn State's Recreational Hall. Doors will open at 4 p.m. and tickets can be obtained by visiting the event's website.
Sanders recently spoke in Philadelphia after winning the Wisconsin Primary April 5. He addressed topics such as free-college-for-all and rethinking the war on drugs, staple issues of his campaign and issues he is said to address Tuesday. He is also slated to address getting big money out of politics, combating climate change and ensuring universal health care.
Though Sanders has performed well in primary elections of late, he is still trailing Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Whether Sanders can continue to chip into Clinton's lead will be greatly influenced by Pennsylvania's primary on April 26.
Pennsylvania holds 210 delegates, third most of the remaining competitions before July's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Those who plan to attend Tuesday's rally are asked not to bring bags, weapons, signs, sharp objects, chairs or banners for security reasons. For more information about event visit the event's website.
VOTERS GRAPHIC.jpg
Republicans and Democrats across the state will head to the polls next week to select their party's nominees, not only for president but for Congressional and state legislative offices.
The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania teamed with PennLive to gather information from candidates for office across the state. On Monday, whether you live in Harrisburg, Lancaster, Scranton or Pittsburgh, we'll publish a Voters Guide that will tell you who is running for office from your area, what their background is, and what they have to say about some of the issues in their race.
Not sure what state legislative or Congressional district you live in, or where you should go to vote? We can help you with that too.
Check PennLive Monday morning for your complete voters guide.
ulmschneider cropped.png
Veteran firefighter John Ulmschneider, 39, was shot and killed while responding to a call in Temple Hills, Maryland.
(Associated Press.)
The man authorities say shot two Maryland firefighters - one of them fatally - has been released from prison without charges.
He was released Saturday after the fatal shooting that occurred Friday night in the Temple Hills suburbs of Washington, D.C., where firefighters were called to a home for medical reasons, CNN is reporting.
Authorities say firefighters knocked on the door, and when they received no answer, they forced their way in to render care. As the firefighters forced their way in, the man inside fired several rounds, striking two firefighters and his brother.
Veteran firefighter John Ulmschneider, 39, was killed, and 19-year-old volunteer Kevin Swain was injured, but is expected to survive.
The man's brother, who made the 911 call, was shot, as well, and suffered non-life threatening injuries.
The shooter's name has not been released.
The Washington Post is reporting he is 61, and his brother made the 911 call, saying he had suffered a blackout or seizure.
NBC 4 in Washington reports that Ulmschneider was a 13-year veteran of the Prince County Fire Department.
Aerial photos
This view of Harrisburg shows the Capitol Complex. Aerial photos, October 23, 2015. Dan Gleiter, PennLive.com
(Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.)
I was dismayed to read the oped by Samuel Pond ("Here's why a workers' comp 'reform' bill is just an attack on workers' rights," March 30 PennLive) that mischaracterizes House Bill 1800 as an "attack on workers' rights." On the contrary, as a regular participant in the workers' compensation system, I see the bill as a belated correction to an area that is filled with uncertainty for injured workers, providers, and payers.
When an employee is injured on the job, the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act provides for coverage of "reasonable and necessary" medical treatment. Employers and their insurers pay for most treatment without complication. However, when there are disputes, too often the vague statutory language creates protracted litigation and inconsistent outcomes.
House Bill 1800 would establish a more efficient system for resolving disputes by ensuring decisions are based on nationally-recognized, evidence-based guidelines. Most states utilize this approach, and the experience has generally been that it provides a more streamlined and predictable system for approving treatment, with benefits to the patient and provider as well as to the employer. These guidelines do not eliminate flexibility. When treatment falls outside the scope of evidence-based medicine, guidelines lay out how a provider can demonstrate why a particular course of treatment is reasonable and necessary in a particular case.
Most importantly, use of guidelines has been shown to improve an injured worker's return to health, as confirmed by a recent study conducted with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. House Bill 1800 is supported by other healthcare providers, including the Pennsylvania Occupational and Environmental Medical Society, and ought to be supported by all stakeholders.
JOSHUA L. SCHWARTZ, Lancaster
The writer is an attorney at Barley Snyder in Lancaster.
Pennsylvania makes 24. By signing the legislation on Sunday, Gov. Tom Wolf put the commonwealth in the company of 23 other states plus the District of Columbia that have legalized marijuana for medical use.
Before a large celebratory crowd gathered in the Capitol Rotunda, Wolf put his name on a measure that undoubtedly will be one of the hallmarks of his administration and fulfill what has been a hard-fought and emotional goal of a group of ardent and indefatigable supporters.
Upon witnessing Wolf's signature on the bill, Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County - who was dubbed "Marijuana Mike" for his relentless push for this legislation - declared: "It's law."
The ceremony held on a Sunday afternoon drew hundreds of advocates that filled the Rotunda floor and staircase and spilled into the second floor balcony. The size of the crowd even appeared to shock Wolf judging by the look on his face as he made his way into the Rotunda from an adjacent hallway and craned his neck backward to see the people standing on the floor above.
"This is really a great day for Pennsylvania," Wolf said. "This is really a great day for all of us."
He said it shows that Republicans and Democrats "can work together" and that government can be responsive to people with a heartfelt cause.
Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, before removing a green bracelet given him three years ago by a mother of a sick child that he promised not to remove until the bill became law, said: "Marijuana as medicine is coming to Pennsylvania."
Reps. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, and Joe Petrarca, D-Westmoreland, along with the senators, also commended lawmakers for putting aside their partisan differences to get this issue done.
"It is among our proudest moments and it is our gift for generations to come," Leach said. "I can't help thinking this is what government is supposed to look like."
Like Leach with his bracelet, Folmer shared his own story of a good luck charm that he carried throughout the legislative process. It was former Lt. Gov. Ernie Kline's pocketwatch. Kline's daughter Monica gave it to him to inspire him to stay focused on the goal and not like partisan politics derail his quest for getting this legislation across the finish line. She said her father was regarded as having a knack to bring the right and left together and that was what Folmer needed to do with this issue.
Advocates Lolly Bentsch and Dana Ulrich also credited the advocates for doing their part.
"This whole process has been long and torturous and it seemed like it was just never going to end. And it was tear-filled and it was heartbreaking because we lost people along the way but we had each other," Bentsch said, as her voice cracked with emotion. "Had it not been such a long journey, had it not felt like torture at times, today wouldn't be nearly as special."
It is expected to take at least 18 months to get the program up and running and able to dispense medical marijuana to patients.
Getting to this point was a two-and-a-half year journey for adults and parents of children who see medicinal value in using marijuana to treat illnesses. With the help of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the Senate and House, they finally arrived at their long-awaited destination on Sunday.
With it becoming legal, those with any of the 17 qualifying medical conditions such as cancer, epilepsy, PTSD, assorted neurological and gastrointestinal disorders, autism, among others, will soon be able to buy various marijuana-derived medicines without fear of breaking the law.
It is done. Medical marijuana is now legal in Pa. @PennLive pic.twitter.com/7rWI4ncnUy Jan Murphy (@JanMurphy) April 17, 2016
.@GovernorTomWolf: this shows we (Rs and Ds) can get things done pic.twitter.com/lnig2P2WpE Jan Murphy (@JanMurphy) April 17, 2016
Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar's energy and industry minister, addresses journalists at the end of a summit in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday, April 17, 2016. Oil-rich nations at a Qatar summit failed to reach an agreement Sunday on a production freeze, saying officials needed "more time" to make the decision as Iran stayed home and vowed to keep pumping. (AP Photos/Jon Gambrell)
Mexico's finance minister and Pemex CEO bound to NY to meet investors
"They will take part in a roadshow with investors"
MEXICO CITY
Petroleumworld.com 04 18 2016
The chief executive of Petroleos Mexicanos and Mexico's finance minister will travel to New York early next week to meet with investors, two officials said on Friday.
The trip follows the announcement this week of measures by Mexico's federal government to improve the ailing finances at the state-owned oil company, which is widely known as Pemex, including a $4.2 billion liquidity injection.
"They will take part in a roadshow with investors," said one Mexican official, adding that Pemex CEO Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya and Finance Minister Luis Videgaray will be joined by Juan Pablo Newman, the oil company's chief financial officer.
Another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the meetings would take place and said they would be closed to reporters.
Pemex has faced two years of steep budget cuts as world crude prices plunged and its output has declined by over a third to an average of about 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from 3.4 million bpd in 2004.
New management installed in February, including Gonzalez, is reviewing the best way to cut costs but still invest in future developments.
Meanwhile, Pemex is conducting a major review of its financing plans, Newman said on Wednesday, as the company confronts a liquidity crunch that has forced it to cut investments and delay contractor payments.
AP/Jon Gambrell
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, center right, arrives at an oil-producers' meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday, April 17, 2016. Oil-producing countries are meeting in Qatar to discuss a possible freeze of production to counter low global prices, but Iran's last-minute decision to stay home could dilute the impact of any agreement.
LONDON
Petroleumworld.com 04 18 2016
Given the hype which has accompanied the run-up to an oil ministers' meeting in Doha on Sunday, there is a risk prices will fall afterwards it fails to reach an agreement or produces only a weak one.
But expectations for the meeting are already pretty low.
"We cannot know the outcome but if there is to be a production freeze, rather than a cut, the impact on physical oil supplies will be limited," according to the International Energy Agency ("Oil Market Report", IEA, Apr 14).
Given that almost no one expects ministers to agree on a cut, and a freeze would not remove any actual barrels from the market, the scope for disappointment is perhaps limited.
Some analysts argue prices could fall sharply if the meeting fails to produce a significant agreement because it will puncture the sentiment-driven positive momentum that has been driving prices higher.
In this view, ministers must deliver something significant or risk an abrupt deterioration in market sentiment and prices.
But it is also arguable that what has been driving prices higher over the last two months is not just sentiment or expectations about Doha but the prospect of real price-driven rebalancing in the oil market.
The IEA and Goldman Sachs have published commentaries this week entitled respectively "market balance draws near" and "rebalancing gathers pace".
If hedge funds and other market participants are focused on the price-driven reduction in supply and increase in demand, the lack of a substantial outcome from Doha might produce only a short-lived decline in prices.
At this point, no one really knows how the market will react to a weak deal.
THE PROBLEM OF OIL
"The problem of oil is that there is always too much or too little", Myron Watkins, professor of economics at New York University, wrote almost 80 years ago ("Oil: Stabilization or Conservation?" Watkins, 1939).
Extreme volatility is the defining characteristic of all commodity markets but none are more spectacular or have as much impact on the fate of economies and nations as swings in the price of oil.
"The basic feature of the petroleum industry ... is that it is not self-adjusting," according to economist Paul Frankel ("Essentials of Petroleum", Frankel, 1946).
The risk associated with finding oil underground; the high cost of exploration and drilling coupled with the low cost of production; high fixed costs in refining, transport and marketing; and a lack of responsiveness in both supply and demand to small changes in price in the short term combine to produce continuous crises, according to Frankel.
Not much has changed in the intervening decades. Watkins and Frankel would recognise the recent panic about peak oil, shale revolution and the subsequent slump in oil prices as another of the extreme cycles that have plagued the modern oil industry since its beginning in 1859.
PRODUCTION PLANNING
Frankel argued the recurrent crises made some sort of "planning" by major oil companies, governments, or both, necessary and inevitable.
The only way to tame violent price swings was to employ "eveners" or "adjusters", what would now be called "swing producers", willing and able to balance supply and demand by altering their own production.
"As there is always either too much or too little oil, the industry, not being self-adjusting, has an inherent tendency to extreme crises; this fact has called forth the ingenuity of planners within the trade. As no individual unit can evolve a rational production policy on its own, some sort of communal organization is almost inevitable," Frankel concluded.
The history of the oil industry is largely a history of attempts to stabilise production and prices each of which has ended in failure sooner or later.
Efforts have ranged from the Oil Creek Association founded in 1861, the Petroleum Producers Association of Pennsylvania (1869), Standard Oil (1870s-1910s), and the U.S. oil conservation movement (1910s-1930s), to the Achnacarry Agreement (1928), the Texas Railroad Commission (late 1940s-early 1970s) and OPEC (since 1982).
There is no reason to believe an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Doha would have any more enduring success.
PRICES OR STABILISATION
While Frankel was correct that the oil industry is not self-adjusting in the short term, in the longer term, the price mechanism, rather that stabilisation arrangements, has brought supply and demand back to balance.
It was high prices which solved the "problem" of peak oil in the mid-2000s, and it is low prices, not OPEC, which are now starting to cure the "problem" of excess oil production in the mid-2010s.
High prices did not lead to the creation of hydraulic fracturing technology but they did enable and finance its rapid scaling up across the oil industry after 2005.
High prices also encouraged much more efficient use of refined fuels in all forms of transport, such that oil consumption in the advanced economies fell almost continuously between 2005 and 2014.
By the middle of 2014, the rapid expansion in oil supplies and the curtailment of demand growth had pushed the oil market into surplus, and lower prices are now reversing some of the earlier trends.
Substantially lower prices are stimulating the fastest demand growth among the advanced economies for more than a decade and curbing production from shale and other higher-cost supplies.
THE ROAD TO DOHA
This background is worth recalling as OPEC and non-OPEC producers head to Qatar for talks about a "production freeze" on April 17.
"The pressing need now is to stabilise the market," according to the invitation letter sent out by Qatar's energy minister ("Qatar's oil-freeze letter to Norway reveals Doha deal logic", Bloomberg, Apr 14).
"This meeting has triggered a broad and intensive dialogue between oil producers out of the conviction that current oil prices are unsustainable," the minister explained.
"This has changed the sentiment of the oil market as the price of Brent oil has shown a positive trend, climbing up from its bottom of last February. It has put a floor under the oil price."
There is no doubt the discussions and the possibility of a deal has contributed to a sharp turn around in sentiment among hedge funds ("Hedge funds establish near-record bullish bet on rising oil prices" Reuters, Mar 30).
From a record bearish position in late 2015, hedge funds have amassed a near-record bullish one in the expectation that prices have bottomed out and are now on a sustained upswing.
The liquidation of previous short positions and accumulation of new long ones in the major crude oil futures contracts has in turn accelerated the rise in prices over the last two months.
If some of that shift in speculative positioning were to be reversed following the meeting, it could lead to a rapid and large drop in prices.
But there are also signs of a real change in both production and consumption in response to the sustained period of low prices.
U.S. crude oil output exhibits an accelerating decline while consumption of gasoline is growing strongly in major markets including the United States, China and India.
The market remains oversupplied and there is a large overhang of stocks inherited from 2014, 2015 and early 2016.
But production and consumption are now on trajectories which cannot be sustained in the medium term (just as they were before prices began to fall in mid-2014).
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," wrote Herbert Stein, former chief economist to U.S. President Richard Nixon ("What I think: essays on economics, politics and life", Stein, 1998).
Whatever the outcome from Doha, at some point prices must rise to restore balance to the oil market, so any pull-back might be short-lived.
No deal in Doha to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producer
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi (left), Iran oil minister Bijan Zanganeh (center), Russian oil minister Alexander Novak
DOHA
Petroleumworld.com 04 18 2016
A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell apart on Sunday after Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join in despite calls on Riyadh to save the agreement and help prop up crude prices.
The development will revive oil industry fears that major producers are embarking again on a battle for market share, especially after Riyadh threatened to raise output steeply if no freeze deal were reached.
Iran is also pledging to ramp up production following the lifting of Western sanctions in January, making a compromise with Riyadh almost impossible as the two fight proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.
Some 18 oil nations, including non-OPEC Russia, gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha for what was expected to be the rubber-stamping of a deal - in the making since February - to stabilize output at January levels until October 2016.
But OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia told participants it wanted all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to take part in the freeze, including Iran, which was absent from the talks.
Tehran had refused to stabilize production, seeking to regain market share post-sanctions.
After five hours of fierce debate about the wording of a communique - including between Saudi Arabia and Russia - delegates and ministers announced no deal had been reached.
"We concluded we all need time to consult further," Qatar's energy minister Mohammed al-Sada told reporters. Several OPEC sources said if Iran agreed to join the freeze at the next OPEC meeting on June 2, talks with non-OPEC producers could resume.
Russian oil minister Alexander Novak called the Saudi demand "unreasonable" and said he was disappointed as he had come to Doha under the impression that all sides would sign the deal instead of debating it.
Novak said Russia was not shutting the door on a deal but the government would not restrain output for now.
Russia is a key ally of Iran and has been defending Tehran's right to raise output post-sanctions while also supporting the Islamic Republic in many of its conflicts with Riyadh.
TOUGH SAUDI STANCE
The failure to reach a global deal could halt a recent recovery in oil prices.
"With no deal today, markets' confidence in OPEC's ability to achieve any sensible supply balancing act is likely to diminish and this is surely bearish for the oil markets, where prices had rallied partly on expectations of a deal," said Natixis oil analyst Abhishek Deshpande.
In December, OPEC failed to agree on output policy for the first time in years after Iran disagreed over a production ceiling proposed by Saudi Arabia, arguing again that it wanted to boost output post-sanctions.
"Without a deal, the likelihood of markets balancing is now pushed back to mid-2017. We will see a lot of speculators getting out next week," said Deshpande, who added that prices could fall close to $30 per barrel.
Brent oil LCOc1 has risen to nearly $45 a barrel, up 60 percent from January lows, on optimism that a deal would help ease the supply glut that has seen prices sink from levels as high as $115 hit in mid-2014.
Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects said oil prices could fall below $40 on Monday in a knee-jerk reaction.
"While today's lack of a freeze deal has no negative impact on balances - since Iran is really the only country likely to raise output substantially - it has a huge negative impact on sentiment especially as the deal had been hyped up so much," she said.
Gary Ross, the founder and executive chairman of New York-based consultancy PIRA, said the failure to reach a deal was negative but would not have a long-lasting impact.
"The market has recently moved up due to tightening balances. We see geopolitical risks to supply rising, we see U.S. production declining. In many respects, the rebalancing has already started," he said.
Saudi Arabia has taken a tough stance on Iran, the only major OPEC producer to refuse to participate in the freeze.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg that the kingdom could quickly raise production and would restrain its output only if Iran agreed to a freeze.
Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Saturday OPEC and non-OPEC should simply accept the reality of Iran's return to the oil market: "If Iran freezes its oil production ... it cannot benefit from the lifting of sanctions."
Man hurt in shooting
outside city hookah bar
A 23-year-old man was in critical condition after being shot multiple times early Saturday outside a North Philadelphia bar.
The shooting happened about 2 a.m. outside a hookah bar and lounge on the 2400 block of Germantown Avenue, police said.
The victim was shot multiple times in his chest and stomach area and was taken by police to Temple University Hospital, where he was in critical condition. No arrest had been made.
- Julie Shaw
Phila. officer suffers
minor injury in crash
A Philadelphia police officer was treated for minor injuries early Saturday after a crash with another driver in West Philadelphia, authorities said.
The accident occurred shortly before 2 a.m. at the intersection of 52nd Street and Wyalusing Avenue, police said.
The officer, who had been responding to a call for help from another officer, was treated at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and released. - Staff Reports
Fire rips through S. Jersey apartment complex
Firefighters in South Jersey battled a three-alarm blaze that ravaged an apartment complex in Camden County.
The fire broke out at about 8:50 p.m. Saturday at the Mansions Apartments in Pine Hill, said county spokesman Dan Keashen. One person had minor injuries that were not fire related.
In video posted to Twitter by an EMS responder at the scene, several units appeared to be destroyed. Firefighters had the blaze under control by 10:30 p.m.
- Sam Wood
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Whyte Bikes USA
Never seen a Whyte bicycle? Until recently, you probably would not know that Whyte Bikes existed unless you lived in the UK, where the marquis has a devoted following. If you live in North America, however, that is about to change. The brand, under the guidance of Whyte Bikes USA President Jason Faircloth, has entered the marketplace with a modest-sized consumer-direct retail business strategy. Faircloth, who originally worked as a bicycle designer and engineer for 16 years, has now immersed himself in retail sales - and for riders in the USA who are hungry for the long-front-center, slacked-out trailbike designs that have become the go-to for the UK's most elite bikehandlers - that should be a good thing. Whyte's range is small, consisting of two, 120-millimeter-travel 29er trailbikes, four 130-millimeter 27.5-inch-wheel trailbikes, and a pair of 160-millimeter enduro sleds. Faircloth gave me a walk-around tour of Whyte's T130c Works - a mid-travel carbon fiber trailbike that reveals much about the brand's mission statement.
Whyte Bikes USA President Jason Faircloth.
You probably know him from such films as The Ridge, Cascadia, and Imaginate, movies where he blows minds and makes us question whether gravity has the same effect on him that it does on us. Danny MacAskill is not immune to gravity's forces, even if it appears that way, but it turns out that he is fearless when it comes to being on his bike. I caught up with Danny in the middle of a hot and dusty day at Sea Otter, and we found some shade in the Magura booth to talk about being scared, the one stunt that he's most proud of, and whether he could take Chris Akrigg in a game of foot-down. He says he couldn't, by the way, but I don't believe him.
Mike Levy:
What single move or stunt are you most proud of?
Danny MacAskill:
Rasoulution photo
Levy:
How did the idea of the bump-front-flip come about?
Danny:
Rasoulution photo
Levy:
Where and when was the last time you were genuinely scared, either on or off the bike?
Danny:
Levy:
We only see you doing this amazing moves on a very specialized bike, but does Danny MacAskill ever just go out for a normal mountain bike ride?
Danny:
Filmed and edited by Stu Thomson
Levy:
Imaginate and Cascadia were amazing and I can't imagine how'd you'd top them. Can you give us a hint as to what you have planned next?
Danny:
Levy:
Who wins in a game of foot-down between you and Chris Akrigg?
Danny:
Probably the bump-front-flip over the fence that I did on the Isle of Skye. It was something new on a mountain bike, and something that I wasn't quite sure if it was going to work out; it was a cool feeling. We actually didn't modify the setup; it was basically as we found it. We maybe pulled some grass out of the other side, but nothing else. Yeah, I was pretty pleased with that one.I'd been wanting to make a film on the Isle of Skye with my mountain bike for awhile, and I knew there'd be a lot of trail riding and I knew there'd be trails on the edges of cliffs. Mountain biking has had a lot of progression over the years, and it's not easy to come up with new things on them. Even from a trials side, Chris Akrigg has got that pretty tied up, so I was thinking 'what on earth can I do on my mountain bike that's going to be interesting and maybe relatable?' I've actually had a few run-ins with fences over the years... deer fences. People have warned me about it being down the trail, and I've not paid any attention and smashed into them.When I was filming Imaginate, I was trying to come up with new moves; hitting my front wheel into things. That's where it initially came around, but then when we decided on The Ridge, I looked everywhere for the right kind of fence, and it was a nice way to end the film, with something new.Genuinely scared? [long pause] I really can't remember! I mean, it depends on what kind of level of scared you mean. What I class as scared, I think of fearing for your life, you know. Or that kind of feeling where you're like 'whoa, I'm really uncomfortable.' But when you're filming, of course you're uncomfortable. I've got loads of fear, but it just depends on what level we're talking about. I bring it on myself. Scared for my life? It's been a long time, but maybe when someone's not paying attention in a car, not when I'm on my bike. The fear that I experience throughout the year is usually brought on myself, so it's under my own control and not anyone else's.Often! I ride my mountain bike a lot in Scotland, especially through the winter. I suppose winter is meant to be more off-season, but I don't really have an off-season as such. I'm always going. I probably ride twice a week back home in Scotland; usually the wetter, more miserable, the windier the weather, the more likely I'll be out in the hills. I'm currently riding the Santa Cruz 5010. I had the Nomad, which is brilliant, but I've enjoyed going back to a slightly shorter travel bike. It makes me feel like I'm awesome at riding bikes - I can slide around all the corners. You just get a little more feel from the ground, you know? I'm enjoying that. A lot of my friends are ex-downhillers, current downhillers, or enduro racers, so I'm always playing catch-up with those guys.That is a tricky one. The way I look at the videos, you don't have to keep progressing. I usually like to come up with an idea, and I've kind of admitted to myself that the theme of the video, the idea of it, the concept, is almost more important than stepping up my riding ten notches. So, what I like to do is tell a story involving a place, or it could be a concept like Imaginate. Again, Cascadia was quite conceptual, being on the rooftops. Rather than doing something that compares to the last one, I want to go in a different direction. I like to think of a few new tricks that I'd like to do, where would I like to do them, and fit them into something that feels quite different than what I've done before. It's not easy to think up original stuff.I would probably say Chris. I'm not a competitive person, and it might work to my disadvantage when it comes to that sort of thing. I wouldn't give it to him, but with his aggression, he'd probably just take me out.
Breaking the Mold
Alchemy Bikes started life eight years ago. For seven of those years, Matt Maczuzak, Vice President of R&D, has been wielding the protractor and welding torch. The Denver, Colorado-based company still has a few ti frames in their line, but composite bikes like the all-mountain Arktos model, have quickly become the bulk of their business. Everything is done in housecutting the molds, molding the frames, painting the bikes. Raw materials roll in, complete bikes roll out. Built in the USofA, soup to nuts.
So, how the hell do you do that when the rest of the bike industry has shrugged off the very idea of building in America as too expensive a proposition?
Well, its about investing in the engineering and design up front. We spent a lot of time and effort figuring out how do we build this thing as smartly and efficiently as humanly possible. Its the way we mold it and the way we process it afterwards.
Alchemy Bikes' Vice President of R&D, Matt Maczuzak.
Alchemy's Arktos frame (with shock) sells for $3.799. That's not cheap, but it's also not as expensive as you might guess when you consider that plenty of frames made in China are selling for nearly $3,000. Are you willing to pay 25 to 30 percent more for something made in America?
Photo by Logan VonBokel
You cant make carbon-fiber, full-suspension mountain bikes in the United States. This is a simple truth. The sky is blue, water is wet and the odds of you ever buying a cutting-edge, plastic-fantastic, dualie crafted here in the states are somewhere between slim and not-a-damn-chance. Cue the math. Back in 2014, 99 percent of the 17.8 million bicycles imported into the United States, came from overseasthe vast majority from China and Taiwan. Ninety. Nine. Percent.And yet, look at this bike herethe Alchemy Arktosa very sleek, very sexy, very carbon bike that was very much built here, in the United States. The people at Alchemy somehow made the impossible possible. How (and why) did that happen?Fabricating a frame isnt cheap. Building a composite, full-suspension bike framewhat just might be the most labor-intensive, hand built sporting goods product on earthis a whole new level of pricey.which is why most full-suspension frames (carbon and aluminum alike) are built in Taiwan and (increasingly) China where labor costs have traditionally been low. How can a bike company pay someone in North America or Europe a living wage to build a carbon bike without the bike becoming ridiculously expensive in the process?Labor is the big differential, admits Maczuzak. Technology is equal here and in Asia, so what you are paying for is labor. We pay our employees very well, we have very highly skilled people working for us and that makes a difference. If you go to an Asian factory youll see that they break down one process into 50 different steps because it is no longer a skilled labor. One person does one little task and the next person in line does another little task. We have very skilled guys who handle it all the way from the mold to paint. To make that work, you have to design a process that lets you do it this way while still being efficient.Okay, if thisbe done, why isnt it done more often?Because its so easyto. It takes a whole lot of blood sweat and tears to get to this point. Its much easier just to call up somebody in Taiwan or China and say, Heres my design. Ill pick up my bikes in nine months.Labor costs in China are still significantly lower than those in North America, which is why you are undoubtedly reading this story on a smart phone or computer built in Asia. Wages and energy costs in China, however, are beginning to rise. Dont expect carbon bikes to start popping out of molds from Texas to Toronto, but if the cost of building in China continues to rise, bike brands will need to start investigating their options all over again.Its easiera lot easierto build bikes in China and Taiwan, but is there actually a downside to doing it overseas that way?Look, there are great bikes being made all over the worldand that includes China and Taiwan," says Maczuzak. "Im not trying to say one thing is inherently better. But we grew out of a program where we did everything in house, so it was only natural for us to attempt to do this in house as well. And there are other companies giving it a go. Trek is making some great bikes in the States. Cannondale used to make great carbon bikes in the States. And you see a lot of the people in our group, the NAHBS [ed. North American Handmade Bicycle Show] builders, doing it. The Alchemys, the Crumptons, the Argonautsits growing this movement of companies doing composite here in the states. So, it can be done and youre starting to see more of it happen organically."Is Alchemy hoping to spark something bigger here? Something like a movement of building more composite bikes in the States?"That'd be great," says Maczuzak. "But I can't say that were not setting out to do that. We just want to build the best bike we can ourselves. But if we helped start something bigger than that, thatd be a nice perk. Absolutely."Okay, let's get down to brass tacks here. The Alchemy Arktos frame sells for $3,799. How does that price compare with what you'd pay for a carbon super bike made overseas? You can currently expect to pay between $2,200 and $3,500 for a carbon full-suspension bike from Taiwan or China. Devinci's latest Troy frame, for instance, has a 2017 price tag of $2,239, whereas Yeti's SB6c frame sells for $3,500. The mean average is about $2,850. I realize that a data set of just two bikes isn't a representative sample size, but still, it's a starting point. Most riders currently expect to pay about $3,000 for a carbon dualie frame. Is a 25 to 30 percent up charge (based on that average price) worth it to you if it means you're getting something that's been made in America?No one, not even the Alchemy guys, is suggesting that all bikes made overseas are of the same quality. Nor are they saying that bikes made in the U.S. are of inherently higher quality than bikes built in Taiwan or China. So, whatthe actual benefits of buying a composite bike made in the USA? Alchemy has the technology and capability, so theyre doing it, but why should a rider looking for their next bike actually care?Well, we like making bikes in the United States, because we have complete control of everything going on, says Maczuzak. "Im the guy designing the molds. Im cutting them on our CNC machine and Im putting the bikes into production. Im there every day in the shop, watching every bike come through. Its not a USA versus Asia thing for us. Its just what we know and what we do best. The only advantage for us is that we have our hands on whats coming out of our factory. We have control over the product that has our name on it. If riders are into that too, we have bikes for them.
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By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) The Obama administration on Friday weighed in on the debate over allowing consumers to switch from pricey cable television boxes to less expensive devices, urging regulators to set an example for the rest of government on how to boost competition.
Consumers can spend nearly $1,000 over four years renting cable set-top boxes. Allowing consumers to chose devices or apps they can own could mean quick savings, according to the administration.
Competition is good for consumers, President Barack Obama said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. And ultimately its good for business. The more competition we have, the more products, services, innovation takes place.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in February proposed a rule to open competition in the $20 billion television set-top box market.
It set a 60-day comment period for the rule that could deal a financial blow to cable companies. The administration issued a rare filing on the rule by the FCC, an independent agency.
The rule would allow consumers to obtain video services from providers such as Alphabet Incs Google, Apple Inc and TiVo In, instead of cable, satellite and other television providers such Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc.
It was unclear if the rule will be implemented before Obama leaves office in January.
Cable and television companies have lashed out against the proposal, saying it could stifle innovation. Under the rule, minority programmers would be damaged, consumers would lose privacy protections and be saddled with the costs of re-engineering networks, said Michael Powell, the head of trade group National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
The companies also contended the White House is pressuring the FCC, which they said was inappropriate. This action not only damages the only companies seriously investing to build broadband infrastructure for this country, it also does great harm to the confidence we should be able to have in the impartiality of the FCCs proceedings, said Jim Cicconi, a senior executive vice president at AT&T Inc.
Obama will also sign an executive order on Friday calling on federal agencies and departments to report in 60 days on areas where additional measures can be taken to open competition.
In a teleconference call with reporters, Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, would not speculate on what kind of pro-competition measures the order could spur. The administration is looking to add to consumer-friendly actions on cell phones, net neutrality and retirement advice.
This is going to be a whole of government effort to empower consumers, workers and small businesses, Furman said.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders suggested on Sunday that his campaigns path to the Democratic nomination involves winning by a large margin in California and flipping delegates.
Video:
ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos
Transcript via ABCs This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, I know you hope to win here in New York. Polls show you behind right now. The question I has this, is do you really have a viable path forward going if you do not win here in New York? Youd have to win all the remaining states by huge, huge (CROSSTALK) SANDERS: But this is this is the answers we do have a viable role. And, no, thats not quite our we have to win by huge you know, the California, which is a very large state and we could pick up a lot of delegates there. And I hope, by the way, were going to do better than the polls indicate here. I think a lot of the delegates, both pledge delegates and super delegates, are looking at one very important fact: turns out that Hillary Clinton is not all that strong a candidate running against Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich. In poll after poll, nationally and in statewide polls, we do a lot better than Clinton does against Trump, against Kasich and against Cruz. I think a lot of people are saying, well, I may not like Bernie as much as I like Hillary. But at the end of the day, we must defeat Trump. We must not allow a Republican to get into the White House. Some of those people who will come over to us as the stronger candidate.
Notice that Sanders didnt mention New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey or any of the other upcoming states while discussing his path forward. It is becoming clear that the Sanders campaign is hoping for a big win in California that will deny Hillary Clinton the number of delegates that she needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. If Sanders can keep Clinton under the magic number, then he can go to the superdelegates and try to convince them to flip.
Sanders is hoping that the argument that he does better than Trump in hypothetical general election polls will be enough to get delegates to change their minds. If Hillary Clinton wins by double-digits in New York, a narrow California only strategy may be the last hope of Sen. Sanders. The problem for Sen. Sanders is that winning isnt enough. He needs to win by huge margins, and he has yet to show the ability to win by a huge margin in a closed Democratic primary.
Sen. Sanders has millions of supporters, and he shouldnt give up the fight, but his answer on his campaigns path forward suggests that his options are increasingly limited. Without some big wins in upcoming closed primaries, it will be California or bust for Bernie Sanders.
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George Clooney is being attacked for participating in Democratic Party fundraisers with Hillary Clinton, but Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has raised no money to help Democrats retake the House and Senate in 2016.
On Meet The Press, George Clooney said that overwhelming majority of the money that he is raising at Democratic fundraisers is going to support Democrats down ballot, not Hillary Clinton.
Clooney said, But, you know, I think whats important and what I think the Clinton campaign has not been very good at explaining is this and this is the truth: the overwhelming amount of money that were raising, and it is a lot, but the overwhelming amount of the money that were raising, is not going to Hillary to run for President, its going to the down-ticket. Its going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress. And the reason thats important and the reason its important to me is because we need, Im a Democrat so if youre a Republican, youre going to disagree but we need to take the senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And thats why Im doing it.
Sanders admitted that he has raised no money for 2016 Democrats on ABCs This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Lets get a response now from Senator Bernie Sanders. Hes here live in the studio this morning. Senator Sanders, welcome back. You just heard Secretary Clinton right there. Implicit defense of her fundraisers in California last night saying shes raising money for Democrats. By contrast, her campaign has said thats something you havent done. SANDERS: Thats not accurate, George. We have over the years sent out a lot of letters for Democratic candidates. STEPHANOPOULOS: Not in this campaign. SANDERS: No, not in this campaign. But in the past, we have, and raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates.
If Bernie Sanders wants all the benefits of being in the Democratic Party, he needs to pitch in and help down ballot candidates. Sanders did solicit donations for three progressive activists who are challenging Democrats in House primaries, but Sen. Sanders cant be expected to be treated like a full member of the family if he isnt helping other Democrats win.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is a progressive hero, but she is also a loyal Democrats who travels the country tirelessly campaigning and raising money for Democratic candidates. Sen. Al Franken is another progressive hero who has worked hard to help get more Democrats elected.
Bernie Sanders has built an incredible online fundraising machine, and he could generate a lot of goodwill by doing a little fundraising to help Democrats retake the Senate.
Sen. Sanders is fond of saying that no president can do it alone. This is true. It is also true that no presidential candidate can do it alone. Bernie Sanders is a good man who has run a great campaign, but there is no way that George Clooney should be raising more money for down ballot Democrats at this point in the 2016 campaign than a man who has hopes of being the Democratic nominee.
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George Clooney pointed out on Meet The Press that the overwhelming majority of the money that his fundraisers with Hillary Clinton are bringing in is going to Democrats down ballot, not Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.
Video:
Transcript via Meet The Press:
CHUCK TODD: You know, it was interesting. We caught, our camera caught you having a conversation with the protesters last night. What did you say to them? GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, it was a funny thing. I went over to try to talk to them and you said I was some corporate shill which, you know, me thats one of the funnier things you could say about me. And then he just said, you know, You sucked as Batman. And I was like, Well, you kind of got me on that one. And then I walked away and that was basically it. But, you know, I think whats important and what I think the Clinton campaign has not been very good at explaining is this and this is the truth: the overwhelming amount of money that were raising, and it is a lot, but the overwhelming amount of the money that were raising, is not going to Hillary to run for President, its going to the down-ticket. Its going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress. And the reason thats important and the reason its important to me is because we need, Im a Democrat so if youre a Republican, youre going to disagree but we need to take the senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And thats why Im doing it. CHUCK TODD: So you dont enjoy doing these fundraisers? GEORGE CLOONEY: No, I dont think anybody does. I dont even think politicians do. You know, Im sure youve covered them before. Its not the most fun thing to do. You know, I spend probably a quarter of my time now raising millions and millions of dollars to fund my foundation which is basically chasing and looking for money that these corrupt politicians all around the world are hiding. The Panama papers have been actually incredibly helpful. We have forensic accountants so this is all a very big part of things that are important to me. I really want Citizens United. I think its the worst, one of the worst laws passed, since Ive been around.
George Clooney seems to have a better grasp on the realities of our current campaign finance system than many of the protesters. Clooney is trying to raise money to help Democrats win seats in the House and take back the Senate. The actor gets it. Electing a president is not enough. America will need a Democratic Congress to go with a Democratic president.
Since Citizens United, there have been two competing schools of thought within the left. Some Democrats have argued that, as Clooney said, in order to beat the corrupt dark money in politics system it must be destroyed from within. The rationale is that without controlling the levers of power, Democrats wont be able to change the system. There is some merit to this argument. The Republican-controlled Congress has demonstrated how willing Republicans are to ignore the will of the people.
If Democrats dont win the presidential election, they wont get to see the next Supreme Court justice that could be the vote to overturn Citizen United seated. If Democrats dont take back the House and get 60 votes in the Senate, there will never be a new piece of legislation that strengthens the campaign finance laws passed in Congress.
The other side of the coin is the argument that a corrupt campaign finance system cant be changed by those who participate in it. This is the argument that Bernie Sanders and many progressive activists make. Sanders has demonstrated an amazing ability to be competitive in a presidential primary by raising money through small individual donations, but there are questions concerning the limitations to the small donor system. Would Bernie Sanders be able to raise the billions of dollars needed for a general election only with small donors? So far, no one has been brave enough to find out.
The good news is that it doesnt matter which method one prefers, outside of Republicans, there is a great deal of consensus that Citizens United has to got to go.
With both Democratic candidates on record supporting the overturning of Citizens United, the country has never been closer to getting reversing the disgraceful Supreme Court decision. However, getting rid of Citizens United is just the first step in fixing the campaign finance system. A less corrupt system should not be the end. The goal should be a system of publicly funded elections that takes the power away from the wealthy and special interests, and hands it back to the people.
In addition to the Twin Cities, Somali Muslim immigrants to Minnesota have settled in rural areas such as St. Cloud, Mankato and Willmar. Concern about the continuing waves of immigration from Somalia in particular is not confined to the Twin Cities. Thus Matt McKinneys Star Tribune contribution to stifling discussion of the related issues in Anti-Muslim speaking circuit runs through rural Minnesota.
McKinneys piece is pitiful. It presents all related concerns as manifestations of Islamophobia. It calls on Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, to render his opinion as an impartial expert. McKinney quotes Hussein: A lot of these fears are coming from that type of general fear of the other, and not real knowledge of Islam.
I would say a lot of these fears are coming from Somali Minnesotans support for foreign terrorist organizations waging jihad. The support is manifested in the charges brought against the Minnesota men seeking to join ISIS in 2014 and 2015. Somali community sentiment is itself apparently supportive of the Minnesota men if not the cause. Rather than investigate the possibly rational causes of the fears, McKinney simply presents the concerns as evidence of bigotry.
I offered the opposing case in the Star Tribune column Islam and Minnesota: Can we hear some straight talk for a change. With McKinneys column today, think we have the definitive answer to that question.
McKinney revisits the Dorsey & Whitney conference on Islamophobia in Minnesota last week. He recites that those in attendance included former Vice President Walter Mondale and members of the legal community, including U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger. McKinney quotes Luger in classic form, saying that, left unchecked, Islamaphobia is going to destroy the social fabric of the state. Shut up, he explained.
McKinney does not know that CAIR itself is part of the problem. CAIR, however, is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhoods Hamas-support network, and it aims to silence critics of Islamic supremacism via useful idiots such as McKinney. Andrew McCarthy devoted a particularly useful chapter of The Grand Jihad to CAIR. NR has posted an adapted excerpt of it here.
The Muslim Brotherhood theyre Islamic, right? Hamas theyre Islamic, right? The Islamic State theyre Islamic, right? Its a shame McKinney didnt even try to get a straight answer from the local CAIR leader. He might have learned somethings from the exercise.
The emergency meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, convened to find a common ground to boost oil prices ended without any resolution.
The meeting held in Doha, the Qatar capital, could not reach a resolution on whether there should be a cut in output by members, amid reports of heightened tension between two of the worlds leading oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Iran, which recently returned to the group after international sanctions imposed on it was lifted, wants to begin supply of an average 3.1 million barrels per day of crude to the international market .
With oil price is currently at an average of $39 per barrels, members thought there was need to get together to attempt to strike a deal to stabilise the market and bolster prices.
Although most members had seen the prospect of achieving this objective, reports said the absence of Iran at the meeting made it difficult for any decision.
Saudi Arabian officials have always said that their country would be willing to abide by the resolution to cut production if Iran was ready to do the same.
Since it returned to the group early this year, Iran has made its position clear that it was more interested in making up for lost grounds, in terms of supplying its oil to cover those years it was shut out by the international sanctions.
It was learnt that efforts by Nigerias Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, to forge a truce between the two leading producers did not yield the desired result, an indication that the negative impact of the declining global oil prices on the Nigerian economy may continue to linger for some time.
The meeting, which was chaired by the Qatari minister of energy and industry, Mohammed Al Sada, was adjourned to June.
When the group met about five months ago, members had agreed that the best way forward to stabilise the market and firm up prices was to cut January production levels until October 2016.
In less than one year of its ascension to power, the ruling All Progressives Congress is bedevilled with internal crises. Unless these crises are contained early enough, the partys chances of returning to power in 2019 might be limited.
The APC was formed in 2013 following the successful merger talks by four opposition parties. The parties are the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressives Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party and a section of the All progressives Grand Alliance.
With the successful merger talks, the first in Nigerias political history, not a few Nigerians and indeed the nations democratic watchers saw in the APC a ray of hope and an alternative to the Peoples Democratic Party, which had held been in power at the centre since 1999 when democracy was restored in the country.
The APC lived to its billing when it defeated the then ruling PDP at the centre, the first in 16 years, and went ahead to win many states. It currently controls 25 out of 36 state governments.
However, since the historic victory, the party has been grappling with one crisis or the other with the most challenging being the emergence of a set of leaders of the bi-cameral National Assembly the party did not endorse.
The Saraki challenge
Against the calculations of the leadership of the APC, Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara emerged the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives on June 9.
The party had two days earlier at a shadow election nominated Ahmed Lawan, a senator from Yobe State and George Akume from Benue State, as its choices for the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President.
It also endorsed Femi Gbajabiamila from Lagos State for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Mohammed Munguno from Borno State as his deputy.
However on the day of the election the unexpected happened. While most of the APC lawmakers and the partys leaders were awaiting the arrival of President Muhammadu Buhari at the International Conference Centre for a meeting ahead of the exercise, Mr. Saraki, a former governor of Kwara State, was shockingly elected into the position.
Mr. Sarakis ascension was largely facilitated by senators of the PDP, a party on which back he was governor of Kwara State for eight years and senator for four years.
Mr. Dogara later emerged speaker though through competitive election in which he narrowly defeated Mr. Gbajabiamila. Lasun Yusuf became Mr. Dogaras deputy.
Expectedly, the development jolted the leadership of the new ruling party. But perhaps more painful to the party was the election of a PDP senator, Ike Ekweremadu, as Mr. Sarakis deputy.
The APC, in a statement by its then spokesperson, Lai Mohammed, said the exercise was totally unacceptable and that it was the highest level of indiscipline and treachery.
Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon. Dogara are not the candidates of the APC and a majority of its National Assembly members-elect for the positions of Senate President and House Speaker, the party said.
Explaining that it organised a straw election to nominate its choices, APC said it would re-establish discipline in the party and mete out the necessary sanctions on all those involved in what was nothing but a monumental act of indiscipline and betrayal to subject the party to ridicule and create obstacles for the new administration.
President Muhammadu Buhari, in a statement, said though he would have preferred that the process of electing the leaders as initiated and conducted by the APC had been followed, he was ready to work with the leadership of the new National Assembly, noting that a constitutional process had somewhat occurred.
Subsequent moves by the APC to get Mr. Saraki to accept its choices for appointment as principal officers of the upper legislative chamber, also met a brick-wall.
In the House, Mr. Dogara managed to accept Mr. Gbajabiamila as the majority leader, after some initial resistance.
Since the election, the APC has not remained the same. Although Mr. Dogara enjoys some peace having cooperated with the party to some extent, the same cannot be said of Mr. Saraki, once regarded as the beautiful bride when he alongside 10 other PDP senators defected to the party.
If Mr. Saraki had hoped the matter would fizzle out with time, he was grossly mistaken. Indeed the kitchen got hotter for him.
Some months later, precisely in September 2015, the government of which he is third in hierarchy, filed corruption charges against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
In the 13-count charge, the senate president was accused of corruption and false asset declaration while he ruled as Kwara governor between 2003 and 2011. Mr. Saraki described his arraignment as political persecution arsing from his emergence as senate president.
Mr. Saraki has unsuccessfully made desperate bids to stop his trial. But in that predicament, the APC as a party has yet to lend one of its own a helping hand.
His ally, Abubakar Baraje, a former acting national chairman of the PDP, says the senate presidents ordeal was capable of tearing the party apart.
Most of the distractions were created by APC itself. For instance, the senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who heads an important arm of government, is not getting the necessary support from the party because a few people think they are more important than others.
The angry Mr. Baraje, who led the New PDP to fuse into APC in 2014, alleged that the kind of impunity, lawlessness and divisive tendencies, which led to the downfall of the PDP, now reigned supreme in the APC.
He asked Mr. Buhari to shine his face and save the party from the hands of a few people who, according to him, thought they were more important than every other member of the party.
The APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Timi Frank, had identified Mr. Sarakis trial a major source of crisis in the ruling party.
The issue of the senate president is still lingering; nobody is saying anything at the national level, but I tell you, any Nigerian that knows will tell you very clearly that with the body language of our party as of today, if we are not careful, we are going to lose our popularity.
But the National Chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, has ruled out the any form of intervention in the Saraki saga.
People dont seem to internalize what change is, Mr. Oyegun told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview.
If the president says court, free that man the same president can say court imprison that man. Is that the Nigeria you want? No, change means allowing the law to take the proper course.
I can tell you the president will not interfere. The president is definite, straight and firm in all facets.
Divided Exco
Yet, the crack in the national working committee of the ruling party has become very evident and poses a grave danger to its future.
Of late, Mr. Frank has consistently waged a war against the other members of the committee who it accused of lacking in capacity to move the ruling party forward.
He claims that there are internal disputes in the APC despite the attempts of its leaders to project an image of cohesion.
It will be a very big disgrace that we have hands that are not competent at the centre to harmonise the aggrieved persons and make us to move forward, Mr. Frank said.
Although he belongs to the PDP bloc of the APC as Mr. Saraki, Mr. Franks grouse, party sources offered during the week, was the refusal of his colleagues in the leadership of the ruling party to confirm him as a replacement for Mr. Mohammed, who has since left to take up the job of information and culture minister.
In any case, he was immediately countered by the National Secretary of the party, Mai Mala Buni, who said the bogus and misleading allegations are unnecessary distractions to the partys resolve to fully support the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to deliver on the motley promises made by our great party to the electorate.
The scribe stated further, The APC national leadership remains united and solidly committed to the task of bringing cohesion to the party at all levels.
Party leaders, divergent views
But a closer look at the recent events in the ruling party could lend credence to Mr. Franks claim of too many divisions.
Recently, a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the party was scheduled to hold a day after that of the National Caucus was held at Presidential Villa last month.
At the meeting, a new chairman of the BoT was expected to emerge. However, the parley failed to hold and it was announced that it had been postponed till the following week on the eve of the meeting of the national executive committee.
Party sources said at the national caucus meeting, the APC leaders including Mr. Buhari, who was in attendance, failed to agree on the choice of either former Vice President Atiku Abubakar or former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, both of who signified their intention to occupy the position.
Consequently, a decision was taken to change the name from Board of Trustees to Council of Elders. The intrigues that followed that decision made it impossible to convene the meeting of the BoT or Council of Elders till date.
Indeed, it was learnt that the interest of various blocs of the party, namely the ACN, CPC, ANPP and APGA, surfaced at the meeting.
But the festering crises in the party are not limited to the national level. The drum of war is also beating in some states where party members are at dagger drawn with each other resulting in the factionalisation of the chapters.
Kano
In Kano State, the governor, Abdullahi Ganduje is at war with his predecessor, Mr. Kwankwaso, now a senator, over the control of the party.
The feud between Mr. Ganduje, the only deputy who succeeded his principal after the general elections last year, and Mr. Kwankwaso, came to the fore a few weeks ago when the former governor paid a condolence visit to his successor.
The senator had arrived in a private blue -stripped airplane at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, to the waiting embrace of his teeming supporters.
By the time his convoy meandered its way and arrived in Ganduje town, where the governor was waiting to receive him the story had changed. The whole place had been turned into a political carnival as Mr. Kwankwasos supporters caused human traffic amid praises on the man from Abuja.
This did not go down well with the governor who soon perceived that his predecessors visit was not just a condolence visit but a power show of sort.
Evidently instigated by Mr. Ganduje, the state party chairman, Umar Doguwa, announced the possible suspension of Mr. kwankwaso for sponsoring violent rally during the visit.
Mr. Kwankwaso was soon to fire back. A statement by his camp and signed by Yunusa Dangwani, said the former governor refrained from visiting the state since May 29, 2015 when he handed over to Mr. Ganduje in order not to interfere with the states affairs.
The statement further warned Mr. Ganduje to desist from dragging the name of President Muhammadu Buhari to cover for his administrations obvious weaknesses.
The APC national secretariat, which waded into the matter, asked the two feuding men to embrace peace.
This is an internal matter between two friends, between two brothers and these differences unfortunately have developed between them, Mr. Odigie-Oyegun told a delegation led by a House of Representatives member, Ado Doguwa.
All of us, all the party, the totality of the party, must unite behind our chief executives, the president and the governors. So, we are going to do everything we can to resolve the issue amicably.
But the intervention did not yield fruit. Although, Mr. Ganduje expressed willingness to reconcile with Mr. Kwankwaso, the state executive committee of the party suspended Mr. Doguwa and the Organising Secretary, Sunusi Suraj, accusing them of gross misconduct.
Kaduna
In the neighbouring Kaduna State, the war drum started beating soon after the party came to power last year.
The governor, Nasir el Rufai and the senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, do not see eye ball to eye ball.
Mr. Sani publicly frowns at some of the governors policies, which he said were alienating the people and attracting anger and condemnation on APC and at those associated with the party.
He has repeatedly asked the governor to know that he is presiding over human beings that have suffered enough and must not add to their hardship.
I do not mean anything harmful or bad to him, the senator once explained.
I feel pained; in some parts of Kaduna today, you will see groups of people sitting down and saying they regretted voting for APC and even some of them came out to be praising Ramalan Yero (former governor) and other PDP people.
Many, including the governors camp, cannot separate Mr. Sani from his previous gubernatorial ambition plan and his desire to contest the governorship election in the state come 2019.
Perhaps so! The senator had reportedly planned to contest the governorship election last year but was prevailed upon by some elders who asked him to suspend his ambition for Mr. El Rufai.
In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Sani gave a little insight into what happened. According to him, the governor reneged on the promise he made to him after the primaries and the general elections.
The feuding political gladiators are yet to mend fences even as the national secretariat looks the other way.
Kogi
In the north central state of Kogi, the APC house is also divided following the disagreement that trailed recent governorship election in the state.
A former governor of the state, Abubakar Audu, who was the partys candidate in the November 21, 2015 election, was already coasting home to victory when he died.
His running mate, James Faleke, a sitting federal lawmaker, demanded he should be allowed to take Mr. Audus place and conclude the electoral contest, which had been declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
But party national leadership thought otherwise and gave the ticket to Yahaya Bello, who had come second to Mr. Audu in the primary election.
That action sowed the seed of discord in the state chapter of the party as it is yet to recover till this day.
Mr. Bello won the re-run quite alright but the Faleke camp refuse to give up, not even when the former offered the latter the deputy governorship slot.
Mr. Faleke, who refused to show up for swearing in as deputy at the governors inauguration in February, is currently in court where he is asking the tribunal to declare him winner of the election.
Bayelsa
Down south the story is the same. The APC in Bayelsa State broke into two factions barely three months after it lost the governorship to the incumbent governor, Seriake Dickson of the PDP.
About two weeks ago, a section of the state working committee of the party, suspended its governorship candidate in the December 2015 election, Timipre Sylva, and four others for alleged anti-party conducts and other reasons.
A statement jointly signed by the APC chairman in the state, Timipa Orunimighe and secretary, Daniel Marlin, said the decision to suspend the five was taken at an emergency state executive meeting of the party after due consultations with its senior officials and elders in the state.
They said they took the painful but necessary decisions to suspend our guber flag bearer in the 2015 elections, Chief Timipre Sylva, pending the investigation of the cases brought against him, including anti-party activities, attempt to form a parallel executive committee in the state and corruption.
The suspension of Mr. Sylva and others was evidently a reaction to an announcement a day before by a faction loyal to Mr. Sylva suspending Messrs. Orunimighe and Marlin as well as the deputy state chairman of the party, Eddy Julius, for alleged misconduct and embezzlement.
The two factions have since taken their cases to the national headquarters of the party.
But unlike the crises in other states, that of Bayelsa State has become a matter of litigation.
Other states where there are pockets of crises include Delta and Yobe. Crisis in Ogun is imminent following the return of former Governor Olusegun Osoba to the APC from the Social Democratic Party.
No infighting in APC Oyegun
But Mr. Oyegun told PREMIUM TIMES during the week that there is no crisis in the party.
There are differences in views. Interests differ. Some feel they are not sufficiently rewarded or consulted. So, it happens. We are just one year in power.
But Mr. Frank insisted there is.
If anybody should tell you theres no division even at the national level, theyre telling lies. I can tell you there are issues; there are very critical issues.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has c alled on the Nigerian Senate to jettison its ongoing effort to change the countrys anti-corruption laws.
A civil society group, Transition Monitoring Group, also pushed a similar position.
In separate statements released on Sunday, the groups said even though the National Assembly has the constitutional duty to amend laws, they found it suspicious that lawmakers were trying to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Act as well as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act at a time the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, was facing criminal prosecution.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, in calling on the National Assembly to end further deliberation on the controversial bills, said: We at the Nigeria Labour Congress hold the view that the noble intention of the Senate notwithstanding, the timing is suspect and fraught with danger.
It is quite intriguing that it took the trial of the Senate President for the Senate to discover these flaws in the law(s). Putting it bluntly, in spite of the spirited defences by the Deputy Senate President to the contrary , not a few believe that this legislative move is a desperate attempt to scuttle the trial of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, at CCT, he said.
The TMG in a statement signed by its chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, called on Nigerians to resist alleged criminalisation of the legislature by Mr. Saraki.
While it is true that the legislature is empowered by the 1999 Constitution as amended to make laws for the good governance of the nation, it is immoral and unacceptable to deploy legislative powers to further personal ends.
As far as we are concerned, Sarakis trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) is his personal business. It is therefore a vexatious affront on the sensibilities of the Nigerian people that the weight of the entire legislature would be brought to bear in this disturbing attempt at giving him political rehabilitation. TMG frowns at this gangster approach to legislative business. While we commend the symbolic gesture of those legislators who have tried to distance themselves from this show of shame, we call on all members of the National Assembly, who still have any iota of credibility and good conscience to step up the pressure by teaming up with all pro-people forces, to end this charade.
In the face of this desecration of the legislature as an institution by Saraki and his co-travellers, we call on the Nigerian people not to remain ambivalent. This is the time for the long suffering people of Nigeria to raise their voices.
In its reaction, the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, urged Nigerians to rise and resist attempts by the Senate to scuttle Mr. Sarakis trial through the current amendment process.
The Executive Director of ANEEJ, David Ugolor, said coming shortly after the recent failed attempt at the Federal High Court and the Supreme Court to stop the trial, the amendment amounted to abuse of court process.
Apart from the false asset declaration, Mr. Ugolor said, Mr. Saraki had also been fingered in the recent Panama Papers leak among Nigerians in high places operating subsidiary companies in tax havens like Panama and Jersey.
ANEEJ, as well as every Nigerian, calls to question the timing of these Bills, and urges Nigerians to resist these bills. These suspicious and shambolic Bills were procured after Dr Saraki allegedly purchased and distributed 36 Land cruiser V8-Engine SUVs and distributed to senators who facilitated them, Mr. Ugolor said.
A Lagos-based lawyer, Liborus Oshoma, has also advised the National Assembly to desist from making laws that would rubbish its reputation.
The intent of this bill may good for the plurality of Nigerians at the long run, but its coming at a suspicious moment and I will urge the National Assembly to abandon it for now, Mr. Oshoma said.
The National Assembly has remained at the receiving end of a renewed public outrage since Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (PDP-Delta State) moved a motion last week to amend the CCT and CCT Act which guides conduct of public office holders.
Many Nigerians argued that the lawmakers are trying to change the law to save one of their own, Mr. Saraki, who has been standing trial for alleged false asset declaration since September 2015.
The Senate has, however, said the amendment was necessary, as it would give all public officers coming before the tribunal a fair hearing, justice and equity, in line with Section 36[2] [a] of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The amendment, the lawmakers pointed out, would remove the two government agencies, which play a critical role in the administration of criminal justice system in the country, from political control.
Since the commencement of the process, the Senate has fast-tracked the amendment of the Acts through the first and second readings within 48 hours.
While speaking during debate on the Senate floor, Biodun Olujimi (PDP-Ekiti State) said, If you dont assist your neighbour when his house is burning, it will extend to yours.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Abuja Zone, has expressed displeasure over cut in allocation for personnel expenditure to Federal Universities by the Federal Government.
The Abuja Zonal Coordinator of the Union, Suleiman Muhammed, who briefed journalists on Sunday in Abuja, said that the cut had adversely affected the union.
He said ASUU, Abuja Zone comprised University of Abuja, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nasarawa State University, Keffi and Ibrahim Babangida University, Lapai.
He said that relevant authorities like the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget Office seemed not to understand how the university system worked.
With deeply worrisome concerns, ASUU-Abuja Zone wishes to bring to the notice of the general public the unilateral drastic cut by the Federal Government of Nigeria in the personnel expenditure allocations to Federal Universities across the country.
This ugly phenomenon began in December 2015; one of the federal universities which received allocation of a little over N336 million in Dec. 2015, has consistently received about N308 million for the months of January through March, 2016, he said.
The coordinator said it was wrong for the federal government to implement unilateral pay-cut in university workers salaries being a signatory to most International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions.
He expressed concern that state governments, the proprietors of state universities, were waiting to copy the federal government, adding that this could lead to breakdown in industrial harmony across all public universities.
Mr. Muhammed said that for industrial harmony within the university system, ASUU members should have their salaries and allowances paid in full and not in percentages.
(NAN)
The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has directed that all doctors and nurses of the Government House Clinic be transferred to the state-owned Dantsoho Hospital, Tudun Wada.
According to a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES, drugs and equipment in the state house clinic have also been moved to the hospital. Also, government house staff have been directed to henceforth use the Dantsoho hospital for their medical needs.
The Kaduna governors decision to cancel the privileged Government House Clinic is contrary to the actions of the federal government who proposed spending more on the State House Clinic than major public hospitals used by most Nigerians.
The state house clinic is the federal governments equivalent of Kadunas Government House Clinic and is mainly used by the presidency and its officials and families as well as very influential public and private officials.
PREMIUM had reported how the N3.2 billion allocated for capital projects at the state house clinic was more than the combined allocations for capital projects in all teaching hospitals in the country.
The allocation to the state house clinic is also more than the total allocation for the construction of hospitals across the country.
The presidency and the national assembly later admitted the proposed budget had several pitfalls and pledged to correct them.
While announcing the shutdown of Kadunas government clinic, Mr. El-Rufai said, the decisions were taken in order to boost the healthcare system and making equal every citizen of the state to enjoy equal medical facility.
There are not yet enough doctors in the public health system in Kaduna State, therefore it is not prudent to assign doctors, nurses and other medical staff to serve Government House alone.
It is clearly more beneficial to the wider society if the services of these medical personnel were made available to the public in a general hospital. In addition, it is better that everyone working in the Government House uses the same health facilities as the general public.
Muhammad Armayau, medical director of Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital, confirmed that the hospital has received the drugs and equipment. He thanked Mr. El-Rufai and said the hospital will make good use of the extra capacity it has received.
Members of the Islamic Movement on Saturday demanded the immediate and unconditional release of their leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky, and other members of the sect who have been in detention since the group clashed with the military last December.
The sect members, who made the demand during a procession in Kano, said they have a list of almost 1000 of its members who could not be found after the clash.
They asked the Kaduna State government to account for the missing members, whose names have been made public.
The sect members marched from the palace of the Emir of Kano to Radio Kano on Ibrahim Taiwo Road in the ancient city.
Similar processions were held in other northern towns, including Azare in Bauchi, Jos in Plateau State, Gombe in Gombe State, Gusau in Zamfara State, Birnin Kebbi in Kebbi State and Kaduna.
The Kaduna state government recently admitted that its officials and those of the military buried 347 people, including women and children in a mass grave in Mando, Kaduna.
Abdulhamid Bello, who led the protesters, which included women, children and elderly members of the group, lamented the continued detention of Mr. Zakzaky, his wife, Zeenat and other members without filing charges against them.
Our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub Zakzaky, his wife and hundreds of other brothers of the Islamic Movement are still in illegal detention, he said.
The case of Sheik Zakzaky and his wife, Sister Zeenat Ibrahim is even worse, because they are being detained with no charge and are in desperate need of medical attention, which we believe the federal government cannot supply.
Mr. Bello recounted that the sect had published the list of its members that were killed by the army but that the state government and the army went ahead to bury them.
He, however, expressed worry that the alleged atrocities were committed by the military in a democratic government in which the rule of law should reign supremely and that the act was meant to exterminate the sect.
We have been inundating the public that what happened in Zaria was not a clash between the army and members of the Islamic Movement, but rather an orchestrated plan to exterminate the Movement carried out by the army to its logical conclusion.
In a situation whereby over 1000 people were killed and no army officer lost his life cannot qualify to be a clash; it is rather a military attack by the army on the members of the Islamic Movement.
Mr. Bello said the sect had been vindicated by the revelations from the Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by Kaduna state government.
But it seems with the recent revelations at the proceedings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by Kaduna state government, we have been vindicated, he said.
In other words the government has agreed that Nigerian soldiers did indeed kill women and children who carried no arms as we have been claiming since.
He said the truth would always prevail, no matter how long it would take, adding, What the Kaduna State government said is just a tip of the iceberg.
Nigerian troops fighting the extremist Boko Haram sect on Sunday announced that they had uncovered storage facility used by the terrorist group to store food.
The Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Sani Usman, said in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES that the storage contained large quantity of foodstuff when it was discovered.
Mr. Usman also said the troops also found that the terrorists were mounting sentries on tree tops to gather intelligence on the advancement of troops.
Read full statement below.
On Saturday 16th April 2016, troops of 7 Division Strike Group Team B and 22 Task Force Brigade conducted a simultaneous dawn raid on suspected Boko Haram terrorists hideouts at Biggoro, Warpaya and Aura, North of Kumshe in Bama Local Government Area.
The essence of the operation was stop the reported criminal activities of remnants of Boko Haram terrorists hiding in the three villages. This became necessary as previous efforts were futile. The suspected terrorists kept coming in search for food, water and shelter.
The surprised dawn attack yielded positive result as the troops discovered well concealed observation posts on trees in the villages constructed by the terrorists to give them early warning of troops movement or approach.
In addition the troops found out that the observation posts though tree tops, were constructed in such a manner with chairs and ropes to pull up foods and other needs by the sentry without necessarily coming down the trees.
To also save for the rainy day, the terrorists had underground food storage facilities where they stocked large quantity of foodstuffs. The troops killed two Boko Haram terrorists and also recovered three AK-47 rifles, magazines and ammunitions. They also recovered two motorcycles from them. In addition they rescued two children from the terrorists.
A senior lawyer, Femi Falana, has called on the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, not to support the move to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Act, saying passing such a legislation will be illegal and unconstitutional.
In a letter dated April 15 and addressed to Mr. Dogara, Mr. Falana said the fact that the National Assembly is commencing deliberation on amending the CCB and CCT Act at a time the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, is being prosecuted under the same statute is improper.
In view of the ongoing trial of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki before the Code of Conduct Tribunal over the alleged failure to declare his assets the hasty move to amend the Act is insensitive, suspicious, self serving and opportunistic. It is also illegal and unconstitutional in several respects, Mr. Falana wrote.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also argued that Mr. Sarakis decision to remove himself from presiding over the Senate whenever the body wants to deliberate the amendment is not a sufficient excuse to make the process legal.
Secondly, notwithstanding that the Senate President has decided not to preside over the plenary in the Senate whenever the bill is being debated the whole exercise is a clear violation of paragraph 1 of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers enshrined in Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution which stipulates that A public officer shall not put himself in a position where his personal interest conflicts with his duties and responsibilities, he said.
Mr. Falana said the amendment, if passed into law, will be illegal because its objectives had already been addressed in the Constitution.
Thirdly, section 3 of Act which the National Assembly seeks to amend has become spent. Senator Nwaoboshi was reported to have said that he was proposing an amendment to section 3 of the Act to provide for an opportunity for the person whose rights and obligations may be affected to make representations to the administering authority before that authority makes the decision affecting that person. With respect, section 3 of the Act is in pari materia with Paragraph 3(e) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the Constitution. To that extent, section 3 of the Act is inoperative and invalid in every material particular. In Attorney-General of Abia v Attorney-General of the Federation (2001) 17 WRN 1 the Supreme Court held:
Where the provision in the Act is within the legislative powers of the National Assembly but the Constitution is found to have already made the same or similar provision, then the new provision will be regarded as invalid for duplication and or inconsistency and therefore inoperative. The same fate will befall any provision of the Act which seeks to enlarge, curtail or alter any existing provision of the Constitution. The provision or provisions will be treated as unconstitutional and therefore null and void.
In the light of the authoritative pronouncement of the Supreme Court on lack of legislative powers on the part of the National Assembly to enact laws which have similar provisions to those of the Constitution section 3 of the Act has become a duplication of the relevant constitutional provision. Consequently, its proposed amendment is illegal and unconstitutional. In other words, without amending the relevant provisions of the Constitution the proposed amendment of the Act is an exercise in futility. As the proposed amendment cannot alter, enlarge or curtail the relevant provisions of the Constitution the Senate ought not to continue to waste precious time and resources on the illegal exercise.
Since the Constitution has prohibited the enactment of ex post facto laws in circumstances of this nature the National Assembly ought to know that the ongoing moves to amend the Act cannot have any effect on the celebrated trial of the Senate President. Having solemnly sworn to strive to preserve the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy contained in the Constitution the members of the National Assembly should stop subverting the obligation of the Federal Government to abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power, he said.
Mr. Falana, therefore, prevailed on Mr. Dogara to desist from giving the bill any backing, adding that doing so will be an exercise in futility.
In view of the foregoing, we are compelled to urge the House of Representatives ably led by your good self not to lend its weight to the illegal amendment of the Act. You may wish to remind your colleagues in the House that when the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act 2000 was amended in 2003 on account of the investigation of allegations of corrupt practices involving the leadership of the Senate the Federal High Court set aside the amendment as it violated the Constitution. As the same fate certainly awaits the Bill to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Act it is hoped that the House will persuade the Senate to terminate further debates on it.
The National Assembly has been criticised since Mr. Nwaoboshi (PDP-Delta State) moved a motion last week to amend the CCT and CCB Act which guides conduct of public office holders.
Many Nigerians argued that the lawmakers are trying to change the law to save one of their own, Mr. Saraki, who has been standing trial for alleged false asset declaration since September 2015.
If you dont assist your neighbour when his house is burning, it will extend to yours, PREMIUM TIMES reported Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP-Ekiti State) as saying, during the second reading of the bill on Thursday.
The Nigeria Army on Sunday disclosed the recovery of large cache of arms buried in the hinterlands of Borno State at a spot made to look like a graveyard.
The Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, Leo Irabor, said but for the vigilance of soldiers the grave, which concealed a cache of high calibre ammunition, worth over N20 million, would have remained unnoticed.
Mr. Irabor, a Major General, said the quantum of ammunition recovered is capable of deflating the morale of a full battalion if it remains in the hands of a capable enemy.
Mr. Irabor, who spoke to journalists in Biu, Southern Borno State during an ongoing tour of the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, said the discovery was made three days ago when his men received some hint regarding the activities of Boko haram terrorists before they fled from Alagarno.
We conducted some various scale of operation as well as specific operations that led to the recovery of arms cache in the village called Gursum, around Alagarno general area; and there we had a very sterling discovery of Boko Haram terrorists burying large quantities of ammunition on the ground, he said.
This operation was in conjunction with the Civilian JTF because they led us through the routes. We recovered 36 boxes of .50MM which is equivalent to 12.7mm buried concealed as though it was a grave .
We also got 5/20 lethal brief case as well as a mixture of 7.6 mm NATO and 7.62mm special. These ammunitions were all concealed in plastic containers which we recovered. In addition we got 1/81 NATO tube that was wrapped in cellophane and buried on the ground.
During the operation, we also discovered one generator, one Hilux vehicle and several motorcycles .
The Army general also spoke of the death of some fleeing terrorists in a battle.
Also on the 15th of April troops at Pulka were attacked by fleeing Boko Haram from Sambisa forest. And this was in the early evening of that day. In reaction to it, 7 Boko Haram terrorists were killed, and 4 AK 47 rifles were recovered. And the troops carried out the pursuit of Boko Haram terrorists into the forests. And that took them into the dark hours.
The following day which was 16th April they went to exploit further in the pursuit and they discovered the following; the first was additional 4 bodies of Boko Haram terrorists, one AK47 rifle, one light medium gun, and one G3 rifle.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Timi Frank, has hit back at the partys Chairman, John Oyegun, for saying Senate President Bukola Sarakis corruption trial will not be politically resolved.
Speaking in an exclusive interview published by PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday, Mr. Oyegun had said the APC-controlled Federal Government would not help Mr. Saraki avert justice.
People dont seem to internalize what change is. If the President says court, free that man, the same president can say court, imprison that man. Is that the Nigeria you want? No! Change means allowing the law to take the proper course. I can tell you the President wont interfere (in Sarakis case). The President is straight definite, straight and firm in all facets, Mr. Oyegun said.
Mr. Oyegun also hinted that the APC did not mind losing the seat of the senate president should Mr. Saraki be removed from office.
Well, I dont think we will lose that position, he said. But sometimes, for change to take place, there is price you have to pay. So losing the position may be sacrifice for change.
In his statement on Sunday, Mr. Frank, who is a loyalist of the Senate President, said Mr. Oyeguns view was not that of the APC.
That the chairman of the ruling Party will grant an interview on his personal opinion and asserting it to be the decision of the party, can at best be described as unfortunate and a carefully mapped out plan to rubbish the current trial of the Senate President, Mr. Frank said.
It is on record, that there hasnt been any NEC, NWC, BOT or Caucus meeting of the party were such decision was taking to abandon the Senate President to his fate. This move undoubtedly proves once more, that the Chairman is acting on an already prepared script to incarcerate and make the Senate President pay for his disobedience for not adhering to the partys decision in contesting for the seat of the Senate President.
He continued, The chairman further emphasised that the party wouldnt mind to lose its no 3 seat to the opposition PDP. This action as ridiculous as it may sound only goes to confirm that indeed the party may have hit the final nail on the coffin, having taking a position already on the fate of its no 3 man before the conclusion of the verdict of the court in confirming if the senate president is guilty or not.
This supposedly hurried speech is another confirmation that an already prepared script is in the offing by those who will stop at nothing in seeing that the Senate President is used as the scapegoat of the Anti-Corruption war of this administration. This may very well be in the offing since the Senate President won the seat into the upper legislative chamber, which was seen as a move against the party ab initio.
Mr. Frank reiterated his earlier stance that Mr. Saraki played a major role in APCs 2015 victory at the polls.
The chairman must be reminded of the role played by Senator Saraki in the emergence of the ruling party and if Chief Oyegun in all honesty believes that Senator Saraki should be the scapegoat for the ruling party, owing to his confirmation of bias in the ongoing trial of the senate president, then indeed the chairman has to be reminded that history has its way of repeating itself and reminding those who take it for granted when it beckons.
In the interview with PREMIUIM TIMES, Mr. Oyegun had said Mr. Frank could no longer speak for the party because his loyalty to the APC was questionable.
In his response, Mr. Frank said that stance emphasise my earlier claims that indeed the party is divided within itself.
That the seat of the party spokesman is zoned to the North central zone, because of the vacuum created by Lai Mohammed, is laughable as the party constitution itself is clear in the event of a vacuum created by the exit of a substantive officer, he added.
The Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has described as laughable, the allegation by the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party that he donated N70 million at a recent book launch organised by the First Lady, Aishat Buhari.
He also described as unfortunate the vote of no confidence passed on him by his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The PDP had in a statement accused Mr. Bello of donating N70 million when Mrs. Buhari launched a book to garner support for the families of the abducted Chibok girls.
Also, the state chapter of the APC at its meeting on April 11 passed a vote of no confidence on Mr. Bello, accusing him of sidelining members of the state executive council and other organs of the party in the affairs of the state.
In an April 12 letter signed by 34 of the state executive council members of the APC to the National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun, the party listed the sins of the governor, including the allegation that he gave 45 political appointments to members of the PDP.
But a statement by Kingsley Fanwo, media aide to Mr. Bello, on Sunday said the allegation that the governor donated N70 million at the book launch organized by the first lady, smacks of laughable political desperation to brazenly slaughter truth.
He did not however say how much was donated by the governor at the occasion.
He said, The book launch was organized by the nations First Lady to garner support for the families of the abducted Chibok girls, which was attended by Governor Yahaya Bello to lend support to the traumatized families of the girls.
As a political leader and a parent, Governor Bello is touched by the plight of the girls and their families, hence the will to identify with the project.
The book launch was televised to the whole world and no one announced what anyone donated. Governor Yahaya Bello did not donate 70,000,000 naira as insinuated by the people who are turning opposition politics to a comical adventure.
He explained that Mr. Bello did not approached any bank for loan, saying the Zenith Bank loan story was aimed at distracting the governor from his laudable programs in the state.
He said, The spurious allegation that the Governor has applied for loan at Zenith Bank has further exposed our opponents as people who lack the basic knowledge of public accounting. Their macabre dance on the grave of ignorance has justified peoples belief that our opponents are characters are people who lack the rudiments of governance. The governor didnt apply for loans.
We urge our opponents to always dwell on facts when playing their games and stop toying with the intelligence of the Kogi people. Governor Yahaya Bello paid two salaries within his first fifty-seven days in office as against the four months owed by his immediate predecessor.
On the appointments allegedly given to PDP members, Mr. Fanwo said the governor had been fair in this regard, insisting that he (governor) would continue to work with the APC leadership to actualize the change agenda of the party.
He said, It is not true that the governor made 45 political appointments. Some appointments are purely professional and only people who are competent in those fields are capable of discharging such roles effectively.
Majority of those appointed are APC while many others are not politicians but technocrats who can drive the New Direction agenda of the present administration. The Governor deserves commendation for assembling a team that is already delivering great services to the people of the state.
The Yahaya Bello administration has relegated mediocrity to the back seat. We need to drive Kogi to work and for her to work, round pegs must be in round holes without prejudice to fairness and equity.
Mr. Fanwo urged the APC to continue to appreciate the good image the governor is giving the party in the state.
He said no living politician has contributed to the success of the party in the state as Mr. Bello even before he became governor.
The Kogi Youths Arise Group was one of the vehicles used by the All Progressives Congress to root out the PDP from the state in 2015. The Group was formed and solely funded by the Governor. The Governor sponsored many APC candidates in the election with his resources despite not having occupied any political position before that time.
By the time the staff verification exercise is over, Governor Yahaya Bello would have recorded another landslide achievement in saving the resources of Kogi State for the benefit of the Kogi people. He wont be distracted. Opponents should give up their antics and join the train of change.
The spokesperson who said his principal had no association with the PDP since his belief in the ideology of the APC is unwaveringly unimpeachable, urged the people of the state to discountenance the allegations as baseless, untrue and unfortunate.
He said the governor was prepared to keep working with the structures of the party to properly structure the policies of government with party manifesto.
According to him, the policies of the governor so far were in tandem with the manifesto of the party to enthrone development and defeat corruption in all sectors of the economy.
The Governor is a party man. That accounted for why he refused to defect to another party when came second in the governorship primaries, Mr. Fanwo said.
He has continued to reiterate his determination to integrate his New Direction agenda with the manifesto of the APC. In doing this, the Governor has been working with party leaders to actualize his dreams of a better and more prosperous Kogi State.
He said as a party, the APC should play its part and ostracize the ghosts of division, adding We expect the party to have highlighted the Governors strides since assuming office such as industrial harmony, efforts at restoring integrity to the civil service and the massive construction work going on across the state.
With the new administrations efforts in the education sector, Kogi State students are excelling and making waves in national and international competitions.
Also, a number of high profile foreign investments are expected to kick off in the state soon such as the $363m for the establishment of a comprehensive farm and downstream industrial park in the state. This is the story of the new Kogi State under the leadership of Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
Mr. Fanwo said it was shocking to blame the governor for the failure of the APC in the Senatorial and House of Representatives re-run elections in the state, when party candidates were barred by competent courts of jurisdiction from participating in the re-run owing to the mismanagement of primaries leading to the 2015 general election.
In October last year, an American researcher and biodiversity conservationist, Lucy Diagne, hurriedly flew from her base in Senegal into Akwa Ibom state, in South-South Nigeria.
Mrs. Diagnes trip was part of an emergency global effort to save a baby manatee rescued from local fishermen who wanted to enrich their soup-pots with the poor little animal.
Edem Eniang, the man who led other Nigerian conservationists to buy it off their hands, understood how priceless it was to save the manatee calf.
The marine mammal is among the worlds endangered species.
Besides, the African manatee is the one species that we know the least about, says Manatee-world.com, a website devoted to the animal.
In fact, even getting photos of them is hard. You wont find too many of them compiled even from those researchers that are quite fascinated with the African Manatee.
Mr. Eniang said the baby manatee was standing in a little well, (and) couldnt move its body, and was dehydrated when he found it where it was kept in captivity.
Mr. Eniang, a senior lecturer at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, who specialises in Wildlife Resources Management, wasnt this lucky in 2013.
Before he could get to the scene where a giant manatee was caught in the Calabar-Itu River, the animal had died from wound sustained from the harpoon, a spear-like device, used in hunting it.
He was somehow able to take some scientific records of the manatee, said to have been about 3.9 metres long and weighed over 500 kg, almost the weight of two local cows.
The poor animal was later butchered, and sold in bits to locals who had a great day feasting on it.
The rescued calf, which attracted Mrs. Diagne to Akwa Ibom was just about one month old. Mrs Eniang named it AkwaCross the acronym for the neigbouring states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River because it was caught in the Calabar-Itu River which divides the two states.
Immediately Mrs Diagne got information from Mr. Eniang about AkwaCross, she thought the calf wouldnt survive except it was kept inside a special facility that could sustain it. But such specially-built facility wasnt available in Akwa Ibom or anywhere else in Nigeria.
The calf couldnt also be released back into the river, according to Mr. Eniang, because there were so many (fishing) nets and manatee traps, and the mother couldnt be found.
Fisheries by-catch is one of the biggest threats to manatee population, globally, a great number of fishermen around the world unintentionally harvest manatees trapped in their fishing nets.
And so the African Aquatic Conservation Fund, in which Mrs Diagne is the Executive Director, with headquarters in the United States, stepped in, and began the search for a comfortable home for AkwaCross.
Luckily, two aquariums one in South Africa, and another in Puerto Rico showed interest.
The AACF, according to the information it posted on its Facebook page, began talking with the Nigerian authorities on how to move the manatee out of the country.
Meanwhile, at Mr. Eniangs private home, somewhere in the outskirt of Uyo, where the manatee was put in a 2.4 by 4.5 metres pond originally built for catfish. It wasnt easy getting it to take the feed and the supplements sent in as donations from Jonathan Perez-Rivera, a biodiversity conservationist at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, and Tony Mignucci, at the Centro de Conservation de Manaties de Puerto Rico.
For most of the people rendering help at Mr. Eniangs pond, that was their first time of seeing and also getting this close to a live manatee.
Mr. Eniang had to put them through training sessions, using the how-to-do-it information he got from the university in Puerto Rico.
It wasnt an easy thing, but once we knew how to handle the animal we were able to feed it, the lecturer told PREMIUM TIMES.
Four persons, including Eniangs 20-year-old daughter, Eunice, were assigned the responsibility of feeding AkwaCross.
We first give it multi-vitamin in the morning, before the milk. We grind the multi-vitamin, and dissolved it in a milligram of warm water, Eunice said.
After feeding it with the multi-vitamin, we mix the milk, Similac, into 300 milligram of warm water.
Theres water that the white people gave us to mix with the feed; we have the lacatate green water solution, and we also have the calcium solution. We mix it together in the basin, before we prepare the feed, and then we pour it into feeding bottle which we used in feeding the animal.
Eunice said the manatee could finish three feeding bottles at a time, and is fed like that seven times a day.
On her arrival in Uyo, Mrs. Diagne was introduced to the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Uyo, Comfort Ekpo, in the presence of the then incoming VC, Aniefiok Essien, and other management staff of the school.
Mrs. Ekpo told Mrs Diagne she believed the calf would live.
One Uniuyo lecturer at the meeting appealed for the establishment of a manatee rehabilitation facility in the school.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs Diagne was taken to see the calf.
She later stayed on to witness how the animal would take its evening meal.
Yeah, I wanna see the little guy, she said, as Mr. Eniang, accompanied by other Nigerian conservationists, led her to the mini wildlife park at the back of his house.
I have come a long way to see the little guy, Mrs Diagne said, again.
She wore an orange-colour short-sleeves shirt, with a brown combat trouser, and sneakers. She had a blonde hair. She was tall and heavily built. She exuded passion and strength.
Mrs Diagne has a PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Florida, and is incredibly fascinated with manatees. She has so far spent 18 years on its research and conservation, and was the first person to scientifically prove that manatees eat mollusks and fish as well as plants, making them omnivores, not herbivores.
I learned about manatees in school when I was 12 years old, went home and told my parents I wanted to save them (my mother loves to tell that story!). Ive been fascinated with them for a long time, although I also studied seals for many years and really love them too, she told PREMIUM TIMES.
She linked her fascination with manatees to the animals ability to navigate through muddy water to specific areas over large distances, and return to the same places year after year.
How do they do it? Their eyesights are poor and the water is opaque, so how do they cover these large distances and return to the exact same places? Nobody knows. People say they are stupid and slow, but they are excellent navigators. And their intelligence is believed to be similar to dolphins, so they arent stupid.
Mrs Diagne currently trains and leads a network of African manatee researchers in 19 countries. She believes the African manatee will only be conserved by Africans who care enough to work to save it in their countries.
According to her said African manatee exists in 21 countries, and is believed to be the most heavily hunted, although no one knows how many are killed annually. She mentioned Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cameroon as countries where the hunting of manatee is reported to be worst in Africa.
That evening, just as the sun began to set, Mrs Diagne, Mr. Eniang, and four other persons stood by the pond, chattering for few minutes, while waiting for AkwaCross to come up to the water surface.
It doesnt like crowd, Mr. Eniang whispered to Mrs Diagne. It has heard noises.
See it! See it! They all shouted at the same time. But the manatee, scared by the many voices, swam underneath again, very quickly.
Oh, its tiny! Mrs Diagne said. This guy is new born!
A young man, wearing water-proof vest, climbed into the pond. With gloves on, he used his hands to search the murky water, for the manatee.
The man grabbed the animal within few minutes, brought the 35kg calf out to the surface, to the cheering of the people.
They handed him a plastic chair to sit on, inside the pond. He held out the manatee with his left hand, while using the right hand to insert feeding bottle into its mouth.
The manatees head remained visible, while the rest of the body remained submerged in water.
It was grey in colour. Its mouth resembled that of a cow. It had tiny hairs around the mouth region.
According to Seaworld.org, Manatees have a large flexible upper lip. Their lips help guide vegetation into the mouth.
Vibrissae (whiskers) are found on the surface of the upper lip. Each vibrissa is separately attached to nerve endings and has its own supply of blood.
The calf, held up in an upright position, continued to drink milk from the feeding bottle.
It was a beautiful sight to behold a baby manatee being fed, not by its mother, but by humans! It encapsulated the dream of every biodiversity conservationist, of a peaceful bond between man and animal, between the hunter and the hunted.
It shouldnt be drinking straight-up, Mrs. Diagne said to the man who was feeding the manatee. When it is with the mum, it feeds side-west.
Yeah, like that, Mrs Diagne said, as the man bent the animal a little downward.
This might just be my first Nigerian sample for genetic research, Mrs Diagne said, with a smile.
The next day would be a busy one. AkwaCross would have to go through detailed examination, some samples would be taken from it for genetic research, its heart-rate and body temperature would be taken, and its length and weight measured, and so on.
Because of the dearth of information, generally, on African manatee, AkwaCross provided a good opportunity for Mrs. Diagne.
She and the local Nigerian team assembled the next morning, at about 8a.m, at Mr. Eniangs place for the procedure.
While taking them through a brief lecture on the process it would take, Mrs Diagne assured the team that manatee could survive pretty outside the water.
Someone needs to help us monitor its breathing, she said. Manatees dont know when they are out of water; they still raise their head to breathe, they still think they are inside the water.
AkwaCross was pulled out from the pond, and brought under the shade where the procedure was to take place.
Mrs Diagne began touching the animal, while explaining some of its body parts to the team. She suddenly stopped, bowed her head, and then sighed.
Oh, no! I dont know, she said. It was a sad tone.
She sighed again.
Its off! One of the Uniuyo lecturers injected.
At that point, the painful truth became obvious to everyone: AkwaCross was dead!
Its a shame, Mrs. Diagne said. I cant believe this.
It went through a lot of trauma, being captured and put in a well. Like I said, it might not have been doing well from the start, but from the surface, it might look okay.
Mr. Eniang, too shocked to utter a word, folded his arms across his chest, and was gazing at the lifeless body of baby AkwaCross on the floor.
Everyone was downcast, and Mrs Diagne kept telling them that it wasnt their fault.
It was looking absolutely fine to me last night. You guys didnt do anything wrong.
People around the world who were following AkwaCross progress through the AACF Facebook page felt sad as well.
Mrs Diagne was smart enough to quickly reset everyones mood; the team began to probe what actually killed the baby manatee, and few minutes into necropsy, it was discovered that it died of dehydration.
She used the session to teach the team about manatee their anatomy, habitat, their significant life cycle, and what could be done to protect and conserve them.
They eat water weeds, they keep the water ways clear, and their faeces feed baby fish, and everybody wants to eat fish. Manatees are part of life cycle, they help the fish.
At Senegal, we declared a wildlife refuge for manatee and other aquatic animals. We worked in partnership with the local communities, and they banned all fishing activities. And the fishermen are now catching the biggest fish just outside the refuge.
Manatee has the potentials to boost eco-tourism in Nigeria and other African countries, but the people must first learn how to stop hunting them, said Mrs. Diagne.
The next day, Mrs. Diagne took the manatee enlightenment to Uniuyo campus where a handful of lecturers turned up for a one-day seminar arranged by Mr. Eniang.
At the school, some new converts pledged to join the growing campaign for the protection of the African manatees. There were also calls on the government, both at the federal and states, to show more interest and commitment in biodiversity conservation.
Mr. Eniang, whose name is fast becoming synonymous to wildlife conservation in Nigeria, is somewhat happy that AkwaCross didnt die in vain.
But beyond his love for conservation and the successes he has recorded, Mr. Eniang also symbolises the paradox in the story of conservation in Africa It was animals in the African wild that his parents hunted, killed, and sold in training him in school.
This is like a payback for me, Mr. Eniang said.
Today, Juliana is going to the university, and Im not killing animals to send her to school, he said. I am going to train her from money made from working for government. My generation will never hunt animals again.
But how can you plant conservation etiquette in a mind that is hungry? Theres so much hunger in the land, theres so much challenge for survival. So, nobody will listen to you except you give them an alternative. We need to build that into the conservation plan.
Residents of Buni Yadi and Buratai have expressed gratitude to the military authorities for reopening of the 135-kilometre Biu-Damaturu road.
Some of the jubilant residents bared their minds in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.
They said that the reopening of road three years after it was closed due to the insurgency would revive socio-economic activities among the communities living along the road.
One of the residents, Abdullahi Yaro, who fled the area at the peak of the insurgency, expressed joy at the reopening of the road.
He said that many residents of Buni Yadi, Buni Gari and adjourning communities in Gujba LGA of Yobe would return following the reopening of the road.
We are happy with this development; we can now begin to return to our areas.
I travelled all the way to Buni Yadi with some of my family members and friends to experience this historic event.
Some of us will stay back and start cleaning our homes so that we can go and bring back our wives and children, Mr. Yaro said.
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday dismissed the suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Simeon Ajibola, challenging the election of Abdulfatah Ahmed as the Governor of Kwara State.
Governor Ahmed was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the governorship election held on April 11, 2015.
In their suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/688/2015, the PDP and its candidate had approached the federal high court to challenge the victory of Governor Ahmed in the election.
Justice S. Chukwu in his ruling dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the plaintiffs had no locus standi to institute the case. The judge also agreed with the other grounds argued by the defendant counsel in the preliminary objection.
The court, therefore, upheld the election of Mr. Ahmed as Governor of the State.
According to the result released by INEC, Mr. Ahmed polled a total number of 295, 832 votes to defeat Mr. Ajibola who had 115, 220 votes. The candidate of the Labour Party, Mike Omotosho, scored 2, 973 votes to emerge second Mr. Ahmed won in all the 16 local government areas of the State.
Meanwhile, Governor Ahmed has described Fridays judgement as a victory for democracy and the rule of law, noting that the courts decision was an affirmation of the clear mandate freely entrusted with him by the good people of Kwara.
In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Muyideen Akorede, the governor called on members of the opposition party and their supporters to join hands with his administration to move the state forward.
He assured the people of the state of his commitment to fulfilling his campaign promises before the expiration of his tenure.
The Kiyawa Local Government Council of Jigawa has banned fishing activities in all rivers and streams in the area.
The councils Information Officer, Balarabe Abdullahi, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Dutse.
Mr. Abdullahi said that the councils Caretaker Committee Chairman, Abdullahi Sulaiman, announced the decision after the councils security meeting on Thursday.
He explained that the action was taken following disputes among fishermen in the area.
The spokesperson quoted the chairman as saying that no fisherman should fish in any of the waters in the area without obtaining permission from the authorities.
The council boss, he added, also urged traditional rulers in the area to continue to ensure peaceful co-existence among residents in their domains.
(NAN)
The Katsina State Government said on Sunday that only two persons died following the outbreak of Lassa fever in the area.
Kabir Mustapha, the Permanent Secretary in the states Ministry of Health, made this known to journalists in Katsina.
He said that the disease was imported from neighbouring Kaduna State by the relatives of a deceased victim of the disease.
Mr. Mustapha said that three other persons, who took active part in the burial of the corpse of the deceased victim, contracted the disease.
According to him, the infected persons were immediately taken to the isolation centre at Babbar-ruga, to avoid spreading the disease.
He told reporters that another case of the disease was imported to the state from Gwagwalada, Abuja although the patient later died at the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina.
The permanent secretary said that 11 medical staff of the centre had been quarantined and seven of them tested negative following laboratory tests that were carried out on them.
Mr. Mustapha said that out of 54 blood samples that were taken for laboratory test, six tested positive to lassa fever.
He stated that the infected persons, who responded to treatment were discharged.
The permanent secretary, who urged members of the public not to stigmatise those that were treated and discharged, advised them to report any suspected case of the disease to the nearest medical facility to prevent the disease from spreading further.
(NAN)
The Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly has declared support for the Freedom of Information and Whistleblowers bills, saying they would provide access to official information and strengthen communication ties between the government and the governed.
The Speaker, Suraju Adekunbi, said this on Friday while playing host to the United Action for Change, UAC, a non-governmental organization led by Muiz Banire. Mr. Banire presented the Freedom of Information, FOI, Bill and the Whistleblowers bills to the speaker at the Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
The FOI is already a law by the Federal Government but has not been domesticated by many states including Ogun.
Mr. Adekunbi commended the organization for the presentation, explaining that it was a reminder of what was expected of political office holders, especially the legislators in ensuring transparency and accountability in governance in the state and the nation at large.
The Speaker, who described the initiative of UAC as people-oriented, promised that the Assembly would support the proposed bills and give them due attention.
Earlier in his presentation, Mr. Banire said that the organization was conceived to engage and sensitize Nigerians on the philosophical and moral significance of the change mantra of the All Progressives Congress led government, stressing that its values revolve round national rebirth, value re-orientation and mobilization, transparency and accountability in governance as well as citizens engagement and consciousness.
He added that the FOI Act passed into law by the National Assembly existed only at the federal level, but was yet to be domesticated or enacted by the states, hence the need to propose a new version that also reviewed the shortcomings of the federal law.
According to Mr. Banire, the sections newly added in the proposed FOI Bill would aid the proper implementation of the law by creating the Office of the Complaint Commissioner, an Ombudsman and the Office of Complaint Tribunal to resolve disputes relating to rejected request for information.
The proposed Bill unlike the federal legislation which gives immediate access to court as soon as the requests are turned down will provide for administrative channels through the Complaint Commissioner and Appeal Commissioner to resolve disputes on request for information as much as possible with the litigation option being the last resort, he stated.
The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board has urged the 1,300 newly employed primary school teachers in the state to see their employment as a call to duty and service to humanity.
This is contained in a statement by the Public Affairs Officer of the board, Seyi Akitoye, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
The board, on April 15, issued appointment letters to the newly employed primary school teachers.
This was in response to the directive of the state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, to employ 1300 primary school teachers to boost the manpower in the public primary schools.
The statement quoted the Chairman of the board, Ganiyu Sopeyin, as urging the teachers to help the state to achieve its set goals in the area of primary education.
Mr. Sopeyin, according to the statement, said the new teachers were appointed following an open competitive process by the state government, which was adjudged to be of international standard.
He also reaffirmed that the present administration had invested in education in order to make public primary schools more attractive and competitive.
The teaching profession is a noble profession which demands high professionalism.
The new teachers should remember they were given opportunities which many are still seeking.
This is a golden opportunity for you to contribute your own quota to the development of the state.
You are going to be teaching our wards who are future leaders; we are entrusting you with our future, therefore, we want the best from you, the statement quoted Mr. Sopeyin as saying.
He warned that public service was guided by rules and regulations, noting that diligence and hard work would be rewarded, while any erring teacher would be sanctioned.
(NAN)
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.
Zurich, Switzerland, April 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
This material is intended for global medical media only.
For journalistic assessment and preparation before publication.
Today, on World Haemophilia Day, Novo Nordisk announces that the grant scheme to support and encourage research projects focused on the psychosocial issues faced by people with haemophilia is open for applications. The scheme, Haemophilia Experiences, Results, and Opportunities (HERO) Research Grant is worth up to 75,000, and aims to create awareness of the challenges faced by people living with haemophilia.
As part of the global campaign, 'Meet the HERO', Novo Nordisk also calls on the haemophilia community to celebrate the everyday heroes of haemophilia by tweeting a photo or video of how they take part in World Haemophilia Day using the hashtags #MeetTheHERO and #WHD2016.
"The HERO research grant is part of our commitment to helping people with haemophilia live a life with fewer limitations and support the heroes who care for them," says Paul Huggins, Corporate Vice President, Global Biopharm, Zurich, Novo Nordisk.
'Meet the HERO' supports the World Federation of Haemophilia (WFH) campaign, 'Treatment for all, the vision of all', and is part of Novo Nordisk's long-term commitment to changing haemophilia. This campaign uses insights from the ground-breaking HERO study that provides evidence about what it is like to live with haemophilia and calls for better psychosocial support for people with haemophilia, their families and those who care for them.
The HERO research grant is available to healthcare professionals providing care for people with haemophilia, and social workers or similar who provide or have expertise in psychosocial support for people with haemophilia.
For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.herostudy.org.
This World Haemophilia Day, show your support for the heroes of haemophilia with a tweet, photo or video of how you take part in the day by using #MeetTheHero and #WHD2016
About Haemophilia
Haemophilia is a rare blood clotting disorder. Internal bleeding into the joints, muscles, and other tissues can cause severe pain, joint damage, and disability. The worldwide incidence of haemophilia A is approximately one case per 5,000 males, approximately 30 per cent of whom have no family history. Haemophilia B occurs in one case per 25,000 males and represents 20-25 per cent of all patients with haemophilia. Globally, it is estimated that 440,000 people have haemophilia.
About World Haemophilia Day
Since 1989, patient groups worldwide have annually marked World Haemophilia Day on 17 April to raise awareness and understanding of haemophilia and other bleeding disorders. The date was chosen in honour of the World Federation of Haemophilia founder Frank Schnabel, who was born on that day.
About the HERO Study
Haemophilia Experiences, Results, and Opportunities (HERO) is an international, multidisciplinary initiative led by the HERO International Advisory Board and supported by Novo Nordisk as part of its Changing Haemophilia programme. It encompasses the psychosocial experiences of people with haemophilia, their families, and their health care providers and covers themes such as employment, relationships, sexual health, treatment and management of haemophilia, information and knowledge, and quality of life.
Changing Haemophilia
For more than three decades, Novo Nordisk has been committed to Changing Haemophilia. In addition to the discovery and development of effective and safe biological medicines, we work with our global partners to advocate for and create better access to diagnosis and multidisciplinary care with a focus on joint health. We aim for a future where all people living with haemophilia can live a life with as few limitations as possible.
About Novo Nordisk
Headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with 90 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care. The company also has leading positions within haemophilia care, growth hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy. Novo Nordisk employs approximately 41,000 employees in 75 countries, and markets its products in more than 180 countries. For more information, visit novonordisk.com.
Further information
Media:
Katrine Sperling
+45-4442-6718
krsp@novonordisk.com
Asa Josefsson
+45-30797708
aajf@novonordisk.com
Investors:
Peter Hugreffe Ankersen
+45-3075-9085
phak@novonordisk.com
Melanie Raouzeos
+45-3075-3479
mrz@novonordisk.com
Daniel Bohsen
+45-3079-6376
dabo@novonordisk.com
Kasper Veje
+45-3079-8519
kpvj@novonordisk.com
SOURCE Novo Nordisk
HARRISBURG, Pa., April 17, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, joined by advocates, members of his administration, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Governor Wolf signed Senate Bill 3, legalizing medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.
"I am proud to sign this bill that will provide long overdue medical relief to patients and families who could benefit from this treatment. I applaud members of both parties in the House and Senate who have come together to help patients who have run out of medical options and want to thank the thousands of advocates who have fought tirelessly for this cause," said Governor Wolf. "Since taking office, I have met with patients and families, held roundtables, and urged action on this legislation and it is encouraging that the hard work of these families has resulted in truly historic legislation."
"The signing of this bill, which will improve the quality of life for patients and their families throughout Pennsylvania, shows that Harrisburg can come together to address big challenges on behalf of the people of the commonwealth. In the coming months, I am looking forward to working together with both parties in the House and Senate to address other initiatives that could benefit Pennsylvanians."
The term "medical marijuana" refers to using the whole unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat a disease or symptom. The marijuana plant contains chemicals that may help treat a range of illnesses or symptoms. Studies have shown that medical marijuana can assist patients suffering from serious medical conditions by alleviating pain and improving their quality of life.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health will begin the process of implementing the state's Medical Marijuana Program. The implementation of the program is expected to take between 18 and 24 months and, when completed, will offer medical marijuana to patients who are under a physician's care for the treatment of a serious medical condition. Patients with serious medical conditions will be able to access medical marijuana with a physician's certification at designated state dispensaries.
The department has started working on temporary regulations in order to meet the 6-month publishing requirement under the statute and will be meeting with stakeholder groups, medical professionals and consumer groups to develop the application process for patients and caregivers to access medical marijuana. The Department of Health is working aggressively to ensure that these regulations are in place in the shortest timeframe possible.
"As the department moves forward with implementation, we want to make sure that we consider a number of factors in placing these dispensaries to ensure that medical marijuana is readily available for patients with serious medical conditions," said Secretary of Health Murphy. "The department will be conducting a full population study that will include the location and number of patients suffering from serious medical conditions and their ability to access public transportation to get to these facilities."
For more information on medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, click here.
MEDIA CONTACT: Jeff Sheridan, 717.783.1116
View Online
SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of the Governor
Related Links
https://www.governor.pa.gov
New Delhi, April 15 : The Delhi Petrol Dealer Association (DPDA) on Friday dismissed a report that it is going on strike against the odd-even scheme, saying it stands with the government's initiative to reduce air pollution.
"There is no strike. This is a rumour. Someone might have said in their individual capacity which was misunderstood. The association supports the Delhi government's odd-even inititative," DPDA spokesman Atul Peshawaraia told IANS.
"If the government is taking any initiative to clean the air of the national capital then we stand with it as a responsible citizen," he added.
"The DPDA does not agree with the Delhi government's odd-even scheme as bikers and other vehicles are exempted. That, however, is not an issue as the government is at least trying to clean the air, which is not an easy job," he added.
Delhi government's second phase of odd-even traffic restriction scheme, which aims at reducing air pollution in the national capital, started on Friday.
The scheme disallows private vehicles with even registration numbers to run on odd-numbered dates and vice versa, thus restricting the volume of traffic on roads.
Srinagar/New Delhi : National Srinagar/New Delhi, April 16 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday visited curfew-bound Handwara town to take stock of the situation even as the central government has decided to send more paramilitary forces to the state - on the boil for four days over civilian killings by security forces.
Mehbooba Mufti was accompanied by state Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma and Director General of Police (DGP) K. Rajendra Kumar. She met relatives of the youths killed on Tuesday in the security force firing in Handwara.
Five civilians have been killed in five-day long violence in north Kashmir Kupwara district since Tuesday in security force firing.
Her visit to Handwara comes as restrictions imposed by authorities and the protest shutdown called by separatists continued in Srinagar for the fourth day.
Meanwhile, the mother of the young girl allegedly molested by a soldier in Handwara town, the incident that triggered the violent protests in the Valley, on Saturday approached the state high court maintaining that her daughter was being held in "unlawful confinement" by the state police.
The chief minister, meeting with relatives of the killed youths, expressed condolences and asserted that the state government would ensure that anybody found guilty of having violated the standard operating procedure (SOP) during Tuesday's incident would face the process of law.
"I had wanted to visit Kupwara with a special economic package, but it is unfortunate that I had to come to console the bereaved families," Mehbooba Mufti said.
She also promised ex gratia relief to the next of kin of the slain youth.
Authorities had enforced curfew restrictions strictly in the town during the chief minister's visit. She interacted with relatives of the victims and senior officials of the district administration at the Kupwara Dak Bungalow in the town.
In New Delhi, union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi in a meeting of senior officials from the Intelligence Bureau, ministry of defence, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and the ministry of home affairs reviewed the situation in the Valley and assessed the requirements of the Jammu and Kashmir government to bring the situation under control without any more loss of life.
"The central government is concerned over the loss of human lives in J&K during the last four days. It was decided to send additional Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to strengthen the security grid in the Kashmir Valley," a home ministry statement said.
The statement said the ministry has assured "full cooperation and support to the government of J&K to ensure that there is no further loss of lives".
The statement also said the development package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Kashmir in November last year "is being expeditiously implemented for the overall development of Jammu and Kashmir, which will generate employment for the local youth and bring overall prosperity in the State".
On Friday, protesters attacked the Natnusa camp of the counter insurgency Rashtriya Rifles (RR) in Kupwara.
Soldiers at the camp fired at the protesters who army said had tried to enter the camp.
One teenager was killed in the Natnusa firing incident while three others were injured.
Police said 60 people were injured in violence in the Valley on Friday of whom 40 were security personnel while 20 were stone pelting protesters.
Fearing escalation of violence, authorities imposed restrictions in Handwara, Kupwara, Baramulla and Pulwama towns in addition to areas falling under the jurisdiction of seven police station areas in Srinagar on Saturday.
In Srinagar city, some skeletal private transport and three-wheelers were seen moving in the civil lines and outskirts areas.
Some shops also opened in civil lines and outskirts areas of Srinagar city where locals were seen buying essentials.
Restrictions imposed by the authorities and the protest shutdown called by the separatists continued in Srinagar for the fourth day Saturday.
Train services between the Valley and Banihal town also remained suspended for the fourth day while board of school education and the University of Kashmir postponed all exams scheduled for the day.
Meanwhile, the mother of the girl allegedly molested by a soldier told the state high court that her daughter was being held in 'unlawful confinement' by the state police.
The girl's mother has also alleged that the statement attributed to her daughter in which she said there had been no molestation attempt on her had been obtained by police 'under coercion'.
The state high court has directed the state police to come up with its reply quoting the provisions of law under which they were holding the girl in custody.
The high court also ordered that the police will not record any statement of the young girl till April 20 and she be produced before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) Kupwara on that day where her statement will be recorded by the CJM in camera.
Srinagar, April 17 : Authorities on Sunday said there would be no restrictions in Srinagar city as the situation limped back to normal here.
District magistrate Srinagar Farooq Ahmad Lone said there would be no restrictions in any area of Srinagar city on Sunday.
However, as a precautionary measure, restrictions will continue in Handwara and Kupwara towns on Sunday to maintain law and order, the authorities said.
Despite restrictions in parts of Srinagar city on Saturday, there was a perceptible improvement in the situation over the last three days as skeletal transport operated and some shops had opened for locals to buy essentials in civil lines and outskirts of the city.
District magistrate Kupwara Kumar Rajiv Rajan said restrictions would remain in force in Kupwara and Handwara towns on Sunday because of tension in the district.
Separatist leaders have also not called for any shutdown or protests on Sunday.
Parts of Srinagar city, including old city areas, remained under curfew-like restrictions during the last four days following killings of five civilians in firing by the security forces in Handwara, Drugmulla and Natnusa areas of Kupwara district.
Authorities have still not revoked the suspension of mobile internet services which have remained suspended in Kashmir valley for the last five days.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti met the family members of killed youth during her visit to Kupwara district on Saturday.
Mufti met them at Kupwara Dak Banglow where she chaired a security meeting attended by Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, chief secretary B.R. Sharma and police chief K. Rajendra Kumar.
Mufti condoled the bereaved families and regretted that she had to come to Kupwara for offering condolences while she had planned to visit there as the chief minister to announce a special package for the border district.
The chief minister told relatives of the victims that anybody found guilty of having violated the SOP (standard operating procedure) during crowd control in recent incidents will have to face the law.
"I have spoken to the top officers of the army and told them civilian killings are not acceptable. Those found guilty of using excessive force against protesting civilians will be punished," she assured them.
She also ordered ex gratia relief and other compensations to the next of kin of those who lost lives in Kupwara district due to firing by security forces.
Meanwhile, the police late Saturday produced the minor girl allegedly molested by a soldier in Handwara on Tuesday before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) under directions of the state high court.
The girl made a statement before the magistrate about the incident that triggered widespread violence in Handwara town on Tuesday.
The high court has directed the police to declare the provisions of law under which the minor girl was being detained.
This followed a petition filed by the girl's mother on Saturday. The next hearing of the case has been fixed for April 20.
Giving details of the law and order situation in Kashmir Valley during the past five days, S.J.M. Gilani, IGP (Kashmir), said over 200 policemen including three superintendent of police and two deputy superintendent of police have been injured during this period.
The inspector general of police said 28 civilians were injured during this period out of whom six were admitted in hospital and recuperating well from injuries sustained during the clashes.
Tokyo, April 17 : The death toll in a strong earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale that struck the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan has risen to 41.
The Saturday quake came after a sizable foreshock hit Kumamoto prefecture on Thursday. Thousands of people were injured due to the quakes and aftershocks in the region, Xinhua news agency reported.
Both the government and the weather agency warned on Sunday that strong winds and heavy rain was expected to continue throughout the day. Japan's Meteorological Agency forecast aftershocks and landslides.
They said the adverse weather conditions were likely to compound an already disastrous situation, which has seen widespread devastation throughout the prefecture and beyond.
The death toll is expected to rise as scores remain trapped beneath rubble and debris and unaccounted for.
More than 2,000 people have received treatment in hospital for injuries, public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday.
About 90,000 people were evacuated to shelters overnight in hardest-hit Kumamoto prefecture.
The magnitude 7.3 quake on Saturday is now believed to be the main quake, according to the meteorological agency, with an earlier magnitude 6.5 quake hitting on Thursday night, which registered a maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic scale in some areas, now believed to be the main quake's foreshock.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday said: "The victims spent a difficult night in shelters last night and we will make sure that enough food, medical care and water is made available."
Abe said the government intended to improve the living conditions of the evacuees while ensuring their stay in emergency accommodation was not prolonged.
Abe said extensive damage had been caused by the multiple quakes, with some 450,000 households left without power as the mercury dropped overnight and heavy wind and rain further added to the misery.
Flights in and out of Kumamoto Airport were suspended. The Shinkansen bullet train service in the Kyushu area too has been stopped.
Major portions of arterial routes and expressways in the region have also been closed due to significant cracks on the roads caused by the quakes or the roads crumbling.
New Delhi, April 17 : India on Sunday expressed concern over an explosion at a Sikh temple in the German city of Essen that left three people injured.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted he was "distressed to hear of an explosion in a gurudwara in the Essen city of Germany".
The nationality of the injured was not immediately known. "Our mission (in Germany) is following up with local authorities on ground situation," Swarup said.
Police in Germany have said there were no indication that the explosion was a terrorist attack but said it may have been caused deliberately.
Three people have been detained for questioning, the Independent.uk reported.
A masked person was spotted fleeing the scene shortly after the blast around 7.00 p.m. (German time) on Saturday, the police said.
The explosion took place as people were celebrating the Indian festival of Baisakhi. The temple had hosted a wedding earlier in the day and the injured were guests from the marriage party.
Chennai, April 17 : The satellite rights of Telugu actioner "Sarrainodu", which releases in cinemas on April 22, have been acquired for a whopping Rs.16 crore, along with its dubbed Hindi and Malayalam versions.
"The Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi satellite rights of the film have been acquired for a record price of Rs.16 crore, making it the highest amount ever paid for an Allu Arjun starrer. A leading private channel is said to have bagged the deal," a source from the film's unit told IANS.
Directed by Boyapati Srinu, the film also stars Catherine Tresa, Rakul Preet Singh and Aadi Pinisetty.
In an out-and-out commercial entertainer, Arjun is rumoured to be playing a bodyguard in the film, appointed to look after an MLA, played by Catherine.
Produced by Geetha Arts, the film has music by S.S. Thaman.
Mumbai, April 17 : Legendary actor Dilip Kumar, who was hospitalised on Saturday morning for "high fever and chest infection", is recovering well and his reports are "normal", confirms a representative of his actor-wife Saira Banu.
The 93-year-old thespian ran high fever and suffered from nausea on Saturday morning and was rushed to Lilavati Hospital here.
"Dilip sir is recovering well and all his reports have also come normal. He will be discharged from the hospital in a couple of days," Saira's representative told IANS.
Born in Peshawar, now in Pakistan, Dilip Kumar, whose real name is Yusuf Khan, entered the Indian film industry in the black-and-white era and became a name to reckon with in the 1950s and 1960s.
Besides films like "Aan", "Daag", "Madhumati", "Paigham", "Leader" and "Ram Aur Shyam", his cinematic gems range from the tragic story of "Devdas", the historical love saga "Mughal-E-Azam" to the dacoit drama "Ganga Jamuna".
After working for about six decades, he stepped away from the arclights in 1998. His last movie was "Qila".
Dilip Kumar was honoured with Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, in 2015.
London, April 17 : Swedish researchers have identified a protein commonly found in connective tissue that contributes to the development as well as spread of breast cancer.
Cartilage Oligomeric Matrix Protein (COMP) is a protein that has been found in cartilage -- a connective tissue found in many areas of the body including joints between bones of elbows, knees and ankles.
"We did not expect to find COMP in connection with breast cancer, and we were also surprised by the strong effect it had on the development of breast cancer in mice," said Emelie Englund, researcher at Lund University in Sweden.
The findings revealed that women, who had higher levels of COMP, experienced an increase in the spread of breast cancer, to the surrounding tissues and also showed an increase in the mortality rate.
COMP not only contributed to a more rapid growth of the primary tumour, but also to the formation of metastases.
Further, COMP affects the cell metabolism and makes the breast environment less favourable to healthy cells.
It makes the cancer cells more resistant to natural cell death.
"We saw a clear association between high levels of COMP and a worse breast cancer prognosis", explained Anna Blom, professor, in the paper published in the journal Oncogene.
Various amounts of COMP were found in both the tumours and the surrounding tissue, but never in healthy breast tissue.
With more research, COMP has the potential of becoming an indicator of aggressive breast cancer, and thereby providing early and valuable information before deciding on an appropriate treatment, the researchers indicated.
The results are based on a clinical study of breast tissue from a little more than 600 women with breast cancer.
Agartala, April 17 : Three tribal guerrillas who fled from their Bangladeshi hideout surrendered to the Tripura Police, officials said here on Sunday.
Ganaram Reang, Danasai Reang and Salendra Reang, belonging to the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), surrendered in Kanchanpur in northern Tripura on Saturday night, a police official said.
They told the police they recently fled from the NLFT camps at Sapchari in Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeast Bangladesh.
According to them, more NLFT cadres from Bangladesh were likely to surrender, the official added.
Twelve NLFT rebels with a huge quantity of arms and ammunition surrendered to the Tripura Police chief K. Nagaraj on April 11. They also escaped from the same NLFT den in Bangladesh.
Police officials said the three militants had fled along with the previous 12 ultras but could not surrender together, as they had entered Tripura through different routes.
NLFT cadres and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) militants undergo arms training in hideouts in Bangladesh, which shares an 856-km border with Tripura.
Banned in 1997 by the union home ministry, the two outfits advocate secession of Tripura from India. However, ATTF has become almost defunct due to the surrender of most of its cadres.
Beijing, April 17 : The recent two months have witnessed some unusually active seismic activities across the globe, as a string of powerful earthquakes have jolted Ecuador, Japan, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Indonesia, killing dozens of people and triggering several tsunami alerts.
Many cannot help wondering: Is this just coincidence, or is our planet once again on a "quake mode" that will trigger one major tremor after another?
Even experts find it difficult to draw a quick conclusion, but they have noted that both the magnitudes and frequencies of the recent quakes are still "within a normal range", Xinhua news agency reported.
It is hard to judge whether the Earth is experiencing another seismic active period, said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey.
He said the quake-prone zones around the world could see strong shocks coming at any time, but so far there have been no signs of connection between seismic activities in different zones.
The causes of the earthquakes are complicated, experts say, while pointing out that the geographic location of Japan and Indonesia, both of which sit right on the Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt, is the main factor behind their frequent quakes.
The belt, which extends all the way through the US Pacific coast, China's Taiwan, the Philippines and New Zealand, releases about three quarters of quake-discharged energy from the interior of our planet. It has earned a befitting name -- the Pacific Ring of Fire.
While it seems too early to sound the alarm against a new wave of disastrous earthquakes, some scientists insist that certain "high risk zones" do require a close watch.
The southern part of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in China always has a high geological activeness, and is now entering a "clustering period" of massive quakes above magnitude 7.0, warned Xu Xiwei, a researcher at the Institute of Geology under the China Earthquake Administration.
"We have to make further studies to better understand the seismic trends in that region," said Xu.
Cairo, April 17 : French President Francios Hollande began three-day official visit to Egypt on Sunday to boost ties with the Middle East country.
"The visit reflects a mutual desire to further boost firm ties to a more distinguished level," Xinhua quoted the presidential spokesman Alaa Youssef as saying.
The visit will also provide an opportunity to promote cooperation with France in all fields, particularly in economy.
"After a joint conference, a number of agreements will be signed," Youssef said.
Hollande is on a three-nation tour in the Middle East -- Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
Kolkata, April 17 : Bengali actress Locket Chatterjee, contesting the West Bengal assembly election as a BJP nominee, on Sunday threatened the presiding officer of a booth in her constituency Mayureshwari, Birbhum district, following allegation of rigging.
Confronting the presiding officer of booth number 30 in the constituency, a fuming Chatterjee threatened to take him to task for "allowing rigging" and got the entire argument video-taped.
"Did rigging take place or not?" asked Chatterjee as the presiding officer denied repeatedly.
Infuriated at the presiding officer's denial, Chatterjee repeatedly pointing fingers at him and slamming her fists on a table said: "Don't you feel ashamed, how much money have you got? You are ruining the life of people here. Will you be able to sleep after knowing how you allowed rigging here?"
Asking her party men to record the entire conversation on a mobile camera, she made the polling officer say twice that there was no rigging and also recorded the version of the man who alleged rigging.
"We will send this video to the (Election Commission) and then you wait for the consequences. You are ruining the people of Bengal for the sake of Trinamool."
"When others are saying, even then will you say there was no rigging? How much money have you taken? You just wait for the consequences," added the actress.
New Delhi, April 17 : In continued effort to highlight B.R. Ambedkar's legacy, the union water resources ministry is all set to announce launch of a programme in the name of the country's famous constitution-maker.
Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti said here on Sunday a formal announcement about the new water programme would be made at the meeting of all water commissions on Tuesday.
She said while the Centre was keeping an eye on the drought and drought-like situation in various parts of the country, her ministry has asked states to file reports on their water deficiency and updated water data.
"All states have been asked to file report on water shortage. We will then examine the issues involved and prepare a roadmap. The states have to draw out their priorities to improve the situation," she said on the sidelines of a function on the Ganga River Basin Management and Studies.
Uma Bharti said the Centre has been tackling the problem of drought well.
As a part of 125th birth anniversary celebrations of B.R. Ambedkar, the Central Water Commission is organising a national seminar on Tuesday on multi-purpose development of water resources and present challenges to highlight his contribution in water sector.
Officials from the Centrfal Water Commission, eminent experts from water resources sector such as Mihir Shah, former Planning Commission member, and experts from the Indian Council of Social Science Research and Centre for the Study of Regional Development of the Jawaharlal Nehru University are expected to attend the seminar.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be the chief guest during the plenary Session of the seminar while Uma Bharti will preside over the function.
Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan is also likely to attend the function, sources said.
Kabul, April 17 : At least 23 people were killed as heavy rainfall and floods hit Afghanistan's Badghis province on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
"Based on the reports we have received so far, 23 people, including women and children, have been confirmed dead due to downpour and flooding in Jawand, Balamurghab and Abkamari districts," a police official told Xinhua news agency.
Rainstorm and flooding hit several parts of Afghanistan, including the capital city Kabul, on Saturday night and parts of the country were still receiving heavy rain.
New Delhi, April 17 : Iran on Sunday said it will be happy to partner India in the refinery sector as New Delhi issued a statement that it will sign an agreement to invest in the Gulf nation's Chabahar port to boost trade with Afghanistan.
"Both sides discussed the energy partnership between India and Iran," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup informed the media.
"Iran said it would be happy to participate in the refinery sector in India," he said.
An external affairs ministry statement issued soon after said that a draft agreement on the Chabahar port in Iran envisioned "trilateral cooperation for providing alternative access to seas to Afghanistan, inter alia for Afghanistan's trade with India".
"When the agreement comes into force, it will significantly enhance utilisation of Chabahar port, contribute to economic growth of Afghanistan, and facilitate better regional connectivity, including between India and connections to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The agreement will be a strategic bulwark for greater flow of people and goods among the three countries as well as in the region," it stated.
The statement also said it has been decided that the agreement would be signed at a high level at an early opportunity after completing necessary internal procedures in the three countries.
This is significant given that Sushma Swaraj's visit to Iran comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Saudi Arabia, India's biggest oil supplier, earlier this month amidst speculation that it might impact New Delhi's traditional ties with Tehran and the deteriorating ties between the Gulf rivals, especially after the execution of a Shia cleric by Riyadh's Sunni rulers in January this year.
The execution of Nimr Al-Nimr, a Saudi national and a Shia cleric in January this year, created a volatile situation in the Middle East with the Saudi missions in Iran coming under attack and Riyadh cutting off diplomatic ties with Shia-majority Tehran.
The Indian minister's visit to Iran also comes in the wake of the lifting of UN-sponsored sanctions on the Gulf nation for it nuclear programme.
Swarup said on Sunday that on the Farzad B gas field, both sides took note of the constructive discussions held during the recent visit to Iran by Minister of State for Petroleum Dharmendra Pradhan.
"The Indian side welcomed the Iranian decision to keep the Farzad B field outside the auction basket. The concerned companies have been directed to complete their contractual negotiations in a time bound manner. The Iranian side had earlier communicated their gas pricing formula and expressed their desire for Indian investment in the Chabahar SEZ (special economic zone)," the spokesman stated.
Iran also said that it fully supported India's desire to join the Ashgabat Agreement.
The Ashgabat Agreement has Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as its founding members. Kazakhstan also joined this arrangement later.
Accession to the agreement would enable India to utilise this existing transport and transit corridor to facilitate trade and commercial interaction with the Eurasian region.
Sushma Swaraj and Zarif also reviewed the progress made in the International North South Transport Corridor.
A team of experts from India's IRCON will visit Iran for discussions on the Chabahar-Zahedan railway link, according to Swarup.
"On trade and investment, the two sides agreed that with the lifting of sanctions, the potential for expanding these ties was immense," he said.
"They agreed that pending agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty should be concluded on a priority basis."
India and Iran also expressed satisfaction on the release of fishermen and sailors from each other's jails.
Given the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), "both sides took note of the good cooperation between the National Security Council structures of the two countries and agreed to intensify this engagement", Swarup said.
"In terms of cultural cooperation, given the civilisational links between India and Iran, both sides agreed to promote and strengthen the existing cultural exchanges, inter-alia, by observing Weeks of Iran and India in each other's country, publication of manuscripts, organising conferences and events related to language, literature and religion," he said.
In another development, Iran also agreed to positively consider the establishment of a Hindi Chair in Tehran University sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
The two ministers also reviewed global and regional issues, in particular the situation in Afghanistan.
Sushma Swaraj arrived in Tehran on Saturday on the first leg of a two-nation tour. Later, she will travel to Russia.
Kolkata, April 17 : West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Sunday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and affirmed the legality of the state government replying to the Election Commission's notice to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over violation of the model code of conduct.
Addressing a poll rally on Sunday in Krishnanagar in Nadia district, Modi slammed Banerjee for "misusing the state machinery" by getting the chief secretary to reply to the show-cause notice that was issued by the Election Commission to Banerjee as the Trinamool chairperson and not as the chief minister.
Within minutes of Modi's address, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien asserted that the chief secretary had the right to reply as the notice was addressed to the chief minister.
"The letter from the EC is a public document. The tech-savvy Modi could have read it even online. It is addressed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and not the Trinamool Congress or the candidate from Bhowanipore assembly constituency.
"So, the chief secretary replying to a letter addressed to the chief minister is in order," said Derek O'Brien, posting an image of the notice on his official Facebook page as well the party website.
"Did the prime minister get his facts wrong? Or was he lying," asked the Trinamool spokesperson.
The poll panel on Thursday issued notice to Banerjee over her announcement of making Asansol a district and other utterances made at a party rally during the ongoing assembly polls.
Bengaluru, April 17 : Digital and medical communications solutions provider MedTrix Healthcare plans to foray into the US and European Union (EU) markets to expand its operations following its tie-up with leading pharma companies.
"We are planning to expand into multiple geographies by increasing our access to the top pharma firms and doubling the headcount," the city-based company said in a statement here on Sunday.
The pharma sector is at its experimental phase in developing and deploying digital health solutions aimed at reaching HCPs (healthcare common procedures) and patients to improve disease outcomes.
"Digital solutions are expected to result in 7-11 percent savings in total healthcare spending," MedTrix founder and director Vimal Narayanan said.
The HCP codes are based on the American Medical Association's current procedural terminology.
Among the company's global pharma clientele are Novartis, Bayer, Nestle, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Amgen. The company has also entered into strategic agreements with key clients in the US and EU markets to expand its footprint worldwide.
"Until recently, though we have been engaging with some key clients in many projects in developed markets, most were in a pilot phase. Many of them have gone on to achieve successful metrics, prompting them to provide us with larger engagements," Narayanan noted.
As a driver of the paradigm shifts in the pharma industry, the company plans engagements for professionals through digital route and production of digital assets for communications like apps, websites, videos and social media support.
"With 6.9-billion dollar investments in digital solutions by global healthcare and pharma industry in 2015, we have begun to offer a berth for India in the growing space for others to follow," Narayanan added.
The company also provides support to conceptualize, develop and launch new technologies to benefit patients and healthcare providers with measured return on investment.
New Delhi, April 17 : A 40-year-old cook has been arrested on charges of strangulating his wife and then chopping her body into several parts, a police official said on Sunday.
The incident is attributed to an extra-marital affair, as Gulbuddin had allegedly also married another woman in Assam. He wanted to shift there after getting rid of his first wife.
"Gulbuddin on Thursday night murdered his wife Phullu Begum, 36, at his Aya Nagar home in south Delhi. He was arrested on Saturday," said a senior police official.
According to police, Gulbuddin admitted to having committed the crime and revealed that he strangulated his wife and then cut her body with a saw in the bathroom of the first floor of his house. Their 16-year-old daughter was asleep on the ground floor.
"He wanted to sell his Delhi property which Phullu Begum resisted. Thus, he planned to get rid of her," said police.
After killing her, he stuffed the body parts in different sacks and dumped them at a secluded spot.
The body parts were recovered in a decomposed state after Gulbuddin led a police team to the spot.
The matter came to light when his daughter enquired about her mother. After getting no proper reply from her father, she lodged a missing complaint at Fatehpur Beri police station.
Police have sent the body parts for postmortem. A case of murder has been registered at Fatehpur Beri police station and the accused has been arrested.
Kolkata, April 17 : His penchant for courting controversy was on display yet again on Sunday as Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal found himself at the wrong end of the Election Commission (EC) after having cast his vote sporting his party symbol on his dress and also defying the panel's statutory orders.
With the second phase of the West Bengal assembly polls underway in 56 constituencies spread across seven districts, many eyes were on the Trinamool's Birbhum district president who has been put under constant surveillance by the EC with central security forces and a local magistrate marking his moves.
Known for his caustic remarks and vitriolic speeches, Mondal ended the day with two first information reports (FIRs) against him -- one for casting his vote sporting the party symbol on his kurta, and the other for defying the EC's order refraining him from moving beyond his constituency Bolpur.
West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta informed about the two FIRs filed against Mondal.
Seen riding pillion on a motorbike during polling, Mondal appeared unperturbed by the EC's clampdown and put the onus on the booth presiding officer for not informing about his mistake.
"All my kurtas have this party symbol attached, I did not notice it. But the presiding officer could have stopped me. He could have reminded me," said Mondal, asserting he wasn't sorry for the mistake.
Earlier in the afternoon, Mondal had denied he went inside the booth sporting the Trinamool's symbol and even accused media channels of running "old footage".
"I had taken off the symbol before entering the booth," he said.
But later in the evening, he admitted it was a mistake on his part.
The opposition parties were prompt to approach the EC against Mondal continuously daring to undermine the poll panel.
"The Left Front has lodged a complaint with the EC. How can he be allowed to enter the booth sporting party symbol? We have sought action in this matter," said Forward Bloc leader Naren Chatterjee.
Congress leader and former union minister Jairam Ramesh also demanded the EC to act against Mondal.
While there were reports of sporadic violence from across Birbhum, Mondal asserted that the polling process was peaceful and questioned the efficacy of the legal action initiated against him by the poll panel.
"The poll has been peaceful, there was no violence, then why these FIRs against me? Have I indulged in fighting that they have initiated legal action against me? I have also not challenged the EC," he said.
"The opposition has been blaming the Trinamool but is it my fault that they could not arrange for polling agents? They have made a habit of blaming the Trinamool for everything," said Mondal.
Asked if the "peaceful votes" in the district -- often in the news for pre-poll violence -- was because of him being kept under surveillance, Mondal retorted: "I am not under any surveillance. No one has the ability to put me under surveillance."
Mondal, who attained notoriety in 2013 for asking his men to "bomb the police", days before Sunday's voting boasted of "vanishing" opposition parties' polling agents on the polling day.
Besides being show-caused for his controversial remarks against opposition leaders by the EC, the surveillance was ordered in the wake of demand by opposition parties and the civil society members for his arrest to create an atmosphere conducive for holding free and fair polls.
Ahmedabad, April 17 : A 'jail bharo' programme by agitating Patidar (Patel) leaders turned violent on Sunday, forcing the authorities to clamp curfew and deploy the Border Security Force (BSF) in Gujarat's northern town of Mehsana.
Unruly mobs attacked the camp offices of Minister of State for Home Rajni Patel and Health Minister Nitin Patel, who is also the head of the committee of seven ministers constituted by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel to hold talks with the two Patidar outfits -- Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) and Sardar Patel Group (SPG).
The two ministers were also targeted during the violence on the night of August 25 last year following police action at a massive rally in Ahmedabad.
The committee has submitted its report to the chief minister and a decision is expected soon.
Porbander BJP Lok Sabha member Vitthal Radadia, who is also a Patel, has been mediating between jailed Patidar leader Hardik Patel and the government and had recently said a rapprochment was around the corner.
Facing sedition charges, Hardik Patel has been in jail for the last eight months.
The SPG and the PAAS have agitating for reservation for Patels in government jobs and educational institutions under the Other Backward Classes category.
Sunday's 'jail bharo' programme was in support of the demand for the release of jailed Patel leaders and withdrawal of cases against them.
The SPG had earlier announced its second round of agitation if its demands were not met by April 17.
Police and paramilitary forces were deployed in all north Gujarat towns, besides Ahmedabad and Surat, which are known strongholds of the pro-quota Patels, following incidents of arson and stone-pelting in Mehsana as well as Surat.
More than 1,000 agitators from the Patel community in Mehsana and over 500 in Surat were taken into preventive custody as large crowds gathered near the district jails in both places in defiance of prohibitory orders.
Surat Police Commissioner Ashish Bhatia told TV channels that most of those detained were from the Patel-dominated Varachha area.
Asserting that trouble-makers would not be spared, Bhatia said: "This city belongs to all and those creating mischief will be dealt with strictly."
Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said after a government programme in Gujarat's southern town of Valsad: "Our government is for the people and not for agitators."
She issued a statement asking people to maintain peace and harmony and not get waylaid by rumours.
Speaking to Gujarati TV channels, state BJP president Vijay Rupani asked the people as well as police to exercise retraint.
Authorities suspended internet services and mobile phone applications till Monday morning in Mehsana and other north Gujarat towns after the violence to prevent the spread of incendiary information.
Similar action is likely to be taken in Ahmedabad and certain cities of Saurashtra region, sources said.
The agitators set on fire an FCI godown and a state government building in Mehsana.
The Patel mobs also torched a sub divisional magistrate's vehicle and a state transport bus.
Two buses of the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) were attacked with stones in Patidar-domiated Ghatlodia area of Ahmedabad.
A group of Patels blocked the Bhavnagar-Talaja highway in Saurashtra region.
About 200 state transport buses were diverted from sensitive routes as a precaution and drivers were instructed to take the buses to the nearest police stations.
In Ahmedabad city also, some buses run by AMTS were diverted from Patel-dominated pockets while civic authorities were holding a meeting to decide on discontinuing several routes in the city.
Police hurled over two dozen tear gas shells and used water cannons as well as rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
SPG convener Lalji Patel sustained head injuries as his supporters pelted stones at policemen.
Gujarati TV channels quoted police as saying that Patel was hurt in the stone-throwing and not baton-charge.
Lalji Patel along with his supporters was also taken into preventive custody.
The SPG has given a call for a shutdown in Gujarat on Monday in protest against the police action.
London, April 18 : Suki Waterhouse and her presenter friend Poppy Jamie lived with a tribe in Brazil after being invited by someone they met in South America.
The 24-year-old model and Jamie have recently returned from the Amazon, and the pair were concerned they might contract the mosquito-borne, symptom-free Zika virus, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
"Suki and I met this guy in Brazil who invited us to live with a tribe, so we did it. We were quite worried about contraction the Zika virus though. We risked our lives for a good Instagram," LOOK magazine quoted Jamie as saying.
Despite their medical concerns, the two women had a great time together.
"Quite honestly, Suki is one of the best people who's ever lived. Having just spent the week with her I now feel like I have stomach muscles from laughing. We're launching our own friendship brand in October," Jamie said.
LexInnova Announces Integration of Review Project Management Tool, LexInsight PrivCheck, with Relativity
LexInnova Technologies, a leading provider of technology, e-discovery, and IP solutions, today announced the integration of its e-discovery project management application, LexInsight PrivCheck, with Relativity, the end-to-end e-discovery software developed by kCura. PrivCheck, which joins a group of applications available in the Relativity Ecosystem, will help attorneys and e-discovery managers instantly identify and segregate potentially privileged documents within large datasets.
LexInsight PrivCheck is a powerful resource/tool that can analyze the data contained in documents stored within a Relativity saved search and reference it against its PrivVault, a repository of more than 40,000 data-points that can potentially trigger privilege. The repository is updated on a real-time basis. Through PrivCheck, review managers can now quickly segregate potentially privileged documents and identify additional keywords for privilege review. This allows users to mitigate the risk associated with inadvertent disclosure of privileged information, a key concern for stakeholders.
PrivCheck is easy to deploy and works seamlessly within an existing Relativity workspace. It is designed to run in the background, and once a task has been completed, provides a visual representation of the results and key statistics. Further, data-points such as attorney email addresses that could potentially trigger privilege, are automatically saved to customized metadata fields and may be viewed and exported at any time during the review. The LexInsight PrivCheck tool reads through the documents and identifies any data points that can potentially trigger privilege. The toolkit also enables the PM to input the in-house counsel contact details and run an exhaustive list of Legal strings which helps in effective isolation of potentially privileged documents.
Its great to see developers like LexInnova taking advantage of Relativitys extensibility to build innovative solutions for our community, said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of Chicago-based kCura. PrivCheck provides an application that simplifies a complicated e-discovery process for our customers, allowing them to tackle their unique challenges more efficiently.
Relativity has more than 130,000 active users and is used to manage more than 100,000 legal matters, some involving hundreds of millions of documents. Integration with Relativity will help the vast community of its users benefit from the innovative solution that LexInsights PrivCheck application has to offer, said Abhi Verma, Managing Director of LexInnova Technologies. PrivCheck is the first in a number of project management tools we will be adding to LexInsight. The goal is to bring more efficiency to the e-discovery process and solve intrinsic problems faced by the stakeholders, Verma added.
About LexInnova
LexInnova provides e-Discovery, contract review, corporate due diligence, and intellectual property analytics services that allow clients to improve quality, reduce costs and enhance the effectiveness of legal matters. LexInnova draws on a combination of technical and project management expertise to solve the challenges that arise at the intersection of technology and the law. For more information on LexInsight PrivCheck, and sales related inquiries, visit privcheck.lexinsight.com or email sales(at)lexinsight.com. For more information on LexInnova, visit http://www.lex-innova.com.
About kCura
Recognized as a Leader in Gartners 2015 E-Discovery Magic Quadrant, kCura are the developers of the e-discovery software Relativity. Relativity has more than 130,000 active users in more than 40 countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice and more than 190 of the Am Law 200. kCura helps corporations, law firms, and government agenciesnumbering more than 10,000 organizationsmeet unstructured data challenges by installing Relativity on-premises and providing hosted, on-demand solutions through a global network of partners. kCura has been named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for five consecutive years. Please contact kCura at sales(at)kcura.com or visit https://www.kcura.com/ for more information.
Press Contacts:
LexInnova:
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LexInnova
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E: kp.singh(at)lex-innova.com
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http://www.kcura.com
The State of Texas HUB program is administered by the Comptrollers office and is charged with insuring the validity and eligibility of the applicants. A "Historically Underutilized Business" is an entity with its principal place of business in Texas, and is at least 51% owned by an Asian Pacific American, Black American, Hispanic American, Native American and/or American woman who reside in Texas and have a proportionate interest and demonstrate active participation in the control, operations and management of the entity's affairs.
Kathy Ryalls, The President and CEO of RGS Financial, said RGS is ecstatic about this validating designation. The HUB certification confirms our status as a minority owned and operated business and will help open many doors.
RGS is listed in the State of Texas HUB Directory and may be viewed at: http://www.window.state.tx.us/procurement//cmbl/hubonly.html.
About RGS:
RGS Financial is a nationally recognized accounts receivable management company serving clients in the government, financial services, healthcare and utility sectors. Through RevTell, its revenue cycle management division, RGS also provides revenue cycle and consulting services to the healthcare industry. For more information about RGS, please contact Paul Gauerke, E.V.P. at 320.230.6285 or pgauerke(at)rgsfinancial.com.
CHICAGO (TNS) -- As a May 1 deadline looms for high school seniors deciding where to attend college, students are thinking twice about universities in Illinois, where the worst budget crisis in state history has halted funding for higher education.
Public colleges haven't received state aid for the year that started July 1 as Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers fight over a budget. The strain has spurred colleges to furlough staff and cancel projects. State scholarships for low-income students haven't been paid. High school counselors and some state schools say they're hearing that more students are looking to private, community colleges or out-of-state options, because of the funding uncertainty.
"You're having an upswing in students that just are not going to those schools" that are struggling financially like Chicago State University and Northeastern Illinois, said Amanda Andros, a counselor at Lane Technical College Prep, Chicago's largest high school. "They're not sure if the university is going to stay open."
Pensions, bonds and state employees are getting paid during the impasse, but higher education funds are stuck at zero, leaving public universities and poor students who rely on state aid among the hardest hit by the budget standoff. As more students look elsewhere, Illinois risks a long-term loss of residents, further pressuring the economy of the state that ranked 49 out of 50 in terms of population gains in the last three years.
This week, the Democrat-led legislature approved $3.9 billion of spending that includes funding higher education and scholarships for low-income students, but Rauner will veto the measure, according to his office. Richard Goldberg, his deputy chief of staff, criticized the lack of revenue behind the bill, calling it "filled with empty promises." Republicans have pitched ways to pay for higher education like changing the procurement process to free up funds or giving Rauner authority to make other budget cuts.
As the state's leaders bicker, at least one university is running out of time. If Chicago State University doesn't receive funding by the end of April, it will exhaust normal operating dollars. Without aid, most of the more than 900 layoff notices it sent out in February will be executed on April 30, said Tom Wogan, a school spokesman.
"What we are hearing from recruiters is that high school counselors are increasingly telling students to avoid Illinois public universities," Wogan said. "That's a product of this budget crisis causing a loss of faith in the market for prospective college students."
The uncertainty isn't comforting for holders of university debt. Moody's Investors Service cut the ratings of three universities in February, dropping Eastern Illinois to junk.
"If there's a perception that the educational system is deteriorating, then I think that will have an impact on potential new employment and on migrants' decision to move to Illinois," said Alan Schankel, a managing director at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "It's a real problem."
The state is losing students, said Sherri McLaughlin, a counselor in Jacksonville, Ill. She's seeing more students going out of state or opting for junior colleges. McLaughlin, who's been a counselor for 17 years, said she's even advising students differently in terms of what to ask schools.
"Instead of saying 'How many kids go to school here?' and 'What's your graduation rate?' now you're looking at asking the school, 'Where is your financial stability?'" McLaughlin said. "There's more difficult decisions being made now when you're choosing a school than they had to just a year ago."
Randy Dunn, president of the Southern Illinois University System, said its Carbondale campus is hearing from admitted students who aren't ready to commit. SIU has more than 6,000 students who receive need-based state aid. The school covered those grants this year but can't commit to backstopping them for the coming year, he said.
Illinois's higher education competitors are taking advantage of the state's fiscal floundering. Advertisements and solicitations from universities trying to get into the Illinois market are popping up, Dunn said.
"Some of our more savvy regional competitors see blood in the water, and there is clearly a concerted effort to then try to pick off some of those students in this uncertain environment," said Dunn.
The budget increase isn't affecting universities equally. The state's flagship institution, the University of Illinois, has seen a record number of applications for the year that starts in August. President Tim Killeen is projecting at or close to record enrollment. The school's three campuses serve more than 80,000 students and have "very good liquidity," according to Moody's.
Private schools aren't immune. Last month, the Illinois Institute of Technology sent a letter to students asking them to reimburse the school for covering the need-based state aid that Illinois should have paid. Students have the option of a 12-month loan through the university. If they don't pay, they can't register for classes.
The budget standoff has created a crisis of confidence in Illinois education, said Matt Bierman, budget director and vice president of administrative services at Western Illinois University. As more students go out of state, fewer return, he said.
"We turn out police officers and nurses and teachers and business entrepreneurs," said Bierman. The state's leaders need to "realize they're causing long-term damage, not just to higher education, but to the entire workforce in the state."
BETTENDORF -- The first Latina immigrant to hold the position of U.S. Treasurer said Saturday the Republican Party is going to pay at the polls for comments made about the country's Hispanic population.
Rosario Marin, who served as U.S. Treasurer under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, said the Republican Party she grew to love, starting with her first vote for Ronald Reagan back in 1984, has lost its way.
Prior to her keynote address before the Greater Quad Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Marin spoke about some of the challenges the country is facing today, including a presidential election that has produced hostility and polarization among the masses.
"Today, my party, the people I have worked so hard for, when I listen to the discourse, it's just painful," Ms. Marin said.
Ms. Marin is a businesswoman, author and internationally sought after public speaker, according to the American Program Bureau.
She also served in former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cabinet as Secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency from 2006 to 2009.
She said the language used by Republican presidential candidates, such as Donald Trump, takes the party down a notch. She said Ronald Reagan drew her to the Republican Party.
"When I met Mrs. Reagan, I told her precisely that," she said. "He (President Reagan) made me feel welcome.
"I think it's one of the problems that I see for people in my situation, the Latino conservative Republicans," she continued. "With the options we have right now, the only option we have is (John) Kasich).
"I never say his (Mr. Trump's) name."
She called him, "The little orange man," who has insulted her as a woman, an immigrant, a Mexican immigrant, and a mother of a child with a disability.
"The guy has insulted me one way or another," she said. "I have no love for this gentleman."
As for immigration reform, Ms. Marin said both Democrats and Republicans have failed in their efforts.
"Immigration is an issue being used by both parties for their political purposes," she said. "It's easy to do this. When the Democrats were in power, they could have had immigration reform, whether with President Clinton or President Obama. They had the Congress, the Senate, and the White House.
"They chose not to do that. Right now, the rhetoric on the Republican side against undocumented immigrants, I see our party taking the biggest hit.
"At least the Democrats don't insult us. They don't help us, but they don't insult us."
Ms. Marin, who completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was scheduled to speak to 380 people Saturday.
She came to the United States at age 14 from Mexico City.
"This is the greatest country in the world," she said. "How this immigrant who couldn't speak English when she arrived became treasurer of the United States, this is the land of opportunity.
"Nobody can tell me that you cannot make it, that life is hard. I know life is hard. If you work, and you don't ever give up no matter how many times you get down, you just get up. Nobody is going to come in and give you anything on a silver platter.
"You're going to have to work hard. But, you can make it."
One of the areas she has worked on is helping the approximately 10 million unbanked Americans, or those who have no bank account. Alvaro Macias, GQCHCC chairman, said Ms. Marin's inspiring message along with her knowledge of America's financial system were some of the reasons he asked her to speak in the Quad-Cities.
"A lot of Hispanics are largely unbanked," Mr. Macias said. "They might use fringe products and they might be taken advantage of. They might not know the language, the options, or what credit is for.
"A lot of Americans in general could use this financial education. That's why we were very interested in getting her here. She was at the very top level of government."
Mr. Macias said there was an excellent turnout Saturday.
"Our group is becoming stronger in the Quad-Cities," he said. "We regularly see new faces at our events."
MOLINE -- A local Friends of Haiti group cemented floors, latrines and friendships during a March trip to the island nation.
The 10-member group spent the first eight days of March in Trouin, Haiti, a mountain village about 36 miles outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The group included two men and eight women, including one from Milwaukee, spokeswoman Luann Polissaint said.
Team members helped repair six houses and built two latrines, Ms. Polissaint said. They also left enough supplies to fix six more houses at the discretion of Haitian pastor the Rev. Charles Elano, Ms. Polissaint said.
Rev. Elano is the village's newest priest, so he and mission members spent some time getting to know each other. His predecessor had been at the village for seven years, so "there was a learning curve for us this time," she said.
The organization has sent mission teams to the same village since 1989, and has gotten to know people quite well, Ms. Polissaint said.
"The Haitians are like family," mission team member Denise Musgrove said. "I look forward to reuniting every year.
"I have traveled to Haiti for four years, and each year I learn to appreciate my life here in the U.S.," she said. "This trip is the most exhausting, sleepless and emotional journey.
"We learn to live on less and do without," she said. "But every time I return, I prioritize my life. The Haitians teach me how to work harder, be happy and just love the relationships of all my friends and family. We give so little to them, but our biggest gift is love and encouragement to carry on."
Haitian workers apparently feel the same about their Moline "friends," Ms. Polissaint said.
When mission teams started coming to the Haitian village years ago, workers would let them carry supplies, but took over cementing, Ms. Polissaint said. This time, she said, they handed Ms. Polissaint the shovel and told her to "go ahead." Their trust in the groups' work helped "cement our relationships," she said.
A week after returning to Moline, the group raised $1,100 at an event at Playcrafter's Barn Theatre in Moline for the next mission trip in February. Ms. Polissaint said the trips usually occur in February when it's still a bit cooler.
This year, she said, it was significantly warmer and a security-related traffic delay made the March trip even a bit more uncomfortable for team members in the back of an open-air truck.
"What was a 2 1/2 hour drive, turned into five hours," she said, adding everyone got sunburned.
Others on the trip were Diane Gelaude, Bob Madison, Sandy Madison, Diane Marchik, Julie Morrison, Hannah Reschke, Jared Reschke and Marlene Shattuck.
Friends of Haiti was founded about 20 years ago by Ms. Polissaint's parents, Cleon and the late Don VanderVennet. The group has helped 92 children through a Sponsor-A-Child program; in March, Ms. Gelaude, the program director, got to see 82 of them.
New sponsors are sought. Call Ms. Gelaude at 309-526 3499 or email diane@bluehorizon.net. Other donations can be made to Friends of the People of Haiti and sent to Ms. Polissaint at 2427 15th Ave., Moline, IL 61265.
People also can receive the group's newsletter by emailing lucibon1@netzero.com or visiting its Facebook page.
Michael "Mike" Flaherty passed from this life April 15, 2016, after battling cancer.
Visitation for Mike will be Monday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, Rock Island. A Celebration of Life service will follow at 7 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Memorials may be made to Nahant Marsh Education Center, Davenport.
A graduate of Alleman High School and Augustana College, Mike enjoyed a varied career, using his accounting degree with companies in Iowa and Wisconsin and was active in Jaycees, earning awards for his service. He managed plants for Miller Container across Illinois, two computer companies in the Quad Cities and owned The Popcorn Company in SouthPark Mall. He closed his career in Verona, Wis., for Innocorp and, after retiring, worked part-time for Eriksen Chevrolet.
A Vietnam-era Navy veteran, Mike served aboard the USS Albany in Guantanamo and the Mediterranean. While stationed in Boston, he met his wife Nancy, with whom he enjoyed 47 wonderful years.
He was very proud of both of his sons, Rob and sweet pea (Tim), supporting their varied interests and encouraging them on their individual life paths. A major joy of his life was granddaughter, Bailey, whom he introduced to nature activities while she taught him about girls!
Mike's love for his family drew him back to his hometown of Rock Island. As the oldest of eight brothers, he was their leader and organizer from childhood to the present. His brothers remember him as an example of a generous man who gave back to his community as a volunteer for numerous activities, especially those involving children. He was the older brother everyone wishes they could have.
Christmas Eve in the extended Flaherty household was a special event, as Mike joyfully became Santa. His "ho-ho-hos" resonated throughout his parents' home each year, as he entered laden with sacks of gifts in a costume lovingly sewn by his mother. All his nieces and nephews anxiously awaited his arrival, even after they grew savvy enough to recognize his true identity!
His passion for nature and the environment inspired him to complete Master Naturalist certification for Illinois; he was awarded Master Naturalist of the Year 2014. His volunteer work included an initiative to create pathway signage at St. Mary Monastery, Rock Island. He also became a Master Conservationist in Iowa. His work at Nahant Marsh was instrumental in his experience of the natural world and he developed numerous new friends in the community. He stated, "It has literally changed my life!" He united members of both groups to share their activities, embark on relevant road trips and celebrate the earth. The best thing that happened to him, he states, was meeting friend Marion Lardner, who gave him a true appreciation of a lifelong dedication to the outdoors.
Mike enjoyed backyard birdwatching, providing a variety of feeders for different species. He filled the feeders at BlackHawk State Historic Site throughout last winter and also those of elderly friends. Fishing was always an enjoyable pastime throughout Mike's life; he enjoyed sharing his extensive knowledge, especially with younger folks.
Survivors are wife, Nancy Flaherty; sons, Rob (Anne) Flaherty and their daughter, Bailey, Joliet, Ill., and 'sweet pea' Flaherty, Tacoma, Wash. Mike's brothers include Tom (Nancy), Rock Island; Jay, Bellevue, Iowa; John (Glenda), Coal Valley; Bill (Ann) Dallas, Texas; Dan (Diane), Cedar Falls, Iowa; Pat (Karen), Bettendorf; and Brian (Mary), Rock Island; plus numerous nieces and nephews. Mike was preceded in death by his parents, James and Doris Flaherty; and his brother, Robert Michael.
Online condolences may be left for the family at wheelanpressly.com.
Last August, Andrew Denton, a well-known television producer and talk show host in Australia, interviewed me for a podcast series on ethical issues related to death and dying, which was recently released. In particular, he wanted to talk with me about the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.
The reason he wanted to talk with me is that several years ago, I wrote an article on the Oregon law entitled Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Conservative Critique of Intervention (jstor.org/table/3527909?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ) which has been widely reprinted, usually, but not always, with permission.
In it, I argue that while for religious reasons I am not supportive of physician-assisted suicide, it does not follow that those of us with moral reservations about physician-assisted suicide have the right to impose our views on other people.
Though I neither supported nor opposed the Oregon law (voters in Oregon are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and dont need to have someone from Illinois tell them what they should do), I did have some concerns about it. One is that it could be a slippery slope leading to involuntary euthanasia by lethal injection, as has happened in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
That has not happened in Oregon. Nor will it happen (unless the law is changed, though there is no indication whatsoever it will be revised.) The reason is that the Oregon law only allows doctors to prescribe lethal medications if requested by the terminally-ill patient on more than one occasion and then only after waiting periods specified by the law. The lethal medications must be orally ingested by the terminally-ill patient herself or himself. They cannot be administered by anyone else. This is an important firewall that eliminates the slippery slope.
Another concern about the Oregon law is that social pressures might make some individuals feel that they have an obligation to request lethal medication. There is no indication that this is happening.
The top two reasons terminally ill Oregonians give for requesting lethal medications are less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable and losing autonomy.
Burden on family, friends/caregivers is cited as a reason by fewer than half of those requesting lethal medication. It should be added that patients concerns about being a burden on family, friends and caregivers do not by implication suggest that their family, friends and caregivers are in any way pressuring them to request lethal medications.
Two other statistics included in the 2015 Oregon Public Health Division report on the Oregon Death with Dignity Act are worth underscoring:
1. The number of Oregonians receiving prescriptions for lethal medications is far greater than the number who ingest these medications.
In 2015 there were 218 who received prescriptions but only 132 who died as a result of ingesting these medications. In some cases this might be because there are some who die of their illness and hence do not end up using the medications. But in other cases, it is because having the prescriptions available restores a measure of autonomy to those who have suffered loss of autonomy.
2. In the article I wrote several years ago, I encouraged use of hospice care, believing that hospice care might make physician-assisted suicide less attractive. The statistics do not bear that out. In the 18 years that the Oregon law has been in effect, more than 90 percent of those requesting prescriptions for lethal medications have been enrolled in hospice programs.
Should Illinois enact a law similar to the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, as have Washington, Vermont and, most recently, California? Because I believe that life is a gift from God to be treasured and preserved, I will not be among those advocating such a law. But for the reasons stated above, namely the belief that those of us opposed to physician-assisted suicide do not have the right to impose our views on others, neither will I oppose it.
Hot 100
Its a quiet Top 3 on the Hot 100 this week with Lukas Graham remaining at #1 with 7 Years. FlumesNever Be Like You ft. Kai hits #4 from #6, a new peak. Meghan Trainors No makes it into the Top 10 at #8 from #11, as does Sias Cheap Thrills at #10 from #15.
Outside the Top 10 we see The Chainsmokers latest hit Dont Let Me Down ft. Daya hit #18 from #36. Hailee Steinfelds Rock Bottom makes it to #20 from #40 followed by Tinie Tempahs Girls Like ft. Zara Larsson at #21 from #33.
Dua Lipa slowly cruises up the chart at #25 from #39 with Be The One. Iggy Azalea cracks the Top 50 at #43 from #68, as does Sneaky Sound Systems I Aint Over You.
Only one debut makes it into the Top 50 this week, that being Broods Free which debuts at #50 itself. Luke Christopher enters further down the chart at #64 with Lot To Learn.
ARIA Singles
Lukas Graham enters another stellar week on the ARIA charts with 7 Years holding #1 for what is now its eighth week, becoming the longest running #1 by a Danish act in ARIA Singles history.
Disturbeds Sound of Silence hit #4 from #15, just missing out on the predicted Top 3 bracket. Gnash scores a big bump to #5 from #26 with I Hate U I Love U ft. Olivia OBrien.
The Chainsmokers make it into the Top 10 at #7 from #13 with Dont Let Me Down ft. Daya, now making for their second Top 10 single in 2016. Meghan Trainor makes for the last notable change in the Top 10 as No hits #9 from #11 on its fourth week in the chart, becoming her fifth Top 10 ARIA Single.
ARIA Albums
Taking #1 on the Albums chart this week is Lukas Grahams self-titled album, a new release containing tracks from both of their first European albums. Its definitely a good week for Lukas Graham.
Babymetal take the next high debut at #7 with Metal Resistance, their second album and first to enter the ARIA Charts. The Last Shadow Puppets take out #9 with the debut of Everything Youve Come To Expect.
Outside the Top 10 In Stereos Shes Rock N Roll scores the #11 debut followed by Pet Shop BoysSuper entering at #12.
Click here to view all this weeks charts, including our HOT 100 national airplay (by genre and state), iTunes, Spotify, Shazam, ARIA, AIR & AMRAP.
Singles to Radio
MAGIC! Ft. Sean Paul / Lay You Down Easy / SME
Troye Sivan / Talk Me Down / EMI
The Vamps ft. OMI / I Found A Girl . EMI
Drake ft. WizKid & Kyla / One Dance / UMA
Will.i.am ft. Pia Mia / Boys & Girls / UMA
Most Added
Broods / Free / UMA
Little Mix / Secret Love Song /SME
Luke Christopher / Lot To Learn / SME
Rihanna / Kiss It Better / UMA
Jason Derulo / If IT Aint Love / WMA
Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) is to improve content and acquire sports events following a four-year tie-up with the African Union of Broadcasters.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) covering improvements in programming, capacity building for staff, and the rights to rebroadcast sporting events, has been signed by GRTS director general Momodou Sabally, and Charlie Evelyn Faye, head of Marketing and Communication, African Union of Broadcasters (AUB).
According to the MoU, Gambias public broadcaster will provide AUB with one minute of airtime daily for a year, to generate income to subsidise broadcast rights and other benefits for AUB members, reports NextTVAME.
Khaama Press, April 17, 2016
Setayish Quraishi, the 6-year-old Afghan girl who was raped and brutally murdered by a teenage Iranian boy in Iran. Setayish Quraishi, the 6-year-old Afghan girl who was raped and brutally murdered by a teenage Iranian boy in Iran.
A horrific report has emerged from Iran regarding the brutal murder of a 6-year-old Afghan girl who was initially raped by a teenage Iranian.
The brutal murder of the girl, Setayish Quraishi, has sparked anger both in Afghanistan and outside, with the local media reports in Iran saying the perpetrator was a 17-year-old Iranian national.
The reports further added that the incident took place in Khairabad area in Veramin city in the outskirts of Tehran, the provincial capital of Iran.
According to the reports, the girl was initially abducted and was raped by the teenager Iranian who then murdered by stabbing her to death.
The girl was also burnt with acid in a bid to hide the brutal rape and murder incident, the reports said, adding that the perpetrator attempted to burn the victim after his friend denied to help him.
He was arrested by police after reports regarding the brutal murder and rape of the girl spread in the society.
According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, a number of high level officials, including the Afghan ambassador to Iran have visited the family of the victim to offer condolences regarding the horrific incident.
The father of the victim has been reported to be a labourer who migrated to Iran nearly 16 years ago. He has demanded the authorities to serve justice and hang the perpetrator for the brutal murder of his daughter.
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If you havent familiarized yourself with the works of Jeff Nichols yet, you might want to change that. For a director with virtually no name recognition, his last two films Take Shelter and Mud have received tremendous critical acclaim. With his most recent work Midnight Special, Nichols explores the science fiction genre and the result is an utterly mesmerizing story that holds its audience from beginning to end.
Maybe you've heard that Riverfront Playhouse is considering other options to building a new theater in downtown Redding.
The theater group told city officials way back that it has looked at four existing buildings it believes could be repurposed as a performing-arts venue.
Riverfront Playhouse board President Dan Kupsky told me in March that one of the buildings is the old Celebration Redding family center at 1950 California St. The property went into escrow in early February Kupsky declined to say if Riverfront is the prospective buyer after being listed for $699,000. It's a short sale.
Now the building is headed for public foreclosure auction. So maybe you can cross it off Riverfront's list of potential alternatives. Or maybe the theater group bids on the building at auction. When I called Kupsky last week for comment, he had no comment. So who knows.
But back to the foreclosure auction: A trustee's sale's notice published in Wednesday's Record Searchlight says the 1950 California St. building will be auctioned off at 11 a.m. May 4 on the Shasta County Courthouse steps. The unpaid balance and other charges owed on the property are $463,525.
Steve Bade, the city's liaison to downtown who's been working with the theater group, told me last week that he has not heard much from Riverfront Playhouse for a while.
"Basically, they are still exploring both options (building new or doing a retrofit) and what the financial feasibility is of both options," Bade said.
Bade did not know the other downtown buildings that Riverfront has looked at.
Bade expects the theater group to update the City Council within the next month. It's about time for a progress report that Mayor Missy McArthur requested in September 2014 after the council, acting as the Successor Agency to the former Redevelopment Agency, waived Riverfront Playhouse's deadline to open the theater by spring 2015.
The plan for years has been to build a new theater on a vacant lot at Placer and Pine streets. But a contractor has told Riverfront Playhouse the new construction could be too expensive because of rising costs and prevailing wage issues.
For the record, maybe it's a good thing if the California Street building deal is dead. You'd like to see Riverfront open a downtown theater closer to the Cascade and surrounding restaurants. That is why the Placer-Pine spot is a prime location.
SKY'S PURE FOOD OPENS AGAIN
After closing last year, Sky's Pure Food on Athens Avenue in Redding is back in business at the same Cypress Shopping Center location.
The organic and natural foods restaurant reopened in March.
"We do have a fairly unique setup," said Warren Drew, whose wife, Naomi Drew, started Mimi Grace, an organic coffee and baked goods business that now shares space with Sky's.
So the name on the sign says Sky's Pure Food. But it's two businesses under one roof.
Mimi Grace got its start at the Redding Certified Farmers Market, selling organic espresso drinks and gluten-free waffles. The Drews had always liked Sky's Pure Food's all-natural concept and approached owner Sky Leedy after she closed last year.
"We started discussing and decided it would be a good team effort to reopen," Warren said.
The first carnation of Sky's closed because Leedy says she wasn't prepared.
"I didn't have all my homework done and I needed to do a little more," she said. "So I was taking a pause to sort of fine-tune some things for a more stable foundation."
Stability she hopes will come from sharing the cost of renting a space and the overhead with another business.
"It just seemed like a perfect way to continue my dream without comprising and then without giving up, and it felt right," Leedy said.
Go to skyspurefood.com or check it out on Facebook. The Mimi Grace website is under construction.
PLANET FITNESS UPDATE
I've received a handful of emails from readers who want an update on Planet Fitness.
The health club plans to open its first Redding location in the other half of the Hilltop Drive building now occupied by Institute of Technology. Longtime residents will remember the building for years was home to Mervyn's before the department store closed in 2008.
There's not much to report about Planet Fitness.
Jeff Kellom, who will manage the club, told me via email last week that plans are being reviewed by the city's building department.
"As soon as we receive the permits, I will have an accurate idea of our timeline," Kellom said.
Planet Fitness started in New England and has been expanding west for several years. There are more than 1,000 locations around the world.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Viva Downtown Redding will give its "State of the Downtown" address May 13 in the Atrium at the south end of the Market Street Promenade.
Doors open at 5 p.m. with the program going 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Maybe we will get a Riverfront Playhouse update at the event.
Stay tuned.
Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or david.benda@redding.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS.
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By MARK KENNEDY, AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) James Noble, a Broadway-seasoned actor who appeared on soap operas and films like "10" and "Being There," but perhaps was best known for playing the absent-minded governor to Robert Guillaume's patient head of household in the 1980s sitcom "Benson," has died in Connecticut. He was 94.
Noble died Monday at Norwalk Hospital after suffering a stroke, according to his daughter, Jessica Katherine Noble Cowan.
Born in Dallas, Noble studied acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. His Broadway credits include "A Far Country," ''Strange Interlude," ''The Runner Stumbles" and, most notably, "1776."
He also appeared in the movie version of "1776" with Blythe Danner and John Cullum, and played Bo Derek's father in Blake Edwards' hit film "10."
Noble played Dr. Winters in the soap opera "The Doctors" and had roles in "One Life to Live" and "Another World." From 1979-1986, he starred in "Benson," a spin-off of "Soap" that saw Guillaume move from irreverent butler to manager of the home of Noble's scatterbrained governor.
Nobel's other TV credits include most of the hits of the 1970s and '80s, including "Fantasy Island," ''Hart to Hart," ''Starsky and Hutch," ''The Love Boat" and "McCloud."
He married actress Carolyn Coates, and the two appeared onstage together in a number of regional productions including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His wife died in 2005.
After his years in Hollywood, Noble returned to Connecticut and his theatrical roots. He was an active member of the Theatre Artists Workshop since 1988.
At 85, he formed Open the Gate Pictures with his producing partner Colleen Murphy and made a short film "Glacier Bay."
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This story has been corrected to correct spelling to Derek from Derrick and Edwards' from Edward's.
The 99-cent Store recently replaced the lawn in a landscape border for its parking lot with rocks. The neighborhood police unit says drug dealers are being watched outside the store and around the shopping center off Cypress Avenue and Hilltop Drive. Neighboring businesses say the rock landscape also is helping. It has stopped vagrants from congregating under the trees.
SHARE The Redding Police Department responds to the Redding Inn in August. The downtown motel, whose owners recently settled a lawsuit with Shasta County, is one of the sites targeted by the Neighborhood Police Unit.
By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight
Redding's neighborhood police unit focusing on the downtown and along Hilltop Drive has been instrumental in the crackdown of the troublesome Redding Inn and the breakup of numerous drug deals in its first three months.
Business owners say they have noticed quietness and improved safety, and want to see that continue.
But as the weather gets warmer, driving more people outdoors, they say the six-officer team could get too busy. If that happens, they are concerned car break-ins, thefts, vandalism, drug activity and fights will spike again.
"Somebody is going to have to do something relatively dramatic to change where we are going," said Bruce Dean, co-founder and president of Black Bear Diner whose restaurant at Hilltop and Cypress Avenue sees its share of nuisance issues on the street.
The unit is a two-year operation launched in January after the City Council approved hiring four officers through next June.
Dean, while upbeat about progress he sees, is looking for long-term fixes. Maybe it's a day center, but the community needs to see a plan to both help people living on the streets and business owners dealing with crime problems, he said.
The business community's cautious optimism is the backdrop for an update the council will receive Tuesday about the unit.
Led by Sgt. Walt Bullington, a corporal and four officers, the unit made 216 arrests and came into contact with 233 people the vast majority who have criminal backgrounds. Of those contacts, 44 were found with drugs in their possession, 11 with illegal weapons and two with guns.
That's according to data the police department released, covering January through April 8.
The information being presented to the council will mostly cover what Chief Robert Paoletti already shared at his March 31 town hall meeting.
Drug-related problem consume most of the unit's energy. Its targets include troubled motels, the parking garage on California Street, Library Park and the shopping area around Hilltop and Cypress, Bullington said.
Ed Rullman, a hotelier and the voice of the Redding Merchants Crime Watch, said there was a time when he would get two to three reports nightly from security guards who had found trespassers at the Best Western Hilltop Inn.
In the past month and a half, he's only had six night reports and he sees less trafficking near the hotel, he said. He credited it to the work of the unit and to the demolition of the Hilltop Lodge.
The downside is some of the crime probably was displaced to other areas. More recently, he sees officers a few blocks north along the Hilltop corridor, Rullman said.
Last Tuesday, the unit busted two people for heroin at the Motel 6 on Hilltop.
One unit comprised of six officers is too thin for the amount of activity in the city, Rullman said.
"I want to see them increase staffing so they don't have to split themselves up" between the downtown and Hilltop, he said. "The NPU has just proved that once you get some bodies on the street and they go and ruffle some feathers, it helps."
Bullington was part of the neighborhood police unit that was created in the mid-1990s. The initiative went away when the department experienced personnel cutbacks in 2008 during the recession.
He described Redding and Shasta County's drug problems as the worst he has seen in his 26-year career with the police department, and it likely won't get better, he said.
"We have one of those perfect storms," he said of California's jail and prison reforms that have led to the release of thousands of inmates and certain penalties being reduced to misdemeanors.
He spoke about the need for more accountability for criminals and resources to assist those with substance abuse problems and mental illness.
The unit seized 148.5 grams of meth and 2.7 grams of heroin. A few of those busts have led the officers to bigger sellers, Bullington said.
It's made it harder for people to find heroin on the street and "we know that already because people on the street are telling us," he said.
Downtown store owners in the Business Wildwood Park want to give it a few more months to see if the changes they see are lasting.
"We still have people walking by, but it's a lot better than this time last year," said Rich Pires, owner of Herreid Music on Market Street.
By "walking by," Pires is referring to people who yell at each other on the street, are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, are slumped outside or loitering.
Officers are still watching the Redding Inn on Pine Street downtown. The department announced on Friday drug activity had led to the arrest of six the night before.
Three of the suspects told officers they spend about $15,000 a month to support their heroin habit.
"They have no job and no source of income. When you do the math on the cost (of how much they are consuming) where do you think the money is coming from?" Bullington said. "Thefts, for the most part."
The troubled motel agreed to hire security guards, do background checks for all employees, prohibit hourly renters, conduct random inspections for vermin and follow a do-not-rent list and pay $35,000 to the city and Shasta County as part of a lawsuit settlement with the District Attorney's Office.
"We are trying," Bullington said, summing up the work of the last several months. "Our chief has shown in the few short years he has been here that Redding needs help solving the blight and criminal problems that the residents have voiced."
Joan Mallery of Mallery's Flowers & Gifts on Market Street said the pressure put on the downtown motel has led to big improvements around her business. There would be a hardly be a week that went by without gas siphoned from a car or a window broken.
"A lot of times, we don't pay attention now, and then you say, 'Hey, we have not seen a police officer in a while,'" she said.
If you go
What: Redding City Council meeting
When: 6 p.m., Tuesday
Where: Redding City Hall, 777 Cypress Ave.
About the meeting: The council receives updates on an inclusive playground at Kids Kingdom, the neighborhood police unit and Americana Lodge lawsuit. It acts on a recommendation to establish a reserve police officer program with a single participant to volunteer with the SWAT team. It considers a tentative two-year contract that gives 77 sworn officers of the Redding Peace Officers Association a 3 percent wage increase in June and in 2017. The net increase is $148,000 over the two years and after, a $295,000 increase annually.
Joe Puentes fishes with his daughter Lucy, 1, and son Sawyer, 4, on Saturday at Anderson River Park.
SHARE Micah Good, 7, shows off his fish Saturday to sister Salah, 9, (right) and Isabella Cappalonga, 9, on Saturday during Take a Kid Fishing Day at Anderson River Park. Children and their parents fish the Sacramento River on Saturday as part of Week of the Young Child. Braydon Moore, 3, stands ready with his boxcar at the The Big Race at Big League Dreams. Children race around a track with their creative boxcars at Big League Dreams.
By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight
On a sunny Saturday, parents and children headed outdoors to Week of the Young Child celebrations in Redding and Anderson.
Week of the Young Child is an annual April event sponsored by First 5 Shasta that promotes early learning among children during their early childhood years.
The weekend celebrations included a Family Fun Fest and Kids Fishing Day at Anderson River Park.
Meanwhile, at Big League Dreams in Redding, parents brought their children to participate in The Big Race, an activity sponsored by the Active 20-30 Club of Redding and First 5 Shasta. Children were able to show off their self-made boxcars and race around a small track.
"It's a fun activity for the kids to work with their parents," said Nicki Crain, co-chair of the event of the Active 20-30 Club.
Crain said the week prior, families made boxcars at the local YMCA, and the leg-powered race was a "bonus" that allowed the children to showcase their work.
More than 40 children signed up for the event, and lined up in their boxcars on the field before race time. Each of the children designed their boxcars that showed they were inspired by dragons, race cars, bugs, strawberries and much more.
Rowan Maier, 9, wore a bright pink shirt and held up a pig-inspired boxcar, that he named "Dancer."
"Pigs are my favorite animal," he said. "I'm making a boycott to save the pigs."
He said he's quit eating bacon, but still eats turkey bacon. When asked if he would ever quit eating that too, he said no, because "turkeys are not so cute."
Adrian Ortiz, 30, attended the event with his two children, who brought character-inspired boxcars. Last year, he designed a Transformers-inspired boxcar of Optimus Prime using the colors silver, blue and yellow with a character mask glued to the front, which took him nearly a month to design, he said.
But his 6-year-old son, Aidan, was unable to reuse the boxcar this year because he had grown out of it, so it went to friend instead. But Aidan used another Transformers-inspired boxcar of the character Bumblebee, decorated with yellow, black and silver colors.
His 4-year-old sister Aivery had a Barbie-inspired convertible boxcar. The light weight of her car even allowed her to run an extra lap during the race. Adrian Ortiz said he had each of the cars professionally coated at SJ Denham, too.
Children were divided according to their ages to run laps around the small track, each guided by their parents. Some children fell, others quit, and some just had boxcars so big for their tiny frames they required a little bit of extra assistance.
Braydon Moore won the race among the 3-year-olds, but required some help from his grandmother Lucy Ramsey, 43, as he made the laps, teetering a few steps along the way.
The Family Fun Fest and Kids Fishing Day was sponsored by Anderson Parks and Recreation. Various vendors such as Planned Parenthood, Women's Health Specialists, Shasta County Public Health, Anderson Teen Center, Rowell Family Empowerment and NorCal OUTreach Project were set up to highlight their services.
Parents who wanted to spend the day fishing, but didn't have their own fishing rods, were loaned rods and bait, said Monty Currier of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Parents Gaby Pack, 25, and Weston Pack, 28, sat by the Sacramento River fishing with their two children, Micah, 3, and Brielle, 2. Weston Pack held his son Micah, and taught him how to throw a fishing line into the water while his daughter Brielle took a dip in the calm water.
Gaby and Weston Pack heard about this year's Week of the Young Child event through a reading group, and used the day as an opportunity to be out with their children.
"For our kids, under (age) five, it's fun for us to take the kids into the community," Gaby Pack said.
Ryan Freund, his wife Melissa Freund, and their daughter Adair Freund, 18 months, at home together in New Berlin, Wis. (Michael Sears/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/TNS)
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By Kathleen Gallagher and Mark Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE Late last year, DNA sequencing revealed that Teddy Blondheim, who turns 3 in July, has a rare genetic disorder. Teddys parents also learned there is no treatment, and that most affected children have an average life span of three years.
But the parents say theyre 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 girls 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, Adairs father. Were 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, Adairs family has learned that her inconclusive result does not close a door; there is still a chance to probe even more deeply their childs genetic script. Scientists had sequenced Adairs exome, the protein-coding portion of her genes, which constitutes less than 2 percent of her genome.
The two children 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 boys mysterious disease and used the knowledge to treat him.
Nic Volkers case marked a turning point in medicine. The long string of chemical bases that spells out our traits like hair and eye color, and the odds of acquiring many diseases had been used to improve human health.
Not surprisingly, in the years since Nics 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 studys senior author and president and chief executive officer of the Pediatric Genomics and Systems Medicine Institute at Rady Childrens Hospital-San Diego, said at the time.
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.
Its 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 outbreaks of 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 Volkers 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.
Weve gotten a lot better at interpreting, but its still early days and thats still the bottleneck, Green explained.
Part of the problem remains a basic science question: What does the vast majority of the genome actually do?
Weve gotten reasonably proficient at understanding the protein-coding regions, the exome, Green said. Were still fairly amateurish at dealing with the other 98 percent of the genome.
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 its 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, Im not going to say its standard of care, but its 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 Childrens 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 its 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, Jacobs 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 percent 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 percent of the time, Basel said.
The Freunds and Blondheims both said that even though they werent familiar with DNA sequencing, they had no hesitation about having the Medical Colleges 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, Teddys mom.
By checking all the boxes on the Childrens 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, Adairs dad. Even if they were facing their daughters death, they decided they wanted to know.
Then in the short-term we wouldnt be chucking money into a 401(k), Freund said. Wed 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 didnt.
Its hard for people to understand the conversations were having at home, Freund said.
Insurance covered Adairs 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. Shes the happiest girl in the world. The only thing I care about is if there are ways to figure out whats 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. Its hand-to-hand combat with the insurance companies.
Insurance also covered Teddy Blondheims 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 Teddys condition deepened, he was referred to Childrens Hospitals genomic medicine clinic. Teddys 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. Theyve 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, Teddys mom.
For now, Teddy is relatively healthy and has made tremendous progress, Blondheim said. Many of the children in the Facebook group arent doing as well. During a recent family trip to California, his parents wrote on their Teddys 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, Nics 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 lets do this, Santiago Volker said.
2016 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at www.jsonline.com
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SHARE Map of mosquitos in the U.S. that could carry the Zika virus. Seattle Times 2016
By JoNel Aleccia, The Seattle Times
SEATTLE When Stephanie Billmayer flew back to Seattle from Brazil on March 1, the first thing she did was schedule a test for the Zika virus. Eight weeks pregnant, the 33-year-old English teacher wanted only to know that her unborn baby was safe from the devastating epidemic exploding across Latin America and the Caribbean.
But it was more than a month before Billmayer got any answers.
Her blood test was among dozens from Washington state and thousands across the nation backlogged at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory in Fort Collins, Colo.
Not until April 5 did Billmayer learn the test was negative, news that capped weeks of anxiety and uncertainty, she said.
I was very worried, said Billmayer, a longtime Seattle resident who spent the past year teaching in Rio de Janeiro, where she met her soon-to-be husband. Any first-time mother panics about everything. You have terrible dreams and visions of all kinds of disease. And this on top of it.
That worry has become more common as growing numbers of travelers have sought testing after visiting or living in Zika-affected countries. Health experts and scientists believe that the Zika virus is responsible for devastating damage to fetal brains if their mothers become infected during pregnancy.
In February, CDC officials urged U.S. pregnant women with possible exposure to Zika through travel or through potentially affected sex partners to get tested, even if they had no symptoms of disease.
The response to that was pretty substantial, said Dr. Paul Mead, a medical officer with the CDCs division of vector-borne diseases. Theres no question its taking longer to turn around the samples than wed like.
At one point, the agency faced a backlog of several thousand tests, Mead said. Thats been whittled down to about 500.
At least 74 people in Washington state are waiting now for Zika test results, out of some 256 specimens submitted since January, said Dr. Scott Lindquist, the states epidemiologist for communicable disease.
So far, two state residents, one in Clallam County and one in Mason County, have tested positive for Zika after traveling to areas where the virus is spreading. Two other international travelers also were diagnosed in Washington, including a man from Guatemala tested in King County and a woman from an unidentified Zika-affected country tested in Spokane after giving birth. Her baby was apparently healthy.
Nationwide, nearly 350 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with travel-associated Zika virus infections, including 32 pregnant women, according to the CDC. Seven of those cases were transmitted sexually by men who had traveled to areas where Zika is spreading.
Local mosquitoes have been spreading Zika virus in U.S. territories, where more than 350 cases have been diagnosed in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
No local transmission has been reported in the U.S. mainland, but CDC officials say such spread could occur by late spring and summer, though it could be limited because of good mosquito control in most areas. Still, some health experts are already warning pregnant women to avoid or limit travel to areas at risk.
Zika tests are ordered only for the most worrisome cases: people who show symptoms of infection with the virus or pregnant women, whose fetuses are believed to be at highest risk from the infection.
The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year authorized emergency use of two new diagnostic tests to detect Zika virus in blood, cerebrospinal fluid or tissue, a move that helped speed results.
Now, public health labs in a growing number of states are able to test for Zika, too, taking away some of the burden from the CDCs primary lab for such testing in Colorado, Mead said.
We anticipate well be all caught up as of next week, he said.
For Stephanie Billmayer, who is staying with family in Montana, learning she wasnt infected with Zika was a profound relief. But other questions remain before the birth of the baby, due Oct. 16. Her fiance, Andre Silva, 39, is an oil rig worker in Brazil whose extended family including his parents, nephew and 7-year-old son all tested positive for the virus in March.
The couple plan to get married this month in Las Vegas, Billmayer said. Theyll have a lot to talk about, including CDC warnings that couples at risk for Zika infection use condoms or abstain from sex during pregnancy.
Billmayer said shed like to return to Brazil, perhaps early next year, after the baby comes, and that she hopes international attention will result in help for families affected by Zika.
I dont think of it as an international health crisis, Billmayer said. Because when it hits you directly, you think of it as your own personal worry.
2016 The Seattle Times
Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com
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The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Monday, April 4, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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By William Douglas, McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON So what gives Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the right to block Senate consideration of Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obamas pick to the Supreme Court?
The U.S. Constitution, say several congressional and legal scholars. Even dissenters acknowledge the Senate can pretty much do what it wants.
Led by McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Republicans have vowed not even to consider Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Republican leaders would rather leave the seat vacant in the hopes that a Republican wins the presidency in November and chooses a nominee more to their liking.
McConnell and Grassley have draped themselves around Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution that says the president shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme court.
Grassley, in a letter to McConnell shortly after Scalias death, said the Constitution is clear.
The president may nominate judges of the Supreme Court, Grassley wrote. But the power to grant, or withhold, consent to such nominees rests exclusively with the United States Senate.
Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill constitutional law professor, says McConnell and Grassleys position is bolstered by Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, which states that the two chambers of Congress the Senate and the House of Representatives may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.
Under Senate tradition of unanimous consent, any senator can halt consideration of an agenda item something McConnell could certainly do. But McConnell, as majority leader, exercises more clout, deciding who gets what committee assignments, for instance, or what legislation comes to the floor.
The Senate majority leader has discretion with regard to organizing the Senate floor business, Gerhardt said. There is clearly a Senate authority to give its advice on nominations. It is not uncommon for senators to construe that as essentially two things, one of which is giving their advice. But it could well be withholding their advice.
Roger Pilon, founder and director of Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, agrees that McConnell and Grassley are interpreting their constitutional prerogatives correctly. The Constitution does not direct the Senate to take action, one way or the other, he said.
Here, the Republicans are very clear that theyre not going to confirm, Pilon added. So whats the point in holding hearings, whats the point in going through the motions? Nothing will come of it.
Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, says he thinks McConnell and Grassley are bending the Constitution to the breaking point by not allowing Garlands nomination to go before the Judiciary Committee for a hearing.
A failure to hold a hearing on a legitimately nominated individual for the Supreme Court, to say that, in effect, a presidential term lasts three years and the fourth year doesnt count on that front, is, at minimum, an egregious breech of norms of the Constitution, he said.
But he also acknowledged that the fundamental reality is that the Senate can do pretty much whatever it wants.
Ornstein notes that the tactic of rebuffing a nominee isnt unique to Republicans or the Senate. Democrats refused to act on President George W. Bushs 2001 nomination of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a panel viewed as a path to a Supreme Court seat.
Estrada relented to the filibuster by Democrats, who were in the minority party in the Senate at the time, and withdrew his name from consideration in 2003.
The late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called Estradas withdrawal a victory for the Constitution.
We have plenty of precedent in both parties on not acting on nominations, thats true, Ornstein said. But the idea that youll ignore a presidents legitimate nomination for a constitutional office like justice of the Supreme Court, not acknowledge that basically the nomination is legitimate, is a very shaky premise.
Garland has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997. He was confirmed to that post with some Republican support on a 76-23 vote and now serves as chief judge.
Garland has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to meet senators, despite McConnells vow to block his nomination. On Tuesday, he met with Grassley in a Senate dining room.
I enjoyed talking to him but nothing has changed, Grassley told CNN on Tuesday. Were not going to have a hearing.
But some Senate Republicans who are viewed as vulnerable in Novembers elections have suggested that Garlands nomination should be considered.
Hes been nominated by the elected president of the United States to fill a vacancy which we know exists on the court, and we need open-minded, rational, responsible people to keep an open mind to make sure the process works, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said last month.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., last month called for the Senate to move on Garlands nomination, reportedly telling constituents, I would rather have you complaining to me that I voted wrong on nominating somebody than saying Im not doing my job.
After receiving a barrage of criticism from the right for his comments, a Moran aide said on CNN this month, Senator Moran remains committed to preventing this president from putting another justice on the highest court in the land.
2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at www.mcclatchydc.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The Capitol's denizens have proved that when they are motivated, they can act quickly on legislation.
It took just a week for an agreement on raising the state's minimum wage to be drafted, enacted by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
However, the fast action on minimum wages also demonstrates just how laggard the Capitol has been on an issue of comparable importance to tens of thousands of mostly low- and moderate-income California families tax relief on "phantom income" that they incur when lenders write down underwater mortgages through short sales or other measures.
Technically, mortgage reduction is taxable income, but the federal government has consistently excluded it from taxation on the quite reasonable assumption that it would be an untenable hardship for families already in financial distress.
The state's record is, to say the least, spotty. It has enacted a state income tax exclusion sporadically, usually just one year at a time, and usually too late to meet income tax filing deadlines, forcing those affected to file amended returns.
Action was stalled three years ago by a complex, and unsuccessful, maneuver to compel the state's real estate industry to accept a transaction tax to support low-income housing.
Last October, Brown vetoed a relief bill that would have retroactively applied to 2014 state tax returns, citing a potential loss of tax revenue. Now, with tax returns for 2015 nearing an April 18 deadline, the state is almost two years behind.
A state Senate staff report describes it as "a fine mess" that "has caused a significant degree of taxpayer hardship."
The report is a Senate Governance and Finance Committee analysis of a bill by Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Manteca, that would provide state tax relief for the 2014, 2015 and 2016 tax years.
The committee approved Senate Bill 907 on a 7-0 vote last week, three months after its introduction and after hearing from Hector Vasquez, a retired prison guard from Stockton, who described how he had been hit with an $11,034 state tax bill after a short sale of his home in 2014, including several thousand dollars in penalties.
Distressed homeowners such as Vasquez "cannot afford to pay taxes on income they never received," Galgiani said.
It's odd that the governor, who professed such concern for those on lower economic rungs as he signed the bill increasing the minimum wage, would be so unwilling to give minimal relief to Vasquez and others in his predicament relief that overwhelming, bipartisan majorities of legislators support.
It would cost the state treasury, at most, under $100 million a year, and probably a lot less. That's pocket lint in the context of a $100 billion-plus state budget.
But the Legislature shares the blame. It could have overridden Brown's veto and it could have moved a new bill quickly enough to prevent the kind of anxiety that tens of thousands of Californians are feeling as the tax filing deadline approaches.
Email Dan Walters at dwalters@sacbee.com.
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Erika Sanchez, Fuquay Varina, North Carolina
The eagles have fought a long hard battle to come back from the brink of extinction. This brink of extinction was totally caused by man. The Redding eagles in particular have shown how the eagles can adapt to man and overcome obstacles living near man. Eagles have many lessons to teach us and the eagle cams allow us to learn them. I am disappointed Riverview turned down the opportunity to have a cam on its property when Liberty and Spirit moved there. I hope we can band together and urge them to reconsider their decision. I watch the cam from my home in North Carolina.
SHARE Richard Price Burger Date of birth: May 26, 1973 Vitals: 5 feet 8 inches; 160 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Revocation of post-release community supervision Adrian Benjamin Rodriguez Date of birth: Jan. 28, 1985 Vitals: 5 feet 10 inches; 200 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Vehicle theft Jarrod Stuart Windle Date of birth: Aug. 25, 1990 Vitals: 6 feet 1 inch; 180 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Grand theft Douglas Mathew Coleman Date of birth: Sept. 26, 1984 Vitals: 5 feet 9 inches; 180 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Manufacturing drugs
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 588 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.
Promoters of worlds cheapest smartphone refund customers money, close fresh bookings
The opening page of the website of Freedom 251, pitched as the worlds cheapest smartphone, assures customers of its best intentions and says fresh bookings have been closed. The letter from the Freedom 251 team also says the company has decided to offer only cash-on-delivery to avoid any inconvenience and is in the process of compiling all the emails it received from customers and will issue phones to the first 2.5 million registrations very soon.
There is no reference to the fact that the management was forced to refund its customers the entire booking money of Rs 63 crore (Rs 630 million) raised during the initial registration, priced at Rs 251. These are yet to see the light of day even though the promised time (mid-April) when the first lot was supposed to be delivered has passed.
Freedom 251s launch in February must be a distant memory for its promoters who find themselves in a legal mess.
The three key people behind the idea of Freedom 251 - Mohit Kumar Goel, Dharna Garg and Ashok Kumar Chadha - are currently fighting cases in the Allahabad High Court to avoid arrests for collecting money through an alleged Ponzi scheme.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent money collection cycle in which investors are paid returns from newly collected investments rather than from profit made through legitimate business operations. While Goel is the majority stake holder in Ringing Bells, the company behind Freedom 251, Chadha is the president. Garg is Goels wife and does not have any ownership rights directly.
The promoters were dragged to court on the basis of a first information report (FIR) filed by Kirit Somaiya, a member of Parliament. The FIR accused Goel and the company of cheating and dishonesty under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, among others. However, Abhishek Vikram, the promoters lawyer, says the FIR is an attempt to derail the launch.
A division Bench, comprising B K Narayan and R N Mishra, has given them some temporary relief though, by asking authorities not to take coercive action till May 18, the next date of hearing. The Bench has also permitted the promoters to file an application for the release of their passports, which were seized.
But legal hurdles are not the only ones that stand in the way. While the cost management and sustainability of the project has been questioned by established players in the market and industry experts, there were several other contradictions in the companys claims.
During the February 18 launch event, Chadha and Goel said the handsets would be manufactured at company-owned units in Uttarakhand. Six days later, he told Business Standard that the devices were being imported from third-party manufacturers in Taiwan and would reach customers from mid-April.
This version also changed within a fortnight. This time, the products, they said, would be made at two plants in Noida and Janakpuri in Delhi, operated by partners of the company.
Various government agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department have also sprung into action to look into Ringing Bells. The promoters list of woes increased after Adcom Mobiles, the seller of the Freedom 251 prototypes that Chadha and Goel showcased during the launch graced by Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi, threatened to sue the company over violation of usage rights. Ringing Bells did not have rights to use its phones commercially, Sanjeev Bhatia, founder and chairman of Advantage Computers (Adcom), alleged.
Image: Mohit Goel Director of Ringing Bells, with CEO Dhaarna Goel during the launch of Smartphone-Ringing Bells Freedom 251, in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI
'The Modi government will do well to thrash out a national consensus before taking the leap and put itself in America's pouch,' says Rajeev Sharma.
IMAGE: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter tour the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya at the Indian Naval Station Karwar, April 11, 2016. Photograph: Senior Master Sergeant Adrian Cadiz
The Narendra Modi government may well be playing with fire in pursuing a policy of great American embrace, which seeks to turn the Manmohan Singh government's decade-long foreign policy on its head.
At their bilateral meeting in New Delhi on April 12, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and United States Defence Secretary Ashton Carter decided in principle to negotiate and sign the Logistics Support Agreement or LSA to provide logistical support, fuel supplies to each others' militaries from respective bases in India and the US.
This raises the spectre of not only infuriating a key friendly country like Russia, but also a giant neighbour like China with which India boasts of having a strategic partnership.
Besides, powers like Iran and other Muslim countries would have their own issues resulting from the Modi government's American embrace.
In the coming days, the Modi government will have a lot of explaining to do as India engages directly with Iran, Russia and China.
At least three top officials of the Modi government are set to engage with these three powers in coming days. Inevitably, the US will be the elephant in the room in all these discussions.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is in Iran and scheduled to have substantive talks with the Iranian interlocutors April 17. From Tehran, she travels to Moscow where on April 18 she is scheduled to meet her counterparts from Russia and China under the rubric of RIC (Russia, India and China).
Defence Minister Parrikar is in China on his maiden visit and will meet his Chinese interlocutors on April 17-18.
Immediately after Parrikar departs from China, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be in China. His meetings with top Chinese officials are scheduled for April 21-22.
All three Indian officials -- Swaraj, Parrikar and Doval -- are expected to be swamped by questions on the Modi government's strategic shift towards the US. It will be hard for the trio to satisfy their hosts, particularly Russia and China.
The Congress party has already noted that the Modi government does not have the mandate to push the country towards a military alliance with the US. This raises the domestic challenges for the Modi government as the previous government had consistently warded off American pressure to sign the LSA since 2004.
'Though, America is India's strategic partner and there is an ongoing defence cooperation we have strong reservations and concerns over this development,' Congress leader and former Union minister Anand Sharma said.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government do not have a national mandate to push India into a situation in closer, deeper, military alliance and become part of the larger operational designs and requirements of the US in Asia, in the Pacific and the South China Sea,' Sharma added.
'It would be detrimental to India's strategic interests, our security interest and also undermine or rather underrate the critical geo-strategic balance and also the balance for forces in India's extended neighbourhood in the region,' Sharma -- who served as minister of state for external affairs during Dr Singh's first term in office -- said.
'When you have such an agreement put in place, it will also require, though the government may deny, the presence of support personnel for maintenance and repair in India's military bases and that will further be taking a step towards a formal military alliance,' Sharma pointed out.
'We have also concerns that it will be, in fact, inviting opposition and serious concerns of India's strategic partners -- Russia and even China.'
Throughout its decade-long rule, Dr Singh's government had resisted the LSA and two other concomitant pacts -- CISMOA or the Communication and Information Security MOA and the BECA or Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement.
Dr Singh's government saw these agreements as intrusive which would be construed or misconstrued by India's other strategic partners as India being drawn into a military alliance with the US.
The Congress party's concerns are that the CISMOA would take into its embrace the complete communication network of the Indian armed forces, its radar and other communication signals including that of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy which can jeopardise India's operational preparedness and strategies.
The Modi government has said it wants to have the LSA on a case-to-case basis and formal arrangements already exist between India-the USA, India-Russia and our other partners when there is a specific requirement. The The Congress party has raised an important question. asks why then is there a need for a formal agreement with the US?
Since the LSA is not a done deal yet and not something cast in stone just as yet, the Modi government will do well to thrash out a national consensus before taking the leap and put itself in America's pouch.
Rajeev Sharma is an independent journalist and strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha
'China refuses to talk to India on nuclear or ballistic missile issues and conclude any de-targeting agreement as Beijing did with Russia or a non-targeting agreement with the US.'
Srikanth Kondapalli, one of India's leading China watchers, looks at the likely outcome of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's visit to China.
IMAGE: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and General Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of China's powerful Central Military Commission, November 16, 2015.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has embarked on his maiden visit to China, with meetings at Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. Parrikar's visit could yield significant results in the bilateral military cooperation with China.
Significant aspects of the visit include furthering the modalities to implement the 2013 Border Defence Cooperation Agreement, BDCA, and control periodic border transgressions on the undefined borders, establishing regular communications at the strategic levels between the Director Generals of Military Operations and at the tactical levels on the borders, and other measures.
In Beijing he is expected to hold discussions with his counterpart Chang Wanquan. Unlike Parrikar, China's defence minister is not powerful and acts as a figurehead.
More significant meetings will be with the first Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Fan Chanlong, who visited India reportedly at his own initiative last November.
The Chengdu visit is also significant as it has now become the integrated headquarters for the Western Theatre Command since December 2015 and has military operational jurisdiction over areas contiguous to the entire Indian borders.
Parrikar is not the first defence minister to visit China. K C Pant made a stopover visit from Pyonyang in 1987, followed by Sharad Pawar in July 1992, George Fernandes in April 2003, Pranab Mukherjee in May 2006 and A K Antony in July 2013.
During Pawar's visit the Chinese side proposal to sell military equipment was turned down with their quality problems. After making the 'potential enemy number one' statement preceding the 1998 nuclear tests, Fernandes' visit during the SARS epidemic earned him accolades also because he suggested that China is a 'friend.' Mukherjee's visit institutionalised ties with the annual defence dialogues, seven of them concluded by 2015.
On the Chinese side only three defence ministers thought it fit to visit India -- Chi Haotian in September 1994, Cao Gangchuan in March 2004 and Liang Guanglie in September 2012.
After the 'three consensus' -- border stability, economic cooperation and expanding people-to-people cooperation -- arrived at by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in September 2014 and furthered in May 2015, and to reduce the misperceptions caused by the September and November 2015 border transgressions at Chumar in the Western sector, General Fan arrived at Delhi with a 26-member delegation.
Apart from expanding visits and enhancing communications, Parrikar's visit is also expected to enhance 'constructive engagement' between the two militaries. Given the 1962 border clash freeze, such cooperation, however, is expected to be incremental.
A few recent events have suggested to improving perceptions, though. First, the Indian annual reports of the defence ministry, which from 1962 labeled China as a 'long-term threat', relented in 2016 with no mention of threat, although it called recent Chinese border transgressions as 'assertive' in nature.
Secondly, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, the air chief, on November 28, 2015 said 'We do not look at China as an adversary anymore.' India and China, ACM Raha felt, should establish mature political relations. Parrikar himself in March 2015 expressed hopes of resolving the border dispute with China.
Cooperation is also expected to be reflected in furthering measures to expand hotlines, flag meetings and border personnel meeting (in order to 'conduct non contact games and joint celebration of festivals') and other measures. Already, the fifth border personnel meeting point in the Ladakh sector commenced in August 2015 soon after Modi's visit to Beijing in May.
IMAGE: Ceremonial Border Personnel Meetings were held between the Indian and Chinese armies on the occasion of the 'Harvest Festival' in Chushul and Daulat Beg Oldi, Eastern Ladakh, April 14, 2016.
A nine-member Indian military delegation headed by Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General D S Hooda visited Beijing and the Lanzhou Military Regions in China from December 14 to 19, 2015. This is the first visit from this area after Lieutenant General B S Jaswal, the then Northern Army Commander, was denied a visa by the Chinese government in 2010 and that led to freezing of military relations between the two sides.
Between the two armies, five 'hand-in-hand' joint counter-terrorism operations were held till October 2015, although the content of these operations remain cosmetic in nature due to Chinese sensitivities towards Pakistan on the issue.
However, the recent Chinese 'technical hold' at the United Nations over Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhwi or Jaish-e-Mohamed terrorist Masood Azhar could hardly figure in Parrikar's talks in China. This is a topic possibly reserved for National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to address during his visit to Beijing separately this week.
As China itself had expanded military cooperation with the United States during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and also during Xi Jinping's recent visit to the United States, the US-India Logistics Support Agreement could also hardly figure in talks with the Chinese.
The two navies also have instituted 'search-and-rescue' operations since November 2003, although they did not graduate towards intensive naval exercises. India had proposed 'rules of engagement' between the two navies to overcome any accidental fallout between their respective ships on the high seas. Also, constraining naval cooperation is that the 'joint maritime cooperation' mechanism exists under the foreign ministry's jurisdiction.
A major weak spot in the bilateral military cooperation is in the more offensive air-to-air and strategic forces. While both air forces observed aerobatic manoeuvres, these remain elementary.
On the other hand, China refuses to talk to India on nuclear or ballistic missile issues and conclude any de-targeting agreement as Beijing did with Russia or a non-targeting agreement with the US.
Another overall constraining feature in the bilateral military cooperation between the two countries is their strategic postures which while not explicitly pitching against each other still poses concerns for their long-term impact, specifically as both are 'simultaneously rising.'
Dr Srikanth Kondapalli, Professor in Chinese Studies at JNU, is Chairman, Centre for East Asian Studies.
Those who have studied Assam elections say the high turnout has the Congress worried, says Aditi Phadnis
Parties in the state are interpreting this to their advantage. Past record suggests that low voter numbers favour the Congress, meaning the scales could tip for the BJP this time. AIUDF leader Badruddin Ajmal could turn kingmaker if there's a hung assembly
The Assam assembly elections are over. The two-phase elections -- on April 4 and April 11 -- registered an overall polling of 84.72 per cent, the highest ever for the state.
Understandably, all political parties are interpreting this to their advantage. The first phase of the elections, covering 65 seats, saw a voter turnout of 78 per cent -- higher than that of the 2011 assembly elections, but slightly less than the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in these areas.
Chabua in Dibrugarh recorded the highest turnout -- 85 per cent. Chabua is the constituency that covers Jerai Chakalibhoriya, the village of top United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) leaders Paresh Baruah and Anup Chetia.
Voting was peaceful also in Margherita where the Ulfa's anti-talks faction had warned voters to shun Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Bhaskar Sarma. Obviously, people ignored the warnings and Chabua has become the benchmark in turnout terms.
Psephologists and those who have studied Assam elections say the high turnout has the Congress worried.
It is a fact that low turnout has always gone in favour of the Congress, especially during the days of insurgency in the state. Besides, around 65 per cent of Assam's voting population is below 40. The argument is that this section of the population is generally anti-incumbent and will vote for change.
The only possible exception is Titabor, where Tarun Gogoi contested, which saw a 78 per cent turnout. However, this is attributed to Gogoi's personal popularity -- even his detractors concede that he is one of Assam's tallest leaders and people came out in large numbers only to endorse this fact.
Majuli, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal's constituency, saw an 80 per cent turnout, including those areas which are accessible only by boat.
The current assembly member, Rajib Lochan Pegu of the Congress, is a little concerned. In most of these areas, an early morning surge of voters suggests that people, especially daily-wage earners, voted first before going out to work.
An analysis of the turnout is revealing. The highest polling percentage of 93.53 per cent was recorded in Jaleswar assembly constituency in Goalpara district, while the lowest was 75.05 per cent at Silchar in Cachar district.
The previous highest percentage was 79.21 per cent in the 1985 assembly polls held after the culmination of the six-year-long Assam agitation against migrants. In the 2011 assembly polls, the overall voting percentage was 75.9 per cent.
In this election,the percentage of women who voted was 84.81 per cent -- slightly higher than that of men, which stood at 84.64 per cent.
Of the total 126 assembly constituencies, in 68 -- 44 in the first phase and 24 in the second -- the polling percentage of women voters was higher than that of men.
According to local Election Commission data, 16,900,487 voters exercised their franchise, of which 10,310,623 were male and 9,637,067 female. Kamrup Metropolitan district, which has four assembly constituencies -- Gauhati East, Gauhati West, Dispur and Jalukbari -- also recorded its highest-ever polling percentage this time: 80.17 per cent.
While the BJP and its alliance partners, including the Asom Gana Parishad, are exulting publicly over the high turnout, privately they are a bit worried, especially about the second phase, which saw large numbers of people voting in Muslim majority areas. They have worked out that the queues of voters in Muslim majority areas were not of BJP voters.
For instance, out of the 10 assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency of Dhubri, represented by All India United Democratic Front leader and member of Parliament Badruddin Ajmal, eight saw over 90 per cent voting, while the other two came close.
In his brother Sirajuddin Ajmal's constituency of Barpeta, which has seven segments, the turnouts ranged from a low of 87.72 per cent to a high of 90.91.
Outside the AIUDF's two Lok Sabha constituencies too, assembly seats in various districts had very high turnouts: Boko (89.09 per cent), Chhaygaon (90.58), Barkhetri (88.78), Dalgaon (91.42), Mangaldoi (88.61), Laharighat (87.18), Dhing (92.01), Rupohihat (90.05), Batadroba (87.04) and Samaguri (88.67).
Muslims have drifted towards the AIUDF since Ajmal floated it against the backdrop of the Supreme Court scrapping the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act after describing Bangladeshi influx as a 'silent external aggression' of Assam.
Muslims, who comprise 34 per cent of the population, used to vote largely for the Congress, except in 1985 when many went for the United Minorities Front of Assam, formed after Rajiv Gandhi signed the Assam Accord with the All Assam Students Union.
However, the turnout could work in favour of the BJP. The Congress and the AIUDF struggled to reach an alliance ahead of the elections, but failed to come to an understanding. The BJP reckons the Muslim vote will split and the advantage will accrue to the saffron alliance.
With Ajmal seeing himself as a kingmaker in the event of a hung assembly -- he has already said there is no question of going with the BJP; and he could consider an alliance with the Congress, if approached -- all eyes are on May 19 when the votes will be counted.
A Sikh priest was among three persons injured when an explosion ripped through a gurudwara in Germany's western city of Essen as India on Sudnay expressed "distress" at what is being deemed as a deliberate act.
Eyewitnesses have spoken of "a kind of bomb" that exploded at the entrance of Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurdwara around 7 pm local time on Saturday when a wedding was taking place.
About 200 people, including many children, were present at the wedding that began very late and was ongoing when the explosion occurred, the Bild newspaper reported quoting an eyewitness.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is in Iran, said she has asked the Ambassador of India to Germany, Gurjit Singh, to take up the incident at the "highest level".
"I have asked @AmbGurjitSingh to take this up at highest level with German authorities and convey our deep concern," she tweeted.
Reacting to the incident, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the Indian mission here is following it up with German authorities.
"Distressed to hear of an explosion in a gurudwara in Essen in Germany. Our Mission is following up with local authorities on ground situation," he said.
Consulate General of India in Frankfurt, on its Twitter handle, said that a team from the consulate led by Raveesh Kumar, the Consul General, is on his way to Essen to visit the gurudwara to meet with the injured and discuss the situation with city police.
Singh said that the German police are investigating various angles after the blast and that authorities at the mission are in touch with those at the federal and local level.
"Concerned at explosion @Gurdwara Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Essen last evening. Granthi Kuldeep Singh injured and in hospital.our team on way," Singh tweeted.
A 60-year-old suffered serious injuries and had to be hospitalised while two 47- and 56-year-old men had minor injuries, the report said but did not specify if all of them were Sikhs.
The injured included the 'granthi' (priest) on whom the whole pane of glass had fallen due to the impact.
A police spokesman said that the explosion was probably caused deliberately.
A masked man wearing dark clothes fled in an SUV, according to several witnesses from the scene.
A part of the wedding party was still in the building, the other part in the adjacent ballroom. The explosion was so violent that windowpanes of adjacent buildings were broken. The building was heavily damaged, the report said.
Three men were arrested following the explosion over suspicion that they were in the black SUV, which had previously been seen in the vicinity of the crime scene.
Images: Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurdwara where explosion occurred. Photograph: Sikh Council UK/Twitter
A hijab-clad Muslim woman in the US was reportedly removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after she asked for switching seats with a flight attendant saying she "did not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Hakima Abdulle, a Muslim woman from Maryland, said she was removed from the flight from Chicago to Seattle "without any credible explanation".
Abdulle said she wanted to switch seats but instead, she ended up being removed from the flight.
This was the second such incident involving the carrier this month after an Iraqi man claimed that he was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after a fellow passenger heard him speaking in Arabic.
Zainab Chaudry, an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a news conference that Abdulle had boarded the Seattle-bound aircraft on Wednesday when a flight attendant told her she would not be permitted to remain on board.
Airport police then escorted Abdulle, who is of Somalian descent and was wearing a hijab, to the ticket counter, where she waited several hours for a later flight, Chaudry was quoted as saying by The Baltimore Sun.
The flight attendant and Southwest employees inside the terminal were unable to provide "any reasonable explanation" for their action, Chaudry said, adding that Abdulle, who speaks little English, was reduced to tears and "suffered extreme distress and anxiety as a result of this experience."
When the police asked the flight attendant at the gate if there was any reason why Abdulle had been taken off the plane, the flight attendant reportedly replied, "No" and that she did "not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Brandy King, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, was quoted as saying that the "information available, collected at the time of the event, indicates that our employees followed proper procedures in response to this customer's actions while on board the aircraft".
"We are not in the business of removing passengers from flights without reason," King said.
Abdulle's husband Abukar Fidaw said, "She was humiliated because of her religion and the way she dressed."
In a similar incident on April 6, UC Berkeley senior Khairuldeen Makhzoomi was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland. Instead, Makhzoomi was removed from Southwest Airlines flight after speaking Arabic before his flight took off, the Daily Californian reported.
Image used for representation purpose only
Why IU lost to Rutgers: Hoosiers blow early lead, drop 5th straight
Indiana scored two touchdowns on its first two possessions but didn't score another in a 24-17 loss to Rutgers on Saturday
For nearly 20 years, the precise goings-on behind the secure doors at 4002 Loop 322 in South Abilene have been known only to those who show up for work on a daily basis. What has emerged in those 20 years has been what Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas calls one of its "most vital" call center operations.
"The Abilene FSU (full service unit) is a key part of our organization, supporting both BCBS Texas' local and statewide lines of business, and services we provide to our five million members in the Lone Star State," said Gustavo Bujanda, senior manager for BCBSTX's Media and Community Relations Division.
Opened in February 1997, the Abilene center started with an initial cadre of 250 people, chosen from more than 1,000 applicants. An additional 250 started in April of that year. Today, the Abilene center boasts a staff of more than 1,000, all uniquely trained and qualified to answer the myriad questions that come in daily from BCBSTX's members.
One of those hired in the initial employee group was Jackson Boen, who started as a customer advocate, and has risen through the ranks to the position he currently holds: Divisional Senior Vice President in the Service Delivery and Operations Division of Health Care Service Corp., BCBSTX's parent company.
"Abilene was the first full service unit we opened," said Boen, who noted that the Abilene FSU is also the largest operation outside of the regional headquarters in Richardson. "The company made a decision to expand beyond the regional headquarters into communities; and hired people from the local communities to better serve our members."
The facility BCBSTX operates from is owned by the city of Abilene, and Boen said the collaboration with city agencies has been key in BCBSTX's sustainability and growth over the years.
"DCOA (the Development Corporation of Abilene) was key to getting BCBS here," he said, noting that BCBS pays very low rent in exchange for the jobs. "Over the years, Abilene employees have been able to earn wages and salaries totaling in the tens of millions of dollars. The foresight of the DCOA and the half-cent sales tax were not only key in the initial decision to move to Abilene, but the continuing partnership we enjoy has helped us keep costs low; and the lower our costs, the lower we are able to keep our premiums."
In addition to customer advocates, the center trains and employs claim adjuster/examiners, and case managers (typically registered nurses or nurse practitioners), Bujanda said.
"Our Abilene FSU team is comprised of individuals with varying degrees of training and levels of expertise, but all equipped to excel at their job roles and functions," he added. "All of our training programs and tools are designed to equip our team members to excel, and are in compliance with State and Federal requisites."
Boen said the Abilene center has become recognized as a center of excellence for BCBSTX's Federal employee program; so much so that they've consolidated all FEP operations into Abilene. In 2014, Montana FEP operations were added to the Abilene center.
"We won the University of Texas account in 2000," Boen said. "We opened up that operation for UT with Abilene staffing. And when we decided to get into the ACA (Affordable Care Act) marketplace, we added a considerable staff in Abilene to help support the retail line."
In 2009, BCBSTX piloted a "work from home" model with several of its employees, Boen said. These "more senior" employees have demonstrated an ability to meet production and quality standards in the main facility, and were given the opportunity to work from home, answering customer questions and providing claim service.
"We've gotten a lot better at this model, and as we continue to leverage technology, we are able to maintain the culture through email web chats, webinars, etc.," he said.
In addition to serving their customers, BCBSTX employees are active in the local community, Bujanda said.
"We are very proud of the active role our Abilene team members play in the community, donating both time and resources to a variety of community organizations," he said. "In 2015, our employee volunteers donated more than 4,000 service hours locally, supporting 22 community organizations. From building playgrounds for kids and distributing turkeys during Thanksgiving, to driving Meals on Wheels to senior citizens and mentoring youth, our Abilene team members reflect the culture of social responsibility we try to foster at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas."
"We are committed to the Texas communities," added Boen, "keeping us close to the grass roots fabric of the people we desire to serve."
Two free seminars on the Fair Labor Standards Act will be held April 28 and 29 in Abilene.
A proposed significant change in the salary threshold for exempt employees, which is expected to be effective around July 1, will be discussed.
The Business Council of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce and Workforce Solutions of West Central Texas are sponsoring these FLSA workshops. William T. Simmons, Legal Counsel to Commissioner Ruth R. Hughes, commissioner representing employers for the Texas Workforce Commission, will be the presenter.
The first session will be at 3:30 p.m. on April 28, in the Lone Star Room, 12th floor of the Enterprise Tower, 500 Chestnut St. The seminar will be repeated on April 29, at 8 a.m. in the same location.
The present FLSA threshold which guarantees overtime for most salaried employees is $23,660 ($455 per week). The proposed change will guarantee overtime pay to most salaried workers earning less than $50,440 ($970 per week).
To register, please call 677-7241 or email williamsonf@abilenechamber.com, indicating your preference for the April 28 or April 29 session.
If anyone would like to see a sample of what Boy Scouts offer, this weekend gives you that opportunity.
Boy Scout Troop 232, sponsored by Highland Church of Christ, will rededicate its meeting house at South Third Street and Sayles Boulevard Sunday afternoon. The public is invited to an open house from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., with the official dedication scheduled for 12:30 p.m.
Troop members will have a typical campsite set up and will be demonstrating cooking and give presentations on the troop's history and some of their past and future high adventure trips. In scouting, high adventure trips can include anything from backpacking trips lasting several days, white-water rafting or cave exploration, as well as trips to established bases such as Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico, a canoe base in Minnesota and a sea base in Florida.
A court of honor, where boys receive awards and advancement they have earned, will be held Saturday evening.
Come by, see what these young men can do on their own and learn more about how you can get involved, either as a youth or adult. Additional note: Boy Scouts has a Venture program especially for youths ages 14 to 21 and it is open to girls, too.
CAMP WORKDAY AND OA FELLOWSHIP
The Order of the Arrow will have its spring fellowship at Camp Billy Gibbons April 29-May 1. That Saturday will also be the annual workday to prepare the camp for summer. The camp has been closed for long-term camping for several years while needed renovations were done. Texas Trails Council will hold two one-week camp sessions there this year.
Cost for the fellowship is $30 per member. Those wishing to complete their ordeal membership will be charged $60, and brotherhood candidates are charged $55. Deadline to register is noon April 27; registration form can be found at www.texastrailsbsa.com.
Ordeal candidates need to go to the site for a list of items to bring, and all attendees must download, fill out and bring a current health form, also available at the site.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Mountain Man Boy Scout Camporee, Friday-Sunday, San Saba River Nature Park and Mill Pond Park, San Saba. $15 per Scout, $10 per adult (add $5 late fee per person after April 18). Lance Anderson, 325-320-6996.
Cub-O-Ree, Friday-Sunday, Camp Tonkawa. $15 per person; $60 for family of five or more. 325-673-3552 Tot Spot, for children ages 3-5 (and an adult), 9:30 or 11 a.m. first Thursday and Friday of each month, The Grace Museum, 102 Cypress St. (Check at www.thegracemuseum.org under "Upcoming events" for holiday scheduling.) Free for museum members, $5 for nonmembers. Reservations required; 325-673-4587 or online.
National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, 102 Cedar St., Abilene (325-673-4586), offers art activities each Saturday from 1-4 p.m. at no charge.
DEADLINE
Thursday for genealogy workshop for Junior and Cadette Girl Scouts April 30, Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St. $3 per girl. 888-670-0432 Ext. 2703 or mlawson@gs-top.org.
Contact Carl Kieke at 325-673-3552; kiekec@suddenlink.net; or mail to Carl Kieke, 1417 N. 7th St. No. 2, Abilene TX 79601-4948. Deadline is Tuesday for publication the following Monday.
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.
It's all coming to an end for Jane Long Elementary, so it's time to party.
Long's current administration, led by Principal Lisa McCool, believes it's fitting to bow out of the Abilene Independent School District as a traditional elementary school in style with a farewell ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Then, with the start of the 2017-18 school year, Long will have new life as an Early Childhood Center renovated to accommodate the needs of preschool-age children and boasting a new wing to house the Head Start program. The changes are part of the district's $87.7 school bond package approved in 2013.
In the fall, students attending Long now will go to school at the expanded Lee campus or the new school built on the Johnston campus.
The Long campus, however, though its role is changing, will have a special place in the hearts of thousands of past and present students and teachers.
From the top
With every ending, there must be a beginning. And for Jane Long Elementary, Patricia Bogar was there to see it.
Bogar was one of the 12 original teachers who helped educate the first Longhorns who stepped foot on school grounds back in 1959. She remembers almost everything about that year, especially how prepared the district was to accept those first children.
And by that, she said, she means the school wasn't at all ready despite opening on time.
"There was a labor strike that summer," she said. "So the school wasn't complete when we opened. The teachers had to cross the picket line to have meetings. And we weren't able to begin school at the same time as the rest of the schools in the district.
"I remember my first day I was in a room with no windows. There was no heat or air conditioning, and I had one light bulb for the entire room hanging above my desk. It was controlled by a string. The plumbing wasn't even hooked up for the first day, so we prayed we didn't have an emergency.
"Luckily, we didn't."
Slowly, work finished on the school's original three buildings. Since those early days, the school has been expanded, and not just in terms of how many structures stood in the former cotton field off Minter Lane in northwest Abilene. The makeup of the student body also changed drastically while Bogar was teaching her fourth-grade classes.
Integration came about, bringing black students into her school for the first time in the 1960s. And the first one at Long, Larry Daurtery, she said, was set to enter her classroom.
"The principal called me and sat me down," Bogar said of her experience. "He said 'There's going to be a black student and he's going to be in your class.' I told him that it was fine. Our school was a melting pot."
Bogar, who spent her 33-year teaching career at Long, is planning on attending the party on Saturday despite a recent knee replacement surgery that has her hobbled.
All about family
Kristi Rodriguez has herself a couple different families, both of which she's proud of. She's about to lose one of them, though, when the final school bell rings in May and Long's classes are complete.
Rodriguez teaches fifth-grade science at the school, a job she started this year. And it's a job she'll finish at year's end. Then, it's on to Johnston Elementary and the new facilities the Abilene ISD has been building on the North 12th Street campus.
She's lucky, because she knows where her career will take her next. Others in her Long Elementary teaching family, including her principal, have no idea what the future holds. All Long employees have been guaranteed jobs in the AISD, but some don't know where.
"Even though I have a job lined up, it's been hard knowing this school is closing," Rodriguez said. "I'm sad my family is going to be disbursed. They've been very supportive, so it's sad we're not going to be together again next year."
She calls her fellow teachers her family because they spend a lot of time together. There are mentors she turns to and fellow teachers she considers her friends. But then there's also her actual family. It, too, has a connection to Jane Long Elementary.
Rodriguez's mother, RitaJo Smith, was also a teacher. And her first few years on the job were spent at Long.
"It was until she was pregnant with me, I think," Rodriguez said. "She took a year off after I was born to be with me. After that, the principal at the school at the time had moved on to a different school and he saved her a teaching spot, so she went onto other schools. But she got her start (at Long)."
Smith has retired from teaching, but still works as a substitute. Rodriguez has been known to call on her from time to time to step in when needed.
Rodriguez is a mother, as well, with three young children of her own. Two of which, she said, will be a perfect age to take advantage of the Early Childhood program.
So it's bittersweet for her, she said.
"I'm excited for what's happening," she said. "I'm excited to see the new facility and what will be available to them. It's exciting, but also sad that it's our campus here the district decided to close."
Inspired by a checkered past
Growing up, Wes Floehr had a rough childhood. The streets of San Antonio were not kind to him, as his father disappeared and he bounced around from foster home to foster home. At 15, he moved into the Methodist Home in Waco and found himself, eventually, enrolled at McMurry University.
"I went to college because I felt that I had no other place to go and I didn't know what I wanted to do," Floehr said.
Aimless, he wasn't the best student, he said, and found himself at a crossroad, considering joining the Navy because he thought he had lost his scholarship. Through an odd twist, the man who was supposed to pick him up from McMurry and drive him to Dallas to be sworn in to the Navy overslept that morning.
After that failure, he learned his scholarship was safe. He rededicated himself to elementary education, graduated and began searching for a job. Jane Long Elementary was his landing spot and he never looked back. Floehr taught math and physical education at the school for 32 years before retiring in 2012.
"The reason I taught was because of the way I grew up," he said. "My past showed me what I didn't want as an adult. I could've gone the other way, the drugs, the crime. But just because you see something doesn't mean you have to do it."
Since stepping away, Floehr has taken on the role of substitute within the district. He works in all the schools around town, but the days he gets to fill in at Long are the ones he cherishes most.
Some faculty remains from his days at the school, and he often takes his lunch breaks in the teachers lounge when he's there. It feels like home to him, he said.
"Everything happens for a reason," he said. "Everything comes from God. I wouldn't change anything that's happened to me because it brought me here."
Who was Jane Long?
Jane Long was called the Mother of Texas, even during her lifetime, because she gave birth to a child Dec. 21, 1821, on the Bolivar Peninsula, according to the Handbook of Texas Online.
She was not, however, as she claimed, the first English-speaking woman to bear a child in Texas. The history website states censuses between 1807 and 1826 show that a number of children were born in Texas before 1821 to Anglo-American mothers.
___________
Jane Long Elementary Schools farewell party is set to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at the school at 3600 Sherry Lane.
School Principal Lisa McCool invited Mayor Norm Archibald and AISD Superintendent David Young to speak. Shes since learned Archibald likely cant attend, but Councilman Anthony Williams, who serves as mayor pro tem, is expected to replace him. Representatives from the Abilene fire and police departments are also expected.
Its kind of a farewell, she said. We wanted to have community members there to have them say a few words. Well also acknowledge our school board members, former administration, teachers and students. Everyones invited to attend.
After the ceremony guests can tour the buildings. Theyll see space where a new structure will be added, plus hear from the architect of the project thats part of the districts $87.7 million bond package.
There was also talk of a time capsule or other form of recognizing the elementary campus was once there, McCool said. She also said they may have everyone sign a wall, though details have yet to be finalized.
U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Cierra Presentado/Released
A fallen comrade memorial ceremony was held in honor of six Airmen who died recently while serving their country Oct. 3, 2015, at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.
A hard-shell night vision goggle case wedged to keep a yoke in place while a Dyess C-130J was being unloaded contributed to the plane's crash when it tried to take off, an Air Force investigation has determined.
The crash on Oct. 2 in Jalalabad Airfield in Afghanistan killed the four-man Dyess crew, along with seven others in the plane and three Afghan Special Reaction Force members on the ground.
The four Dyess airmen were Capt. Jordan Pierson, Capt. Jonathan Golden, Staff Sgt. Ryan Hammond and Senior Airman Quinn Johnson-Harris.
The cause of the crash was released Friday in a statement from the Air Force Air Mobility Command.
According to the investigation, the crew had flown a successful mission from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, to Jalalabad Airfield. While the plane was loaded and unloaded with the engine running, "the pilot raised the elevators mounted to the horizontal stabilizer by pulling back on the yoke. This provided additional clearance to assist with offloading tall cargo. After a period of time in which the pilot held the yoke by hand, he placed a hard-shell night vision goggle (NVG) case in front of the yoke to hold the elevator in a raised position."
Because the pilots were operating under darkened night flying conditions and wearing night vision goggles, neither pilot saw the goggle case after the plane was loaded or during takeoff, the Air Force reported.
"Once airborne, the aircraft increased in an excessive upward pitch during the takeoff climb. The co-pilot misidentified the flight control problem as a trim malfunction, resulting in improper recovery techniques," the Air Force news release said. "The rapid increase in pitch angle resulted in a stall from which the pilots were unable to recover. The aircraft impacted approximately 28 seconds after liftoff, right of the runway, within the confines of Jalalabad Airfield.
"The aircraft struck the ground, a perimeter wall and a guard tower, which resulted in all personnel onboard the aircraft being killed, along with three ASRF members assigned to the tower."
A statement from Dyess said, " ... we want the Big Country to know that our thoughts and prayers are with the family members and friends of those killed in this accident. The Air Force works to ensure the safety of our Airmen, the people and assets it transports in support of U.S. objectives worldwide, every day. In the very rare cases when things go wrong, the Air Force has an obligation to honestly and rigorously assess the causes in order to prevent such an accident in the future. The accident investigation board team completed an exhaustive investigation to determine the cause of and contributing factors of the mishap, and there was no evidence that a malfunction with the aircraft of any kind contributed to the accident. We are confident that the C-130J remains a safe, effective and capable aircraft, due to the extraordinary efforts of our Airmen to keep it that way."
More information might be available next week.
"Our hearts go out to the family members and friends of those killed in this accident," Brig. Gen. Patrick X. Mordente, who led the accident investigation board, said in the Air Mobility Command news release. "The investigation team pushed an intense fact-finding investigation to understand what happened on Oct. 2, 2015, and to honor all whose lives were cut short."
The crew consisted of the pilot, copilot and two loadmasters assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. Also on board were two fly-away security team members assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and five civilian contractor passengers.
Call Doyle Lemond a liar and you won't cause a fight, just a grin at the compliment.
Lemond, an 80-year-old Abilenian, was the runner-up in the Liars Workshop Contest on Saturday morning in Cockerell Building.
At least, he said he was.
The workshop was hosted by the Mesquite Storytellers of Abilene Club. Abby Randolph said the club meets every third Tuesday, except in December, and urges people to tell stories.
Saturday's event featured Donna Ingham of Austin, who has been named Biggest Liar in Texas three times, and one would assume the competition in Austin is stiff. Randolph said the lies told on Saturday weren't the ones that hurt people or the ones that get told on campaign trails.
"They're stories that have an element of truth in them," she said. "Donna told the story about her son's swamp fox that could go on both land and water. She had me believing her story until the very end. The truth was that her son had a swamp fox."
Lemond agreed that the best lies have a grain of truth to them.
"You start with that little bit of truth and then just add to it and mix it up," he said.
Lemond's stories set up one-liners. For instance, he told about how, when he worked for Mrs. Baird's Bread, he would bring change from home to buy coffee from the machine. One day, he said, his young son swallowed the change.
He and his wife rushed the child to the hospital where x-rays revealed a quarter, a dime and a nickel. The doctor assured the worried parents that the boy would pass the coins later that day. That afternoon, the doctor's office called Lemond to check on the boy's status.
"No change," Lemond said.
Or, there was the time last month when Lemond took his granddaughters to the zoo during spring break. All of the animals were out except the monkeys. Lemond asked a zookeeper named Jane about the monkeys and she replied that they were inside because it was mating season.
"Would they come out for peanuts?" Lemond asked.
"Would you?" was the answer.
Heavy fighting has raged in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz for the third consecutive day as government forces repelled Taliban attacks.
Several hundred Taliban militants attacked Kunduz, a key city in northern Afghanistan, on April 15.
On April 17, insurgents intensified their attacks in several districts around Kunduz in their bid to retake the city that they captured briefly last year.
Kunduz police chief Qasim Jangalbagh told Reuters that militants overnight attacked several police checkpoints in Chardara district on the southwest outskirts of the city, which insurgents used as a base in last year's attack.
In addition, Jangalbagh said government forces repelled a major attack in Charkh Ab, to the east of Kunduz, as Taliban forces sought to stretch the city's defenses.
Kunduz police said 49 Taliban fighters had been killed and another 61 wounded in the past 24 hours.
A police spokesman said four members of the security forces were killed and 11 wounded.
The fighting around Kunduz come days after the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive.
Based on reporting by Reuters and ToloNews
Several hundred Shi'ite demonstrators have rallied in central Baghdad to call for reforms.
The protesters gathered at Tahrir Square on April 17, chanting, "Yes, yes to Iraq; no, no to corruption."
The rally comes after powerful Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to call mass protests if lawmakers failed to vote in "a cabinet of independent technocrats" by April 19.
Last month, Sadr organized a two-week sit-in in March outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered.
Iraq has been hit by weeks of political turmoil surrounding Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's efforts to replace the cabinet of party-affiliated ministers with a government of technocrats.
Abadi has said the turmoil could threaten the campaign against the Islamic State group, which controls large swathes of territory in the country's north and west.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Freedom House just released its annual Nations In Transit (NIT) report, an indispensable look at the human rights situation in 29 countries, including all five Central Asian states.
The annual survey has a ranking system to help track governments progress, or regress, in respecting basic rights and freedoms.
While two Central Asian countries -- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- have regularly been ranked at the bottom of the list, this year's NIT report saw Kazakhstan, and particularly Tajikistan, drop in the rankings.
To find out more about the report and how Freedom House reached this years ratings for the Central Asian states, RFE/RLs Turkmen Service (known locally as Azatlyk), assembled a Majlis, or panel, to discuss the findings in this latest NIT.
The Majlis
Moderating the discussion was Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir. Nate Schenkkan, the project director for NIT, joined from Washington. Edward Lemon of Exeter University, and also the author of this years report on Tajikistan, participated from London. And since Ive written a few of these reports myself, I chipped in with a few comments.
Schenkkan started the discussion by saying, "A lot of observers of Central Asia have been saying since the oil price started dropping and since the sanctions got really serious on Russia that there would be really dire consequences in Central Asia and increasingly in 2015 and now in 2016 I think that's what we're seeing."
Lemon explained what happened in Tajikistan that caused that country to have one of the steepest declines in the NIT ratings in 2016 compared to 2015. "On the one hand you've got this crackdown on political parties, you've got the arrest of various lawyers, including the most prominent human rights lawyers who've been defending people, representatives of the [opposition] IRPT [Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan], representatives of Group 24, another leading opposition movement whose leader was assassinated in Istanbul in March [2015].
Lemon continued that this has been accompanied by "the strengthening of [Tajik President Emomali] Rahmon's own position, including Rahmon becoming this 'leader of the nation' and 'originator of peace,' this new national holiday, this real cult of personality emerging around Rahmon." "You've really seen quite a dramatic shift in the human rights situation in the country last year," Lemon said.
Drastically reduced revenues from hydrocarbon exports have hit Kazakhstan hard. The national currency, the tenge, lost half its value between July 2015 and January 2016.
Unfair Elections
Schenkkan noted: "In Kazakhstan you had in 2015 and have had in 2016 again, the staging of these facade elections that are more about revalidating the existing government than they are about any kind of actual accountability or input from the citizenry into policy process."
Kazakhstans early presidential election in April 2015 and early parliamentary elections in March 2016 saw overwhelming victories for President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his ruling Nur-Otan party. Many observers felt Nazarbaev wanted the elections over before the full impact of the economic crisis hit the country and potentially the popularity of the president and his party.
The few remaining independent media in Kazakhstan were also targeted and even bloggers were brought to trial, in some case on charges of inciting "social, national, tribal, racial, class, or religious hatred."
The countries that receive large remittances from their migrant laborers in Russia -- Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- are also facing severe economic downturns as relatives back home in those countries now find themselves with significantly less money to spend.
In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as in gas exporter Turkmenistan, that fact has led authorities to clamp down on anyone suggesting the state of the country is anything less than the bright picture authorities are painting.
The fault naturally lies with the governments.
As Schenkkan said, "There's no buffer built in for these countries in the way that their governments had managed their economies and built up ways of responding to changes like this."
Measures the governments have been taking in most of the Central Asian countries seem more focused on silencing criticism and eliminating opposition rather than addressing economic problems, which, to be fair, are to some extent outside their control.
Trading Partner Woes
The Central Asian governments cannot do anything about the economic situations in Russia and China, two of the regions leading trade partners, nor can those countries with oil and natural gas do anything about the price for those energy resources on world markets. All five are going to need large amounts of outside money to help get through this crisis.
This led our Majlis into a discussion of the wisdom of Western financial aid for Central Asia. There are many well-meaning international organizations and Western governments who could and would help. But Central Asian governments are characterized by high levels of corruption and, in the end, even the financial help that does reach the people also serves to prop up the undemocratic regimes that pay little attention to the rights of their people.
As Lemon pointed out, since the start of the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan, the direction of Western aid to Central Asia has changed and so has the message. Western governments and international financial organizations are "not sending out the right message; they're putting security above political reform, human rights, and they're giving the message to all of the governments of the region that they can continue following this downward trajectory and they'll still continue to get military aid and continue to get development money and other sources of rent."
And the result, as Schenkkan said, is that "We're really seeing a clustering at the bottom of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, still a step beyond, but really Kazakhstan not being that far off now and Tajikistan pretty rapidly approaching."
Kyrgyzstan actually received a slightly better score in NIT for 2016 than it got in the 2015 report, due to the countrys parliamentary elections in October 2015, which probably were the best elections ever held in Central Asia. But there was talk about some of the problems with rights in Kyrgyzstan.
And there was much more detailed discussion of the topics mentioned in the text and other matters concerning this years NIT report on the rights situation in Central Asia.
You can listen to the full conversation below:
NOTE: The Majlis will be in recess for a few weeks. Look for our next session in early May.
MOSCOW -- Svetlana Medvedeva cannot rise to the top of her chosen profession for a very simple reason -- she is a woman.
The ambition of the 30-year-old mother of two is to earn a much better wage as the captain of a boat on the Volga River, which runs through her hometown of Samara. And with the degree she earned in 2005 from Samara River College, she should be well on her way -- or already there.
But with the system in place on the Volga, the occupation of captain requires her to have prior experience as a ship mechanic. And that job is one of hundreds that are open to men only in Russia, according to the law.
A Russian government resolution passed in 2000 prohibits women from 38 industries and over 450 jobs it deems to be "dangerous" or "arduous." Adopted during President Vladimir Putin's first year in office, it was the latest incarnation of Soviet-era regulations that sought to keep women in what the Communist Party once called their "traditional" role of bearing children for the greater good of society.
To this day, the ban covers a swathe of occupations including miner, carpenter, firefighter, train driver, blacksmith, diver, and driver of buses with more than 14 seats.
That makes Russia "the country with the most job-related barriers," according to a September 2015 World Bank report on gender equality.
On March 15, the United Nations called on Russia to amend its legislation and shorten the list of banned occupations. It also formally labeled Medvedeva a victim of "gender-based discrimination" -- a hard-won triumph in a legal battle she began in 2012, seeking to bypass the ban.
That year, Medvedeva was actually hired for a mechanic's job, with some responsibilities at the boat's helm, by a private company in Samara. But when her work was due to start, she was turned away because of the legislation.
"Everything was signed, and I was meant to start work on Monday," she says. "I came, had a look at the engine and how it works. I was meant to start in two days -- and then there was this resolution banning me from work."
Medvedeva began campaigning for dispensation to bypass the ban, firing off letters to the Kremlin, Labor Ministry, and Health Ministry. They all referred her back to the Labor Code, which in turn cites jobs listed as dangerous in the government resolution.
She went to court to seek an order to force the company to ensure safe working conditions in the job, but her appeal was rejected. She says the job is considered dangerous because of the loud noise of the engine, which can be canceled out by wearing earplugs.
"I don't think there should be professions that are banned for women," Medvedeva says. "In any case, women aren't going en masse to go to take up heavy work, and in those professions where it really is heavy, the jobs should simply be improved. They should be improved, not banned."
Medvedeva says she had practically given up when she came across the Russian human rights organization Memorial, which offered to help press her case internationally. She went to the United Nations, whose Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women pronounced her a victim of discrimination and called on Russia to amend its Labor Code and reduce the number of jobs that are closed to women under the government resolution.
"No evidence has been provided to the committee that the inclusion of the position of helmperson-motorist in the list of prohibited jobs is based on any scientific evidence that it may be harmful to women's reproductive health," the UN committee's experts said in the March 15 statement.
Soviet Law
The legislation harks back to the communist era, and has been modified slightly with the passage of time. Its latest incarnation was passed as a government resolution in 2000 that lists the banned professions. The Labor Code additionally says that women are prohibited from working underground except if they are doing nonphysical tasks such as cleaning. They are also not allowed to do jobs involving lifting or moving heavy items.
"This system is very old and goes back to Soviet times," says Yelena Gerasimova, director of the Moscow-based Center for Social and Labor Rights. "The restrictions have changed over the years -- some occupations have been removed, others included. It hasn't always been in this form. At various times it was added to, but the general approach was always the same."
On the one hand, Soviet ideology explicitly espoused equality between men and women -- and on the face of it did so demonstratively. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963, 20 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman to make the trip.
On the ground, it was a different story. During the Soviet Union's breakneck industrialization and the reconstruction after the devastation of World War II, which left the country with a deficit of men, women were actively pushed into the labor force -- but were largely kept out of high-skilled jobs.
The Soviet Labor Code of 1922 explicitly banned women from "dangerous" jobs. In 1981, the year the ruling Communist Party called for the "reinforcement of the traditional maternal role," the number of jobs shut to women hit 460.
'Lady Metro'
Perhaps the most well-known ban was the prohibition introduced in the 1980s on women driving trains, including in the metro, or subway. Until then, female drivers had been commonplace a legacy of the dearth of men following World War II. Women were also prevented from working as train assistants in the front car.
Women were gradually phased out of the job -- with one exception. Until her reported retirement, Natalya Korniyenko was known as the only female metro driver in Moscow, and the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets dubbed her "Lady Metro" in 2007.
The Moscow Metro press service said in 2009 that Korniyenko was able to continue working because the ban on hiring women as metro drivers did not say what to do with those already working, and she predated the ban.
Others have since tried to gain employment in the driver's booth of subway trains -- but to no avail. In 2009, Anna Klevets, then a 22-year-old law student, pressed a discrimination suit after being turned down for a job as an assistant metro operator in St. Petersburg on the grounds of her gender. She argued that it was a violation of Russia's constitutional guarantee of equal rights for men and women. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal in May 2009.
Last year, an online petition was aired by a resident of the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk calling for the repeal of the blanket ban, saying it was outdated primarily for economic reasons.
The author of the petition argued that the restrictions were tolerable in the Soviet Union because women were able to find other decent work in a system in which every citizen was virtually guaranteed a job, but that with unemployment on the rise and real incomes falling, it is unfair in today's Russia.
"Now the situation has changed," says the petition, which has garnered just 650 signatures. "The jobs that women are barred from could be the best or only way for them to earn money to live." http://tinyurl.com/jctm39v
Gerasimova says that Russia has six months to respond to the UN's call to change the legislation. She said that "several years ago" there had been signs that the Labor Ministry was making moves to repeal the legislation, but that there has been no overt indication of that recently.
The restrictions seem to fit in with the pushes by Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church to tout what they call traditional Russian values.
For her part, Medvedeva sees no groundswell of support for a change.
The legislation "is a problem in my case," she says. "If this was a particularly big problem, someone would have raised it before me as the resolution has been in force for 16 years since 2000. I'm the one with a concrete problem; others apparently don't have it."
The U.S. military says there has been another close encounter between a Russian warplane and a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea the second such incident within a week.
U.S. Navy Captain Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command, told CNN that the latest incident took place on April 14 when a Russian Su-27 fighter jet "performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers" dangerously close to the U.S. plane during a routine flight in international airspace.
He said the Russian jet barrel-rolled near the U.S. RC-135, coming within 16 meters of the U.S. planes wing tip.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on April 17 that the Su-27's flight "complied with international regulations."
Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said the Russian fighter took off to identify "an unknown aerial target which was heading at a great speed toward the Russian border" and "flew around" the RC-135.
On April 12, two Russian Su-24 warplanes buzzed a U.S. guided-missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea.
That incident prompted condemnation from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who accused Russias military of a "dangerous" and "reckless" provocation.
Kerry said on April 14 that the U.S. warship, which was in international waters, could have shot down the Russian Su-24 fighter jets under rules of engagement.
Kerry said on April 14 that he was communicating with officials in Moscow in the hope that such a close encounter would not be repeated.
Russias Defense Ministry defended the actions of those Russian pilots, saying they had respected all safety rules.
U.S. military officials said the Russian warplanes were not armed, but flew so close to the USS Donald Cook and at such a low altitude that they created a "wake in the water."
Reducing the risk of deadly military confrontations is on the agenda of NATO and Russian diplomats due to meet in Brussels on April 20.
The meeting will be the first of the NATO-Russia Council since June 2014 when NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Moscow over its illegal annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and its support for Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, CNN, and TASS
It was a horrible way to die, at the hands of a savage mob that scorned pleas of innocence and screams for mercy.
Almost always the victim was a black man accused of having committed a violent crime against a white person. Always the mob consisted entirely or mostly of white men who were unwilling to allow the justice system to work.
It was murder by mobs, one of the most diabolical of racist crimes, and it was primarily a Southern barbarity during that regions most dismal decades after the Civil War. Between 1888 and 1926, mobs in Virginia alone lynched 85 men.
Lacking the political clout to overcome this evil themselves, black citizens desperately needed a powerful white advocate in high places. And they found one in Virginias newly elected governor in 1926.
Responding to the imperatives of his own convictions and to the persuasive arguments of a crusading newspaper editor, the governor denounced lynching as morally indefensible and politically anarchical and vowed to stop it.
He ran the risk, he knew, of imperiling his political future by offending powerful local officials and citizens who spurned politicians deemed too friendly to blacks. Even so, he proposed and obtained from the state legislature the strongest anti-lynching law in the nation.
And by doing so, Gov. Harry Flood Byrd Sr. made one of the most significant contributions to black civil rights since President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
A critical provision of this law transferred authority to prosecute lynching cases from the localities to the state. No longer would those inclined to constitute themselves judge, jury, and executioner be encouraged to do so by the fecklessness of local officials.
The result was miraculous. Murder by mobs ceased in Virginia. Not a single lynching occurred in this state since that law became effective.
For his pivotal action, Byrd was acclaimed in Virginia and nationally by black and white leaders. And for his crucial role in this political drama, Louis Jaffe, crusading editor of the Virginian-Pilot, won his professions highest honor: the Pulitzer Prize.
Byrd went on to become one of the most progressive chief executives in Virginias history. Virginians rewarded him with six consecutive terms in the United States Senate, where he waged his own crusade for federal fiscal responsibility.
***
More than 40 years ago, the Henrico County School Board honored Harry Byrd for his many contributions to the state, including public education, by putting his name on a new public middle school. Last month, the current board, citing his opposition to public school desegregation, dishonored him by taking it off.
No doubt the board, and the young high school student who inspired its action, were moved by the most noble of motives. By viewing the past through the prism of today, we can often find flaws in yesterdays heroes. But if support for segregation overrides all other factors in determining an individuals qualifications for an honor, many of the most historic heroes of the nation and Virginia are potential future villains.
One notable example is President Franklin D. Roosevelt, probably the most idolized god in the liberal Democratic Partys pantheon. Having the power to desegregate the nations armed forces without the Supreme Courts permission, he refused to do more than make a few token gestures.
Roosevelt repeatedly rejected pleas to follow the Byrd example and propose a federal anti-lynching law. And Washington, over which the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction, remained one of the most segregated cities in America until the middle of the 20th century.
Here in Virginia, Prince William County has followed Henricos example and removed former Gov. Mills Godwins name from one of its middle schools because he, too, was once a segregationist. Never mind that he was the virtual founder of the community college system, which has made an enormous contribution to the education of young blacks and whites.
***
Faced with exactly the same problem that confronted the Henrico and Prince William boards, Princeton University recently decided that name-changing is not the fairest solution. Consider the universitys explanation for rejecting black students demands that it remove the name of Woodrow Wilson who served not only as president of the United States but also as president of that distinguished school from all buildings and programs because he had been a segregationist:
All the people whom we honor in history are going to be people with flaws and deficiencies, said Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber. If we made that argument, we would honor nobody. The right attitude is to honor people, but be honest about their failings.
It would be a supreme injustice to allow Harry Byrds name to be tossed into Henricos trash bin of history without remembering especially that when black Virginians urgently needed the help of a powerful political friend, he was there to support their most important civil right of all: the right to live.
Over the past two decades, I have heard educators say that one of the biggest challenges in K-12 is that parents are not engaged in their childs education.
This month, Gov. Terry McAuliffe had an opportunity to sign an innovative education reform bill (HB389) that would have incentivized parents to be directly involved in their childs educational success.
Commonly referred to as Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts(PCESA), this bill would have allowed a parent to remove their special needs child from public school and receive approximately one-third of the states per-pupil spending to educate that child outside of the public school, using any currently acceptable method allowed under current state law.
The Virginia state treasury would deposit the funds the parent receives into a self-adjudicating, restricted-use savings account, which would be used to pay private school tuition or expenses associated with home education.
Approximately one-third of the state per-pupil expenditure would remain available to the locality to cover the fixed-cost of school operations and the remaining one-third would be shared by the state and locality as cost savings. Everyone wins: Parents provide quality education to their children at one-third the cost; public schools reduce class sizes; and the locality saves money, which is available for re-investment in the children who remain in public school.
Unfortunately, the governor vetoed HB389, caving to the special interest education associations, which seem more concerned with protecting control of the public education monopoly than helping the most vulnerable in our communities.
This need to maintain control became obvious in 2015 during a committee hearing, when state Sen.Tom Garrett asked a lobbyist for the Virginia School Board Association, What is the primary objective of the public school system in Virginia, is it to provide a quality education for the children or is it to protect the education bureaucracy? We all expected the obvious answer. Instead, the lobbyist was speechless. Never had silence been so revealing, especially to the parents of special needs students who were sitting in that committee room.
I believe most public schools want the best for special needs children. However, a one-size-fits-all approach does not work in some inner-city and rural schools, where special needs children are not receiving the resources they need. In many cases, these children are being expelled or suspended because their needs are being neglected. This is a major contributor to the school-to-prison pipeline that has been a primary concern of the minority community for over a decade.
***
During the 2016 General Assembly, Lisa Smith, whose 15-year-old daughter, Haley, suffers from Dravet syndrome, shared her testimony with the House Education Committee. Lisa fought Lancaster County to get the resources the Federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates.
She reported the county spent $16,000 to fight her, and she shared with the committee a 250-page packet sent to her by the school and its attorneys in an attempt to rebut her claims. In the end, the Board of Education ruled in the Smiths favor. Haley received the help she needed, but the agony of the battle was heartbreaking for the family.
The opposition to these reforms from national organizations is even more indefensible.
Last year PCESAs received an endorsement from a county NAACP chapter and the organizations State Virginia Conference. They supported this legislation because local members saw an opportunity to remove their children from failing schools.
Unfortunately, the national NAACP quickly told the local and state chapter to reverse its endorsement because the national NAACP does not support any programs allowing parental choice outside of public education.
Once again, this is a case of powerful special interests ignoring the interests of parents and their children to promote their own self-interests.
***
With all of the challenges parents have educating their special needs children, it borders on criminal that special interest education associations, who obtain much of their funding from our tax dollars and the politicians they support, make it even more difficult for parents to educate their children.
I recognize, as a society, we have a responsibility to assist parents in obtaining the best education they can for their children and that public schools are essential to achieving this. But we have allowed the public school system to become a monopoly that wields tremendous power.
As with any monopoly, government begins to lose focus on its original mission and develops a myopic goal of self-preservation. This self-preservation sacrifices our childrens education at the altar of centralized control.
Virginia law clearly states, A parent has a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, and care of the parents child. (Section 1-240.1) It is time for Virginia politicians and their special interest supporters to resist the temptation of self-serving power and instead support families who are trying to make a better life for their children.
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It all began on 29 Feb 2016, when the Indian government proposed a 1% excise levy on gold jewellery in the Union Budget 2016. The Indian jewellery sector was up in arms, and the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) called for a nationwide bandh from March 1st, 2016, prompting jewellers across the country to go on indefinite strike. But after 21 days of indefinite strike the excise duty was rolled back. (Interestingly, the excise duty was in the past as well introduced by the earlier government in year 2012.)
The aftermath is threatening to hit the jewellery industry hard as jewellery companies shares plunge after the government proposed the 1% excise duty, but losses to the industry have mounted to $ mn in the past more than a month. The artisans, who have been retrenched or left without any work have reportedly gone to their native villages.
Jewellers across the country held a massive strike and protested against the 1% levy as well as the mandatory PAN cards for any transactions above $3,065. Jewellery stores remained closed in most cities in India even till date.
With India Bullion & Jewellers Association (IBJA) and All India Gem and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) joining force, the strike was intensified. Meetings were held with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, but of no avail. Submitting their representation to Prime Minister Modi did not bring any solace to the jewellers as well. The stalemate continued and with the Indian government being firm on not rolling back the levy, the jewellers too did not want to buckle under the pressure.
Soon chaos and frustration set in and the trade organizations could not see eye to eye. Each of them had their own agenda and went about the task of convincing the government.
According to the jewellers, they cannot comply with the requirements as proposed under the Excise Act, as manufacturers are in no position to follow up with the minimum provisions applicable.
To ease the situation, the Arun Jetley clarified that only jewellers with $1.80 mn and more turnover will be liable to pay 1% excise duty on non-silver jewellery items. But, traders were not in the mood to accept any offer other than a roll back of the 1%. So, the strike continued, and the confusion and differences among trade organisations and even different Indian States, did little help to solve the issue.
Meanwhile, GV Sreedhar, Chairman, GJF, reiterated that the jewellery association representatives from all States had unanimously decided to continue the strike till further notice. He stressed that the levy would negatively impact a huge number of manufacturers and craftsmen all over the country. He also said that the excise guidelines were not implementable, and will be detrimental to the survival of the industry.
Sreedhar also urged the Government to have a proper discussion and dialogue with the industry before imposing excise duty. As the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had expressed concern over huge gold imports leading to current account deficit, Indian jewellers also agreed to sell only jewellery and stop selling bullion.
The Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council also did its bit by pointing out that the strike by jewellers would affect the whole gem and jewellery industry adversely. According to media reports, after 21 days major associations called off the stir.
April in India is a month of festivals like Gudi Padwa and Akshaya Tritiya is celebrated with buying gold and precious jewellery. This year, the strike will hit sales on these festival days. Normally, this is the period when jewellers start stocking up, which will be badly affected this time.
Will the online jewellers in India take this as an opportunity to push sales as most of the stores are closed? Not really, as online jewellery purchases are still to pick up in a traditional market like India. If at all sales are seen in online jewellery portals, it is the entry level pieces that sell and not the high end jewellery, where profit is substantial.
With no solutions in the horizon to the 1% levy issue, the jewellery sector in India may lose much more than they bargained, unless the Indian government relents and eases the situation and end the strike.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished
For a sector, which grew from just a cottage industry to one of the largest diamond manufacturing industry in the world, Indias diamond industry was, till not long ago, looked at globally with awe as an industry which operated purely on trust.
Today, the recent Alibaba incident could be a wakeup call for the Indian diamond industry, which now finds itself at the crossroads in its march forward. Is the Indian industry paying its price for the enormous growth in recent times or is it the entry of outside entrepreneurs into the industry, which was earlier a group personally known to each other?
In an interview with Rough&Polished, Sanjay Kothari, former chairman of the GJEPC and currently the spokesperson for the Natural Diamond Monitoring Committee (NDMC), speaks about the recent incidents that have disturbed the sedate Indian diamond industry.
The recent and rather shocking news about Alibaba, the online portal listings; and the emails sent by a firm to millions of potential diamond buyers offering CVD lab-grown diamonds with GIA natural diamond certificates. Your comments.
We believe Alibaba immediately took preventive action and discontinued listing from the firms; and currently the list is no more on their portal.
Also, it is disturbing that an Indian company--International Trading Corporation (ITC) from Delhi -- is associated with this scam as well. How do you think this will affect the Indian diamond industrys reputation? What steps has the NDMC taken in this regard to investigate this matter? If true, how does the committee plan to tackle it?
I agree that the news is extremely disturbing for the whole industry. The incident is not only a scam, but more importantly, a means of cheating the vulnerable consumers which is unacceptable. The promoter has a history of having indulged in frauds in the past.
Unfortunately, as the said company is not a member of GJEPC or BDB, our ability to take action is limited.
Alibaba should be appreciated for taking immediate action of de-listing the company on its portal. But, we also believe that Alibaba should take further action/s against the fraudster as the companys reputation is also at stake to an extent.
Can you please give a gist of the meeting of NDMC and associates on 19th Jan.16? What solutions has the Committee formulated, given that synthetic or lab grown related problems are occurring in different forms and rapidly as well?
As of now we are closely monitoring the situation. It is 2 years since the last study was done, and we as GJEPC and industry need to know what developments have happened in lab grown synthetic diamonds like value and volume of production. With this in mind, we have again appointed M/s. Bonas and Co to study the scenario and give us an update in the next 3 months.
For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us how the idea of NDMC came about and when? What are its aims and activities towards retaining the natural diamond industry safe and devoid of contamination from synthetics etc.? And how does the Committee aim to retain the end consumers confidence in the diamond industry on the whole?
A few years ago, when synthetic diamonds production started on commercial basis, GJEPC formed this committee. In this committee members of all associations like GJEPC, BDB, MDMA and GJF are inducted. The objective of this committee, as the name suggests, is to monitor the threat of synthetic diamonds vis a vis natural diamonds; and also safeguard the natural diamond industry which is in existence since decades, and see that it does not get affected or jeopardized in any way by synthetic diamonds.
Let me make it clear that we are not against the synthetic diamond industry. But, it is imperative that the synthetic sector runs its business in an ethical manner, adhering to disclosure while marketing the product.
Our main purpose is to see that the end consumer/s are not sold synthetic diamonds as natural diamonds and thereby get cheated.
We are for fair trade practices.
Can you please explain the steps taken in earlier cases of Indian companies involved in the GIA/TCS upgrading certificates issue? Undisclosed mixing of synthetic diamonds with natural diamonds in the recent past was also a stain on the industry. What steps were taken by NDMC in terms of action taken against the concerned parties and mitigate this problem from the industry?
As far as GIA/TCS issue is concerned, the matter is sub judice and also between the parties. As a trade body, we are closely following it.
We, as NDMC, have taken actions against few companies and individuals who have been found guilty of selling synthetic diamonds undisclosed and as natural diamonds.
After due diligence, the committee gives fair hearing to all parties; and proper action has been taken within the article of association of all bodies.
Is just banning the companies from trading in Bharat Diamond Bourse an effective step or should a stronger legal step be taken to thwart the wrong doers from indulging in illegal ways? Is NMDC thinking of more effective steps for the future?
We are taking action based on our jurisdiction. Further than that, as associations we can't do much as we are not police or court. It is for an individual company or person to go to police and complain if one is cheated. We try to encourage them to do so and offer whatever assistance is required by them which is within our limits.
Understand that NMDC is actively involved with manufacturers of detecting machines to produce affordable machines to supply all industry players. How successful do you think this would be to forestall unscrupulous people to indulge in the act of mixing synthetics with naturals, especially in smalls? Besides, mixing can happen anywhere from traders, during assorting, to kharigars / jewellery manufacturers, etc.
Yes, NDMC provides platform to companies who are developing detection machines. We also encourage members to make use of these machines. NDMC recently organized DDES to bring all the manufacturers of detection machines on a platform. The industry also got an opportunity to view different detection machines. We believe that as a result of the efforts of NDMC, diamond parcels are now being checked by people either in their own offices or in laboratories; and because of that cases of mixing have minimized significantly.
With consumer confidence at stake, on whom does the onus fall to maintain accurate natural diamonds in the pipeline? Polished traders; jewellery manufacturers; wholesalers or retailers? Will a third part certification hold well? How do you think this can be made fool proof?
I believe onus lies on everybody at every stage right from manufacturers of diamonds till it reaches the consumers. Whole pipeline needs to be foolproof and proper supply of natural diamonds needs to be maintained; and wrong doers should be brought to book.
Third party assessment may be a good idea but if I want to do the business in an ethical manner I should be vigilant in whichever manner I can be. One has to look at his reputation and his business if he wants to be in the business and attain growth.
Do certifying labs, like say GIA in the recent 2 cases, need to be more assertive and think of better ways to provide services without loopholes, so that they are not misused? Any suggestions?
GIA is doing their best to safeguard the interest of the whole diamond business. There are always possibilities to improve and we also give them feedback and suggestions. We work closely with them.
For an industry as enormous as Indias gem & jewellery industry which operated on trust till not long ago, how secure are we at present from such frauds being repeated? Does the huge size of the industry make it vulnerable to such incidents?
In every industry cheaters are there and as the volume increases unscrupulous elements also increase. Individual companies and associations need to be vigilant in this matter to safeguard their business.
It is widely believed that similar or worse frauds and issues happen in other countries as well, but they are not blown out of proportion as in our country. You think the media hype and sensationalizing has adversely affected the Indian diamond industry?
As we are the largest supplier of diamonds to the world, it is obvious that we are always on the radar.
Looks like lab grown diamonds are here to stay. Should they be considered as a threat? It is widely known that the Indian diamond industry is not against synthetics or lab grown diamonds per se, but suggests disclosure by synthetics for smooth running of the two businesses separately. Your comments please.
As already mentioned earlier, we are not against the lab grown diamond industry. It is here to stay for sure. The only problem is mixing and selling them as natural diamonds. We are strongly against that practice.
I believe if ethically done, there is a room for both the products to survive. Consumers will buy either of them as per their pocket and affordability.
I also believe that if consumers lose confidence in diamonds, both the products, natural and synthetic, will be badly hit. We must remember that we are not dealing in 'life saving drugs' or in a product which is necessary in life. We are dealing in a luxury item, so we need to safeguard our product at all costs for our own survival. This is the reason why I believe wrong doers should be punished.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished
The Canadian dollar declined against its major rivals in European trading on Friday, as oil prices declined on fading hopes that the oil producers' meeting in Doha would agree on a proposal to freeze oil production on Sunday.
Crude for May delivery fell $0.83 to $40.67 per barrel.
News that Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh may not attend the Sunday meeting made investors skeptical about a breakthrough deal to freeze production at January levels.
As Iran has rejected calls to cut production, Saudi Arabia made clear that it won't sign any deal unless other major oil producers, including Iran, participate in the deal.
Investor sentiment dampened after a powerful earthquake struck southwestern Japan and official data showed China's grew at its slowest pace in seven years during the first quarter.
The currency was trading a positive territory in the previous session.
The loonie declined to a 2-day low of 1.4514 against the euro and a 3-day low of 84.63 against the yen, off early 2-day highs of 1.4406 and 85.68, respectively. On the downside, the loonie may find support around 1.475 against the euro and 82.00 against the yen.
The loonie fell to an 8-day low of 0.9927 versus the aussie, reversing from an early high of 0.9854. If the loonie extends slide, 1.05 is likely seen as its next support level.
The loonie edged down to 1.2865 against the greenback, after having advanced to 1.2797 at 3:30 am ET. The next possible support for the loonie is seen around the 1.30 region.
Looking ahead, Canada existing home sales for March, U.S. industrial production for March and University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index for April are set for release shortly.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
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Tragedia sfiorata questa mattina nellarea del porto turistico di Maiori dove un anziano e stato colto da un malore mentre era alla guida della sua auto, una Fiat Seicento di colore rosso. Luomo ha perso improvvisamente il controllo del veicolo finendo la sua corsa sul lato opposto della carreggiata contro la struttura esterna di un bar che, in quel momento, fortunatamente era deserta. Sul posto e giunta unambulanza del 118 che ha trasportato luomo in ospedale. Le sue condizioni non dovrebbero essere gravi.
Sulla dinamica dellincidente stradale indaga la polizia locale.
Although it is only a month or so since the General Elections it seems like forever as the aftermath of petitions and counter petitions continue to be dealt with by the Courts.
However as we all know, the real wheeling and dealing is done outside of the courts and much of it has little to do with fairness and accountability something we are sadly getting used to.
There is interference of the subtle and not so subtle variety which has allegedly come from the highest office in town as well as from individuals, families, Village Councils and others who may be impacted directly by who the winning candidate will be.
Pleas and bargaining over petitions being dropped and pressure from fellow matai and families are just some of the stories that have come out of the community in the past weeks.
Then there is also the question mark over the validity of the warrant of arrest for lawyer and newly-appointed Minister of Justice and Court Administration, Faaolesa Ainuu Katopau in American Samoa.
How embarrassing.
This matter is still not settled with some confusion from the Attorney Generals office in the territory over who should be dealing with the matter.
The American Samoa A.G. Talauega Eleasalo Ale has claimed his Office has no role in the execution of the Warrant and that it was never acted upon was probably because the person was not there.
Presumably the A.G. is not suggesting that if allegations are made about you and there is a case to answer but you choose instead to shoot through, the matter simply remains on the books but nothing is done about it?
Whatever the rationalisation, it appears that Court procedures need to be reviewed, tightened and possibly updated.
Meanwhile in todays paper there is a story of yet another General Election - related matter before the Courts.
Involving the case of two defendants accused of handing out money in the constituency of Gagaemauga No 3, the lawyer representing the men was himself grilled by the presiding judge when it became obvious he was inadequately prepared and was not even apprised of exactly what the charges are.
Wasting the Courts time not to mention the poor service to the lawyers clients is not appreciated by our judges.
And with over 100 investigations dealt with by the Police each week, many of which could end up in Court, there is little sympathy or patience for a hold up of this nature.
And as for the rest of us who have been living and breathing elections for up to a year, we totally agree with the judges frustration.
Selepa Esera is a single mother of 27 years of age, who has dedicated her time to care for her 71-year-old mother Selepa Esera Tufuga.
Selepa lives with her mother and her five year old daughter at their home at Leauvaa.
Some time ago, Mrs Tufuga suffered a stroke which has affected her right side and her ability to speak.
Selepa is part of the Caregivers training offered by the Samoa Victim Support Group.
Its going for to 2 to 3 years, said Ms Esera.
I learnt things that I didnt know before especially about how to deal with my sick mother.
I help her do her exercise in my spare time, because I want her to get back her strength she had before, said Ms Esera.
There are times when I have thought about giving up, there are times when I thought to myself that I have had enough, but with the support from the S.V.S.G. it has kept me going.
Ms Esera is the youngest daughter of Mrs Esera Tufuga and the only one living in Samoa.
Her normal routine every morning is making sure that her mother eats her breakfast
She also makes sure that food is on the table at all times of the day because her mother is always hungry.
And although her mother cant talk, she knows when she is hungry.
She cries every time she wants something or when she sees that Im not around, added Ms Esera.
I am happy because she can eat everything that I give her.
And although her mother doesnt like anything too noisy, like the radio and the television, she still turns them on to cheer her up and keep her mind active.
Doing this job for my elderly mother is something that I will never regret because I know she never gave up on us when we were young.
I grew up seeing and feeling her love towards me and its time for me to make her feel the same way.
WASHINGTON -- When President Obama departs for Saudi Arabia, an incubator of the 9/11 attacks, he will leave behind a dispute about government secrecy. The suppression of 28 pages, first from a public congressional inquiry and then from the 2004 report by the national 9/11 Commission, has spared the Saudis embarrassment, which would be mild punishment for complicity in 2,977 murders. When Obama returns, he should keep his promise to release the pages. Then he should further curtail senseless secrecy by countermanding the CIA's refusal to release its official history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle.
The nature of the 28 pages pertaining to 9/11 can be inferred from this carefully worded sentence in the commission's report: "We have found no evidence that the Saudi government (BEG ITAL)as an institution(END ITAL) or (BEG ITAL)senior(END ITAL) Saudi officials (BEG ITAL)individually(END ITAL) funded [al- Qaeda]" (emphases added). Together, those five italicized words constitute a loophole large enough to fly a hijacked airliner through.
CBS' "60 Minutes" recently reported that former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat who chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and co-chaired the bipartisan joint congressional inquiry into 9/11 intelligence failures, says the pages suggest the existence of a network that supported the hijackers when they were in America. Former Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer, who was a member of the joint inquiry and then of the commission, and who has studied the 28 pages, says they contain (as "60 Minutes" expressed his judgment) "provocative evidence -- some verified, and some not" of possible "official Saudi assistance for two of the hijackers who settled in Southern California." "60 Minutes" said the two Saudi nationals had "extremely limited language skills and no experience with Western culture." Yet "they managed to get everything they needed, from housing to flight lessons," after being seen in the company of a diplomat from Saudi Arabia's Los Angeles consulate.
Before John Lehman was a member of the 9/11 Commission -- which unanimously supported release of its report uncensored -- he was a member of Henry Kissinger's National Security Council staff during the Nixon administration and was secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. Lehman understands the serious and the spurious arguments connecting secrecy to security. He says the 28 pages contain no "smoking gun," but he believes that senior Saudi officials knew that Saudis were assisting al-Qaeda. And he believes that because Saudi Arabia spends enormous sums worldwide funding schools that teach the virulent variant of Islam called Wahhabism, it is unsurprising that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
Now, about the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 17, 1961, a feckless use of American power that radiated disasters: President Kennedy promptly deepened U.S. involvement in Vietnam; Nikita Khrushchev, unimpressed, built the Berlin Wall and installed missiles in Cuba. Why should the CIA history remain secret 55 years after the invasion?
A federal appeals court has ruled, 2-1, against a Freedom of Information Act request for the release of the history. Citing a FOIA exemption that protects secrecy deemed essential to preserving government agencies' deliberative processes, the court held that even after more than half a century the history is "still a draft" -- never mind that its author retired in 1984 and died in 1997 -- and hence is "still predecisional and deliberative." So, documents can be kept forever secret by government agencies declaring them "drafts" or otherwise "deliberative."
Nations need secrecy to protect deliberative processes and to conceal from adversaries the sources, methods and fruits of intelligence gathering. However, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued in his book on the subject, secrecy is government regulation, but unlike most regulations, which restrict what people can do, secrecy restricts what they can know. Secrets are property, and covetous, acquisitive government bureaucracies hoard them from rival bureaucracies, thereby making government even more foolish than it naturally tends to be because it has no competitors. For example, the U.S. military kept from President Harry Truman its proof, derived from what are known as the Venona intercepts of Soviet communications, that Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were spies.
On "Fox News Sunday" April 10, Obama was asked if he could say that Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information on her private email server "did not jeopardize America's secrets." After waffling -- saying Clinton would never "intentionally" jeopardize America -- he intimated that many documents that are classified are not all that important to national security. He should apply this insight to documents pertaining to the disaster a decade and a half ago and to the debacle 40 years before it.
George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
FLORENCE, S.C. In the second year of a five-year plan aimed at expanding and improving early childhood education in Florence School District 1, officials say they are meeting and in some instances exceeding goals.
In 2013, the district provided early childhood services to 325 children , but today the district has expanded its services and is serving more than 600 students who participate in pre-K programs , and thats the plan.
In 2013, the Florence 1 b oard took what was considered a groundbreaking vote to step up efforts to better prepare children before they enter kindergarten. The written plan included a combination of home-based and center-based program implementations and expansions.
The value for children and families was obvious, said Floyd Creech, director of the districts School Readiness Program.
Over the course of five years with gradual increases, more than 1,400 students under the age of 5 would be served each year in programs such as pre-K, Parent Child Home and Parents as Teachers at a cost of $3.6 million annually in the 2017-2018 school year.
The first year and a half has proven that the goals of the plan are realistic , Creech said . So far we have been on or near target with our plans .
The preschool program for 4-year-olds, the Start 2 Read program and the Early Childhood Training Plan have exceeded his expectations.
In the Parent Child Home Program alone , the district expects to reach 540 families in 2017-18.
To increase recruitment , we have set up recruitment tables at each school during registration in August and attended functions in Florence such as the Children's Festival at the Drs. Bruce & Lee (Foundation) Library, Creech said.
His office works with other agencies in Florence.
Recently, we have begun to discuss the possibility of pediatricians completing assessments during the 18-month-old well - baby checkup and making recommendations, Creech said.
Start 2 Read specialist and home visitors will collaborat e in April and May to interview parents concerning the language development of their children and find potential families for additional services.
Creech said early childhood programs are a good investment.
Research has shown that early childhood experience impacts long-term educational outcomes of children from school entry into adulthood , Creech said . Better academic outcomes, better social outcomes, better societal outcomes are all cited by numerous studies such as the High Scope study, the Chicago Parent Child Program, the Abecedarian Project, and the Hart and Risley study among others .
The plan as implemented has engaged many more families with their children's education, raised the value of quality early childhood education in the community, provided care for many more children, educated many more early childhood educators and promoted the value of quality experiences for all children.
School board Chairman Porter Stewart served on the early childhood development committee with fellow board members Glenn Odom and Alexis Pipkins Sr.
The map for early childhood education expansion was developed using committee recommendations that came after two years of serious thought and discussions that focused on closing the poverty achievement gap.
The district and T he School Foundation studied the effect early childhood education would have in Florence School District 1.
The readiness plan set quantitative goals for increasing the number of child development facilities and offering services to more children.
The five-year plan includes six key components.
The first is designed to help families of infants from birth to 17-months-old learn how to engage their children in educational activities in the home. The second laid the framework for expanding the existing Parent Child Home program that brings interactive toys and books into homes with children up to 4 years old. Another objective focused on expanding the existing 4-year-old Child Development program.
A fourth component focused on offering books to young children early with the help of The School Foundation.
The bricks - and - mortar aspect of the plan called for the renovation or establishment of four early childhood education centers: the existing R.N. Beck center, the Alfred Rush building in Quinby, the transition of the Royall Elementary School building once the new school is completed in the fall of this year, and a fourth facility to be established on the south side of Florence.
The Child Development Program is essentially a preschool component of the plan that focuses on 4-year-olds . It calls for the addition of many more students when Royall becomes an early child development center later this year.
I think it has been a great partnership between The School Foundation and the district , said Debbie Hyler, executive director for the foundation. The Start to Read program with the businesses is something I hope we can continue to grow . I do think that is a very unique way of reaching parents in the Florence area. I just personally appreciate the support we have had from these businesses in reaching their employees.
Hyler said improving early education opportunities for children is a community effort.
We all need to work together and support these parents , she said . The more we can help educate parents on how critical it is to child development to be ready for school, the better.
Hyler is pleased with the progress made thus far.
I think we have made significant progress and have worked to fill in gaps, Hyler said.
She encourages the public to take advantage of free information, advice and resources available at startsmartflo.org and theschoolfoundation.org.
KINGSTREE, S.C. Implementing ideas and supporting practices that serve the best interests of students and the community have been the priority in the Williamsburg County School District.
The high school graduation rate has improved gradually from 68.7 percent in 2009 to 82.5 percent in 2013.
PASS writing scores have moved just as consistently. The 2013 writing performance of elementary and middle school students was above the states average.
There is also good news regarding the districts State Report Card, with an absolute rating of average and a growth rating that has moved from at-risk to good.
The work with students is accomplished in the classroom,
with principals of schools supporting teachers and personnel providing direct training, visitations and resources.
If movement does not occur at the school level, it will not be evidenced at the district level. We must all work together toward a common goal.
The district managed to get through a tough financial period that involved making difficult staffing decisions: employee furloughs, realignment/equalization of administrative positions and a reduction in force.
Things have remained tight financially, although the district is steadily regaining ground. For the first time in four years, the district qualifies as a low-risk auditee and presents a growing fund balance ($3.4 million). The ideal fund balance, for a district of this size, is $5 million.
The district received accreditation for all schools; developed its first magnet school and positive on-site programs for students to include science, foreign language and math; partnered with S.C. Gear Up, which has resulted in the Williamsburg County School Districts Technology Institute (STEM); and most recently was awarded as a member of a consortium a coveted Race to the Top federal grant.
We are preparing for the 2014 assessment period of PASS and HASAP and are working to positively impact the districts ESEA Waiver grade, which has never been representative of the work being accomplished by our district.
Numerous forums have been established to secure advice and solicit input: a Teacher Advisor Council; parent forum; student cabinet; administrative and principals sessions; assistant principals forum; leadership sessions; and district strategic planning.
In December, the district hosted a Ministerial Alliance Luncheon with the intent of securing mentoring support for all schools.
In January, the district collaborated with the South Carolina Department of Educations Leadership Division to implement an Aspiring Principals Institute.
STATEMENT OF SEN. CHIZ ESCUDERO ON MAYOR DUTERTE'S DISRESPECTFUL COMMENTS ON WOMEN
Mayor Duterte's recent comment about an Australian rape victim should be denounced and deplored.
His frequent use of women, regardless of their circumstance, as subject or object of his jokes during his presidential sorties is foul and offensive, to say the least. It is a distasteful attempt to woo voters at the expense of women and by demeaning the dignity of women.
These statements are unbecoming of a candidate who is seeking to lead this nation and sends the wrong signal about rape and violence against women--issues we condemn and not condone and certainly not joke about.
We should, at all times, protect and respect the dignity of women and other genders. We do not want the Philippines to become a haven for women and sex offenders.
Press Release
April 17, 2016 BONGBONG MARCOS SPENDS SUNDAY ON FULL SCHEDULE IN BATANGAS, PRIVATE MEETINGS AND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. spent the whole day of Sunday attending to a series of private meetings and a Unity Caravan in Batangas. Marcos is also taking time out from his busy campaign schedule to spend a quiet dinner with his wife, lawyer Louise Araneta Marcos, for their 23rd wedding anniversary today. The couple has three sons, Ferdinand Alexander, born in 1994, Joseph Simon, born in 1995, and William Vincent, born in 1997. A close-in aide of the senator confirmed that every year, the two make sure they don't have any other schedules on April 17 or at least clear their dinner schedule to spend their wedding day. Before the anniversary dinner, Marcos had a series of private meetings and in the afternoon, met with hundreds of political leaders in Laurel, Batangas where he discussed his programs and plans as vice president. Marcos, in an ambush interview, said he could not attend today's debate at ABS-CBN because of prior commitments. Hindi ako makakadalo dahil matagal na naming pinaplano ito at saka yung mga ibang lakad kayat nakakahiya naman at pinaghandaan ang pagdating natin kayat ikako meron naman yung Comelec na debate. Nauna yung pagplano sa mga lakad na ito bago pa yung pagsabi na magkakaroon ng debate so unahin ko na lang yung pag-iikot at nahihiya ako sa ating mga lider na naghanda sa ating pagdating," he said. In his speech before the political leaders, Marcos reiterated his advocacy for national unity. He said he will just continue to present his platform rather than destroy his political rivals. "Ang pagsisiraan ba ay makakapagbigay ng isang trabaho sa ating kababayan? Ito ba ay magpapakain sa isang bata o makakagawa ng isang classroom or ng tulay? Hindi ito makakatulong sa atin at sa kahit kanino kaya hindi po ako kailanman gagamit ng paninira sa aking mga katunggali," Marcos said. He had earlier said he will not be provoked into engaging in the negative type of campaigning because it is not what the people needs. "I would not be goaded or somehow baited to be part of the mudslinging or part of the insults that are going back and forth. I just see that there is no place because when I talk to people, ordinary Filipino citizens, they don't ask me about what a bad person the other person is. What they ask me is what can you do to help me," he said.
Press Release
April 17, 2016 ELECTED OFFICIALS SHOULD BE EXEMPT
FROM BANK SECRECY LAW - BONGBONG MARCOS Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. today said for purposes of transparency, he is supporting moves for the lifting of the bank secrecy law for elected officials. In an interview, Marcos said it is of utmost importance that elected government officials serve the people with credibility and this can be done when all doubts are erased with respect to their bank deposits. "In the spirit of transparency for elected officials, there's no problem because it would be easier for us in elective positions to do our jobs if people do not have doubts as to our bank accounts. Lift the bank secrecy law, I'm all for it," Marcos said. He noted that all his bank accounts are stated in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). Marcos' statement comes on the heels of the pronouncement of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. calling for the easing of the bank secrecy restrictions in the light of the US $81 million stolen fund from Bangladesh that found its way to a Philippine bank and casinos. Tetangco said the bank secrecy rules should be eased "under certain conditions" to enable government to promptly examine deposits and act on suspicious transfers. But Marcos pointed out that the exemption should not apply to everyone because it will discourage businessmen from doing business in the country. "If you lift the bank secrecy law, no business will enter the country because of course they don't want the government to have access to their bank accounts," he said. Marcos then stated that in the meantime, all candidates running in the election should be asked to waive their rights under the bank secrecy law. "I think as a start, let us all try to ask our politicians to waive the bank secrecy law for themselves for transparency but certainly not for our businessmen," he said.
Press Release
April 17, 2016 BONGBONG MARCOS ALARMED OVER POWER SUPPLY DEFICIENCY Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr. today expressed alarm over the power supply situation in the country in the light of the forthcoming elections as he called on energy officials to ensure that there will be no brownout on election day. Marcos aired the call after the Luzon grid was put on red alert for around three hours Friday afternoon due to power supply deficiency. "The power supply situation is alarming and the government must do everything to ensure there will be no brownouts during the elections because it could put into question the results of the elections," said Marcos. Power officials attributed the red alert to higher demand due to heat as well as scheduled maintenance shutdown of several power plants, reduced capacity of some plants, and unexpected breakdown of several others. "I can bear the brownouts that seem to follow my campaign but the Filipino people will not accept any excuses from the government if brownouts would plague our elections this May," said Marcos. Earlier, Marcos bared that unexpected brownouts hit the areas of his campaign sorties in Iloilo, Negros Oriental, and Tagbilaran City in Bohol. "While our officials are assuring us that there won't be any brownouts on the day of the elections the fact that we still have thin power reserve with barely three weeks before the elections continue to be a cause for concern," he said. Marcos said the lack of adequate power is the product of neglect of the current administration. He noted that at the start of its term the current administration was already aware of the looming power crisis but it has failed to address the problem until now. The senator said it is imperative for the next administration to immediately address the power problems besetting the country not only for the benefit of regular household and commercial users but to make the economy more competitive as well. "We have to increase our power supply and we have to lower our cost of production," Marcos said. During his stint as governor of Ilocos Norte, Marcos pioneered the first ever commercial electricity-generating wind farm in Southeast Asia and provided adequate power not only to his province but to nearby areas as well. Marcos has been proposing for massive government spending on basic infrastructure, including power plants to ensure adequate, reliable, and cheaper electricity.
Two teenage boys were swept out to sea Saturday afternoon at Ocean Beach, and rescuers said they called off the search after sunset.
The teens, both 17 years old, were presumed drowned after rescue teams from the U.S. Coast Guard and San Francisco Fire Department failed to find them in an extensive search of the Ocean Beach area that included air, land and sea crews for almost five hours, officials said.
The boys, whose names were not released, had run into the surf wearing swim trunks, their arms linked with those of three friends, witnesses said. It was unclear how far they waded into the surf, but Fire Department spokesman Jonathan Baxter said, Ocean Beach conditions on a good day are generally enough to pull a grown man into the water.
KPIX reported that the boys were from Vallejo.
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Three boys two 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old made it back to shore. They were taken to UCSF Hospital in stable condition.
The search for the other two, described by their friends as weak swimmers, was called off at 9 p.m. after investigating agencies told the boys families they had probably drowned. No recovery effort will continue Sunday, fire officials said.
We offered to continue to have a presence, Baxter said. But the families were very understanding as to what has likely happened to their children.
Coast Guard officials estimated the boys bodies may have been carried up to 15 miles out to sea in the time since they disappeared, Baxter said.
The drownings happened just off the beach near Lincoln Way, south of the Murphy Windmill and across from Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant, said Coast Guard Lt. Marcia Medina.
The Coast Guard had dispatched two 47-foot motorized lifeboats and a helicopter to search for the boys, while the San Francisco Fire Department dispatched air- and water-rescue teams, along with people to sweep the length of shoreline. In areas too dense to search by vehicle, Baxter said, fire crews searched on foot. Parks officials conducted an on-land investigation.
Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae
There's nothing compared to the wretched excess that transformed one of San Francisco's hills 140 years ago.
In the 1870s, four enterprising railroad men some called them robber barons ruled over San Francisco and California, using their immense wealth and power to dominate politics and commerce. They built their over-the-top, wedding-cake mansions on Nob Hill for all to see.
In a little more than a generation, their gaudy palaces were gone, reduced to rubble and ash in the 1906 earthquake.
HO
The "Big Four," or as they preferred to be called, "The Associates" Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins made fortunes as merchants selling supplies to Gold Rush miners, but their really big score was funding the construction of the transcontinental railroad. As directors of the Central Pacific Railroad, they became hugely wealthy and the most powerful men in California. They extended their influence by bribing congressmen and politicians.
The four tycoons sought a prominent location where they could build their mansions and lord over the city. They settled on what was then called California Hill. California Hill became Nob Hill, "nob" deriving from "nabob," an Anglo-Indian term for a ostentatiously wealthy man.
Crocker, the last to build, attempted to out-gauche his partners with a particularly garish 12,500-square-foot monument to nouveau-riche affectation. He succeeded.
As Hearst journalist Ambrose Bierce wrote, "There are uglier buildings in America than the Crocker House on Nob Hill, but they were built with public money for a public purpose; among architectural triumphs of private fortune and personal taste it is peerless."
Stanford became governor and a senator, but is most famous for founding the university that bears his name. The first student admitted to his university (or at least one of the very first) was Herbert Hoover, future 31st president.
Hopkins' fortune eventually established what became the San Francisco Art Institute (formerly the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art). The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel stands on the grounds of his mansion. He married his first cousin, whose lack of architectural restraint in designing their home was on full display for the city. Perhaps fittingly, he died on a train.
After heading a Central Pacific subsidiary, Crocker later founded the even bigger Southern Pacific Railroad. His Crocker Bank eventually became Wells Fargo, with Crocker the controlling shareholder. He briefly served as Wells Fargo president.
Kean Collection/Getty Images
Besides the Central Pacific, Huntington developed the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Southern Pacific and the city of Newport News, Va. His nephew, Henry E. Huntington, founded the stunning Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. C.P. Huntington was a character in AMC's Western drama "Hell on Wheels."
OurSFHistory.org
Courtesy Richard Schwartz
Bob Bragman
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Metal heads packed Rasputin Records in Berkeley for a rare in-store performance by Metallica in honor of Record Store Day on Saturday, April 16. As this years official ambassadors, the multiplatinum-selling Bay Area heavy-metal band used its iconic status to support local record stores like Rasputin, the largest independent record store chain in the Bay Area.
Im really glad places like this are still around, so keep supporting them, frontman James Hetfield told the crowd, joking that people were confused when he wished them Happy Record Store Day.
And Metallica couldnt be a better ambassador for the unofficial holiday. The legendary rockers helped take down Napster, the now defunct online file-sharing service that was sued by Metallica in 2000 when the band found out Napster was offering its entire catalog to users without its permission, and kicked off the very first Record Store Day in 2008 with a similar in-store appearance at Rasputin in Mountain View.
But that doesnt mean the band has anything against the Internet. In fact, tickets for Saturday afternoons free show were made available to the public via an online contest earlier this month, and it was streamed online on Metallicas Facebook page.
When I got the tickets I nearly peed myself, said Melissa Taylor, who said she has been listening to Metallica since high school. This was the first time the East Bay fan had seen the band live. I might pee right now!
Stu Jersky, who wore a shirt from Metallicas the Night Before concert, the pre-Super Bowl 50 bash at AT&T Park in February, said he and his wife had driven from Sacramento. But only Jersky had a ticket; his wife, he said, was going to listen to the show from the sidewalk a small inconvenience to hear one of their favorite bands.
I just like the honesty of their music, the positivity, said Jersky.
During the nearly hour-long show, a sea of hands holding iPhones and making devil horns filled the record store. Even some members of the Berkeley Fire Department on scene to inspect the safety of the venue snapped selfies and banged their heads through the nine-song set that included classics like Hit the Lights, Fade To Black and Ride the Lightning.
Between songs, Hetfield made several shout-outs, including a special one to Ray Burton, the father of departed Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. The Castro Valley musician had joined Metallica in 1982 and was a member until he was killed in a bus crash in 1986.
For its final song, Metallica played Metal Militia, during which Hetfield swung his mike stand out for the crowd to sing.
Hey, is that everyone? Hetfield yelled. Then, spotting someone in the crowd who wasnt participating, he screamed, Come on, your mouth isnt open!
Aside from some knocked-over display cases, destruction remained at a minimum during the show. Local radio personality Nikki Blakk said that in her experience, theres nothing like a Bay Area metal show, and that Metallicas performance had been no exception.
That set list was a no-hitter, Blakk said. It was like a perfect game.
Eli Wolfe is a Bay Area freelance writer.
1 Officer shot: A police officer in Florence, Ala., was shot early Sunday, and the gunman later died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said. The officer was shot in the face, and no motive was immediately known, said police Sgt. Brad Holmes. The officer was approached by the gunman at an intersection before the attacker opened fire, Holmes said. The officer was listed in stable condition. After officers chased the suspects vehicle, the man crashed in a parking lot and fired multiple shots at officers, who did not return fire. Holmes said the suspect was then found in his vehicle with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No identities were released.
2 Three slain: A 46-year-old man was arrested Sunday after a short standoff at a Philadelphia home where three people were found killed by shotgun blasts to the head, authorities said. Officers responded at about 3:45 a.m. to a report of a shooting. A man refused to open the door, saying he had shot someone and wasnt coming out. The suspect later surrendered, and officers entered and found the three dead victims. None was identified.
LOS ANGELES A survey has found that tens of thousands of voters, including celebrities such as Demi Moore, have mistakenly registered as members of a conservative minor political party in California in a mix-up over its name.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that a telephone survey of 500 members of the American Independent Party found almost 3 of 4 people did not realize they had enrolled in a political party that opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage and calls for building a fence along the U.S. border.
The newspaper said voters were confused by the use of the word independent in the partys name. In California, voters who do not want to register with any party must check a box on a registration form for no party preference.
I just blew it, Deborah Silva, 64, of Point Arena (Mendocino County), told the Times. There were a number of choices. I just checked the box that said independent.
Of people surveyed in the Times poll, fewer than 4 percent could correctly identify their own registration as a member of the American Independent Party.
Moore was among Hollywood celebrities with known Democratic leanings listed as members. She has contributed money to and campaigned for President Obama. Her registration as an American Independent Party member is wrong, a representative said.
When Patrick Schwarzenegger, son of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, registered to vote in 2013, he selected the American Independent Party. A family spokesman said Schwarzenegger, 22, plans to change his registration.
According to the Secretary of States Office, the party has about 472,000 members, or 2.7 percent of the statewide total.
The Times reports that the mistaken registration could prevent people from casting votes in the June 7 presidential primary, which is considered Californias most competitive in recent years. The deadline to register or change voter registration status for the primary is May 23.
The American Independent Partys roots date to 1967 when George Wallace, a segregationist, launched a run for the White House.
Were not segregationist anymore, said Markham Robinson, who serves as chairman of the American Independent Partys executive committee. What we are now is a conservative, constitutionalist party.
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DES MOINES, Iowa Donald Trumps relentless assault on the rules that govern how Republicans choose their nominee is coming far too late to change what even defenders acknowledge is a complicated selection system.
Instead, his railing against a rigged process appears directed at amplifying his central message to an angry electorate: America is a mess, and only Trump can clean it up.
Politicians furiously defended the system, Trump wrote Friday in the Wall Street Journal. He equated the partys nomination procedures with the unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans.
He added, Let me ask America a question: How has the system been working out for you and your family?
Underlying the criticism, Trumps goal is to pile up primary season victories that would bring him the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright before the summer convention. But its a tactic that Republicans say carries real risks for the billionaire businessman.
Should Trump fall short of that clinching number going into the Cleveland convention in July, they said, his rantings against the party are likely to annoy the delegates who would then decide the nominee.
He is trying to pit voters against the very people who make the decision of whether he gets the nomination, said Matt Borges, chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio. If he does not arrive in Cleveland with 1,237 pledged delegates, then there is no way he gets the nomination.
GOP officials are pushing against the front-runners accusations of unfairness. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus took to Trumps favorite medium, Twitter, to make the point that the nomination process has been known to all for more than a year.
Its the responsibility of the campaigns to understand it, Priebus wrote. Complaints now? Give us all a break.
Priebus told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday that he will not allow Trump to bully him. The rules are set. ... Im not going to allow anyone to rewrite rules for the party.
On Friday, the partys chief strategist, Sean Spicer, laid out the rules for elected delegates in each of the remaining states with primary contests. Spicer noted those rules were shared with the campaigns last year, adding that each process is easy to understand for those willing to learn it.
One of Trumps rivals, Ohio Gov. Josh Kasich, had this message for Trump: Act like youre a professional. Be a pro, he said on CNNs State of the Union.
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With nasty fake wounds that included a hunk of glass jutting out of her cheek and a real-looking compound fracture on her forearm, Teena Kalugdan sat patiently Sunday morning with other artificial-gore-covered volunteers in a classroom at San Franciscos Marina Middle School.
The 43-year-old city resident and six others were set to act out their various roles as maimed disaster victims, while a group from the citys Neighborhood Emergency Response Team better known as NERT stormed into the room to assess the injuries.
Im doing this because I know the firefighters will need all the help they can get during the next big emergency, Kalugdan said.
Sundays simulation was one of dozens of drills that nearly 200 NERT members ran through one day before the 110th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire to get ready for the citys next inevitable disastrous shaker.
Long commitment
Members of the group are trained by the city Fire Department and take six three-hour courses to get certified in medical triage, search and rescue, freeing people from debris, and other disaster-relief skills.
Its a long commitment, but you cant teach emergency training in two hours, said Gary Pegueros, a member of the South Beach NERT Advisory Board.
Two days a year, trainees get a chance to polish those skills, and Sunday was one such day.
I think my head got bashed in at some point, said 15-year-old William Quarterman, who sat in the same classroom as Kalugdan, his forehead covered in fake blood. Last year, I was a giant burn victim.
William, whose mother and sister are both NERT personnel, was tasked with walking around the room insane from shock while others acted out various levels of consciousness and trauma.
Loma Prieta origins
While small groups wearing green vests and matching hardhats at the school practiced drills such as dousing flames with fire extinguishers, scores of other NERT volunteers massed for exercises under the hot sun at Marina Green.
Other than being a convenient meeting place with a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, the locale was near the place of inception for the volunteer organization that now boasts 26,900 trained members.
One of the hardest-hit areas during the 1989 Loma Prieta quake was the Marina, where several buildings collapsed and others were consumed by fire. As firefighters scrambled to douse flames and prevent another inferno like the one in 1906, scores of citizens stepped up to help.
We needed the help, said San Francisco Fire Department Battalion Chief Anita Paratley.
She was a department recruit when the quake hit and was dispatched to the Marina with other emergency responders.
There were a lot of gas leaks, but we got it under control relatively quickly because of the civilians, she said.
Now-famous pictures of the magnitude 6.9 quake chaos show neighbors carrying lines of hose through the burning district, while helping firefighters with injured victims amid the crumpled and burning buildings.
That civilian effort inspired San Francisco to develop a citizen team of responders all paid for by the San Francisco Fire Department with grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After finishing drills at the middle school, Marian Owyang, 60, and four other NERT members walked to Marina Green. The whole area was cracked up, she said of the Loma Prieta aftermath. My husband came home with a big gash on his leg after that the neighbors moved.
Owyang, who grew up in San Francisco, is semiretired and now manages properties in the city. She has no plans to move.
Anywhere you move to, there will be some natural disaster, she said. So its better to be prepared.
Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
What appeared to be a straightforward arrest of a 29-year-old Fairfield stabbing suspect took a bizarre twist Saturday when police released the woman and said the purported victim may have knifed himself.
Now, investigators are trying to determine what happened before officers found the 49-year-old man on the 2200 block of Fremont Court with a knife wound to his abdomen at 6 p.m. Friday.
File Photo
Police are hunting for several people who gunned down a man Saturday evening in a residential San Jose neighborhood, officials said.
The attackers walked up to the unidentified victim around 6:50 p.m. on the 10000 block of Lyndale Avenue and opened fire, police said.
On tranquil waters with scarcely a ripple for miles, the sea erupted in mayhem last week when five orcas attacked a juvenile gray whale.
An estimated 20 orcas have arrived in Monterey Bay this month to hunt gray whale calves, often within short range of whale watching boats out of Moss Landing.
Every spring, Monterey Bay attracts gray whales on their journey north to their feeding grounds in Alaska. From April into early May, orcas from up and down the Pacific Coast arrive to swarm the whales in attempts to separate the cows from their calves and when successful, coordinate attacks and wild celebrations on the surface. It can last for hours.
The arrival of the orcas this month is part of a series of phenomena on the coast. At Elkhorn Slough near Moss Landing, roughly 100 otters arrived for mating season. Marine biologists counted 13 otter pups last week. There are also about 50 harbor seal pups. The baby otters and seals are as cute as a truckload of baby ducks.
Off the Bay Area coast, the salmon boat Outer Limits had the first limit trip of the year, with 14 salmon (two-fish limits) to 20 pounds for seven people, though rough water broke up the krill at midweek and then made it difficult to find the salmon.
Orcas on the hunt
In one scene last week, Capt. Michael Sack of the whale-watching boat Sanctuary out of Moss Landing, with 17 people aboard, sighted the dorsal fins of several orcas roughly 6 miles offshore. At the same time, biologist Giancarlo Thomae and Eric Mailander, close friends of Sack, ventured out in their own boat to the same area. The orcas, as if putting on a show, emerged between the two boats at close range.
An orca then surfaced five feet from Mailander. In an image Thomae captured at point-blank range, the orca appears to be squinting in the bright sun while making a pass.
This was a gorgeous morning, the sea like a millpond, and as a residual of El Nino, there has been far less fog and wind than in past years. At one point, temperatures hit 75 degrees on the water, with the forecast for more of the same in the coming week.
Theres a reason sightings are so high in this area: the Submarine Canyon. When wind-driven currents are pushed against the ledge of the canyon, the water is driven upward to bring deep, nutrient-rich water to the surface to launch the marine food chain. In Monterey Bay, thats why about 90 percent of the baleen whales are found within a mile of the ledge of the Submarine Canyon, Thomae said.
One thing that makes Monterey Bay unique is that gray whales and their calves have to cross the deep Submarine Canyon, he said. The canyon comes so close to shore, just off Moss Landing, that the calves have no place to hide. The orcas lay in wait for them.
The primary feed in the ocean right now is krill, which can bring in humpbacks and blue whales from across the ocean. A few humpbacks started arriving in March, right on schedule. Blue whales, in good years for krill, usually arrive in July, although one was already seen this month.
If you want the best chance of the year to see orcas, go now. Sometimes they put on a circus. Sometimes they go into attack mode. Last week they got two gray whale calves, Thomae said.
If you want to go: Sanctuary Cruises, Moss Landing, (831) 917-1042, www.sanctuarycruises.com; Monterey Bay Whale Watch, (831) 375-4658, www.gowhales.com; Santa Cruz Whale Watching, (831) 205-5380, www.santacruzwhalewatching.com. Note: If you go with your own boat, wildlife ethics require that your behavior cannot alter that of the wildlife you are viewing. Always be wary of the ocean; when the wind comes up, it can get dangerous.
Otters, seals and pups
At Elkhorn Slough, you can see the otters by foot on the North Jetty, by kayak (rentals available) in flat-calm waters, or on a nature tour on a 27-foot pontoon boat. In addition, the harbor seals often can be seen on the sandbars along the slough inside the jetty.
The transient male sea otters enter the estuary in spring to mate and then leave, Thomae said. That is why sea otter numbers at Elkhorn Slough peak in April and early May. Harbor seals nurse for six weeks, he said, then the moms abandon them abruptly and they have to learn how to survive.
If you want to go: Elkhorn Slough Safari, pontoon boat tours, (831) 633-5555, www.elkhornslough.com; Kayak Connection, kayak rentals, (831) 724-5692, www.kayakconnection.com; Blue Water Ventures, guided kayak tours, (831) 459-8548, www.bluewaterventures.org.
Salmon limits
Since the success of the boat Outer Limits that was mentioned above, subsequent trips have ranged all over the map, just like the recent weather on the briny green. But one consistent factor when salmon are feeding on krill is that they can be very hot fish. Find the krill, you find the salmon.
If you want to go: Wacky Jacky Sportfishing, (415) 586-9800, www.wackyjackysportfishing.com; Outer Limits, Sausalito, (415) 454-3191, www.fishtheouterlimits.com; Emeryville Sportfishing Center, (510) 654-6040, http://emeryvillesportfishing.com; Berkeley Charter Boats, (510) 849-3333, www.berkeleycharterboats.com.
Notes and encounters
See Yosemite now: Yosemite Falls is thundering over the brink at Yosemite National Park, and a webcam sponsored by the Yosemite Conservancy is capturing the event. Check it out at www.yosemiteconservancy.org.
Nesting boxes: Q: I have the lake and trees, but I also have coyotes. How high off the ground can you place nesting boxes for wood ducks? Jeanne George
A: A great trick is to wrap chicken wire around the base of the tree, right below the box; keeps out the predators.
Henry Coe turkeys: I was riding my mountain bike up the China Hole Trail and I stopped to catch my breath, and it looked weirdly like the grass was moving. On closer look it was a clutch of 12 very small baby turkeys running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I looked around for the mama and there she was, cool, calm and collected, about 25 feet away. John Balawejder
Attack grouse: I wanted to share a run-in my wife and I had with a blue grouse at Cedar Breaks (National Monument in Utah). We heard the drumming of a grouse, and he soon trotted over toward us. He started pecking and leaping up, lashing out with his feet and spurs. Using my ski poles, I fended him off, staying between an irate bird and my wife. After about 100 yards, we crossed an invisible line, and he stopped his attack. We continued to the overlook and had lunch with an amazing view. On our way back to the car, with a sinking heart I saw a clear outline of the Attack Grouse up ahead. We diverted about a hundred yards through the forest to avoid him and circle back to the car. At some point we rejoined the path of the road. As a group him on the attack, me fending him off with ski poles (again walking backward) and my wife leading the way we headed for the safety of the car. Maybe a hundred feet short of the car he gave it up. We beat it out of there without looking back. Glenn Addleman
The time is right for a new staging of The Grapes of Wrath.
In Ubuntu Theater Projects version of the John Steinbeck novel, adapted for the stage by Frank Galati, the Hoovervilles of the Depression-era Central Valley are our homeless encampments on Division Street; the Joads, Okie migrants reviled as a subhuman race, are todays refugees fleeing Africa, the Middle East and Asia; and the storys indelible final image, of Rose of Sharon (Noelle Vinas), a stillbirth mother who breastfeeds a starving elderly man (Abe Bernstein), is the call to action that we are not heeding: How can we allow our neighbors to go without food and shelter?
Ubuntu Co-Artistic Directors Michael Socrates Moran (who directs Grapes) and William Thomas Hodgson (who plays Jim Casy, a fallen preacher who joins the Joad familys journey) met in UC San Diegos master of fine arts program and founded Ubuntu in 2012. The company name comes from a Zulu saying that translates as I am because we are, or I am a person through other people. My humanity is tied to yours. Ubuntu is centering its first full-length season, after three years of summer festivals, on the theme of threatened homes.
That theme could hardly resonate more strongly than in this production, and thats largely because of Morans rough-hewn aesthetic. He stages the show in Oakland City Churchs gymnasium, which features linoleum floors, a drop ceiling with water-stained tiles, and wooden risers that one patron called death seats. (They make up about half the audience seating, so arrive early.)
The set consists of just a few piles of 2-by-4s, rusty metal barrels and other earth-toned scraps. To convey the Joads California-bound jalopy, Moran needs only a pallet on wheels, which characters crowd around and pull with a string.
Instead of set pieces, Moran fills his stage with stark, low lighting by Stephanie Anne Johnson she gives the unsettling impression that its always night in this benighted world, even in unforgiving sunlight and with people, 28 of them, which is an extraordinary number for any Bay Area theater company, particularly in an era of shrinking casts. Some Grapes cast members are recent graduates of Laney College, with which Ubuntu partners, and many others are quite green, barely able to spit their lines out.
The leads, however, all have excellent moments. Hodgson creates a whole drama out of Casys battle with his own ideas, as he wavers between a quasi-Buddhist interpretation of Christianity and self-doubt. Hodgson has an easy camaraderie with William Hartfield as young Tom Joad, the ex-con whos impossible not to like, even as hes always itching for another fight.
Shannon Veon Kase makes Ma Joad a titan which she should be; the matriarchs ruthless optimism propels the family toward California even as clan members die or drift away, one by one but not one without chinks in her armor. In one beautifully directed moment, Moran offers an extended period of silence with a character whos usually all bluster; she stands, trembling, a bright blue light on her face, as all other characters, all less strong than she, sleep.
Not all of Morans directing choices are so felicitous. The first act drags, and it can be difficult to tell what the rules are, as indecipherable sound cues and entrances of mysterious characters suddenly make the world more dangerous for no clear reason. But overall, the ensembles esprit de corps is infectious, and when they join Rose of Sharon onstage for the shows final image, its impossible not to feel the weight of your whole community asking you what you would do in the same situation.
Lily Janiak is a San Francisco freelance writer.
The Grapes of Wrath: By Frank Galati, adapted from the novel by John Steinbeck. Directed by Michael Socrates Moran. 8 p.m. Friday, April 22; 1 p.m. Saturday, April 23; 7 p.m. Sunday, April 24. Extended through May 1. $15-$35. Oakland City Church, 2735 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. www.ubuntutheaterproject.com.
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When the Clock Tower rose in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood 94 years ago, the slender brick-and-timber structure was a symbol of the city's economic prowess.
The tower was an addition to the massive factory occupying two full blocks at Second and Bryant streets and housing the Schmidt Lithograph Corp. At the time, Schmidt was the city's biggest employer and the largest printer on the West Coast, producing labels for fruit companies.
Like so many relics of the city's past, the property has since been reimagined, and in 1993, the Clock Tower Building at 461 Second Street was turned into 127 modern live-work lofts designed by David Baker.
Now, the penthouse loft, the building's crown jewel, is on the market for the first time since the original loft owner moved in 23 years ago. This stunning two-bedroom property, priced at $8.5 million with Sotheby's, includes exclusive access to the three stories rising into the storied Clock Tower, where sunlight enters the four glass faces setting the interior aglow.
The current owners, Tom and Carol Burkhart, used to gaze out at that tower from the loft where they lived across the street. When the Clock Tower penthouse went on the market, they toured it out of curiosity and couldn't resist making an offer.
"We'd just sit there in our living room, salivating thinking it would be amazing to live in that tower," Burkhart said. "And then it went on the market and then we went to the open house. There were probably 50 people walking around. The place was so wide open. It was amazing."
He added: "Our real estate broker happened to be there and said, 'Most people couldn't live in this place, but you two could.' We'd just spent nine months remodeling across the street, but I couldn't resist. I made an offer with two contingencies for a significantly lower price."
At the time, SoMa was practically a ghost town with empty warehouses, few restaurants, not a single grocery store. Burkhart was one of the pioneers in reinvigorating this area, going on to purchase office space in the Clock Tower and relocating his Menlo Park-based investment advisory firm.
"I had a two-minute commute walking down six flights of stairs...three minutes going up," he said. "I'm going to live to be 105 because I never had the stress of commuting."
The Clock Tower penthouse spans over 3,000 square feet and includes two bedrooms, two baths, a modern kitchen and a spacious living room with a glass-enclosed fireplace. Exposed brick walls and cathedral ceilings with exposed steel beams are reminders of the building's industrial past.
From the wrap-around deck outside you can see AT&T Park, the now thriving SoMa, the downtown skyline. But the more arresting view is from inside looking over the highway leading up to the Bay Bridge.
The story goes that during construction of the San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge in the 1930s, a call was made to the lithograph company's owner Max Schmidt.
He was told half of his building would be torn down to make way for the road. But when Schmidt said something along the lines of "Do that and I'm moving to the East Bay," the plans were altered and the road was redesigned to veer west of the tower.
From the penthouse's floor-to-ceiling windows, that piece of history unfolds right before your eyes.
"It's a piece of moving art," Burkhart said. "For 20-plus years, we've never gotten tired of watching the cars.
You're high enough to not have the lights shining into the space. You see the tail lights of the cars slowly moving east returning to Oakland, and the headlights coming into the city."
"We've watched 300,000 people a day commute to and from the East Bay. It's fun to be a part of this living art."
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The year of the agile, energetic and mischievous monkey is in full swing, and red is the color of good fortune. But at the Asian Art Museums recent 50th celebration, the lucky color was gold for 500 black-tie revelers and civic leaders who toasted this historic occasion at the museums Golden Gala.
Led by board chairwoman Akiko Yamazaki with co-chairs Helina Au, Bill Kim, Nanci Nishimura and Ken Wilcox and presented by the William K. Bowes Foundation, the elegant affair paid tribute to the museums history, established from the collection of industrialist Avery Brundage, and its bright future that was secured by a $15 million donation for the museums Civic Center home from entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee.
The pan-Asian theme was expressed in dance, music, food and art to encompass the many cultures and countries of Asia represented at the museum.
Yamazaki also convinced her Paris pal, fashion designer Andrew Gn, to create two dresses for the galas auction. The live auction dress was a one-of-a-kind black-and-white cocktail dress, adorned with embroidered peonies and trimmed with silk tassels, that was based on a Northern Song Dynasty vase from the museums collection. Winning bidder Elisabeth Pang Fullerton was over the moon with her treasure.
The Asian Art Museum is the first museum in San Francisco that my family and I ever visited, recalled Gn. Im also an art collector. So to create something inspired by a piece from this museum that will also help raise funds for the Asian, is very special.
Cocktails commenced inside the museum followed by a six-course McCalls meal inside a gilded tent set next to the Asian. McCalls also supplied overall gala glamour staff designer Miguel Torres tricked out that tent with shimmering chandeliers, exquisite brocade and gorgeous florals. And Tatcha founder Vicky Tsai traveled all the way to Kyoto, Japan, to procure lovely lacquer guest gift boxes emblazoned with the museum logo and filled with precious Tatcha elixirs.
Heralding the occasion, museum director Jay Xu reached back to ancient history, recalling wise words from Confucius: Upon becoming 50 years old, one knows ones mandate from heaven.
The Asian Art Museums mandate is to be a global leader for Asian art and culture. And to make Asian art and culture an essential part of the rich fabric of American life, Xu toasted.
We achieve that mandate by making connections to Asian arts global relevance, he continued. Connecting the wonders of the past with the cutting-edge creation of contemporary Asian art. And then connecting art to life for people from all walks of life.
More monkey business: A few days later, the San Francisco Symphony also welcomed the Monkey at its 16th Chinese New Year Concert & Imperial Dinner.
The family-friendly fete began with a pre-concert festival inside Davies Hall, where lion dancers, plate spinners, musicians and the passing of lucky red envelopes delighted revelers of all ages.
Guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen presided over an all-Asian music program featuring the Symphony orchestra with soprano Pureum Jo, pipa instrumentalist Wu Man and the Loong Mah Sing See Wui dance ensemble.
And this year, the entire shebang stayed put at Davies Hall as the post-concert, six-course McCalls banquet was set inside the Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall, transformed into a glowing nightclub guarded by two Asian warrior-actors who inspired a spate of selfies.
Event chairwoman Patricia Lee-Hoffman and dinner chairwoman Leigh Wasson introduced a spirited performance by two Bandaloop acrobats who traversed fabric columns with the agility of a new years monkey.
Lee-Hoffman also paid tribute to longtime supporters Michael and Iris Chan who, along with Genelle Relfe and Margaret Liu Collins, were instrumental in establishing this cultural tradition for the Bay Areas vast and diverse Asian community.
Behind every lucky co-chair is a talented team, toasted Lee-Hoffman as she sang the praises of Symphony staffers. And its been a huge privilege to work with this years dinner chair, Leigh Wasson, who was born in the Year of the Monkey but has all that charisma without any of the monkeys mischief.
Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicles society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com
Can you handle two more rocks? Old Hands asks. Sitting cross-legged in the dirt in a sweat-soaked T-shirt, Im pleasantly hypnotized by the rhythm of a drumbeat.
Bring them on, I tell the medicine man.
When theyre delivered, cradled on deer antlers, Old Hands ladles water over them, sending up clouds of steam. Its pitch black inside the traditional sweat lodge except for the glowing stones. We sweat, talk and sweat some more.
By the time I emerge from the domed willow tent frame draped with thick blankets, I feel surprisingly lighter and revitalized, but its a shock to look around and remember that were on the sixth-floor rooftop patio of a boutique hotel in the middle of downtown Vancouver.
In an effort to protect their traditions, Canadas First Nations people largely stayed out of tourism in the past, but in recent years thats been changing. Pride, confidence and a new generation with a desire to share their culture and way of life have created a boom in aboriginal tourism, especially in British Columbia. According to the Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia, business grew by 10 percent in 2015 over the previous year, to $50 million.
Though still a small industry, its now possible to stay in an aboriginal hotel, dine on coastal peoples cuisine, tap into their ancient knowledge of the natural world, and experience and learn traditions from canoeing and art-making to drumming and sweat-purging. And thats what I planned to explore over several days in Vancouver.
Margo Pfeiff/Special to The Chronicle
I started by checking into Skwachays Lodge, whose lobby doubles as the Urban Aboriginal Fair Trade Gallery. The chic little hotel opened in 2014 between the citys historic Gastown and Chinatown neighborhoods and features a 40-foot totem pole on the roof. Its run by the nonprofit Vancouver Native Housing Society, a social enterprise whose profits are funneled to the local aboriginal community, including the support of 24 artists in residence within the lodge.
Three floors of Skwachays have been transformed into a modern hotel with the help of six top hotel interior designers volunteering their services by teaming up with six aboriginal artists to create 18 unique rooms featuring original carvings, paintings and blankets.
On the rooftop patio is the sweat lodge as well as a Smudge Room, where guests can experience traditional purification rituals using sweet grass and sage.
For years this building was a healing lodge for First Nations people from throughout the province who came to the city for medical treatments, says general manager Maggie Edwards, so we wanted to make those experiences accessible to guests interested in native culture.
Later that morning, Candace Campo meets me at a trailhead amid Stanley Parks towering rain forest. A member of the Sechelt First Nation, she leads Talking Trees Walks through the 1,000-acre city park.
We follow paths Ive walked and jogged most of my life growing up in Vancouver, pointing out things Ive never noticed and overlaying a historical map on my hometown that I never knew existed. She names native villages that once existed within the park with archaeology going back 3,000 years and talks about traditional canoe shuttles that once ferried people all around what is now Greater Vancouver.
With many freshwater streams and abundant salmon, the site where Vancouver now stands contained many settlements, she says, and Stanley Park was so profoundly important for medicine, food and shelter that it was shared by three different tribes.
Campo points out fiddleheads and salmonberries and explains how western hemlock is a source of vitamin C and alder bark is still used to soothe sore throats. It was a free pharmacy. She touches a red cedar, whose fibrous inner bark was worked into clothing fabric and whose logs supported local longhouses, at least one of them measuring 200 feet by 60 feet. They held potlatches there for a thousand people or more.
Today, at nearby Brockton Point, there is a grove of nine totem poles, a mortuary pole and sculptures representing various coastal tribes. You can even watch totem poles being carved at times in a permanent carving shed at the Granville Island Public Market.
Not far from downtown, one of the worlds finest displays of Northwest Coast First Nations art is housed at the University of British Columbias Museum of Anthropology. Set in a spectacular contemporary building reminiscent of a longhouse, it overlooks the ocean and mountains, a treasure house of totem poles, huge carved feast dishes, canoes and bent boxes naturally lit through a glass wall within the Great Hall.
I always make a pilgrimage to my favorite installment, the Raven and the First Men cedar sculpture by Bill Reid, a half-Haida jewelry maker/radio announcer who reconnected with his aboriginal roots in the 1950s and became vital in bringing British Columbias aboriginal art back to life.
Actually, a Reid work might be one of the first things you see after disembarking from a plane at Vancouver International Airport the 20-foot long, green-colored Jade Canoe bronze sculpture filled with spiritual half-human, half-animal figures. Its appeared on a stamp and Canadian $20 bills, and a copy stands at Canadas Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Another much-loved Reid bronze is Chief of the Undersea World a killer whale breaching outside the entrance to the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park.
The downtown Bill Reid Gallery showcases a permanent collection of Reids work as well as changing exhibitions of contemporary aboriginal art. From there I like to walk eastward toward Gastown, modern Vancouvers birthplace, to prowl the cobblestone streets and visit several First Nations art shops: the Spirit Wrestler, Coastal Peoples Gallery and Hills Native Art.
On my last Gastown visit, there was a new First Nations addition to the neighborhoods regentrification boom. The Capilano Teahouse and Botanical Soda Co. is a stylish little cafe with indigenous hipster decor that opened in February, run by a mother-daughter duo of Squamish Nation descent. Michelle Nahanee tapped into local elders age-old tea recipes, blending rooibos and black teas with traditional ingredients such as blackberry leaves, nettles, juniper and sage. Meanwhile, 19-year-old daughter Paisley whos been creating botanical sodas since she was 15 uses a similar global approach to conjure up delicious sodas, including real root beer, wild cherry bark cream soda and a rose lemonade.
Capilanos light lunch menu includes Salish Sea soup, phyllo stuffed with bison or wild rice and berries, and elk stew. They also took traditional bannock bread up a few notches by adding coconut oil and serving it with homemade rhubarb-bergamot jam.
Growing up in North Vancouver, I would sometimes head with my family to the Capilano Indian Reserve along the waterfront at the Lions Gate Bridges north end to buy fresh fruit and Indian candied salmon from roadside stands near the reserves longhouse. Or we would tuck into a mondo breakfast at the homey Tomahawk Restaurant near the reserve, a popular diner stuffed with First Nations artifacts collected since it opened in 1926.
Farther east, near the Second Narrows Bridge, is the Tsleil-Waututh (SLAY-wah-tuth) Nation reserve, where Dennis Thomas runs Takaya Tours. I step on board a traditional-style 26-foot oceangoing war canoe and, along with 10 others, use wooden, diamond-bladed paddles to make our way up scenic Indian Arm.
En route, our guide relates legends and stories and points out ancient village sites. A girl at the helm sings and drums as we try with limited success but much laughter to coordinate our paddle strokes.
Humor and memorable characters turn out to be some of the best parts of my three days in Vancouver, and one of the highlights sits opposite me on my last evening. Inez Cook, the lively co-owner of the Salmon n Bannock bistro and a member of the central-coastal Nuxalk Nation, is plying me with musk ox prosciutto and spicy game chorizo sausage beneath a suspended Haida canoe in a small fine-dining eatery decorated with aboriginal art on deep red walls.
This is the only restaurant in Vancouver offering 100 percent First Nations food, and its staffed entirely by native people, she says proudly.
She urges me to try salmon bathed in a maple syrup glaze, blueberry chutney on venison carpaccio and the most amazing crispy salmon skin chip, which magically bursts in your mouth. Dishes are paired with wines from NkMip Cellars, a native-owned and operated winery.
The bistro opened in 2010 and sources only fresh and wild foods.
Just like in pre-European days, there are no preservatives, additives, nothing is genetically modified or factory farm raised, she says. When I note that the menu features mostly meat and fish dishes, Cook answers with a rollicking laugh. Yeah, natives think vegetarians are just lousy hunters.
By the time I leave the restaurant, its clear Ive indulged far too much. And while Cook is pleased, Im thinking I could really use another session in the sweat lodge.
Margo Pfeiff is a Montreal freelance writer. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com
If you go
WHERE
TO STAY
Skwachays Lodge: 31 West Pender St., Vancouver, (888) 998-0797 or (604) 687-3589, www.skwachays.com. Canadas first aboriginal boutique hotel and gallery, with 18 unique First Nations art-themed rooms, between Gastown and Chinatown. Sweat lodge and Smudge Room rituals require bookings well in advance. From $120 double with continental breakfast.
WHERE
TO EAT
Salmon n Bannock: 7-1128 West Broadway, Vancouver, (604) 568-8971, www.salmonandbannock.net. Creative fine-dining restaurant that puts a contemporary twist on First Nations ingredients. One of the signature dishes is a luscious wild salmon soup. Open for lunch and dinner. For two: from $50.
Capilano Tea House and Botanical Soda Co.: 221 Abbott St., Gastown, www.thecapilano.com. Small, chic, contemporary aboriginal teahouse and lunch cafe. From $25 for two.
WHAT TO DO
Talaysay Tours: (800) 605-4643 or (604) 628-8555, www.talaysay.com. Aboriginal kayak, wilderness and outdoor guided trips in Vancouver area. Talking Trees Walk in Stanley Park is an enlightening tour lasting 1 to 2 hours. Adults: $30.
Takaya Tours: (604) 904-7410, www.takayatours.com. Wide selection of cultural kayaking, motorboat, walking and traditional canoe tours with local guides from North Vancouvers Tsleil-Waututh Nation from May through October. Two-hour canoe paddling tour from $50 per person.
Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art: 639 Hornby St., Vancouver, (604) 682-3455, www.billreidgallery.ca. Downtown First Nations art collection with rotating exhibitions of Northwest Coast art and frequent live cultural performances and lectures. Admission: $8.
UBC Museum of Anthropology: 6393 Northwest Marine Drive on the University of British Columbia campus, Vancouver, (604) 822-5950, www.moa.ubc.ca. One of the worlds finest displays of Northwest Coast First Nations art in a contemporary longhouse-style building with a mountain and sea view. Admission: $14.
LEARN
MORE
Destination British Columbia: www.hellobc.com
Tourism Vancouver: www.tourismvancouver.com
Aboriginal B.C.: Online hub for aboriginal events, packages and things to do across the province. www.aboriginalbc.com
BEIJING A Chinese spokesman criticized Taiwan after the self-ruled island released 20 fraud suspects just one day after they were deported from Malaysia, citing a lack of evidence.
China and Taiwan have been arguing over which side would prosecute an international ring of Taiwanese and Chinese who allegedly targeted hundreds of mainland Chinese in telephone scams, the latest spat to inflame cross-Strait tensions.
Malaysia authorities sent 20 Taiwanese suspects to Taiwan on Friday despite protests from China, which claims jurisdiction in the case because its citizens were targeted and it has been investigating the scams.
An Fengshan, the spokesman for the Chinese State Councils Taiwan Affairs Office, said Taiwan had disregarded many victims interests and harmed them a second time after releasing the suspects, and he urged Taiwan to immediately rectify their mistakes, according to a statement on the offices website.
An said releasing the suspects harms the two sides years-long cooperation on criminal investigations and called on Taiwan to prevent greater damage to the development of cross-Strait relations.
The fight over the deportees reflects a long history of diplomatic wrangling between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 amid civil war and have been trying to outmaneuver each other in the international arena ever since.
Last week, Kenya sent 45 Taiwanese fraud suspects to China instead of Taiwan, infuriating Taipei officials, who accused Beijing of using its clout with the East African nation to abduct its citizens.
Officials in Taiwan have viewed Beijings demands for the fraud suspects as a sign that China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, is interfering with Taiwanese affairs and exerting its legal authority over Taiwanese citizens abroad. Beijing, meanwhile, has voiced frustration that it cannot deal with criminal suspects targeting its own citizens despite its law enforcement efforts.
The international criminal gang, mostly based out of Southeast Asia, is accused of swindling Chinese through telephone calls by pretending to be police or insurance agents.
Malaysia detained a total of 120 foreigners 68 from China and 52 from Taiwan during a bust last month.
Taiwanese officials are expected to arrive in Beijing as early as Monday to discuss the dispute.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Today's archive page is from March 31, 1962.
New Jersey authorities set up a surprise check point for cars headed home to New Jersey from Staten Island on the Jersey end of the Bayonne Bridge.
Out of the 146 occupants of 51 cars questioned between 11:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m., 111 -- or three out of four -- admitted to drinking on Staten Island.
New Jersey law forbids drinking until age 21, while New York State permits it at age 18. The average age of those questioned was age 19. In the first hour, 59 out of 65 teenagers admitted to drinking.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A man was restrained by police using an NYPD body bag after he allegedly pushed and swung his fist at an officer attempting to break up his fight in Tompkinsville Friday night, according to an NYPD spokeswoman.
At approximately 8:25 p.m., police observed the suspect fighting with another individual, near the intersection of Victory Boulevard and St. Mark's Place, the spokeswoman said.
A police officer on scene later told the Advance that the combatant was "extremely intoxicated."
When a responding NYPD officer attempted to break up the fight, one of the men then pushed the policeman, the spokeswoman said.
Nathaniel Morris, 34, of Tompkinsville followed up the push by swinging his fist at the officer, added the spokeswoman.
Police say another officer then attempted to place Morris in handcuffs, but he resisted arrest by laying on the ground and locking his arms under his chest -- while trying to kick other responding officers, according to the spokeswoman.
About six NYPD vehicles -- including an Emergency Services bus -- and twenty officers were on scene at around 8:55 p.m., as dozens of onlookers gathered along the sidewalks.
In video taken by the Advance, police can be seen using an NYPD body bag -- sometimes referred to as an EDP bag -- to restrain Morris, as he's transported from a marked squad car to an ambulance.
The video also depicts men chanting "no justice, no peace." Friday's incident took place just feet away from where Eric Garner died in police custody on July 17, 2014, when officers tried to arrest him for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.
Garner's death set off a national conversation about the relationship between police and the communities they serve.
One of the men in the video, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Morris "didn't do anything to deserve that" treatment from the police.
Morris' current charges were not immediately made available.
The spokeswoman said Morris has a lengthy arrest background; no details were provided regarding his prior arrests.
Last month, video of a man being placed in another NYPD body bag in Manhattan went viral, as many witnesses on scene seemed shocked to see the tactic employed.
However, police say the device is necessary to keep both parties safe during a hostile arrest scenario.
"[The NYPD] uses the device when an EDP [emotionally disturbed person] is violent and may cause harm to themselves or others. The bag is ventilated and they can breathe," a spokeswoman recently told the New York Post.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - If you're not concerned about what's happening here on Staten Island when it comes to murder and heroin, you're just not paying attention.
Because we've got some serious problems out there.
Let's start with homicides.
A 21-year-old man died after being shot on Henderson Avenue outside the West Brighton Houses early last Thursday morning. Police said the man was assaulted by a group of males and was shot in the upper right torso. He was pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center.
It was the 13th murder we've seen on Staten Island this year, and that's significant because we had 13 murders in all of 2015. And that was an improvement on the year before, where there were 16 murders here.
Unfortunately, the numbers definitely seem headed in the wrong direction in 2016.
More concerning is to see a street shooting on the North Shore. Despite the decreasing overall murder numbers on the Island last year, the North Shore, policed by the 120th Precinct, saw an increase in murders and shootings.
But street shootings haven't been our biggest murder problem this year. It's been domestic homicides, the most heinous being the Ramada Inn stabbing massacre that took the lives of a young mother and two of her babies.
The domestic killings have been a sad reminder that people too often suffer violence at the hands of those that they're in relationships with. We've seen men and women be the victims of such violence this year. And more and more frequently, a knife has been the weapon of choice.
Because the crimes often happen behind closed doors, they can present a thorny problem for law enforcement. They can be tough to foresee and tough to prevent. Police, the district attorney's office and the courts have focused on the problem of domestic violence. They need to keep doing so, and more.
Our heroin crisis is more obvious, and has been festering out there for years. It's getting worse.
Here's the latest frightening statistic: There is a drug overdose every 2.25 days on Staten Island. According to District Attorney Michael McMahon's office, there have been 22 overdoses in the borough since Feb. 24. There have been 18 deaths.
If this rate continues for the whole year, we'll see 134 drug-related deaths on Staten Island in 2016. That would be nearly double the 74 we saw here in 2014, the last year for which stats are available.
It's more and more becoming a public problem. The Advance recently posted video of people injecting drugs in a car in Dongan Hills in broad daylight. And some have said that addicts needing money for their next fix are the cause of a more aggressive style of panhandling that's being seen.
Some help is on the way. There was an opiate town hall meeting held here the other night, led by Public Advocate Letitia James. A new place where addicts and their families can get help, Carl's House, is set to open.
We're going to need every bit of help we can get. Because the Staten Island that we love is slowly slipping into darkness.
Your history, our history, Staten Island's history: take a look back at the way The Rock once was through the eye of a camera's lens.
Our historic photos take a walk down Memory Lane -- and down Hylan Boulevard and Bay Street and Richmond Avenue.
Each week enjoy a visual exploration of a different Staten Island community.
Up this week: Stapleton.
ABOUT STAPLETON
Named in 1836 for William J. Staples, a wealthy developer and friend of Minthorne Tompkins, son of Vice President Daniel Tompkins (see below). At times, the community was called Coles Ferry, New Ferry and Second Landing. Onetime home of the Staten Island Stapes, the borough's first and only National Football League franchise (1920s and 1930s).
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The stranglehold of the big banks and AMP over the nation's financial advice market is finally to meet a substantial challenger, with professional body CPA Australia taking the novel step of busting into the financial services business.
The spate of financial advice scandals, which kicked off three years ago with a Fairfax Media expose of the "boiler room" culture at the Commonwealth Bank, has laid fertile soil for a sector shake-up.
The big banks have a challenger in the financial advice market
This does not mean the professional body will suddenly unleash its 150,000 members in a full frontal assault on the oligopoly of the banks. It does mean, however, that, over time, its members will enter the market, delivering independent advice, as opposed to the bank practice of flogging in-house financial products and stinging customers with hidden fees.
CPA chief Alex Malley confirmed yesterday the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has granted an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence and an Australian Credit Licence (ACL) to its wholly-owned subsidiary, CPA Australia Advice Pty Ltd.
The deals at the centre of the Supreme Court case involved sprawling farms in two states and a $30 million arrangement to offset News Corp's carbon emissions.
Former RM Williams chairman Ken Cowley mismanaged a farming company during the global financial crisis, receivers claim.
Receivers are pursuing Mr Cowley, 81, and five other directors of the RM Williams subsidiary Agricultural Holdings for compensation and damages, alleging irresponsible purchases during the global financial crisis.
Former RM Williams chairman and News Corp boss Ken Cowley has been sued for allegedly mismanaging a farming company that went bust owing nearly $100 million.
The receivers, PPB Advisory, alleged in court documents Mr Cowley and other directors paid too much for properties, assumed an unrealistic cattle price and failed to account for the severity of the financial crisis.
The six men are defending the receivers' court action and have denied breaching their duties.
A long-time lieutenant to Rupert Murdoch, Mr Cowley headed the board of RM Williams when he became the first chairman of its farming business in 2009.
As part of a deal to set the company up, Agricultural Holdings owned six south-west Queensland properties known as Mirage Plains and their water rights, bought the year before for $15 million.
Agricultural Holdings soon bought two vast Northern Territory cattle stations, Labelle and Welltree, for a combined $48 million, plus a chicken farm. To help purchase the Labelle station, the company entered into a $30-million deal to give News Corp 640,000 tonnes of carbon credits a year for five years.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull enters this crucial Senate sitting week on an election footing. He has stepped up attacks on Labor's union links, knowing they are the Achilles' heel of Labor leader Bill Shorten.
Mr Turnbull is selling the Coalition as the side for small business, too, in the debate over road safety and minimum rates for independent truckies.
The key to Mr Turnbull's thinking on a double dissolution election will come after the budget. Credit:Allex Ellinghausen
The Liberal Party has helped the Turnbull cause by removing an albatross in former speaker Bronwyn Bishop as well, thereby helping to present the government as fresh and further distanced from the Abbott era.
So the smell of an early election is in the air. Senate crossbenchers are indicating that this week they will block the registered organisations and building watch dog bills that would create a double dissolution election trigger.
The Americans had ordered that the entire border region be locked down. But it was left to Egyptian and other Arab troops to enforce their writ. Our thinking, which proved correct for some of the time, was that a couple of non-Arabs in a semblance of military uniform, travelling in a greenish car driven by a guy with an American accent, could go wherever they wanted to go - but still, we couldn't find the war. George Bell was the first Herald photographer. His heavy, full-plate camera was an added challenge on outback assignments. Photo taken in 1910. Credit:Fairfax Archives It didn't occur to me that we might have looked a bit silly, until I had a chance meeting with a real American officer. Or at least I thought he was real crisp and creased uniform, shiny boots and if I recall correctly, even a swagger stick. Let me introduce Chris Hedges then a staff correspondent for The New York Times. Hedges explained he would travel north into Iraq early the next morning. When I asked if I might join him, he agreed but I'd have to improve my sloppy soldier's appearance. At the very least, he said, I needed the authenticity of a combat hat. Rising well before dawn, I walked to the entrance of a nearby Saudi military base and offered a guard $100 for his hard hat he stubbornly refused and ordered me to wait. Sydney Morning Herald war correspondent Harry Summers dispatching copy at Morotai on the 15th September 1944 the day that allied forces landed. Credit:Fairfax Archives
Finally I was escorted on to the base and ushered into the presence of the Saudi commanding officer, with whom I went as far as I might in bending the truth. I told him I was an "Australian observer"; I was scheduled to go into southern Iraq that morning; but the previous evening I had "briefed" some foreign journalists, and it seemed one of them had purloined my hard hat. Might he provide me with a replacement? With a brief order that was issued in Arabic, the Saudi officer dispatched an aide and during his absence from the room, which felt like an eternity, I decided six times I was about to be exposed as a fraud and surely would be detained. I was in a cold sweat; and I wanted to run, but somehow I was glued to the braided sofa on which I sat. Finally, the aide returned, carrying a new combat hat on his outstretched palms as though it was a trophy which, for me, it was. The two men who did most to turn the exploits of the Anzacs at Gallipoli into the stuff of legend. English poet John Masefield. With him is Charles Bean. a Herald journalist who became Australia's official war correspondent. I hotfooted it back to the hotel, but Hedges had gone north. This was my first assignment as a foreign correspondent. It was not an auspicious start to what might have been my first combat reporting.
Sydney Morning Herald photographer Kate Geraghty. Credit:James Brickwood Returning to the hotel dining room, I struck up conversation with an Egyptian officer who offered to drive me to the front line. As we drove north into Iraq we heard a BBC World Service report Saddam had surrendered. My chauffer was a man of bold ideas he wrenched the steering wheel and suddenly we were heading east as he was exclaiming in great excitement: "Lunch in Kuwait City?" Roderick MacDonald war correspondent 1939 - 1945. Credit:Fairfax Archives Through the decades since, I've been one of an ever-changing Fairfax team of correspondents, who reported from all corners of the globe as news broke, either because there was a particular Australian angle to a story, or because a story was big enough to warrant our attention, as in 1997, when I was ordered to Kinshasa, the capital of what was then Zaire, to report on the demise of Mobuto Sese Seko, the last of his class of "big man" leaders of Africa.
This was a pivotal assignment, on which I had a visceral sense that foreign reporting, as I had known it since 1989, was in a dramatic flux. Captain Charles Bean, legendary World War I war correspondent. Credit:Fairfax Archives In the Balkan conflict which flared in the aftermath of the Kuwait drama, we were able to cover both sides, sometimes on the same day. But as we hunkered in Kinshasa, no journalist dared head out to meet the advancing rebel army of Laurent-Desire Kabila, because of the stories of unspeakable violence. Fast forward to the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and what might have seemed to be a one-off, in the capture and beheading in Pakistan of The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl; but then to today's conflict in the Middle East, in which foreign correspondents are high-value hostages. Perhaps our earlier belief in the Geneva Conventions was a tad romantic. But there was reason to believe that in displaying the word "PRESS" on our bulletproof vests and cars, we were buying protection; not creating targets.
Reporting from Kinshasa back in 1997, I had no real sense of the likely impact of the internet on journalism. I still dine out on the story of a well-lubricated dinner with colleagues and friends in Perth in 1994, during which I assure the gathering that we'd all have long retired before "this thing called the internet" would affect our profession. And others still dine out on stories of some of my more outlandish expenses claims from a bygone era, when editorial budgets were presumed to be as elastic as we might need them to be I deny the one about the $300 shower; but I'll cop to buying a pistol (for my Baghdad fixer); and to the purchase of half a dozen live sheep (which I ferried across Baghdad by taxi in 2005, to appease a tribal sheik whose home, bizarrely, was raided by Australian forces after the Herald published my interview in which the sheik had offered to help recover the kidnapped Australian engineer Douglas Wood). More seriously, the internet and an associated social media revolution have delivered a triple-whammy blow to journalism as we knew it. The advertising revenue on which we depended has shrunk dramatically and in every budget review foreign correspondents become sitting ducks; all our hopes for the future are vested in new "platforms" that have yet to prove their own economic and reader-interest sustainability; and groups like IS no longer need foreign correspondents to get their story out. Social media gives them incredible reach and control. Previously, there was always the risk they'd kill a journalist to stop a story, now the reality is they kill journalists to make a story.
The Herald's correspondents have had a colourful if dangerous run. Charles Lambie was the Herald's first staff war correspondent. He went on to work for The Age in Melbourne and died in an ambush in the Boer War. Two of the Herald's 23 World War II correspondents died in action Bill Mundy was killed in a German counterattack after allied invasion forces landed near Naples in 1943; Roderick Macdonald died along with a British colleague the following year, when one of them trod on a mine in Cassino, 100km north of Naples. I was luckier I don't have a clue how, but in 2011, I survived a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, in which three of my international colleagues died, two as their bodies were within centimetres of mine. I still get a rush every time I hit the "send" button to file my reports by satellite from some inhospitable wasteland in a flash, they arrive on the foreign desk in Sydney. By contrast Guy Harriott, mentioned at the start of this piece seemingly was not so lucky in Egypt in World War II, a special motorcycle courier carrying one of his dispatches to censors in Cairo was killed by German fire and Harriott's report was captured; but in an allied counterattack, his report was recaptured and again bound for the Cairo censors; and whatever remained after their blue pencil treatment, went on to Sydney. Jack Percival, another WW II predecessor, was imprisoned in Japanese-occupied Manila from May 1942 till July 1945 on his release he had lost about one-third of his body weight. By contrast I have only been jailed, briefly, by Israeli forces; and detained briefly by the military in various countries, but most offensively by Australian forces in Afghanistan in what was an orchestrated effort by the ADF and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to block myself and photographer Kate Geraghty from reporting from Oruzgan province.
And that's why we need foreign correspondents and why they should be dispersed across the globe. The media might get it wrong from time to time, but premeditated lying by governments, as a justification for war, or on the progress of wars, especially when they go badly, warrants independent, on-the-ground examination and reporting. In the case of Australia, the weight of its contributions to such adventures, driven by Washington and others, gives Canberra only minnow status in overall decision making and denies it any capacity to influence events as they unfold. But because, if in name only, Australia did sign on as an "occupation power" in Iraq and Afghanistan, Canberra becomes morally and legally responsible on behalf of all Australians for the conduct of their joint venture partners such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in Iraq; the denial of the rights of prisoners from Afghanistan and other countries who were, and still are, held at the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba; and the appalling practice of "rendition", in which the US would snatch terrorist suspects from countries in which they had rights and protections, and airlift them to countries where they would be interrogated by regimes that engage in abuses that would never be accepted in the US or in Australia. Since Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, I've reported on war and conflict and its aftermath in the Balkans; Ireland; Indonesia and East Timor; the US; most countries in the Middle East; a fair swathe of central Asia; and a bit of Africa. Each assignment had its mix of frustration and satisfaction. But in wondering about measuring the rewards, I was taken with a line by my friend and colleague John F. Burns when he retired in 2015, after 40 years as a correspondent for The New York Times.
Burns quoted his Italian colleague Tiziano Terzani, who in reviewing his own illustrious career with Der Spiegel and other European mastheads, had counselled: "Never forget, it's not how far you've travelled, it's what you've brought back." Burns says he came back with an abiding revulsion for "ideology, in all its guises". I can relate to that, but something I hold even more dearly is a belief in the human spirit, in the ability of the dispossessed and the denied, of the invaded and the overrun to sustain themselves in the most appalling circumstances and for years on end. I also have a special place in my heart for those I think of as the seriously accidental victims like the 298 passengers and crew, 38 of them from Australia, minding their own business on board Malaysia Airways flight MH17 when it was shot down in July 2014, while flying at 33,000 feet above eastern Ukraine, which was being torn apart by separatist war. Geraghty and I reported from the ground in the aftermath of the crash the impossible overlaying of a separatist war on a frustrating international effort to gather the remains of the victims. The link to the Aussies made it very personal and as we left the area weeks later, we returned to a field of ripening sunflowers in which MH17's cockpit section had crashed to harvest by hand enough of the saucer-sized sunflower heads to fill a big suitcase. When I wrote a piece offering the seeds to families and friends of the Australian victims, the response was staggering people all over the world wanted some of the seeds. And, while at first I was deeply suspicious, Australian quarantine officials were fantastic.
Candidate Chris Brown says he can keep the federal seat of Fremantle in Labor hands despite suggestions the Greens could win it in a voter backlash due to his links to a militant union.
The seat has been held by Labor since 1934 and is being vacated by Melissa Parke.
Chris Brown says he was born and bred in Fremantle. Credit:Getty Images
Her predecessor and former WA premier Carmen Lawrence has been critical of Mr Brown's preselection, saying those uncomfortable with his role as a Maritime Union of Australia organiser may vote for the Greens in protest.
But Mr Brown says his local credentials make him confident he's "in a strong position" to win.
Malcolm Turnbull has taken a cautious approach to the prime ministership, and he's being punished for it.
Bill Shorten is taking a riskier line, announcing controversial policies, and it's working for him.
The net result is that the Turnbull government has entirely lost its advantage in the election-deciding two-party share of the vote, the first time in the Fairfax Ipsos poll.
Intense competition between airlines has driven down the price of international flights, with fares the lowest they have been in decades.
Travellers seeking to spend spring or Thanksgiving in New York are in for a treat, with Virgin Australia offering $999 return air fares from Australia through Flight Centre.
Australian Federation of Travel Agents chief executive Jayson Westbury said airfares have "never really been so affordable than right now". Credit:James Alcock
Virgin Australia has thrown down the price gauntlet, well below Qantas Airways quoting $1850 return to the Big Apple, Emirates showing $1661 return and Cathay Pacific Airways showing $1400.
Matt Leedham, founder of travel industry news website KarryOn, attributed low airfares to a "triple-whammy: the weak Australian dollar, cheap fuel and more competition".
The 2014 end of year party at the Azerbaijan embassy in Canberra must have been epic if its official requests to import duty-free booze and cigarettes were any guide.
Leaked documents show Azerbaijan Ambassador Rovshan Jamshidov and financial attache Araz Khasiyev used their diplomatic status to get Australian government approval to import duty free 2000 litres of beer, 1100 litres of wine, 520 litres of spirits and 40,000 cigarettes from two suppliers.
Modern cigarette filters may actually increase the rate of cancer. Credit:Nic Walker
While the amounts might seem excessive for an embassy which represents an overwhelmingly Islamic nation and is staffed by five diplomats, they were within Australia's generous rules for the representatives of foreign governments.
Unlike most of us who are only entitled to a handful of bottles at airport duty-free shops, embassies and high commissions in Australia can obtain excise-free a maximum of 260 litres of spirits, 1000 litres of beer and 20,000 cigarettes every six months if the products are used in an official capacity.
Newcastle Airport has been closed and flights cancelled after a sudden deluge of water caused a partial collapse of the roof on Sunday afternoon.
At around 1pm, shortly before the Bureau of Meteorology issued a heavy rainfall warning for the Newcastle area, gutters in part of the Williamtown airport terminal were overwhelmed with water, causing a section of the roof to cave in.
Passengers wait for news in the arrivals hall at Newcastle Airport. Credit:Max Mason-Hubers
Most flights, including from domestic carriers Jetstar, Virgin and Regional Express were cancelled. However, regional carrier Pelican Airlines remained operational, with a flight set to arrive later on Sunday afternoon.
Following the collapse, the airport terminal was bustling with passengers who were turned away and had to find their way home.
Police are investigating the third suspected domestic murder in Queensland's south east in less than three weeks.
Melanie Floyd, 28, was found unconscious at her unit in Brisbane's inner north on Wednesday afternoon.
The hospitality worker had suffered critical head injuries.
She died in hospital overnight Saturday, after her family made the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support.
Los Angeles: The official rock of Tennessee is limestone. The raccoon is the state's official wild animal. But the state still does not have an official book.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam last week vetoed a bill that would have added the Bible to Tennessee's list of official state symbols, but lawmakers have already threatened to override his decision.
Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee is opposed to making the Bible the state's official book. Credit:Mark Humphrey/AP
In Gov. Haslam's veto message to the Republican lawmakers who sponsored the bill, he wrote in defence of Christian beliefs: "I strongly disagree with those who are trying to drive religion out of the public square," he said
However, Gov. Haslam said there was a small matter of constitutional law: the separation of church and state.
Washington: The US has to take a harder stance against Saudi Arabia and its support of the kind of fundamentalist ideology that drives Islamic State and al-Qaida, Bernie Sanders said on Sunday.
"We are not taking a hard enough look at Saudi Arabia," the Democratic presidential candidate said on ABC's This Week. Parts of the Saudi ruling family have funded the "extremely right-wing fundamentalist ideology" of Wahhabism in schools around the world, he said. "Saudi Arabia is playing a very dangerous role in fomenting fundamentalism all over the world."
Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is making party leaders take note of his policies. Credit:AP
Asked about reports that Saudi Arabia would sell American assets if Congress approves a bill allowing victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi government, Sanders said the US "can't be blackmailed."
Blinded by his success in opinion polls and a mistaken belief that the primaries are beauty contests, Trump at first failed to notice Cruz's dogged rounding up of delegates who will support him over Trump when convention votes are taken and when Trump did wake up to what was happening, he cried 'thief!' An unfriendly crowd? That never stopped Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz. Credit:AP Or more bizarrely, as in Wyoming on Saturday, Trump made no effort other than a planned visit to the Republican National Convention in Casper Wyoming by Sarah Palin, which later was cancelled. Cruz, however, was on the ground and scooped up all of Wyoming's 14 convention delegates. Same deal in Colorado earlier in the week, when Cruz bagged all of that state's 34 delegates. Ted Cruz signs posters for his supporters at a campaign rally on Friday. Credit:AP
There's an emerging consensus among analysts that Trump will not win the 1237 convention delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the GOP convention scheduled for Cleveland Ohio in July; and that Cruz will have caught up sufficiently in his tally of delegates to make him a plausible alternative who, in the arcane voting procedures of the convention, will outstrip Trump to become the Republican nominee. End-of-convention parties will celebrate how clever they all were in whooping Trump's ass, as Americans would put it. And as they emerge from their hangovers the next morning, they'll turn to Cruz and a few will say: "Well, what have we got here?" Donald Trump has been surprised by Ted Cruz's political acumen. Credit:AP In short, perhaps the most conservative GOP candidate ever nominated. Born in Canada to a Cuban father, the 45-year-old Cruz hails from the far right of the Republican Party. In this context, to describe him as a 'zealot' is fair comment as a freshman elected in 2012 on the back of the Tea party revolt in the GOP, Cruz's voting record in the Senate has marked him as one of the two or three most consistently conservative members.
As seen by Edward Carmines, a political scientist at Indiana University, Cruz represents the embodiment of the hard right; extremely conservative not just on economic and social welfare issues like social security, health care, affirmative action programs for women and minorities, and taxes; but also on social and cultural issues such as gun control, prayer in schools, abortion, and gay marriage. By The New York Times' analysis of Cruz's policy statements even rape and incest victims who became pregnant would be denied abortions and the so-called morning-after-pill would be illegal. Cruz wants reduced social security entitlements in a partial privatisation of US welfare; he wants Muslim communities to be 'patrolled and secured;' and high up in every speech his makes is the claim that he is "fully committed to repealing every single word of Obamacare." Much of his policy pronouncements are dressed up as messages from God or appeals for prayer, such as this on his abhorrence of same-sex marriage: "I'm going to encourage each and every man and woman here to pray. If ever there was an issue on which we should come to our knees to God about, it is preserving marriage of one man and one womanan issue on which we need as many praying warriors as possible to turn back the tide." Cruz bills himself as a 'courageous conservative.' But how clever a politician is he? He rails against the 'Washington political cartel' and thinks nothing of denouncing his own party leader on the floor of the Senate as a liar and these days he works the phones, miffed at his lack of success in getting any of the party big wigs to endorse his candidacy wholeheartedly. Political journalists are having a field day. Ordinarily they'd have to go to Democrats to get on-the-record criticism of a Republican; and the most they might get from the subject's GOP colleagues would be an unattributed put down. But there's no such problem when it comes to Cruz.
Some happily go on the record with their refusal to endorse him. And former GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole went on the record with his warning that a Cruz candidacy could turn voters away from voting for down-the-ticket Republicans - "If he's the nominee, we're going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures." And Peter King, a Republican congressman from New York, didn't feel constrained either, telling a reporter: "Cruz isn't a good guy, and he'd be impossible as president. People don't trust him." In the absence of an alternate candidate, the Republicans find themselves boxed in, with no choice but the test the argument of the party's hard right leadership that the GOP lost four of the last six presidential elections because their candidates were not conservative enough George H. W. Bush [1992], Robert Dole [1996], John McCain [2008] and Mitt Romney [2012]. But here's the thing. Crazy as it might sound, as The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat puts it, Cruz might be unloved, unattractive, a Simpsons-quoting nerd still chasing the teenage dream of world domination, but he has outworked, out organised and outlasted the candidates who were supposed to beat him, from the blueblood to the jock. In averaging the myriad opinion polls on a presidential face off between various of the candidates, Real Clear Politics finds that the presumptive Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump; but in a Clinton-Cruz match-up, Clinton wins by just 3.4 points arguably not far outside the polls' margin of error.
Rio de Janeiro: Mexico's finance minister has called billionaire Donald Trump's proposal to force the country to pay for a wall along the US border a kind of diplomatic harassment that's doomed to fail.
"Mexico will not pay for that wall, not only because it doesn't make any sense for either Mexico or the US to enter into that type of threat rhetoric, but it's also a matter of dignity," Luis Videgaray said.
Donald Trump insists Mexico will pay for his border wall if he becomes president. Credit:John Minchillo/AP
"There's no way in which Mexico can be bullied into doing such a thing."
The Republican presidential candidate said he would block the payments that Mexican workers in the US send to their home country known as remittances if Mexico's government refuses to foot the bill for a wall he wants to build along the 3,200-kilometre border.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Prisoners at Pointe Blanche Prison claimed that they have been getting sick with no doctors attention and the sole cause of their stomach aches and pains are coming from the expired goods they are forced to purchase at the prison canteens. The prisoners whose relatives contacted SMN News said everything that is sold at the canteen is expired. Milk, corn flakes, the soups and chips.
SMN News managed to obtain photos and a video of the cup noodles that are sold at the prison canteen that has live maggots crawling inside when the prisoners purchase it. The soup and Lays chips is sold for NAF.1.25 but many prisoners who purchased these expired food items did not take a good look at what they were buying and eating. Just recently prisoners who began feeling sick decided to look closer at the foods they are being fed and sold. Inside the cup noodles there are live maggots and cobweb. While the Lays chips that are sold to the prisoners are expired. The latest expiry date on the chips that SMN News received was March 2016.
Besides that the relatives of several prisoners said that the prison have been violating basic human rights of the prisoners and something must be done about the issue. They feel that while their relatives committed crimes they are being punished twice, one being they are condemned to serve time while they are fed rotten foods that can eventually kill the prison inmates. It seems to us that the prison management have been executing capital punishment death sentence by slowly poisoning the inmates at the prison by selling them expired food.
SMN News tried contacting the Prison management for a comment on the expired items that are being sold to the prisoners but the prison director Edward Rohan could not be reached.
Dr. Paul Song also apologized, saying it was 'insensitive.'
Update: Dr. Paul Song abruptly resigned from his position on the progressive group called "The Courage Campaign," five days after making the controversial comments described below.
Dr. Paul Song, railing against the relationship between politicians and corporations before Sanders' supporters on Wednesday, said, "Medicare-for-all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to big pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us."
Song, a health care activist, tweeted later Wednesday that he was referring to some members of Congress.
"I am very sorry for using the term "whore" to refer to some in congress who are beholden to corporations and not us. It was insensitive," he tweeted.
I am very sorry for using the term "whore" to refer to some in congress who are beholden to corporations and not us. It was insensitive.
Paul Y. Song (@paulysong) 6:00 PM - 13 Apr 2016
The comment drew criticism from Clinton supporters and others, who called on him to disavow it.
"Very distressing language to say the least. @BernieSanders should disavow," Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director tweeted.
Very distressing language to say the least. @BernieSanders should disavow. https://twitter.com/gideonresnick/status/720447169422090242
Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) 3:50 AM - 14 Apr 2016
Jane Sanders, the senator's wife, told CNN's Chris Cuomo Thursday that she did not hear the phrase but guessed it wasn't about Clinton.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear it at all. Strange choice of words. I can't imagine that anybody was speaking about Secretary Clinton that way. I don't know who said that," she said on "New Day." "All the campaigns really need to take some responsibility for what surrogates say."
Sanders himself weighed in via Twitter. "Dr. Song's comment was inappropriate and insensitive. There's no room for language like that in our political discourse," Sanders tweeted Thursday.
Dr. Song's comment was inappropriate and insensitive. There's no room for language like that in our political discourse.
Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) 5:33 AM - 14 Apr 2016
Bernie Sanders surrogate says his 'corporate whore' comment was 'taken out of context'
Thursday afternoon, Courage Campaign, a California-based progressive group that Song chairs, distanced itself from his remarks in a statement.
"Courage Campaign does not endorse political candidates. Dr. Paul Song, acting in his own capacity as a health care advocate, and separate from Courage Campaign, made comments at a rally in New York for Senator Bernie Sanders last night that are contrary to the values of Courage Campaign," the statement said. "These comments were unacceptable and that sort of rhetoric has no place in our political dialogue."
Song's wife is Lisa Ling, host of CNN's "This is LIfe with Lisa Ling." In his speech, he also said positive things about President Bill Clinton, who helped secure the release of Ling's sister from North Korea after she was captured in 2009.
Noie: End result all that matters for this one, for this Irish team
Notre Dame needed this one, even against a program like UNLV, to keep moving forward toward exactly who knows what
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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STAMFORD The contract with police officers has cleared two major hurdles and is now in the hands of city lawmakers.
The police union ratified the contract Friday with 89 percent of its members voting in favor. The Board of Finance then voted unanimously on Saturday to recommend the contract to city representatives.
Officials noted the contract, if passed, would represent the first time in nearly a decade and a half the union and the city settled on a contract without a state arbitration panel intervening. It also would mark considerable alterations to contracts for existing employees instead of just new hires, a goal city officials set for themselves last year.
I think both sides really worked hard to reach a deal that they could both live with, and the city certainly got some changes that will, over the long term, reduce its long-term liabilities, Board of Finance Chairman Richard Freedman said after Saturdays vote.
Mayor David Martin has said reining in unfunded liabilities is a major priority for his office.
Under the tentative contract, officers would receive retroactive raises going back five years. Raises will also continue for the next three years until the contract expires. Michael Handler, the citys director of administration, said the raises averaged about 2 percent for each year.
But in exchange, active department employees with less than 30 years on the force will begin to pay into non-pension retiree benefits. Each year they will pay 1 percent of the top pay rate for patrol officers. Health plans will also change, with officers moving to high-deductible plans with health savings accounts.
Under the new terms, officers returning from injuries would have to work regular duty before being allowed to work extra duty at higher hourly rates.
City cops nearly went five years without a contract. Their last deal expired in 2011 at the end of a two-year extension of a contract that would have ended in 2009.
Handler said the city was proud of the tentative contract.
It took a lot of collaboration and hard work to get to the contract that we got to, he said.
The city hired labor lawyers in January 2015 from Shipman & Goodwin to assist with the backlog of expired union contracts. Handler said at the time Stamford had hit an inflection point of paying out more for retired or non-active employees than for active ones, and the city was trying for the first time in more than a quarter century to achieve changes for active employees instead of just new hires.
Stamford Police Association President Sean Boeger criticized the mayor earlier this year and the citys negotiating team for presenting a moving target at the bargaining table, but by mid-March he was cautiously optimistic about a tentative agreement.
Boeger, like his counterparts at the city, said this weekend the contract required hard work from each side.
It definitely was a collaborative effort on both parts, and we hope that the Board of Representatives and the various committees from the city recognize the effort that we went through to get this thing, to get here, and I hope they approve it in a fast manner, Boeger said.
While the unions focus in previous negotiations was on enhancing benefits for its members, the new reality of life in Connecticut shifted their priorities, Boeger said.
Everyones still teetering to see whether were going to come out of this recession, he said. On the state level, youve seen whats going on with the state and the governors issuing potential layoff notices.
The union members, he added, see the costs going up, too, so we have to take some responsibility weve always taken responsibility in making sure we spread the balance between the taxpayers and between earning a fair keep.
Handler called the tentative agreement a sea change in how the city and the police union get along.
Its a good day for the city when one of the largest union and the city can sit down together and collaborate, Handler said. We really have some very bright officers who really understand, I think, a bigger picture than just their area of patrol. I think they appreciate what the city is going through and that the city has some constraints on their end.
The contract will likely go before the Personnel Committee of the board of Representatives Wednesday before heading to a special meeting of the full board on Monday, April 11.
If the tentative contract is finalized by city lawmakers it would last until 2019.
Staff Writer John Nickerson contributed to this report.
W arning: the following images are likely to result in a serious case of holiday envy.
French photographer Julien Grondin has spent the last few years travelling the world to capture beautiful shots of sunrise and sunset on his trusty Canon 5D camera.
Grondin, who is known as Beboy, began his trip in 2013 by exploring the east and west coasts of the US, before going on to take photos of the sun rising and setting everywhere from the lavender fields of Provence in France to the temples of Angkor Wait, Cambodia.
The 35 year old said: "I visited many countries to live my passion for photography, especially to capture light at both dawn and dusk when the sun is more likely to hit straight into my camera lens and create unique backlit shots.
"What I love the most about sunrise and sunset shots is to capture something that a lot of photographers try to avoid: putting the sun directly into the frame.
To properly expose a photo in this kind of situation could be very challenging, but if you manage to get the right angle, the contrast of the light on elements like rocks, plants and trees is really quite spectacular."
See more of Beboy's work here
Follow us on Twitter @eslifeandstyle
A British Airways flight was struck by a suspected drone as it prepared to land at Heathrow Airport this afternoon.
Police are investigating after an object, believed to be a drone, hit the front of the passenger plane as it approached Heathrows Terminal 5 at around 12.50pm.
The pilot was able to land the BA727 flight from Geneva, which had 132 passengers and five crew on board, safely, police said.
British Airways said the Airbus A320 was examined by engineers and cleared for its next flight following the incident.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: A pilot on an inbound flight into Heathrow Airport from Geneva reported to police that he believed a drone had struck the aircraft.
It transpired that an object, believed to be a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft.
No arrests have been made and enquiries continue.
Aviation police based at Heathrow investigate.
Officers at Heathrow tweeted: "Officers are currently speaking to a pilot who has reported a drone flying very close to his aircraft on approach to Heathrow.
"This is dangerous, it is also a crime. Please be aware of the rules before you start flying a drone."
A British Airways spokesman said: Our aircraft landed safely, was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight.
Safety and security are always our first priority and we will give the police every assistance with their investigation.
The strike is the latest in a string of incidents involving drones and aircraft in London airspace.
Last September, a drone came within 20 metres of a collision with a passenger jet as it flew above the Houses of Parliament towards City Airport, the UK Airprox Board said.
The air safety watchdog also reported a passenger jet being involved in a near-miss with a drone as it came into land at Heathrow Airport in the same month.
Steve Landells, flight safety specialist at the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), said: "Frankly it was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don't understand the risks and the rules.
"It appears that no serious damage was done on this occasion, but what is clear is that while most drones are flown safely, sensibly and within the limits of the law, much more education of drone users and enforcement of the rules is needed to ensure our skies remain safe from this threat."
F ive people have died and another five are critical in hospital after suffering suspected drug overdoses at an electronic musical festival in Argentinas capital, officials say.
The second night of the Time Warp music festival being held in Buenos Aires was cancelled on Saturday following the deaths.
Health officials in the capital said that two people in their 20s died during the festival on Friday and three others died in an ambulance or at a hospital.
Most of the critically ill youths are believed to be in comas.
"They are all in very grave condition, intubated," Dr Alberto Crescenti, director of the emergency services in Buenos Aires, told the Todo Noticias TV station.
"They are not breathing on their own."
Crescenti said doctors are trying to determine what caused the deaths and were waiting for post-mortem results to determine what mix of substances were responsible.
A festival-goer told Todo Noticias that he saw a young man convulsing for 15 minutes and calling for security.
In a statement posted to the Time Warp festivals website on Saturday, the organisers said: "We express our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the people who passed away.
The cause of this tragedy will take some time to determine. The show is cancelled for tonight.
O ver 400 taxi or private hire drivers were charged with criminal offences last year, official figures show.
In 2015, charges were brought against 413 drivers, with 126 accused of violent or sexual offences.
The data, released by the Metropolitan Police under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, also showed that between 2011 and 2015, a total of 1,948 drivers were charged with criminal offences.
Of these, 521 were charged with violent or sexual offences, which can include grievous bodily harm or rape.
The FOI showed the number of people charged who gave their occupation as a taxi driver or minicab driver.
The data did not specify any outcomes of the criminal proceedings.
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Enhanced DBS checks are carried out on drivers every three years when they renew their taxi or private hire driver's licence, and every individual's fitness to become a licensed taxi or private hire driver is considered on a case-by-case basis.
A separate FOI revealed that in 2014/2015, a staggering 141 drivers were named as suspects in sex offences.
These included 31 in cases of rape, and 110 for other sexual assaults.
The figures relate to a wide range of vehicles, including legally booked and illegal minicabs, rickshaws, chauffer driven cars, and black cabs.
Angela Clarkson, 62, is secretary of the United Cabbies Group, the second largest taxi organisation in London.
Ms Clarkson, who has been a black cab driver for 30 years and lives in Chislehurst, has worked with organisations including the Suzy Lamplugh Trust in a bid to increase women's safety when travelling in cabs.
She told the Standard: "These figures are absolutely appalling, the blame lies squarely at TfL's door.
"For every hour that TfL's offices were open at one point they were handing out one licence every three minutes and 40 seconds - it's impossible to do the checks and balances."
Glen Alutto, a black cab driver for 17 years, also said that licensing of drivers was too lax.
Mr Alutto, 47, who lives in Enfield, told the Standard: "I'm shocked by these figures, but not surprised.
"They're licensing 700 private hire drivers a week.
"It's no longer news when you see that one of them has crashed or driven the wrong way down a street.
"The SatNav is not a replacement for the Knowledge - I've got a calculator on my phone but that doesn't make me an accountant.
"They need to cap the numbers they're licensing, there don't need to be any more - it's also causing massive levels of congestion and pollution, it's just ridiculous."
TfL's Graham Daly, head of operations for enforcement, said: Under current private hire legislation, we are obliged to license anyone applying for a private hire driver license who meets the relevant criteria.
"All applicants for taxi and private hire driver licences undergo an enhanced DBS criminal records check both before they are granted a licence, and every three years subsequently.
We take any report of sexual offences extremely seriously, revoking or suspending licenses whenever necessary and pushing for the strongest possible penalties in the courts.
"We also work closely with the police to take strong and robust enforcement action to catch touting and unlicensed drivers who pose a risk to the public.
D avid Walliams has revealed a large box of letters from young fans of his childrens books was stolen by thieves.
The Britain's Got Talent judge told his 1.6 million Twitter followers that Scotland Yard had informed him of the crime and apologised to fans who had not received a reply to letters they had sent.
The Little Britain star said: "The @metpoliceuk just told me my post was stolen, including a large box of letters from children that had been sent via @HarperCollins.
"So I apologise if you sent a letter & have not received a reply as I do endeavour to reply to everyone. If in doubt please write again."
Walliams has written six books for HarperCollins, with Demon Dentist, Ratburger and Gangsta Granny all becoming children's best-sellers, and his seventh due to be released in November.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Police in Camden were called on April 8 by a member of the public who had found a number of discarded items of post.
"Officers are in the process of contacting the intended recipients and inquiries are under way to establish whether an offence has been committed. Inquiries continue."
No one has been arrested, he added.
D octors have outlined huge concern that super-gonorrhoea is spreading across the country and to gay men.
A national alert was triggered in September when an outbreak of highly drug-resistant gonorrhoea was detected in the north of England.
Efforts to track down those infected with the disease, which can cause infertility, were made but attempts to contain the spread have been of limited success.
The BBC reported that cases of super-gonorrhoea have now been detected in London, West Midlands and southern England.
The outbreak started in straight couples but is now being seen in gay men too.
And experts fear the sexually transmitted superbug is at risk of being untreatable if the only fully effective antibiotic remaining fails to work.
Public Health England is understood to acknowledge the concerns.
It said an increase in cases of super-gonorrhoea was a "further sign of the very real threat of antibiotic resistance to our ability to treat infections."
Peter Greenhouse, a consultant in sexual health based in Bristol, told BBC News: We've been worried it would spread to men who have sex with men.
The problem is [they] tend to spread infections a lot faster simply as they change partners more quickly."
It comes after Chancellor George Osborne warned resistance to antibiotics will become "an even greater threat to mankind than cancer" without global action.
F irefighters today rescued a teenager who became stranded in the middle of a lake in a south London park.
The 14-year-old boy got stuck after attempting to climb across to a pontoon in the centre of the lake at Crystal Palace Park at around 5.30pm, police said.
Emergency services, including five fire engines and police, were sent to help rescue the youth, after his friends dialled 999.
He was eventually pulled to safety by a firefighter who gave him a piggyback through the water.
Police Sergeant Lance Chenery told the Standard: A 14-year-old decided to climb across to the pontoon in the lake. He couldnt get back cue the emergency services.
He fell off the fireman before dry land, so he got wet anyway.
PS Chenery had earlier tweeted: Some rescues are hi-tech, teenager rescued by @LondonFire. Needed five fire trucks.
Assisted by @MPSBromley this could have been avoided by the youth being sensible in the first place.
Police said the teenage boy did not need medical treatment.
F ast food giant McDonald's has been banned from running a stand at the Labour Partys annual conference.
McDonalds has said it is "disappointed" after the party's ruling national executive blocked the burger chain's bid to run a stand at the gathering in Liverpool this year.
But the move sparked anger among some of the party's MPs.
Former minister Ian Austin tweeted: "Why has @UKLabour turned down 30k from McDonald's? My first job was in their branch of Dudley High Street."
Backbencher Wes Streeting told The Sun on Sunday: "I'm exasperated that we should throw away 30,000 worth of sponsorship like this.
"It smacks of a snobby attitude towards fast-food restaurants and people who work or eat at them."
The newspaper reported that McDonald's wanted to stage an "interactive display" to support British farm produce.
A McDonald's spokesman said: "We are disappointed with the decision that has been taken."
A Labour spokesperson told the Guardian: We do not comment on commercial decisions.
R iot police were forced to fire tear gas canisters to break up a huge brawl at a migrant camp outside a Paris metro station.
Terrifying footage has emerged which shows hundreds of people attacking each other with planks of wood, metal bars and debris.
Video shows fighting taking place before police move in and tear gas is seen filling the air.
Le Parisien newspaper reported migrants attacked police, bystanders and each other in two fights on Thursday evening.
Police said the first brawl broke out around 9pm, which was dealt with but then a second fight took place at 11.30pm.
Four people were reportedly taken to hospital.
The scene, underneath a railway bridge at Stalingrad station, was used as a makeshift camp by nearly 1,000 migrants until the end of last month.
Authorities cleared the area but many have since returned.
News / Africa
by Staff Reporter
The Southern African Development Community (SADC), under the chairmanship of President Ian Khama, has rejected a proposal by the European and Latin American countries to include gays, sex workers and drug addicts in their master plan HIV/AIDS and the girl child resolution.Mmegi reported that the SADC-sponsored United Nations Resolution on Women, the Girl Child and HIV, which was adopted by the UN recently, was established to curb the high prevalence rate and the effect that the HIV epidemic has on the southern African region.The minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Edwin Batshu told Mmegi that the meeting led to a commitment by member states to continue to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS. Mmegi learnt that the European and Latin American countries pleaded in vain with SADC to include gays, sex workers and drug addicts in their master plan if they are to win the fight against HIV/AIDS. The 15 countries rejected the proposals, arguing that they already have strategies in place to deal with the groups."We told them that we cannot agree to their proposal because we already have known strategies in place to deal with those groups. We continue to explore other better ways to address the groups' challenges," Batshu said.Batshu said dealing with some of these groups is often complex as they are outlawed in most African countries. There have been questions and debates over whether homosexuality is African, a debate that continues to date with African leaders taking different sides. A latest Afro Barometer report titled good neighbours' recently unearthed that the African community in 33 surveyed countries still shun homosexuals despite efforts by advocates. Africa's negative attitudes toward homosexuals, the study says, are documented in the news media and, to a lesser extent, the academic literature."Afrobarometer survey data suggest this narrative to be true, as only 21% of all citizens across the 33 countries say they would like or would not mind having homosexual neighbours," the report says.The report further says there were, however, "important country-level differences that may be overlooked in the aggregate numbers. In four African countries, a majority of citizens express acceptance of neighbours who are homosexual: Cape Verde(74% who would strongly/somewhat like or would not care), South Africa (67%), Mozambique (56%), and Namibia (55%)".SADC member states have since 1999 sponsored Resolution 58/3 on Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The resolution has been reviewed and updated on an annual basis during the Commission on the Status of Women Sessions (CSW), until 2012 when a decision was taken to review it every two years.The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. Every year, representatives of United Nations member states gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York to evaluate progress made on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women's empowerment worldwide.In addition, every second year a resolution on Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS' is tabled, traditionally by SADC. CSW resolution 58/3 is the only UN resolution that is comprehensively dedicated to the issue of women, girls, gender equality and HIV and AIDS.During the 2012 and 2014, the 56th and 58th Sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women respectively, for the first time in the history of the CSW, the negotiation process failed due to a number of contentious issues which caused SADC and the African group to withdraw the co- sponsorship of the resolution. The contentious issues were, understanding of "comprehensive sexuality education, the evidence around the age of sexual debut and its benefits for protecting young girls from HIV; and upholding agreed language on issues around sexual and reproductive health and rights".Despite the withdrawal of the resolution at the CSW58 in 2014, SADC member states agreed to sponsor the resolution and table it again at CSW60 in March 2016 which they successfully did.
News / Local
by Stephen Jakes
Harare City Council has been accused of negligently causing deaths through digging of pits which are left open.Harare Residents Trust said this is the second time that it has received reports of death being caused by the negligence of the Harare City Council."There is a pit that was dug by the City Council in Mufakose, Dindingwe when they were laying water pipes," said the trust. "A resident fell in thepit and died. The Harare City Council should make sure that when they complete their projects they should fill up the pits and level the surface.How will they be able to compensate one's life?"
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After three consecutive record crops, the International Grains Council (IGC) expects world wheat production for the 2016/17 marketing year to decline to 713 million metric tons (MMT), down 3 percent from 2015/16. Unusually warm, dry weather constrained winter wheat planting in India, Ukraine and Russia, and an extended drought has hindered winter wheat productivity in Morocco, where IGC estimates a 40 percent decline in production year over year. According to USDAs March 31, 2016, Prospective Plantings report, U.S. wheat farmers also planted fewer winter wheat acres and intend to plant the smallest spring wheat area since 1972.
USDA estimated total U.S. planted area for the 2016 harvest at 49.5 million acres, down 9 percent from 2015 and 13 percent below the 5-year average of 57.3 million acres. The report reduced winter wheat planted area by an additional 390,000 acres from USDAs January estimate to 36.2 million acres, down 8 percent from 2015.
USDA also updated its hard red winter (HRW) planted area estimate to 26.2 million acres, down one percent from the previous estimate. A delayed soybean harvest prevented some wheat seeding, and farmers decided not to plant as much wheat because cash prices were so low. If realized, HRW planted area will be down 10 percent from 29.0 million acres planted for 2015. Soft red winter (SRW) planted area also decreased from the previous estimate to 6.60 million acres with the biggest declines occurring in southern states. Farmers there have taken a hit three years in a row from untimely rains at harvest that hurt quality and resulting income.
USDA expects white wheat acres planted in both winter and spring to reach 4.02 million for 2016, down 3 percent from 2015 and lower than the 5-year average of 4.21 million. After three consecutive years of drought, much needed rain fell in the Pacific Northwest in December and January. However, the U.S. Drought Monitor shows dry conditions are developing again in Oregon, southeastern Washington and parts of Idaho where soft white (SW) production is centered.
The Drought Monitor also shows that Kansas and Oklahoma, which grew nearly half of the total U.S. HRW crop in 2015, are very dry. As of April 7, 2016, 93 percent of Kansas and 73 percent of Oklahoma were abnormally dry or experiencing moderate drought. In addition to the dryness, U.S. winter wheat growing areas are experiencing large temperature fluctuations. After falling below freezing on March 27 and April 1 to 2, temperatures reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas the next week.
However, the U.S. winter wheat crop is still in better condition than last year at this time. As of April 5, USDA rated the winter wheat crop at 59 percent good to excellent, compared with 44 percent at this time in 2015. USDA rated just 7 percent of the crop as poor or very poor, down from 16 percent last year.
The wheat crop is developing two to three weeks ahead of schedule, which makes it extremely vulnerable to a late spring freeze, something that is not uncommon in Kansas, noted Kansas Wheat Commission Vice President of Research and Operations Aaron Harries. The wheat is in relatively good shape across the state, but we are really going to need rain here in the next few weeks. Weve had a lot of wind and warm weather, which sucks the moisture out of the topsoil very quickly.
The northern U.S. plains are also experiencing warm, dry conditions, which could allow farmers to begin planting early this year.
Weve seen some spring wheat planted already, and in the next week or two most farmers will be in their fields if the weather holds. It looks like it will be an early planting season again this year, which is good for wheat and could produce additional acreage, said North Dakota Wheat Commission Marketing Specialist Erica Olson.
According to USDA, U.S. spring wheat planted area will decline to an estimated 11.3 million acres, 14 percent less than in 2015 and the lowest planted spring wheat area since 1972, if realized. The estimate includes 10.7 million acres of hard red spring (HRS), which faces strong competition from pulses and durum that have garnered higher returns this marketing year.
As Olson explains, Other crops, especially peas, lentils and durum show higher returns than spring wheat, which makes them more favorable crops this year. Corn acres are expected to increase as well. These price trends are cyclical and next year a different set of crops will come out on top.
USDA expects U.S. durum planted area to rise to 2.00 million acres, up 3 percent from 2015 despite a 28 percent decline in Desert Durum area. USDA expects North Dakota farmers to plant 10 percent more acres to durum for 2016, which more than offsets the planted area loss in Arizona and California.
Driving the decline in U.S. wheat acreage is a net return for an acre of wheat that dropped 25 percent between 2014/15 and 2015/16, while per acre input costs declined only 8 percent in the same time period. USDA expects this trend of decreasing returns on wheat to continue in 2016/17, with returns falling 17 percent from 2015/16 levels. Yet input costs are expected to rebound slightly. Due to the decreases in planted area, IGC pegged 2016/17 U.S. wheat production at 53.9 MMT, down 3 percent from 2015/16. As always, weather will be the wildcard.
News / Local
by Vusumuzi Dube
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has said it has no capacity to service 20 000 stands at one go following an announcement by the Government that it was planning to set a youth suburb in the city. Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere last week said he was going to order BCC to avail an initial 300hectares of land in the city for the construction of a new suburb.He said his ministry was going to ensure that servicing of the stands and construction of houses would begin by the end of the year to ease accommodation woes among the youth.However, Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo, has said that the city did not have the money nor the capacity to service such a large number of stands. The mayor said although the parent ministry has not yet communicated officially over the matter there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed first like the funding model or whether the Government will assist in the project."At the moment we are struggling to service just 3 000 stands a year and I don't see how we will be able to do 20 000. The truth is, simply we do not have the capacity to do such a huge project and we will raise this when the ministry officially communicates to us. Besides if such a directive comes through it goes against a number of our policies which will make it difficult for us to implement. For example we are currently using a pre-sell type of model where people have to pay first for stands before we service, therefore the question now is will these youths be able to pay for these stands," said Clr Moyo.The mayor said council was hoping that if the ministry was issuing such a directive they would also be in a position to give the local authority a grant or avail funds that will enable them to service the stands and not expect them (council) to service the stands using their own funds."We have to face reality not to rush to commit ourselves when we know the reality on the ground. What we will await now is for the minister and his delegation to approach us and we tell them that it is simply not possible. Besides I believe as a local authority we are already on a positive in terms of availing stands to our residents. Our housing backlog is just over 100 000 and this is not a crisis figure considering that according to the ZimStat census we are just above 600 000 in terms of population, I doubt whether there is a need to panic," said the Mayor.Contacted for comment, Minister Kasukuwere said he was not going to back down on this directive revealing that all was now in place in terms of implementing the project."This is a serious project, already I know that Phase 2 in Umvutsha B has already been identified, we want our youths to have stands rather than living all their lives as lodgers. We really expect these local authorities to co-operate knowing provision of accommodation to their residents is one of their key mandates," said Minister Kasukuwere.Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Engineer George Mlilo said everything was now on course but revealed that the said meeting between him, Provincial Affairs Minister Nomthandazo Eunice Moyo and council officials was postponed due to the burial of the national heroines, Victoria Chitepo and Vivian Mwashita at the National Heroes' Acre in Harare last week.
John William Vorse, 68, of Scottsbluff, died peacefully and met his faithful Savior with his family by his side on Thursday, April 14, 2016, at Golden Living Center in Scottsbluff. John fought a valiant fight to recover from an accident on Nov. 13, 2015. Visitation will be from 1-7 p.m., Wednesday and 2-7 p.m., Thursday with the family present from 5-7 p.m., at Dugan-Kramer Chapel.
His funeral service will be at 10 a.m., on Friday, April 22 at WestWay Christian Church in Scottsbluff with Pastor Tyson Lambertson and Pastor Shilo McCoy co-officiating. Interment will follow at Fairview Cemetery in Scottsbluff with military honors by the Nebraska National Guard and the Gering American Legion. A memorial has been established in Johns name at First State Bank. Tributes may be left at www.dugankramer.com
John was born on May 14, 1947, in Scottsbluff to Alden and Kathryn (Steele) Vorse. He spent his young life growing up on the farm where he attended Victory Hill School. He was very active in sports, graduating from Scottsbluff High School in 1966. In 1967, John enlisted in the Army National Guard and was honorably discharged in October 1972.
John married his only love, Karen Nazarenus on Sept. 1, 1967, and they were blessed with two sons. Johns career path started by working on a farm. He then worked as a carry out for Henrys Market. Many years later, he lived his dream by owning the operating Henrys Market for several years.
John worked for United Telephone Company and Executone selling business phone systems. He worked for Affiliated Foods of Colorado and Affiliated Foods of Nebraska in retail development. He worked as an Assistant Manager for Walmart for 11 years, retiring in 2013.
John was a member of High Plains Auto Club. He was voted in as President of the club for 2016 in November 2015. He attended The Rock Church.
John never met a stranger and was loved by all. He gave unconditionally and loved the same. He put family first and will leave a legacy of truth, love, acceptance and integrity on all of our hearts. He was a Mustang lover, purchasing his first Mustang in 1967, and having his two favorites now.
John is survived by his loving wife and best friend of 48 years Karen; beloved children Michael J. (Angie) Vorse of Burns, Wyoming, Jason Vorse of Scottsbluff, and Nichole J. Vorse of Scottsbluff; the joys of his life, his grandchildren, Brent of Scottsbluff, Brandon, Sabrina, Sally, and Bryce of Burns, Wyoming, Mason of Scottsbluff, Madison (Kyle Groskopf) of Belle Fouche, South Dakota, Maric and Ayden both of Scottsbluff; sisters Francie Hays of Scottsbluff, Helen Kay (Russ) Hubbard of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Patti (John) Hammel of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Aldenea (Keith) Hammel of Midland, Texas, Pamela (Ortie) Favors of Knoxville, Tennessee, and Kathy (Steve) Snyder of Hastings; brothers George (Shirley) Vorse of Canton, Ohio and Michael (Linda) Vorse of Moscow, Idaho; sisters-in-law Maralyn (Tim) Bates of Douglasville, Georgia and Deb (Jim) Smith of Scottsbluff; brother-in-law Steve Nazarenus of Houston, Texas; numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins, and many friends including three spoiled dogs Buddy, Mia, and Sasha.
John was preceded in death by his mother Kathryn Steele Vorse, father Alden Vorse, brother Thomas Vorse, mother-in-law Mary Nazarenus, father-in-law Henry Nazarenus, paternal grandparents Clyde Vorse, Mable Harris Vorse White, maternal grandparents Jacob G. Steele and Nellie Cutler Steele, and brother-in-law Elmer Hays.
Special thank you to Jenny Baltz, Director of Nursing and all of the staff at Golden Living Center: their care of John was outstanding and compassionate. They left a mark on all of our lives. Thank you also to Regional West Hospice
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News / Local
by Fairness Moyana
ZIMBABWE Power Company (ZPC) board members on Friday toured coal supplying companies in Hwange to assess the miners' preparedness towards meeting supply as the country gears for increased power consumption in winter.Sunday News reported that ZPC board chairman Engineer Stanley Kazhanje said the visit was to get an appreciation of how the companies were preparing for winter."The purpose of our visit is to meet our coal suppliers and to see the preparations that are being made for the winter programme in terms of supply of coal as well as to appreciate the problems they are having in terms of their mining. We also wanted to see their preparations to meet our Stage 3 expansion programme for Hwange 7 and 8," said Eng Kazhanje.ZPC is producing a total of 973 megawatts from its Kariba, Munyati, Harare and Hwange power stations while 400MW are imports. Bulawayo power station is currently not generating due to a technical fault.Hwange Colliery Company and Makomo Resources are the major suppliers of coal to ZPC feeding more than 200 000 tonnes per month.HCCL managing director Mr Thomas Makore said his company will continue supplying ZPC with coal and was ready to increase supplies once production increases."We have maintained our supply figure and we can supply more though, yes we have been unable to increase our supply because of the technical challenges we are facing with our own equipment. We are, however, seized with addressing that and we are confident that once sorted we should be able to ramp up. But what we need is working capital as mining is a high cost business so we need to ensure that we buy all the production inputs so that we are able to perform," he said.
Milton Friedman would be surprised by the number of business leaders speaking out on issues of gay and transgender rights.
The great economist famously argued that a businesss only social responsibility is to make more money, and his view dominated boardroom thinking for decades. Business leaders may have had private opinions about civil rights and other issues, but they kept quiet in public.
Now, that attitude seems as dated as the hats men wore in Friedmans day.
In North Carolina, PayPal and Deutsche Bank have canceled planned expansions because of a public restrooms law thats seen as discriminatory against transgender people. In Mississippi, corporations such as Nissan, IBM and Tyson Foods denounced a so-called religious freedom law as anti-gay.
A corporate outcry in Georgia convinced the governor to veto a bill similar to the Mississippi measure. Here in Missouri, more than 60 companies have publicly urged the Legislature not to pass a discriminatory bill of its own.
Opponents of the Missouri measure include Commerce Bank, Express Scripts, Monsanto and Nestle Purina. Nobodys threatening to pack up and leave, but they make clear that a law seen as discriminatory will be bad for business.
What has caused big business to abandon Friedmans principle? Lamar Pierce, associate professor of organization and strategy at Washington Universitys Olin Business School, thinks its the advent of social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
Because of the changing nature of media, its easier to get messages out very quickly, and its more important to get them out, Pierce says.
Activists can organize around an emerging social issue almost overnight, creating pressure for major employers to take a stand. If you dont say anything, it can be interpreted as tacit approval, and maybe your employees want to know where you are on this issue, says James Fisher, a professor of marketing at St. Louis University.
Indiana, which passed a religious freedom law last year and then amended it after sharp criticism from Apples Tim Cook and others, offers a case study on the effectiveness of corporate activism.
Researchers from Duke and Harvard universities conducted surveys in Indiana and concluded that an activist CEO can sway public opinion, while also making people more interested in buying the companys products.
These laws go against the opinions of the folks who matter most to these companies: their employees and their customers, Pierce says. They tend to be younger, higher-income and better educated than the population as a whole. It would be incredibly costly for them not to take a stand on this.
One cost, top executives fear, is that theyd have difficulty luring scientists, engineers and other skilled workers to a state with a reputation for discrimination.
The type of people the companies need to recruit have very different views on these issues than the average Missouri legislator, and they have lots of job options, Pierce said.
Activist CEOs do risk a backlash from consumers who disagree with them, and the Indiana surveys found that opponents of same-sex marriage viewed Apple products less favorably after reading about Cooks advocacy.
Business people weigh risks and rewards all the time, however. Some, including Cook, are taking a stand on an issue thats a matter of conscience for them.
Others have consulted their human resources and marketing departments and concluded that it would be costly to operate in a state that enacts discriminatory legislation.
Theyre speaking out on a social issue that will also affect their bottom line, which is reasoning even Milton Friedman would understand.
Updated at 10:55 p.m. with AP story
DOHA, Qatar A meeting of oil-rich countries in Qatar that had been expected to boost crude prices by freezing production fell apart Sunday as Iran stayed home and vowed to increase its output despite threats by Saudi Arabia.
Oil prices, which hit a 12-year low in January by dipping under $30 a barrel, had risen above $40 in recent days, buoyed by the bullish talks surrounding the Doha summit.
But instead of a quick approval of a production freeze, the meeting of 18 oil-producing nations saw hours of debate and resembled the dysfunction of an unsuccessful meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in December that sent oil prices tumbling.
The fact that producers couldn't agree to a freeze, let alone a production cut, likely means oil prices will drop again as markets open Monday.
"Prices will trade lower. Maybe sharply lower," said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities USA, noting the failure to reach agreement in Doha.
He noted that other factors were negatively impacting prices: U.S. crude oil storage remaining at all -time highs, Iran increasing production, and Libya looming on the horizon to boost output.
Speaking to journalists after the summit, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar's energy and industry minister, tried to say the lack of a decision showed officials believed "the fundamentals of the market are generally improving."
However, he largely dodged the questions about whether another special summit will be called before OPEC's next meeting in June and whether Iran had anything to do with the breakdown of the talks.
"We of course respect their position and ... we still don't know how the future will unroll but it was a sovereign decision by Iran," said al-Sada, who is serving as OPEC's president. "The freeze could be more effective definitely if major producers, be it from OPEC members like Iran and others, as well as non-OPEC members, are included in the freeze."
Sunday's gathering grew out of a surprise Doha meeting in February between Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, in which they pledged to cap their crude output at January levels if other producers did the same.
The idea of a freeze and not a cut initially looked more palatable to producers already suffering after oil's dramatic fall since the summer of 2014, when prices were above $100 a barrel.
Production continues to rise as countries try to make up the difference. Ahead of Sunday's meeting, Iraq boosted its production to record territory of over 4 million barrels a day in March, and Kuwait pumped 3 million barrels a day with hopes of reaching 4 million a day by 2020.
And while car owners and airlines have enjoyed the low oil prices, the plunging oil revenues have wreaked havoc on countries like Nigeria and Venezuela, both of which attended Sunday's meeting along with non-OPEC member Russia.
The biggest wild card of the talks, however, wasn't even in the room. Iran decided to stay home late Saturday after saying the day before it would send an emissary to the meeting. Speaking to Iranian state television, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said it didn't make sense to send any representative from the Islamic Republic "as we are not part of the decision to freeze output."
"We can't cooperate with them to freeze our own output, and in other words impose sanctions on ourselves," Zangeneh said.
With many international sanctions lifted under its nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers, Iran began exporting oil into the European market again and is eager to claw back market share. It produces 3.2 million barrels of oil a day now, with hopes of increasing to 4 million by April 2017.
Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia had said it wouldn't back any freeze if Iran, its Shiite rival, didn't agree to it, throwing the deal into question before the meeting. The kingdom seems determined to ride out the low prices that could squeeze Tehran.
The enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran has spiked in recent months.
In January, Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric, a move that sparked protests in Iran that saw demonstrators attack two of the kingdom's diplomatic posts there. That broke the conflict between the two countries into the open, amid them backing opposing sides in both Syria's civil war and the war in Yemen.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi repeatedly declined to speak to journalists during the meeting.
The dispute underscores the level of discord inside OPEC as it faces arguably its biggest challenge since the oil glut of the 1980s. Though more-costly U.S. shale oil production has dropped, it could re-enter the market if oil prices rise. And a large amount of crude already building up provides a major damper on prices, as does a generally weakened global economy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The immediate effect of the summit's collapse likely will be seen in crude prices. Western markets were closed Sunday and not immediately affected. Stock exchanges in Saudi Arabia and Dubai closed in negative territory Sunday, with the Saudi Tadawul down 1.48 percent.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
The Zimbabwe Communist group has sent message of solidarity to the Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC-T following its mass protest against Zanu PF misrule and disappearance of $15 billion from diamond revenue.Secretary general of the organisation Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena said the Zimbabwe Communist Group sends it's solidarity message to you as you hold a demonstration in Harare over the missing $ 15 billion and other socio-political questions."As the vanguard of the working class, we would like to express our solidarity in the struggle for a democratic and socialist Zimbabwe. We knowthat the struggle is without suffering,casualties and that the fascist regime might throw teargas or even arrest the demonstrators and the political leadership," he said. "This should not break your revolutionary spirit."He said as Communists, they remain guided by the words of Lenin when he said, " Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but yourchains "."We call on the working people ( in formal and informal employment ) to unite against this fascist regime that has brought misery in oursocieties,denied us a prosperous Zimbabwe with opportunities," he said."We further call on political parties to unite and confront the self-centred regime, bent on self-enrichment;black bourgeoisie consolidating the spread and pinnacles of imperialism and white capital monopoly."The Zimbabwe Communist Group is raising the plight of the Zimbabweans in all spheres of economic activity with Communist Parties and Workers Parties across the globe.
A cheese lover on Twitter expressed less than complete satisfaction with the Quesalupa, Taco Bell's newest and cheesiest menu item. The company's social-media team was on it.
"Dear @tacobell, Why can't the quesalupa be as cheesy as your commercials? Sincerely, A customer who would marry cheese," the tweet read.
The tweet popped up on one of the dozen wall-hung screens that employees monitor in the "Fishbowl" at Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, Calif.
Matt Prince swooped in. As head of the 15-person "newsroom" team, it's his job to defend and protect what Taco Bell calls The Cheese Pull the taffy-like web of pepper jack created by pulling apart a Quesalupa. A snag like the one described in the tweet might trigger an email to one of the 6,500 Taco Bell restaurants, reminding staff not to overcook the tortilla or allow the shells to lie around too long after they've been fried in canola oil.
Taco Bell spent two years perfecting the technique after a decade of noodling with "the cheese-pully thing," said Liz Matthews, chief food innovation and beverage officer, and it's betting its future on plenty of cheesy elasticity for maximum customer goo.
"It's got to have an amazing, delicious cheese pull in every bite," Matthews said in an interview in the company's international test kitchen this month.
It's hard to overstate the importance of The Cheese Pull to Taco Bell and its parent company, Yum Brands Inc., which has a $33 billion market value and more than $13 billion in revenue last year. With Yum planning to spin off its China unit and growth otherwise slowing at Taco Bell's siblings, KFC and Pizza Hut, it's come down to this: The near-term performance of Yum depends on Taco Bell, and the performance of Taco Bell rests on The Cheese Pull.
"The strongest brand in the portfolio is clearly Taco Bell," Yum Chief Executive Officer Greg Creed said last month. Yum plans to open the first Taco Bell this year in China, where KFC growth slowed after a supplier scandal in 2014. There's talk of taking Taco Bell to Australia, too.
Sales at established Taco Bell locations jumped 5 percent last year, compared with growth of 1 percent at Pizza Hut and 3 percent for KFC. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.'s recent sales troubles, caused by E. coli and norovirus outbreaks, give the brand an opportunity to attract more fast-foodies.
Taco Bell, founded by Glen Bell in 1962, made its name introducing Americans to quasi-Mexican fare, such as the Bell Beefer and Enchirito. The Gordita came along in 1998, begetting the Chalupa shortly after that. The Quesalupa a quesadilla-Chalupa mashup is the latest generation born in the test kitchen.
The Quesalupa rolled out with accompanying fanfare on Feb. 8 after a 36-store test in Toledo, Ohio. The company said it persuaded Americans to order 71,000 of the $2.99 tacos with cheese-filled shells without even disclosing what they were they called it a "blind preorder." The advertising campaign was Taco Bell's most expensive ever, and it included a 30-second TV spot that ran during the Feb. 7 Super Bowl, claiming the Quesalupa would be bigger than man-buns, drones, aliens and James Harden's beard, among other things.
The commercial, airing during the priciest TV time of the year, cost an estimated $5 million just to broadcast, according to Andrew Alvarez, an analyst at research firm IBISWorld. The star of the ad was The Cheese Pull.
Getting The Pull exactly right isn't easy. If the shell isn't fried the proper 90 seconds or if it sits for more than 15 minutes after cooking, the cheese hardens and won't be melty enough for a proper stringy bridge between separated pieces. The item was at least partly inspired by stuffed-crust pizzas. Matthews said Taco Bell aims to take advantage of Americans' expanding love affair with cheese.
"People stopped seeing cheese as an ingredient cheese really became the center of the plate and a big deal," Matthews said.
Americans ate about 34.2 pounds per person in 2014, 9.4 percent more than a decade earlier, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Quesalupa calorie counts: chicken and steak, 440; beef, 460; breakfast sausage, 590.
Ironically, Taco Bell said it's close to fulfilling its goal for a healthier menu by removing preservatives and fake flavors from 95 percent of its menu. It's also quietly pushing its lower-calorie Fresco menu, which substitutes pico de gallo for guacamole, sour cream, cheese and any mayonnaise-based sauces.
In a 2015 survey by Nation's Restaurant News and WD Partners, Taco Bell ranked last for food quality among limited-service Mexican restaurants, coming in after Del Taco Restaurants and Taco John's as well as fast-casual rivals Chipotle and Qdoba. It also had the lowest cleanliness and service scores.
Where it didn't come in dead last: value and craveability industry-speak for fatty, salty, sugary food.
"I don't think Taco Bell is going to Chipotle-style food," said Peter Saleh, an analyst at BTIG in New York. "The core of what Taco Bell does has to continue to be value, new product news and interesting new items."
Back in the Fishbowl, Prince keeps his eyes on the Twitter screen.
The room looks like a 20-something's dream, with cushy couches and chairs, pop art on the wall and even a cooler stocked with Heineken. Perfect for a key Taco Bell customer the 25-year-old dude-bro, hankering for a late-night Cheese Pull.
"When you're 16, you want to be 25, and when you're 60, you want to be 25," Prince said. "No matter how old you are, you want to be 25."
More Quesalupa tweets came across the screen. Prince was watching.
COPENHAGEN, denmark Lise Ramslog was out for a barefoot amble on the warm day last September that Europes refugee crisis came to her remote village in southern Denmark.
Ramslog, 70, had planned a simple stroll. What she found in her quiet, coastal town were hundreds of exhausted asylum seekers who had arrived on the ferry from Germany only to be stranded without access to public transportation. Some had begun to walk along the highway in desperation.
Ramslog decided on the spot that she would help: She ended up giving two young couples, a small child and a newborn baby a 120-mile ride in her cramped sedan to their destination in Sweden. When we crossed the border, they rejoiced and cried, she recalled.
In another context, Ramslog might be known as a good Samaritan.
But the Danish government has a different term for her: convicted human smuggler.
The decision by authorities to prosecute Ramslog and to charge hundreds of other Danish citizens with a similar crime is to many here just the latest evidence of a society that, when faced with an unparalleled influx of migrants and refugees, has taken a nasty turn.
In that respect, Denmark has company: Across Europe, a once-tender embrace of those fleeing conflicts on the continents doorstep has evolved into an uncompromising rejection.
Last week, authorities in Greece began sending new arrivals back across the sea to Turkey, as part of a policy intended to permanently close the path by which more than 1 million people sought sanctuary last year.
But as Europe walls itself off, the continent is left to reckon with whats become of its long-cherished humanitarian beliefs. And to many in Denmark, the chasm between reputation and reality looks particularly gaping.
Were losing respect for the values upon which we built our country and our European Union, said Andreas Kamm, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council. Its becoming very hard to defend human rights.
This Scandinavian nation of compulsively friendly people is celebrated by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as a social-welfare utopia, one that was recently judged the worlds happiest place. Ranking high in the countrys pantheon of heroes are those who protected Jews during the Holocaust.
But when it has come to those fleeing 21st-century conflicts on Europes doorstep, Denmark has gone into overdrive to broadcast its hostility. While Germany continues to welcome asylum seekers, and other European countries such as Sweden held their doors open for as long as they could, Denmark has taken a hard line almost from the beginning.
The government slashed refugees benefits, then advertised the cuts in Lebanese newspapers. It has enabled police to confiscate refugees valuables. And authorities have made it far more difficult for those already here to reunite with their families, upping the wait time to three years from one.
Now ordinary Danes are getting caught up in the crackdown, punished for what many saw as a good deed.
Im proud of what I did and will never regret having done it, Ramslog said, her blue eyes welling with tears. But I dont want to be known as a criminal.
Yet thats exactly what she is, after a conviction in March. And according to the far-right party that holds the balance of power in the Danish Parliament, its what she deserves.
These people broke the law, said Peter Kofod Poulsen, a recently elected member of Parliament from the anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party. Human smuggling is not all right not if its done by the train company and not if its done by private individuals.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Amid a maze of car repair shops in Haitis gritty capital, Andre Eugene pitches a shredded tire he found to the top of a towering sculpture he built out of rusty engine parts, bed springs and other cast-off junk.
This is what I do: I work with the garbage of the world, says Eugene, assessing the largest sculpture displayed at the entrance of his studio and open-air museum off a crumbling street cutting through some of Port-au-Princes poorest neighborhoods.
The Haitian sculptor is a founding member of Atis Rezistans, a shifting collective of artists who recycle whatever useful scraps they can find to give a raw, physical shape to the spiritual world of Voodoo, or Vodou as the religion is known by Haitians, and weigh in on the countrys chronic political and economic troubles.
Though Haitis established galleries have been slow to warm to the scrap sculptors, the artisans working with recycled materials have been embraced by a number of international art connoisseurs and academics.
Over the last decade, the work of Atis Rezistans has been exhibited in cities such as Paris, London and Los Angeles. There are sculptures included in the permanent collections of museums, including the Frost Art Museum in Miami.
Haitian art has long had a reputation for imaginative richness, and wealthy international collectors including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and moviemaker Jonathan Demme sought out self-taught painters colorfully evoking the everyday lives of Haitians or depicting dreamlike scenes. And even though found-object creations have been part of the poor countrys art for decades, experts say there has been nothing like the in-your-face works of Atis Rezistans.
Atis Rezistans takes an old practice in new directions, expanding the range of materials used and offering stunning new meanings for objects found in everyday life, said Marcus Rediker, a collector of Haitian art and a professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh.
The materials that form the sharp-edged sculptures include automotive fragments, carved wood pieces, broken TVs, discarded toys and even real human skulls collected at a mausoleum where bones were scattered by grave robbers.
Many of their artworks are a nod to Baron Samedi, the Vodou god of the dead, and his rambunctious offspring, Gede. Others offer a kaleidoscope of jarring images out of a Mad Max movie: faces with spikes; masked figures resembling shrouded corpses; broken baby dolls fused with computer motherboards.
But its not all darkness. Theres plenty of evidence of playfulness and irreverent theatricality, such as a skull-topped figure with a stethoscope, snake sculptures with scales of inlaid bottle caps and much sexual imagery.
Perhaps their most acclaimed collaborative creation has been a mashup of high art-meets-developing world called the Ghetto Biennale. Every two years, international artists come to the Grand Rue neighborhood in a kind of cross-cultural festival that leaves the door open for just about anything.
The Ghetto Biennale takes a form developed for European art fairs and radically subverts it, according to Anthony Bogues, a Brown University professor who co-curated a 2011 exhibition of Haitian art at the Providence, R.I., school.
Art for them is not about the elite but rather recognizing that art is a language in which Haiti speaks to itself and the world, Bogues said of Atis Rezistans.
Collaborations with overseas artists who come to Haiti have given younger members of the collective chances to tap into art networks across the globe, while international artists are stimulated by the Haitian groups creative process.
Their philosophy to turn trash into art, thus something seemingly worthless into something valuable, has inspired me, said Alice Smeets, a Belgian artist who collaborated with members of Atis Rezistans to create staged photographs in Haitian slums that depict figures from tarot cards.
Eugene hopes that the praise gathered for the group he founded with Celeur Jean-Herard, who has since left the collective, can now translate into enough earnings to upgrade his yards musty museum and improve the lives of members.
He calls Atis Rezistans a social movement that should expand opportunities for its artists.
I dont want to be famous, Eugene said in his rain-slicked concrete yard in the poor neighborhood, shortly after returning to Haiti from an exhibit of a major piece in Milan. Step by step, I am looking to make money so we can improve our situation here.
ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump once again turned up the heat on the party's national committee before his home state of New York holds its primary Tuesday.
Speaking to a crowd of several thousand in Syracuse on Saturday morning, Trump predicted a "rough July," again sounding off against the process from which the party's choose its nominee. He also issued a blunt warning if the "rigged system" wasn't changed.
"You better straighten out the system because the people want their vote," said Trump. "The people want to vote, and they want to be represented properly."
RNC chair Reince Preibus responded to some of Trump's frequent complaints this week, saying it was the responsibility of the campaigns to understand the rules.
Nomination process known for a year + beyond. It's the responsibility of the campaigns to understand it. Complaints now? Give us all a break Reince Priebus (@Reince) April 13, 2016
Voting began Saturday in Wyoming, where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz looked to take much of the delegates available. Trump's campaign failed to provide a full slate of names for delegates, only giving six out of a possible 14.
Back in New York, where Trump aims to receive 50 percent of the vote in as many congressional districts as possible in order to block his rivals from gaining any delegates, he reminded the crowd he's just like them.
"I love being with you people," he said. "I have that same beautiful little twang as you do."
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Very vocal Zanu PF youth member Fidelis Fengu has expressed reservations and doubts that the deals which the Chinese offer to Zimbabwe are genuine.He said he maintains that he love Zimbabwe and believe the Chinese are not sincere in their dealings with "us a nation.""They offer sweet deals to Mozambique and Angola among others , and we get deals that really leave us on our knees rather than on our feet," Fengusaid."If China is really a true friend then they should promote technology transfer , and help decrease production costs in Zimbabwe , and promote thevalue addition principle enshrined in ZIMASSET (do we still talk about that document ?)"He asked if China was really promoting development in Zimbabwe or are they stifling development.
FRESNO, Calif., April 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gerawan family today released the following statement in response to the April 15, 2016 decision by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board to set aside a November 5, 2013 decertification election at Gerawan Farming:
The Board is spending over $10 million taxpayer dollars to reach this decision to disenfranchise farmworkers from their legal right to vote on whether or not to decertify a union that failed to represent them. That amounts to spending more than $4,000 to destroy each ballot. This unjust and undemocratic decision disrespects the wishes of thousands of employees who asked for a basic right the right to vote.
The Board did not find that Gerawan instigated this employee-led campaign to oust the UFW. It did not hold that the election the Board ordered and supervised was flawed. Yet the Board concludes that "it is impossible to know whether the signatures gathered in support of the decertification petition represented the workers' true sentiments." On that basis and two and a half years after ordering that election the Board decided to set aside the results, and to destroy the ballots. Gerawan believes that these ballots reflect the "true sentiments" of the employees, the majority of whom petitioned for this election.
Thousands of workers expressed their "true sentiments" when they protested, picketed, and walked off the job the first time the Board refused to hold an election. Hundreds of workers went to Sacramento to plead their desire for a vote to the Board and to the Governor.
The Board is required to presume that secret ballots are the true measure of employee sentiments. That is the essence of labor democracy. The California Constitution guarantees the right to vote and the right to have that vote counted "in an election in accordance with the laws of this State." The Board's decision violates that constitutional right.
The Board's Chairman, William Gould, says that this case does not present "new issues that are different fromthousands of [other] cases." We disagree. This case is profoundly different for reasons that the Board ignored. Except for the 2013 election whose ballots the Board has decided should be destroyed, there has not been an election at Gerawan for over a quarter-century. Ninety-eight percent of our current employees were not around at that time; some had not even been born yet. During the union's inexplicable absence, there was no reason for the employees to exercise their right to oust the UFW, because the employees did not even know the union held dominion over them. The Board states that it does not "ignore the fact" that the employees began this decertification campaign. The Board then disregards how its own decisions to impose a forced union contract on the employees started this campaign.
Chairman Gould states that Gerawan's "rejection of its obligation to bargainexplains all too well what [this case] is about." Gerawan did not refuse to bargain with the UFW. It has never refused to bargain, and the Board did not hold that Gerawan refused to bargain. The chairman's misstatement of the facts "explains all too well" the extent to which the Board lost sight of the law and even the basic facts of this case.
The Board accuses Gerawan of becoming a "benevolent champion of its employee's [sic] rights." This, says Chairman Gould, is something the Board "cannot permit." Gerawan believes that a different kind of paternalism is at work here.
Despite Gerawan's long history of paying the industry's highest wages and a close relationship with the family company's employees, the Board claims that it is entitled to "suspicion" as to the motives of Gerawan. But the workers have expressed their suspicion of the motives of this Board, its staff, and the UFW. The agency and union fought this election, and opposed every effort to question the UFW's legitimacy as the workers' representative.
In a speech in January, Chairman Gould recognized that union organizing in the fields is "moribund" and "has completely disappeared" and "diminished to the point of non-existence!" He said that since he "been Chairman there has not been one single representation petition filed under a statute which requires certification through a petition in order for a union to be recognized!" Despite that obvious lack of worker interest to join the union, in his decision to destroy the Gerawan employees' ballots, Chairman Gould claims to be unsure of worker sentiments.
In its decision to destroy the ballots, the Board ignores the desires of workers to determine their own economic future. Chairman Gould justifies the Board's power to trump worker rights. He insinuates that Gerawan's employees have become "servile pawns" of "masters," subjugated to a "tyranny" of their employer. He frames the issue as a parable to the "storm clouds" that "gathered so ominously" in Nazi Germany. He cloaks his decision in the language of democracy, in order to destroy a democratic right.
Gerawan shall appeal this ruling in a court of law. We look forward to our day in court.
Gerawan is confident that this undemocratic decision will not stand. We welcome a new election supervised by Chairman Gould himself. We truly want the workers to have a say since the last time they were asked their opinion was in 1990.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160416/356187LOGOPhoto - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150515/216285Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150515/216284
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/california-ag-labor-board-grants-ufws-request-to-void-decertification-election-and-destroy-employee-ballots-300252620.html
SOURCE Gerawan Farming
LA HABRA, CA, April 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - The La Habra community was revitalized today thanks to a new playground built at Montwood Park. In less than eight hours, more than 200 volunteers from Foresters FinancialTM, the City of La Habra, and non-profit KaBOOM! created the new play space, which will serve more than 1,493 children and their families in the local community for years to come.
"We believe in enriching lives and building strong communities that's our purpose," said Tony Garcia, President and CEO, Foresters Financial. "Playgrounds are important to communities, providing a public space where children can play safely, families can spend quality time and the community can come together. An investment in a playground is an investment in community, and we are happy to provide the La Habra community with a place that families can enjoy for years to come."
The design for the new playground is based on drawings created by neighborhood children at a special Design Day event held in February when community members met with organizers from KaBOOM! and Foresters Financial to design their dream playground. The drawings inspired the final playground design.
Foresters Financial, an international financial services provider, helps families reach their financial goals, protect themselves and make a lasting difference in their communities, all at the same time. This year, Foresters and KaBOOM! are proudly celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their partnership. Since 2006, Foresters has invested more than $11.5 million with KaBOOM! to build over 130 playgrounds including four in La Habra - across the US and Canada by the end of 2016. Over their 15-year lifespan, these playgrounds will provide more than 4.5 million children and their families with an opportunity to spend quality time together and enhance family well-being.
"KaBOOM! and Foresters have been great partners of the City and we are glad they have chosen to invest in our community once again," said David DeLeon, Recreation Manager for the City of La Habra. "Montwood Park serves thousands of kids each year and that is pretty remarkable for a 0.6 acre park. We know the new playground will provide a much needed improvement and further reinforce that Montwood Park is a safe place for kids to play."
Green spaces and safe play structures where children and families can enjoy and spend time together are sparse in many high density communities. Playing outdoors is an important part of every child's healthy development and the creation of this new playground will allow thousands of children to play safely and be active in their community.
Foresters Financial is a KaBOOM! Founding Partner and National Partner. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has been dedicated to the bold goal of ensuring that all children get the balance of active play they need to become healthy and successful adults because #playmatters.
About Community PartnerLa Habra is in the Northern part of Orange County, located at the border between Los Angeles and Orange Counties; it encompasses approximately 7.2 square miles and a population of 62,000 people. Though it is a small community, there are numerous large and mid-sized corporate businesses in the area, with CVS Health being the largest employer with more than 1,000 employees. The city's local economic growth and development is of great importance among the community leadership, and successful focus has been placed on attracting new businesses and residential development tracts. Our motto is that we are a "Caring Community."
The Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) is a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) healthcare public charity, with the mission of empowering people to better health. IHA accomplishes its mission by hosting a national Annual Health Literacy Conference for healthcare professionals; publishing the easy to read, easy to use 'What To Do For Health' book series; and consulting on health literacy communication solutions. Locally, IHA administers the La Habra Family Resource Center, and is a leader of Covered OC, a collaborative of agencies advocating for and enrolling consumers in healthcare coverage in Orange County, California. For more information about IHA's products and services, please visit www.iha4health.org
The La Habra Family Resource Center provides a complete family-centered support system that works with community resources to address the health, emotional, social, and academic needs of children and their families.
ForestersForesters Financial is an international financial services provider with more than three million clients and members in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. We provide life insurance, savings, retirement and investment solutions that help families achieve their financial goals and make a lasting difference in their lives and communities. For over 140 years, Foresters Financial has built a foundation of financial strength and a commitment of giving back to our clients and members and the communities where they live. For more information, visit foresters.com.
Foresters Financial and Foresters are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries. 413565A US (04/16)
KaBOOM!KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to bringing balanced and active play into the daily lives of all kids, particularly those growing up in poverty in America. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has collaborated with partners to build, open or improve nearly 16,000 playgrounds, engaged more than one million volunteers and served 7.4 million children. KaBOOM! creates great places to play, inspires communities to promote and support play, and works to drive the national discussion about the importance of play in fostering healthy lives and communities. To learn why #playmatters: visit kaboom.org or join the conversation at twitter.com/kaboom or facebook.com/kaboom.
SOURCE Foresters
Brooklyn, NY (PRWEB) April 17, 2016
Stamford Uniform and Linen, a top-rated linen service operating in New York City including Brooklyn, is proud to announce a significant upgrade to its informational page on linen services. Many New York City businesses, including those in boroughs such as Brooklyn or Manhattan, are not aware that they can be serviced by a Connecticut-based business. However, the reality is that the cost structure is cheaper outside of New York City, and Stamford Uniform's unique 'truck in / truck out' model makes it not only cost but also quality-competitive to the big chains.Brooklyn Linen Service
"We are so popular in Brooklyn these days that hardly a day goes by without an in-bound call to us from a Brooklyn restaurant owner who is curious but skeptical of our quality linen services," explained Paul McDonald, CEO of Stamford Uniform and Linen. "However, we cheerfully explain that, yes, we are located outside of New York City in Stamford, CT, but yes, we service many Brooklyn establishments with our 'truck in / truck out' service. Our upgrade to our linen services page will help them discover this fact online."
To view the newly updated linen services page please visit http://www.stamfordlinen.com/linen-service/. Brooklyn-specific businesses can also browse a Brooklyn page at http://www.stamfordlinen.com/Brooklyn-NY/.
Unique 'Truck in, Truck out' Service Concept in Linen
Many local Brooklyn or other NYC businesses mistakenly believe that they need a linen service that is located in the same borough. However, as rents have risen dramatically in NYC and in Brooklyn, the reality is that it is not cost-competitive to locate a commercial laundry in the borough. Stamford Uniform and Linen, long known as the top-rated uniform and linen service in Connecticut, brainstormed this unique concept of 'truck in / truck out' service. Each morning their trucks come into New York City, so early as to 'beat traffic.' They make very early deliveries to Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants, long before the rush hour. In this way, NYC businesses can avail themselves of the superior concept: better service at cheaper cost. Stamford Uniform and Linen even provides a no cost quote analysis. Owner Paul McDonald will sit down by the business owner and explain, line by line, their current linen or uniform contract. This can be very eye-opening as many business owners do not realize how expensive the services can be, and yet how poor the quality can be as provided by big national uniform rental and linen service companies. After a few weeks of trial service from Stamford Uniform, these Brooklyn and Manhattan clients rarely go back.
About Stamford Uniform and Linen
Stamford Uniform and Linen is a top-rated commercial delivery service. Stamford Uniform and Linen offers pickup and delivery service for the greater New York City area. Locations available include Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. As opposed to a traditional uniform supply company, the company 'rents' uniforms or linens making it easier than ever for small businesses. Stamford Uniform is available to businesses looking for restaurant uniforms for chefs, cooking staff, wait staff and bartenders. Restaurant table linens and hotel linens are also available. To contact the best uniform and linen supply service, go to the website.
Web. http://www.stamfordlinen.com/
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/linen-services/brooklyn-ny/prweb13291111.htm
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/16/16 -- Note to editors: There is a photo associated with this press release.
90% of Syrian refugees have found permanent homes in the Lower Mainland. Today, United Way of the Lower Mainland welcomed them home at four United for Refugees welcome lunches.
These grassroots events were held in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey and Vancouver at community schools. Community agencies set up information tables, volunteers staffed the lunch and activities, and new Canadians enjoyed a welcoming experience to our community. Altogether 800 people attended the lunches.
"United Way of the Lower Mainland's vision is a healthy, caring, inclusive community for everybody," said Michael McKnight, President & CEO, United Way of the Lower Mainland. "We are so proud of how our community has rallied together, has opened its arms and doors and continues to welcome our new neighbours to their new home."
United Way of the Lower Mainland has a long history of helping refugee families settle and integrate in the Lower Mainland. In 2016, UWLM will be investing $2.8 million into programs and services to help refugees and immigrants from around the world. This includes programs designed specifically for Syrian families such as:
-- a drop-in program for Syrian refugee families through the Early Years Refugee program -- mental health support programming including eight 5-week group sessions for Syrian adults and children delivered through DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society -- art and play therapy groups for Syrian families with children under the age of 12 in Burnaby through MOSAIC
Recently, United Way launched an urgent fundraising appeal United for Refugees, to help Syrian children and families settle here in our community. To date, $175,000 has been raised. To participate and make a donation, go to www.uwlm.ca/refugees.
Fast Facts
-- United Way of the Lower Mainland (UWLM) will invest $2.8 million in 2016 to fund community agencies delivering frontline services to refugees and new immigrants including: -- Immigrant Services Society of BC -- MOSAIC -- DIVERSEcity -- Options Community Services Society -- SHARE -- Programs we support for children include: -- Early Years Refugee Program supports refugee families with young children in Burnaby, Langley, Richmond, Surrey, Tri-Cities and Vancouver -- Community school after school programs -- Burnaby Family Life's African children's homework club -- Friends of Simon tutoring program -- ISS Reaching for Success program in the Tri-Cities -- SHARE's Schools and Families Together program in Coquitlam -- Umoja's after school program for immigrant and refugee children in Surrey -- From November 4, 2015 to March 18, 2016, 1661 Syrian government assisted refugees have settled in B.C. -- Almost 1 in 4 is under the age of 6. -- 60% are under the age of 18.(i) -- Over 90% are now in permanent housing in 19 different communities across BC with the highest concentration in these Lower Mainland cities: -- Surrey - 55% -- Coquitlam - 15% -- Burnaby and Vancouver - 7% each -- Delta - 6%(i) -- 12 million Syrians have fled their homes because of conflict. Half of them are children.(i)
((i)Source: Immigrant Services Society of BC website http://www.issbc.org/.)
To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Syrian-family-at-United-Way-event-in-Vancouver.jpg
Contacts: Jennifer Young United Way of the Lower Mainland 604-309-3937 [email protected]
Source: United Way of the Lower Mainland
French President Francois Hollande and Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam (L) review the honor guards at the government palace in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, April 16, 2016. REUTERS/Wael Hamzeh/Pool
By John Davison
BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande said on Saturday that France would provide immediate additional military aid to Lebanon, and urged politicians to end a long-running crisis by electing a president as soon as possible.
Hollande also said he had decided to step up assistance for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, giving 50 million euros this year and 100 million euros over the next three years to cope with the crisis. Lebanon hosts more than 1 million registered Syrian refugees, a quarter of its population.
Hollande's Beirut visit, the first stop on a Middle East tour, came weeks after Saudi Arabia cut $3 billion of military aid to Lebanon, where violence has repeatedly spilled over from the Syrian war since it began in 2011.
"We will work to provide immediate assistance to strengthen the military capability of Lebanon, specifically to combat terrorism but also to confront other threats," he said after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam.
He said France's defense minister, who traveled with him, would assess the "material means that can be put at Lebanon's disposal to ensure its security", without giving further details.
The Lebanese military has recently received additional support from both the United States and Britain as it seeks to defend the porous border with Syria. The army is carefully balanced among the country's sectarian groups and is widely seen as the backbone of the weak Lebanese state.
Saudi Arabia decided to cut aid to the Lebanese army after the Beirut government failed to condemn an attack on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January which was prompted by the Saudi execution of a Shi'ite cleric.
Riyadh is concerned at the influence wielded by Shi'ite Hezbollah over Lebanese government, and has questioned the Lebanese military's independence from the Iranian-backed group.
Hezbollah is part of a government grouping all Lebanon's main political parties and headed by Prime Minister Salam. The government is struggling to take even basic decisions, including over rubbish disposal.
Political rivalries exacerbated by tensions in the wider region have left Lebanon without a president for almost two years. The position is reserved for a Maronite Christian.
Hollande urged politicians to elect a president as soon as possible, saying it was in the country's and the region's interests to ensure the post was filled. "The answer to that is not in my hands. It is up to you to," he said.
(Reporting by John Davison)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen at the IMF headquarters building during the 2013 Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, April 18, 2013. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique has no hidden loans and accusations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it had borrowed $1 billion more than previously disclosed were the result of confusion, the country's finance minister has said.
The IMF canceled a planned trip to Mozambique this week after announcing on Friday that it believed the southern African country had concealed borrowing for its defense sector from Credit Suisse and Russia VT Bank.
The IMF, which last year agreed to loan Mozambique $286 million to help cushion its economy following deep declines in commodity prices, said the undeclared loans had changed its assessment of Mozambique's macroeconomic outlook.
Finance Minister Adrian Malian was quoted by the state news agency on Sunday saying the country had no hidden loans.
There was some confusion which has ended up creating problems for Mozambique groundlessly," he said.
"The international community will realize that, firstly, Mozambique is a country that has never failed to pay, and secondly ... we honor our commitments, he added.
The IMF's allegations will likely damage Mozambique's efforts to rebuild its reputation after a $850 million bond launched in 2012 to start state tuna-fishing company Ematum was found to be mostly for defense spending.
Bond holders have since accepted a deal by the Mozambique government to swap the debt for sovereign notes.
Mozambique is close to agreeing deals that would unlock huge offshore gas reserves and could transform one of the world's poorest countries into a major gas exporter and a promising frontier investment hub.
(Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
By David French
DUBAI (Reuters) - Two major Omani state-owned oil companies are in negotiations regarding loan facilities worth a combined $4.35 billion, sources aware of the matter said on Sunday, as the duo turn to bank markets for finance in the wake of lower oil prices.
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), majority-owned by Oman but with stakes held by Royal Dutch Shell , Total and Partex Oil and Gas, is seeking a $2.5 billion loan to fund its projects, two sources aware of the matter said.
Meanwhile, state energy investment firm Oman Oil Company has contacted banks about amending the terms of an existing $1.85 billion loan originally signed in September 2014, primarily aimed at increasing the length of the facility, according to one of the two sources, plus two further sources.
Oman Oil declined to comment, while PDO didn't respond to a request for comment. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public.
The continuation of the lower oil prices environment is stretching state finances in Gulf countries, with Oman in particular feeling the squeeze as it lacks the huge fiscal reserves of some of its neighbors.
In the year to November 2015, Oman's budget deficit was 4.07 billion rials ($10.57 billion), compared with a 233.4 million rial surplus a year earlier, according to the latest official data.
This situation is forcing state-owned companies which had traditionally relied on the Omani government for funding to turn to international markets.
Minister of Oil and Gas Mohammad bin Hamad al-Rumhy told reporters in February that PDO will in future borrow abroad if it needs to finance projects rather than ask for more funds from its shareholders.
Meanwhile, Oman Oil is already speaking with banks about raising a $1 billion loan for its exploration and production subsidiary, its chief executive told Reuters last month.
The $1.85 billion loan which Oman Oil is seeking to revise was its first borrowing from international loan markets and was supported by 16 banks, according to a statement at the time.
PDO is the sultanate's top oil and gas exploration and production company, accounting for 70 percent of the crude oil production and nearly all of the country's natural gas supply, according to its website.
(Additional Reporting by Fatma Alarimi in Muscat; Editing by Andrew Bolton)
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Mthwakazi Republic Party has advised people of Mthwakazi that 18 April and independence day for Zimbabwe is just another day in Mthwakazi Calendar to fight on for the Restoration of our State.Party's spokesperson Mbonisi Gumbo said it's not worth it, to help Zimbabwe Celebrate its Independence while they continue to suppress and oppress us."For the record Mthwakazi State was dismantled by the BSAP in 1893 after the war that saw our King Lobengula disappearing until today, it has never been restored," he said. "After that we were bundled together with Mashonaland without our consent as Matabeleland/Mthwakazi to create Rhodesia which was later changed to current day Zimbabwe."He said over the past 123 years Mthwakazi people have not known peace in their Life time."These are the people who have witnessed and survived two unprovoked Genocides meant to wipe them out of the face of this earth, first by the White Colonialists and now most recently by our fellow black men all of them had the same motivation which is to destroy this Great Nation called Mthwakazi," he said. "But God refused up to now that he has even raised us the younger generation to correct all this nonsense, rebuild the fallen Walls of Mthwakazi in our Life time and get Mthwakazi working again. We are peace loving people, God created us for a purpose, we are Mthwakazi people for a purpose, we formed MRP for a purpose, God allowed it to grow this far for a purpose, God allowed Zimbabweans to fight among themselves while we close the ranks uniting towards the Restoration of our State for a purpose."Gumbo said Mthwakazi Agenda has never been so real and seemingly achievable like it is now."Those who created the 1979 Grand Plan with the sole purpose of wiping out Ndebeles are today fighting among themselves, we promise them that they are in for a big shock of their lives. Because we shall defeat them, we shall defeat their Satanic and Evil Grand Plan against us. This is the time Mthwakazi to Unite and speak with one voice as we march forward to our Independence forward ever and backward never," he said."There is not a single motivation, no good reason why we should celebrate Independence Day in Mthwakazi when we are yet to get our own. We acknowledge that our Elders who came before us fought for Independence, but we say the struggle continues because they didn't achieve the goal they fought for. We understand they fought for Equality, peace, one man one vote, Respect of Human Rights, fair distribution of National resources, employment for ALL, education for ALL, and Development in all areas of the Country without fear or favor among other things."He said they also understand that their War vets didn't fight for Tribalism, nepotism, self-enrichment, regionalism/marginalization of Mthwakazi, corruption, Shona Supremacy and Zanunisation of the economy and country at large."Zanu PF 1979 grand plan must fall, nepotism must fall, corruption must fall, Shona Supremacy must fall, and Rule by Conquest must fall. Mthwakazi Restoration Agenda must win, Peace and justice in our life time must be our priority," he said."Lastly but not least Mthwakazi lets be united and remain focused, as you might have seen it we are under siege from our neighbor Zimbabwe and if we are not careful we will lose the battle, now is the time not to see South Africa and or the rest of Diaspora as a best option for greener pastures, because the more you leave the more Zimbabweans come to occupy your space and it will be difficult to re occupy that space lets fight for what rightfully belongs to us Mthwakazi is our Fore Fathers Land and it is the only home we can fight for."
By Jarni Blakkarly
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The head of Papua New Guinea's police anti-corruption unit has been sacked after arresting several high-profile figures close to the government, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The head of the police National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate, Matthew Damaru, was served a suspension notice at his house on Saturday morning, the ABC reported.
Officers from his unit last week arrested the attorney general and a Supreme Court judge on charges of corruption. A lawyer working for Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was also arrested on charges of perverting the course of justice.
"It has been a very notable week of arrests. There has been an upping of the ante and ... a very timely response," Associate Professor Sinclair Dinnen of the Australian National University said.
"This unit has sought to carry out investigations involving these very prominent people and suspending the head of that unit, that will severely affect the ability to do it's work."
Papua New Guinea ranks 139 of 167 countries in Transparency International's global corruption perception index.
(Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Shabnam Dastgheib was shocked by antenatal class advice while pregnant with Zhaaleh, now a month old.
Hospital bosses are investigating a staff member who handed out "dangerous" advice to pregnant women.
Waitemata District Health Board is trying to track down expectant parents who attended the publicly-funded antenatal classes at Waitakere Hospital.
Lesson handouts advised women to take castor oil or acupuncture to bring on labour and compared medical induction to forcing a butterfly out of its cocoon early. "A 'helped out' butterfly may never fly," it reads.
READ MORE:
* Editorial: No mum induces as a lifestyle choice, popping out baby before cocktails
* Bad vaccine advice given to expectant mums
* East Auckland antenatal funding cut
* Christchurch Parents Centre classes switches to user-pays
There is no scientific evidence behind these claims and some scientific studies find castor oil can be dangerous as it causes distress to the baby.
Just two benefits of induction were listed: that it brought on labour and pointedly that it enabled women to plan their labour around their social calendar. It identified seven risks, but it did not acknowledge health and safety benefits to the mother and baby.
Pregnant women were told medically monitoring the fetal heartbeat during birth was harmful, when in fact this can be a life-saving measure.
SUPPLIED A brochure handed out to expecting mothers at hospitals run by Waitemata District Health Board.
The advice caused one expectant mum to drop out of the class after one lesson because she said the course was one woman's opinion being pushed on to a group of pregnant women.
Waitemata DHB hospital services director Cath Cronin said the antenatal handouts given out at its class were not approved and did not meet its standards. "We are investigating how this occurred, as a matter of urgency."
Expectant parents who attended the course would be contacted and staff were ordered to remove any unsanctioned material immediately.
The materials were produced by an individual staff member and did not go through the required approval process, she said.
"We are extremely disappointed that it appears some expectant mothers and their partners have been given information that falls well short of the DHB's standards and expectations."
The antenatal teacher at the centre of the investigation, Adith Stoneman, hung up when asked for comment.
Action to Improve Maternity spokeswoman Jenn Hooper said the lesson handouts contained dangerous, frightening and scare-mongering advice about life-saving interventions.
Intervention had become a dirty word, she said, which made women who need medical assistance feel guilty. "Women feel like they are failures and they've let their baby down. There's a lot of judgement.
"At the end of the day two-thirds are not realistically going to get the ideal. And we wonder why we have such huge amounts of postnatal depression."
Two-thirds of labours involved interventions, from stitches to emergency caesareans.
Hooper said antenatal lessons were the main source of information for many first-time parents. "There is no regulation to make sure women are fully informed with evidence-based information."
Obstetrician Dr Ian Page said the handouts were "most kindly described as incomplete" and could lead pregnant women to make "less than ideal decisions" about their care.
"It has probably been developed by childbirth educators in isolation, with little or no input from midwifery or obstetrics at DHB level," the chair of the NZ Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said.
"All information should have both the risks and benefits of intervention or non-intervention spelt out in clear, accurate and non-alarmist terms that are easy to understand."
New Zealand College of Midwives midwifery advisor Lesley Dixon said pregnancy education must be evidence-based.
"As maternity professionals, it is so important for us and the women we work alongside, that all information shared is evidenced based. This ensures women can make informed decisions."
District health boards are required to provide free pregnancy and parenting classes either themselves or by contracting the service out to qualified educators. These must be evidence-based and cover a range of topics including pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
But previous reports of parents being advised against vaccinations and given anti-immunisation pamphlets in antenatal classes have led to calls from public health campaigners for greater regulation of pregnancy courses.
There are no national curriculum guidelines.
In Auckland, antenatal lessons are receiving a major overhaul as the district health boards take over and develop an evidence-based curriculum.
This new lesson plan will be introduced at the end of April and eventually cover the whole Auckland region.
Currently, the Waitemata DHB maternity services classes are provided at Waitakere Hospital and in Takapuna.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman could not be reached for comment.
SHABNAM DASTGHEIB: WHY I DROPPED OUT OF ANTENATAL CLASS
I thought antenatal classes would be a helpful and supportive place to learn about giving birth and being a first-time mum.
That was not the case at the class I attended. There was no useful practical information offered that would help a new mum in my opinion. The content was very emotional as opposed to research-based or informative.
The instructor spoke at great length about the drawbacks of medical intervention, the negative effects of having doctors involved in the birthing process and the importance of not taking drugs for pain relief.
We also spoke at length about the importance of healthy eating during pregnancy which is great but most of us were eight or more months pregnant by that point, a bit late to be talking about taking folates and more.
I was surprised to hear the teacher say that medically-monitoring the fetal heartbeat during birth was harmful. I was also surprised to see taking castor oil recommended as a method of induction as I thought there were quite a few side effects and dangers to this old wives' tale. And to hear a number of statistics thrown about with no indication of the research behind them.
For instance we were told that two percent of women couldn't breastfeed while the rest could if they tried hard enough. Where is that number drawn from? I'd love to know, but the teacher couldn't tell me.
I felt the course was mostly one woman's opinions being pushed on a group of pregnant women.
I would have appreciated more objective advice on a woman's options during labour and birth rather than so much judgement against medical interventions which, while not ideal, have a time and place.
Looking back we should have learnt some baby first aid, some tips about recovering post partum and keeping healthy and more about baby's first weeks.
Police said the man was killed after being hit by a train between Factory Rd and Radcliffe Rd in Belfast.
A man has died in Christchurch, after being hit by a train.
Police are investigating the fatal incident, which happened shortly before 3am on Sunday.
In a statement, police said a man was hit by a train at 2:44am on the section of railway track between Factory Rd and Radcliffe Rd in Belfast, north of the city centre.
The train was travelling towards Christchurch.
The 44-year-old was found deceased at the scene.
Police were still working to locate the man's next of kin.
All roads in the area were open and traffic was flowing as usual.
Stokes Valley has had its second aggravated robbery in as many days, in the same block of shops.
The latest robbery comes after the community mobilises against a "spike" in crime including a bag snatch in the same shopping area.
On Sunday morning Nitheesh Radhakrishnan was back at work at NY Court Dairy after two masked males held him up by knifepoint the previous night.
He said the robbery happened at 8pm, when the pair entered the store. One suddenly closed the door behind him, while the other raced across and rushed Radhakrishnan behind the counter.
READ MORE:
* Stokes Valley New World robbed
It was only the second week in the job for the part-time employee and engineering student, and Radhakrishnan said he was initially "planning to act" against the robber behind the counter.
Then, he said, the masked robber brandished an about-30 cm knife at him.
"I thought 'my life is better than this', so just take whatever you want."
The latest incident came after the neighbouring New World was robbed at gunpoint by two men on Thursday in an attack that left two people injured.
On Sunday police confirmed the dairy on Stokes Valley Rd in Lower Hutt was robbed by two masked males.
Acting senior sergeant Mark Scott said police were still hunting the pair.
He said the pair seemed to be quite young, but their faces were covered and they were wearing dark clothing.
Scott said initial descriptions of the two in the dairy robbery did not appear to match CCTV footage of the New World robbers.
"Whether it's related or not, it's something that we can't rule out until we find out who's responsible for both."
Radhakrishnan said on Saturday night the pair worked together to empty the till and fill up a backpack with boxes of cigarettes.
But the door was not closed properly, and a customer approaching the store saw what was happening through the gap.
"She started shouting, and because of that they ran away."
The pair sprinted off in the direction of New World, he said.
The pair had wrapped their faces in "towel-like" material and were wearing hoodies.
The entire incident was over in about two minutes, he said.
Radhakrishnan said both robbers were quite short, and one didn't seem like he could be more than 15.
He said he was "a bit" nervous when he came back to work the next day, kicking off week two in the job.
On Thursday morning, two people were injured in the New World robbery.
Police said a man with his hood up and a bare face waited outside, while another, with a black scarf over his face, went into the supermarket with a firearm.
Hutt City northern ward councillor Gwen McDonald said she called a community meeting last Tuesday, before the latest robberies, to deal with a spike in crime in the hot spot.
It was prompted after a woman had her bag snatched in broad daylight the same block of shops, McDonald said.
"I've seen it before ... this has just been a really bad week, and it highlights we need more police around."
They were now setting up a project group to work alongside young people, with input from them.
The community needed a period of intensive police attention to "break the cycle" of crime in the area, she said.
It's in Des Sayegh's nature to help others, but his work rebuilding cyclone-ravaged Western Australia nearly 40 years ago is helping to kill him.
The 81-year-old Aucklander has just won a confidential payout from Australia for asbestos exposure while working as a cabinet maker and carpenter in 1978 around Nyabing, a tiny township about 300km south-east of Perth.
Last April, his nagging cough was diagnosed as mesothelioma, a fatal cancer of mesothelial cells that line a person's lungs and abdominal cavity, caused by inhaling asbestos fibres.
CHRIS SKELTON/FAIRFAX MEDIA Terminally-ill Des Sayegh has gained some peace of mind because compensation from both sides of the Tasman for asbestos exposure allows him to leave his wife, Ann, in a secure financial position.
"We never wore masks or ear muffs in those days because it was just sort of unheard of you'd have felt a bit of a fool going around with those things on in those days, as stupid as it is now, but that's the way it was then."
READ MORE:
* Asbestos ruling a relief for widows
* Mesothelioma battle for family
* Asbestos fears unlikely to be realised
* New asbestos regulations hit building owners
Nobody knows whether he breathed the killer fibres during his 11 months in Australia or his many decades working in New Zealand's building industry.
Regardless, his asbestos-related disease makes him eligible for compensation on both sides of the Tasman, including a lump sum of about $100,000 from ACC in New Zealand and the Australian out-of-court settlement from the asbestos product's manufacturer, which cannot be named because of a confidentiality clause.
He has unwittingly inhaled asbestos dust over many years while sawing building products containing asbestos, starting when he was an apprentice in the 1950s in Auckland.
At the start of 1978, his then-teenage son, Mark, encouraged his Dad to join him in Western Australia for work, so he moved there with his teenage daughter, Debbie. Within a few months, in March 1978, Cyclone Alby struck, causing massive damage to buildings in the state, creating a surge of demolition and building work.
Eventually, his wife, Ann, and their two younger children joined them in Australia.
Des fears his entire family has been exposed to asbestos because his son worked with him for two years and his family had close contact with him at work plus his work clothes.
"When you come home from work, you could be covered in the stuff. My wife would chuck my clothes in the washing machine and from memory, you could almost see the fibres on the shirts and things like that."
After last year's diagnosis, ACC swiftly offered lump sum compensation and other support, including taxi chits for medical appointments, home help and home equipment for his declining health.
But it was luck Des heard about Australian compensation after his daughter ordered a free copy of the book Surviving Mesothelioma off the internet, not realising an Australian law firm was the sponsor. A few days later, top Australian asbestos lawyer Theodora Ahilas, of Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, contacted him and offered to help him fight his case.
She has assisted a handful of New Zealanders to gain settlements for historic asbestos exposure in Australia, including a dying Wellington man last year, and believes many people and their doctors are unaware they can get compensation across the Tasman.
While the yet-to-be-paid Australian money feels a bitter-sweet win because Des faces death, he wants other sick Kiwis to know they can claim in Australia too if they worked there too.
"There's been an awful lot of people who have gone down without any form of compensation or anything and there's just nothing left for the families, which can be soul-destroying.
"The settlement made me well aware that there's a lot of people who worked in Australia, probably similar situations to myself, and in fairness, they should be able to make a claim and it will certainly make their lives a little bit easier."
ASBESTOS FACTS:
* A long latency period of 20 to 50 years between exposure and disease occurring.
* Diseases include mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer and other lung conditions.
* Those most at risk include those who mined asbestos, or those who processed or used asbestos products, such as building products and pipe lagging. It includes construction workers, builders, carpenters, electricians, pipe fitters, insulation installers and shipbuilders.
* In the past 10 years, ACC has paid out 1644 lump sum payments to sick New Zealanders for asbestos-related diseases, costing $74.5 million.
News / National
by Staff reporter
Government is consolidating Zimbabwe's Independence by building an enduring inheritance for young people and an elaborate strategy to that effect will soon be unveiled, a Cabinet minister has said.War veterans also want a heart-to-heart with the youth and to bequeath their revolutionary spirit to them.Tomorrow Zimbabwe celebrates its 36th Independence Day having implemented land reforms and embarked on the second leg of economic emancipation through a broad empowerment and indigenisation policy.Land and control of other natural resources were central to the liberation war that the black majority in the then Southern Rhodesia won and sealed on April 18, 1980.As such, the 2016 Uhuru celebrations can be read against progression from political to economic independence.Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Patrick Zhuwao told The Sunday Mail that a youth empowerment strategy was in the works.He said the strategy would include input from a wide stakeholder spectrum while feeding from Zim-Asset and the African Union's youth investment theme for 2017."On the economic front, we have set the foundation for the economic liberation of Zimbabwe. However, having enunciated all of those successes, we need to then prepare for the future and this really touches on our responsibility as a ministry."The future revolves around and belongs to the youth, and we have a specific obligation to ensure we provide and put in place mechanisms that will allow young people to prosper."In 2015, the ministry conducted a study into youth investment, and recommendations on how Government can assist have been made. This process comes as we are preparing for next year's African Union theme which talks to harnessing demographic dividend through investment in youth."Consequently, we have embarked on a process, as a ministry, of developing a youth empowerment strategy for making that investment. The strategy seeks to address economic empowerment, social engagement and political participation."Minister Zhuwao also said, "Fulfilment of economic empowerment is not the end of our revolution. The goals of our revolution is to go further towards strengthening the future of Zimbabwe as a nation and all its citizens."That strengthening involves making sure that we constantly upgrade and strengthen our political processes which gave rise to our independence. We should build on our social capital, ensuring that we are economically free and abide by the principles of sustainable development."Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Former Political Detainees and Restrictees Brigadier-General (Retired) Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi said the liberation struggle was premised on equality and economic empowerment.Veterans, he said, wanted a heart-to-heart with young people to educate them on loving and defending the country."Now we are pushing the indigenisation policy, which was elaborated by the President a few days ago. Some blacks have shamefully formed political parties to oppose land reform. That mentality is intended to fight what we are trying to achieve."We are now in a second phase of the liberation struggle where we are fighting on the economic front, to free our economy from the tentacles of capitalist imperialism so that we control, have a voice on the markets, and have voice on production, have a voice in all aspects of economic development and growth."That voice is being denied us. It will be fought through corruption, sanctions, hostile media, denigrating our leaders and stigmatising them and opposition political parties that are not nationalistic in outlook."He added: "As war veterans, we are happy that from 2000 to 2002, Government took a deliberate step to acquire and re- distribute the land to indigenous people." To the young generation, let us have a conversation, a dialogue between the generations. We are a generation that remembers, a generation that fought the liberation war and there is a lot to learn from us."And let us have a conversation where we impart to you the spirit that drove us to fight for Zimbabwe and the spirit that has carried us all along to defend this country. A spirit of belonging that is necessary for Zimbabwe to remain Zimbabwe, unique from any other country."
News / National
by Vusumuzi Dube
THE beleaguered National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has come under the spotlight after it has emerged that management hired former workers to operate a goods train that was pulling wagons of imported maize resulting in a derailment in Bindura last week.Sunday News reported that the derailment, sources said, was caused by human error as preliminary indications point to that the enginemen who were hired were no longer familiar with the deteriorating rail system including a virtually non-functioning signal system.The derailment which has been kept under wraps happened in Bindura on Wednesday and involved two wagons. The engineman who was operating the derailed train retired from the company in 2008, it has been learnt.NRZ spokesman Fanuel Masikati confirmed the derailment but refused to shed light on allegations that it was being operated by former employees who were hired to fill the gap after workers downed tools over outstanding salaries."What happened is that the particular train was pulling six wagons of mains, two of the wagons were the ones that totally derailed while a third just partially derailed. We managed to recover all the maize as it was in bags. As for the employment of retired employees I would rather not comment on that," said Masikati.However, sources said the situation irked some Government officials who felt the parastatal's problems were affecting the importation of maize and resulting in delays to distribute maize to the needy people.An employee said the Bindura accident was the third derailment since the workers went on strike following similar accidents in Harare and Gweru a few weeks ago.
Bay of Plenty communications consultancy, Shine PR, has been announced as a finalist in two categories at the 2016 Public Relations of New Zealand (PRINZ) Awards.
Shine PR, established in Rotorua in 2012, is a finalist in the Marketing Communications PR category for its work on the 2015 Crankworx Rotorua mountain-biking festival, while senior consultant Jenha White is also a finalist in the Sally Logan-Milne Young Practitioner of the Year award.
In addition, a cold front moving northwards brings a burst of heavy northwesterly rain to southern Westland today.
There is a possibility that rainfall accumulations could reach warning criteria, for instance 70mm in 12 hours, in the following areas:
AUCKLAND and GREAT BARRIER ISLAND:
Through to this evening, especially in the east. Thunderstorms and localised downpours are also possible.
COROMANDEL PENINSULA:
Through to midnight Sunday. Thunderstorms and localised downpours are also possible.
BAY OF PLENTY west of Whakatane, including ROTORUA:
From late this afternoon until early Monday morning. Thunderstorms and localised downpours are also possible.
BAY OF PLENTY from Whakatane eastwards, including the ranges of
GISBORNE:
From late this evening until mid-morning Monday. Thunderstorms and localised downpours are also possible.
The ranges of WESTLAND south of Franz Josef:
Through to this evening.
Note, the threat of widespread heavy rain in Northland has passed so the Watch for there is lifted.
People are advised to keep up to date with forecasts in case parts of this Watch need to be upgraded to a Warning, or further areas are added.
Out of the past fourth Brigade, 18th Battalion staff sergeant Philip Hobbs.
The jackets an original which you wouldnt think was 70 years old.
May 7, 1945 is a historically significant day. It was VE Day short for Victory in Europe Day. It marks the formal acceptance by World War II allies of Nazi Germanys unconditional surrender.
And when it was over the truly global war and deadliest war in history had cost more than 50 million military and civilian lives.
And 11,700 of those were New Zealanders which was 0.72 of the population.
Thats a fact that wont be lost in Tauranga on May 7-8, with the BOP Military Vehicle Show and VE Day Celebration organised for The Historic Village to mark the anniversary of the end of hostilities.
To bring a little reality, a little authenticity to the event, the WWII Historical Re-enactment Society will march on the village. In full kit of course, but without guns.
No guns because it was the end of the war. Guns had been laid down. The world was at peace again. Moving forward, says Philip.
But theyll be talking and teaching of sacrifices made to preserve our freedoms. Its important future generations understand what grandfathers and great grandfathers did for them, says Philip. When veterans die we dont want their stories dying with them.
And the re-enactment society will be dressed accordingly for VE Day. Itll be May so winter kit. Khaki serge battledress jacket and trousers, says Philip.
Unlike the American soldiers the flash boys of WWII, who had an outstanding walking out dress New Zealand troops were the poor cousins. We just wore the same uniform we fought in, slept in and lived in. We just took off the gaiters we wore round our boots and put on shoes and a tie.
So therell be a mix of uniforms at the show. Some will wear walking out dress and other guys will be in belt order which is belt and webbing. And hats or course- lemon squeezers, side caps and caps for officers. The mood and the time will be captured and as accurately as possible.
A lot of its original, but then shirts wear out, so we wear reproduction shirts.
All this talk about dress codes of the 1940s is appropriate because the public is not just invited to the BOP Military Vehicle Show and VE Day Celebration but is invited to be part of it but arrive in 1940s costume uniform or civvies and win a prize.
Other features of the show include a military vehicle parade, historic films, Jeep rides for the kids, vintage cars and both silver and pipe bands.
The BOP Military Vehicle Show and VE Day Celebration is on May 7-8 at The Historic Village from 9.30am-3pm daily. Entry is free.
News / National
by Staff reporter
HARARE mayor Councillor Bernard Manyenyeni could soon be suspended for flouting council regulations after appointing Mr James Mushore as town clerk without seeking approval from the Local Government Board.And the mayor cannot even count on support from MDC-T as sources say his superiors already want him recalled for "failing to represent party interests".A faction within MDC-T, we understand, has lined up a female councillor (name supplied) as his replacement.Government rescinded Mr Mushore's appointment as town clerk and issued a directive to that effect, but Cllr Manyenyeni allowed the former banker to report for duty.The local authority was supposed to but did not submit a list of candidates to the Local Government Board in line with the Urban Councils Act Chapter (29:15) before the appointing a new town clerk.A prospective town clerk should have at least four years post-qualification local governance experience in middle or senior administration amongst other requirements.A senior official at the Local Government Ministry said: "There have been concerns on why (the mayor) is defying Government directives. If he (Mr Mushore) continues to report for duty, action will have to be taken against the council and this means having the mayor suspended."The question is why are they not waiting for the Local Government Board approval? Why are they so eager to have him assume duty without following procedure?"According to section 54 of Urban Councils Act Chapter (29:15), the Local Government Minister can suspend a mayor in certain circumstances. Cllr Manyenyeni recently received a letter from the Local Government Board nullifying Mr Mushore's appointment."If your office insists on violating the law, which is clearly provided for the individual involved, it shall be liable and accountable both in their official and personal capacities," the letter read.At the same time, some MDC-T councillors officials and officials want the mayor recalled for their own reasons.Sources told this paper that pressure has been mounting on Cllr Manyenyeni since 2015 when a citywide clean-up relocated illegal vendors to official markets.Cllr Manyenyeni sided with central Government's development plans to clean up the city and improve service delivery.This saw some councillors claim the mayor was working with the ruling Zanu-PF and Cllr Manyenyeni said he was aware of the plot to oust him."My political masters are happy with what I am doing. I have no doubt that I am a good ambassador for the party," he said. "At the same time, I am also aware that some people are unhappy with what I am doing. It should be know, however, that most people who complain about my leadership do not know how a city is run."MDC-T spokesperson Mr Obert Gutu tried to downplay the matter."There is nothing like that. Our councillors and the Mayor are very united . . . I can assure you that the Mayor is representing the interests of the party and our leader is very happy with him."On condition of anonymity, a councillor said party leaders felt the mayor was failing them and his fate was being discussed."Manyenyeni has failed and must resign or be removed with immediate effect. Some have been throwing around the name of former Harare Mayor Engineer Elias Mudzuri as a possible replacement."However, the stronger view has been that one of the councillors should take over and represent party interests and restore sanity in the city."Another added, "I'm sure you're aware that not much is being realised from local subscriptions, and most of the party's funding is now coming from our structures in Britain. They are the ones calling the shots and have expressed reservations about Manyenyeni."Most officials and councillors are of the view that he is presiding over chaos. He is also being accused of recruiting his relative to the post of finance director (and) ignoring other councillors. Furthermore, he is accused of violating local government regulations and fastracking the appointment of a town clerk."Harare-based political analyst Mr Alex Rusero said class differences in MDC-T were behind the divisions."It appears the mayor is elitist vis-a-vis most of the councillors, and his cordial working relationship with Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is also a major source of consternation."Many MDC-T councillors were accustomed to hostile relations between the mayor and minister, but there appears to be a very good working relationship between Cllr Manyenyeni and Minister Kasukuwere."
In just a couple of months, exchange student Greta Hallmann will be returning to Berlin, Germany. Her new friend in Floyd, Virginia, Brittany Belcher, is also making plans for the trip.
Brittanys family has been hosting Greta since she arrived in the U.S. in January. Here on a 6-month academic exchange program, Greta has been attending the local high school and learning about the American culture. She has become a part of her host family and close friends with Brittany, who now wants to live in Germany for a year.
Greta, who turns 16 this month, said she didnt know what to expect in American life, and there have been quite a few surprises.
The teenager from Berlin is accustomed to city life, and living in the country has provided a different perspective. I never saw a deer so close to me, Greta said.
In Germany, Greta rides a bike from home to school two miles away. She never rode a school bus until here, Valerie Mills, Brittanys mother, commented, and she took a photo.
It was so American, Greta said.
She was shocked that Brittany (also 16) could drive her around, Mills added. In Germany, you must be 18 before getting a drivers permit.
The exchange program is a first for Brittanys family. Mills said she saw a post on Facebook about the Face the World Foundation, inquired and shortly thereafter the family was asked if they would like to host Greta, who had applied for the program through GLS (German Language School). She and Brittany had their first conversation with Greta on Skype the night before she left Germany.
Greta said she was nervous, but very excited about coming to the U.S.
Brittany and Greta are both sophomores. At Floyd County High School, two of four of Gretas teachers have lived in Germany or have family there, which she appreciated. Greta said she wished she had a full year to spend in the States. Her exchange program only offers a six-month program; if she stayed longer, she would have to repeat a grade in Germany.
Since Greta arrived here in the winter, she has gotten to enjoy snow days. Schools in Germany dont have those holidays, and some of her friends there were jealous, she said.
School is very different in the U.S., Greta added, and so are school lunches, which she has been enjoying.
During her stay, Greta has acquired a taste for American peanut butter, which she tasted for the first time. She also had her first corndog.
Mills said she has also been keeping warm soft cookies coming out of the oven since Greta arrived. I think she could eat them every day. In Germany, everyone is accustomed to hard cookies.
While Greta has been learning about American ways in the U.S., her host family is also learning things about Germany. Brittany has also been inspired to visit there. She hopes to spend six months to a year with Greta and her family if she raises the needed funds.
Ive never flown or been out of the country, Brittany said.
Shes in for a huge adventure, added Mills.
Brittany has chosen not to go through the exchange program for her visit. The cost will be about $3,000 less, but there will be more things she will have to do on her own, including getting her visa and passport. Brittany will need $4,000 for the trip, and she has been doing fundraising with car washes, Avon sales and a GoFundMe account to help her reach the goal. She also works part-time at Hardees in Floyd.
Brittany has two sisters, including a twin, and three brothers, and another one on the way. She is the daughter of Valerie and Schuyler Mills and Travis and Amanda Belcher. Her grandparents are Russell and Joyce Sowers, Kathleen Gallimore Lytton, Butch Belcher and Donna Dulaney and Ash Mills-Epstein. She is the great-granddaughter of Daphine Sowers and the late Warren C. Sowers, Mildred Hylton and the late Victor Hylton, Colene Gallimore and the late Arbie Gallimore and the late Reva Belcher. She has many aunts and uncles, Melissa Sowers Ketih, Sharon Huff, Shawnee Belcher Fenton, Jason and David Belcher and Jennifer Mills.
In Berlin, Brittany will live with Gretas family. Gretas father is an architect, and her mother is a veterinarian. Greta has two brothers, Julius, 17, and Simon, 13.
Living in the city will be a different experience for Brittany and one to which she is looking forward.
Greta and Brittany have become like sisters.
Greta is part of the family and fits right in, Mills said.
At Floyd County High School, Greta has participated in indoor track and tennis. She also takes parkour classes in the community. In Germany, Gretas activities included rowing and orchestra. Brittany also enjoys sports and went to state in cross country and indoor track.
When Greta arrived in the U.S., she didnt know a lot of English, Mills said. We were worried at first, but within three weeks, Greta was speaking the language well.
Brittany will have the same challenge with the German language. Greta has told her a year would give her time to have the German experience, so Brittany is pushing for a years stay.
Its common for exchange friendships to continue on in life, Mills said. Greta will always be her host sister.
Greta said another exchange student told her you feel like you have a second family in a different country.
What makes this exchange experience different is that Brittany will be going back with her new friend. Greta also plans to come back to the United States in two years.
Gretas mother will be flying to the U.S. in June to meet Brittanys family and then take Greta to meet family in Pennsylvania. Were really excited to meet her family, Mills said.
After the Pennsylvania trip, Brittany will meet up with Greta and her mother for the over 4,000 journey to Berlin.
While Greta had a year to plan for her trip, Brittany has only six weeks.
Mills said that the family will miss Brittany, but they know how much the trip means to her. She added that Brittany is self-motivated and once she sets her mind to something, she finds a way to carry it out. She has worked so hard. It is what she really wants to do with her life.
Brittanys Go Fund Me account is: www.gofundme.com/brittanybelcher.
Also, if anyone would like to make a donation and does not want to do so via internet they can mail a check made payable to Brittany Belcher to:
Brittanys Exchange to Germany
c/o Brittany Belcher
218 White Oak Dr. SE
Floyd, VA 24091
Visit her Facebook page for the latest updates at: www.facebook.com/BrittanysExchangeToGermany.
The Saltville Library is one of 119 libraries in Virginia that now has available nature backpacks that patrons can check out to enjoy an educational Virginia State Park experience.
These backpacks are a provided through a partnership of the Library of Virginia, Virginia State Parks and the Science Museum of Virginia. Available to check out, the backpacks will help families learn about nature in their backyard, in a local park, or at one of Virginias 36 state parks. Branch supervisor, Kris Sheets, said, The Saltville Library is excited to participate in this program that will help local children learn more about our natural conservation and recreation areas.
Today children spend less time outdoors and even less immersed in nature-based activities, said Virginia State Parks Director Craig Seaver. These backpacks will provide opportunities for families to venture out to a park.
Each backpack comes with a parking pass that allows the library customer to visit any Virginia State Park at no cost. Backpacks also feature: pocket guides to bugs and slugs, animal tracks, Virginia birds and mammals, and Virginia trees and wildflowers; a port-a-bug field observation container; a Big Foot Leave No Trace Ethics Card; a magnifying lens; a dip net; and laminated sheets with suggested activities designed by both Virginia State Parks and the Science Museum of Virginia.
The program was made possible in part by an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to the Library of Virginia. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nations 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums. Its mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. Its grants, policy development and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- You'd think the guy responsible for cleaning up one of the dirtiest lakes in America would be celebrating.
Not Sam Sage.
Yes, Sage concedes, Onondaga Lake is cleaner than it has been in decades, and yes, his 1988 lawsuit was what forced Onondaga County to spend nearly $700 million to transform the lake from sewer pit to potential swimming hole.
But Sage, described by former Congressman James Walsh as a "gloomy Gus," complains that the cleanup took too long. That state and federal regulators were inflexible, and county officials didn't listen to the people. That the green infrastructure Sage pushed for, and that has won Onondaga County national accolades, has fallen short of expectations.
And that the lake could have been cleaned up for much less than what he estimates is $2 billion, and the extra money could have helped solve environmental problems elsewhere.
"I'm personally somewhat disappointed," said Sage, president of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation and a clean water advocate for decades. "I'm a broad-picture person, and I see the amount of resources that have been spent here when there are more important problems to solve. I don't know how philosophically you reconcile this."
Sage has been an environmentalist since the "Silent Spring" era of the mid-1960s. Born in New York City, Sage grew up in the Adirondacks. His grandfather was a Lake Placid village board member who got motor boats banned from Mirror Lake, Sage said.
Sage, 72, graduated with a chemistry degree from Cornell University in 1965, and pursued but didn't complete a Ph. D. in philosophy. He moved to Syracuse in 1969 to take a temporary research job at Syracuse University.
"I'm still trying to get out," he said.
Sage might have been exactly the kind of advocate a polluted lake needed, said Walsh, elected to Congress the same year Sage filed the lawsuit.
"He's not a rose-colored-glasses kind of guy. He's not a glass-half-full kind of guy," said Walsh, who helped bring $175 million of federal money to the cleanup. "But the Onondaga Lake problems had been kicking around for 60 years. Maybe it took an ornery guy to have the courage to take on the establishment."
Sage took on the establishment when his nascent Atlantic States Legal Foundation, a group still based in an old Victorian house on Syracuse's west side, filed a $50 million lawsuit against Onondaga County. Sage argued that the county was violating the federal Clean Water Act by allowing millions of gallons of raw sewage to pour into Onondaga Lake.
Then-County Executive Nick Pirro fought back, saying the suit could bankrupt the county. Sage held firm, and a federal judge ordered the county to clean up its act. (Pirro did not return repeated phone calls for this story.) Sage won. The county has spent $700 million to reduce bacteria and phosphorous in the lake, and Honeywell is spending about $451 million to remove and seal over toxic chemicals. Millions are also being spent on ancillary cleanups, such as Ley Creek and Bloody Brook.
Tests show the lake is now clean enough for swimming, and the county is studying whether to open a beach. A passel of politicians jumped into the lake last summer to show how clean it was. (Sage wasn't there: "It's not my style.") That would have been unthinkable a few decades ago when a dip in the lake required a tetanus shot.
Onondaga Nation attorney Joe Heath said Sage's 28 years of persistence has paid off for the lake, if not for Sage himself.
"He isn't concerned if a county executive is not going to be pleased with him," said Heath, no stranger himself to clashes with the establishment over the lake cleanup. "He certainly took positions that were difficult and that cost him personally and financially, and he stuck with it in ways that very few people in the 40-some years I've been at this."
Sage has done it on a shoestring. Atlantic States survives on grants and donations, and lost nearly $70,000 in 2013-2014, the most recent data available. That year, the foundation spent $461,000 on legal work. Sage drew a salary of $30,875.
"I've never been in a position where any of the politicians owe me anything, which is good, but it also means you never get anything," he said. "We suffer with almost no resources and we just get by day to day."
He adds wryly: "Maybe it's my martyrdom complex. I don't know."
Sage lives in another Victorian house next door to the foundation office. He doesn't own a car; after his last one died 10 years ago he didn't bother to replace it. (He takes taxis even though the fares are "exorbitant.") He's a vegetarian, mostly because he doesn't like meat. A box of the complete works of Mozart sits on a table near his desk for when he can't get Classic FM WCNY on his radio.
The lawsuit settlement was renegotiated several times, mostly recently in 2009, when current County Executive Joanie Mahoney persuaded the judge to let the county use her Save the Rain project instead of building expensive treatment plants. That never would have happened without Sage, Mahoney said recently.
"This had been dragged out for a long time, and being able to go in front of the federal court with Sam as a partner gave us a lot of credibility and ultimately got us the permission to bring a more balanced approach," Mahoney said.
That 2009 agreement required the county to cut by 95 percent the amount of combined sewage and storm water flowing into the lake. The deadline was 2018, but the county reached the goal four years early.
That 95 percent is based on a complex computer model, though, and Sage wants to see the county use actual data of real-life sewage flows. Tom Rhoads, the director of the treatment plant, says it's nearly impossible to do that because many of the outflows can't easily be measured.
Then figure out a way, Sage insists.
"If you have to rebuild them so you can measure them, then rebuild them and measure them," he said. "You can't just hide behind 'We don't know because we don't know.'"
To abide by the order, the county will end up spending about $700 million to upgrade the treatment plant on the southern end of the lake, separate storm drains and sewers, and build underground storage tanks (referred to as "gray" infrastructure), and projects that keep water from flowing into storm drains, known as "green" infrastructure."
The county's latest annual lake report says that green infrastructure projects, such as the grass on the roof of the OnCenter, have accounted for about 10 percent of the sewage flow reduction since 2009. Even that might be inflated, Sage said, because of political squabbling and cost overruns on "gray" projects," like the 6.5-million gallon storage tank under Armory Square.
"It's not planting trees. It's not doing things with nature," he said. "The things that were going to improve neighborhoods and improve people's lives got caught in the crossfire between the city and county fighting with each other, and a lack of money."
Sage and Atlantic States have filed about 1,000 lawsuits around the country, mostly over the Clean Water Act. (The group's mission is broad: "The protection and restoration of the environment.") He won many cases, but not always friends. When the foundation sued corporate polluters in Indiana in the 1980s, for example, the state's business ombudsman called Atlantic States "carpetbaggers."
Sage helped work on clean water legislation in the 1970s, and he remains involved in energy issues and green economies. He serves as vice president of the International Fund for China's Environment, for which he organizes conferences and speaks at universities in China. He hasn't been there in three years since he was sickened for days by the oppressive smog in Beijing.
Sage said he's glad Onondaga Lake is cleaner than it used to be. Still, the process to get here was cumbersome and weighed down by inflexible federal and state regulations. And he wonders if spending what he estimates to be $2 billion on what he calls "a little natural mud puddle" was the best use of the money.
"You compare that to Lake Ontario, which is a major water supply with a major fishery, and it's totally out of proportion," Sage said. "In this society we have to prioritize what we do with resources, and we don't do a very good job with that."
Sage was not directly involved with the Honeywell portion of the cleanup. He's watched it carefully, though, and says the recent revelation about the failures of the lake bottom seal is cause for concern. Honeywell seems more concerned with its image than the cleanup, he said.
"They don't seem to be looking at what can their real legacy be other than public relations," he said.
And what does he think his legacy will be?
"I don't care," he said. "Everybody else takes credit for cleaning up the lake. It's annoying, but that's life."
Sage said the county "is behaving itself" on the cleanup, but it continues to waste valuable public money and it excludes the public from key decisions. He criticized the $50 million Lakeview Amphitheater built on waste beds on the west shore.
"We built that amphitheater, which is just a waste of money," Sage said. "Whether it slides into the lake eventually or not, I don't care."
In fact, the nature lover in Sage concedes that humans might not be his highest priority.
"I care more about the little critters than I do about people, I guess," he mused. "I don't know."
So Sage isn't the warm teddy bear of the local environmental movement. But even the politicians with whom he clashes say he's one of Central New York's unsung heroes.
"Sam has held people accountable for the worst environmental mess that our region has made," Mahoney said. "There have been thousands of people over the years who complained about the smell in Onondaga Lake and the pollution and the fact that we have this lake in our community that no one wanted to get near. Sam Sage did something about it.
"Now this generation and the ones after it will have an entirely different experience around Onondaga Lake because this man did more than complain."
Contact Glenn Coin: Email | Twitter | Google + | (315) 470-3251
erie_canal_box.jpg
A "New York Canal Corridor'' would encompass Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Tim Rudd, of Syracuse, works for a nonprofit social policy research organization and is an expert in municipal finance. He is a graduate of Henninger High School, Syracuse University and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Rudd ran unsuccessfully for Onondaga County Legislature in 2015. The views expressed here are his own.
Recent action by the state Legislature to increase the minimum wage differently by region has renewed the question, "How is New York state regionally distinct?" In its simplest form, there is New York City and everything that isn't. The New York metropolitan area dominates the state economically, culturally and politically. From Syracuse, the divide is Upstate versus Downstate. From New York City, the divide is the city, Long Island and Upstate. For them, Upstate is an undefined, empty and unfamiliar space. It's similar to the way many Americans think of Canada - up there, big, mostly empty and cold. (Maybe it touches Russia.)
Across the regions of New York, there are real economic differences. One measure that highlights the difference is change in population over time. It seems a good measure of overall vitality. Often large rates of change on such measures occur where the base is small. But data from 2010 to 2015 indicate that in New York state counties with the largest populations have the highest population growth rates. Counties with smaller starting populations grow at lower rates, and counties with the smallest starting populations are shrinking. In short, in New York state the big get bigger and the small get smaller.
The correlation between "large population base" and "population growth" (and implicitly economic growth - yes, the assumption is gaining people is good and losing people is bad) raises an interesting question. Is Syracuse too small to succeed alone? Many voices in the dialogue about countywide government consolidation argue that bigger is better because more people will translate into more economic and political power. But a key follow-up question is: Would a consolidated Onondaga County be big enough to succeed on its own?
Using Census data, I looked at the 100 counties in the country with the highest population growth rates from 2010 to 2015. Onondaga County currently has 468,000 people, an increase of roughly 1,500 in five years. So I flagged counties that had between 400,000 and 600,000 people. There were seven counties in US in that range: three in Texas (two outside Houston and one outside Austin), two in Colorado (both in the Denver area), one in Utah (Provo), and one in Virginia (outer reaches of Washington, D.C.). Six of seven were attached to a large metro area.
All of these places seemed different from Syracuse in many ways. One overarching difference is that they are generally bigger. This made me wonder: How can Syracuse make itself bigger?
One answer is for Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse to band together as one region - not through formal government consolidation but through a transformation of our connections and collective image. We are nearly 3 million people that live in a strip of land about 150 miles long and 30 miles wide. Together, we would be the 19th biggest metro in the country. We are already sister cities - fundamentally similar in so many ways, not unlike the ways many siblings are the same yet refuse to acknowledge. Could we unite as the "Canal Corridor of New York"?
We are the area below Lake Ontario and above the Finger Lakes, built around a disruptive ditch called the Erie Canal that opened the American West to settlers by connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes.
We are canal cities with a shared history.
We are innovators: from the canal itself, to the rise of manufacturing, to the growth of quality institutions of higher education.
We have similar problems: vacant homes, job loss, failing schools, racism, and sprawl.
We have common appeal: affordable real estate, incredible access to nature, and unrealized potential for tourism.
Why shouldn't we proactively engage each other, build shared solutions, develop a common identity, and fight for one another?
Undeniably, distance is a challenge. But investments in technology and transportation infrastructure could improve our connectivity and push us together. Currently, we are intentionally divided, categorized as Central, Western or Finger Lakes, and instructed to compete against each other for scarce resources. Should we focus on beating each other or should we pursue synergistic alliances? I prefer the latter - a unified Canal Corridor.
I recognize that transforming our regional identity has no inherent value -- except maybe to outside consultants foaming at the possibility of such a process. Our biggest problem is that we don't have enough quality jobs. Can making ourselves bigger through regional cooperation help us attract jobs? Specifically, can it help our region recruit and retain large corporations to anchor our economy?
I love being a New Yorker and I am a proud "Upstater." However, I think we can create an authentic, more powerful regional identity if we connect ourselves along the canal's path. A first step toward encouraging this identity would be for the state to eliminate all Thruway tolls for passenger vehicles between Albany and Niagara Falls. As token as the tolls are, they alienate us from each other. Next, maybe we go to a Bills game and get a garbage plate on the way back.
GOP 3 mashup.JPG
New York's 95 delegates to the Republican National Convention are the big prize of the state's April 19 presidential primary. Competing for those delegates are, from left, businessman Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
In a break from the past, presidential candidates competing in the April 19 New York primary will not be allowed to select their own delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer.
Instead, the New York Republican State Committee will choose the delegates, a change the state GOP made to reward party loyalists with a trip to the convention in Cleveland.
Here's a primer on how those delegates will be awarded after the election:
How many delegates are at stake?
New York has 95 Republican delegates up for grabs in the primary, the fourth-highest total of any state. Since New York is not a winner-take-all state, delegates will be awarded proportionally based on the statewide vote and the vote in each of the state's 27 congressional districts.
Why every part of the state matters
Of the 95 delegates, 81 will be awarded based on the vote in each congressional district. Each of New York's 27 congressional districts will have three delegates.
How the delegates are awarded
If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in a congressional district, he will receive all three delegates. If no candidate tops 50 percent in a district, the winner will receive two delegates and the runner-up will receive one delegate. But a candidate must receive at least 20 percent of the district's vote to be awarded a delegate.
The statewide delegates
The state GOP committee will have 14 at-large delegates, including three Republican National Committee members. All of those delegates will be awarded to a candidate who receives more than 50 percent of the statewide vote.
If no candidate has more than 50 percent of the vote, the at-large delegates will be awarded proportionally based on the statewide vote.
How delegates will be chosen
The delegates will be selected by elected members of the New York Republican State Committee in May, but the exact date has not been set. Each congressional district will hold a meeting of its state committee members to select the delegates based on the vote in that district.
What happens at the Republican National Convention?
All of the New York delegates will be bound under party rules to vote for the candidate they represent at the party convention -- but only for the first ballot. After that ballot, the delegates are free to choose a candidate.
The GOP presidential nominee will need to win at least 1,237 votes from the 2,472 delegates at the national convention to clinch the Republican nomination.
Heading into the New York primary, Republican front-runner Donald Trump will need to win almost 70 percent of the remaining bound delegates in order to reach 1,237 votes.
Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
When the votes are counted in New York's Republican presidential primary Tuesday night, one candidate will make national news for winning one of the largest states in the nation.
But the real battle to see who wins the Empire State will continue, moving behind the scenes in what is likely to become a no-holds-barred political brawl that will last until mid-May.
During that time, a small number of GOP influence-brokers will hold the power to derail the popular vote by appointing their own delegates to represent the candidates at the Republican National Convention -- and ultimately influence who receives the party's nomination.
The New York GOP is not required to accommodate Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich when it's time to appoint the people who will serve as delegates. That means the campaigns could end up with people they don't know or want as delegates.
The delegates don't even have to support the candidate they represent, except by voting for him on the first ballot at the convention. After that, they can vote for anyone.
How did this happen?
The New York State Republican Committee changed its rules last summer for selecting the state's 95 delegates to the national convention.
In the past, presidential candidates selected their own slates of delegates before the election. But now the state GOP and about 300 of its party committee members have decided to take over that job after the election.
New York Republican Chairman Ed Cox says the change gives the party a chance to reward loyal supporters in New York, and to make the state's committee members relevant to national presidential campaigns.
Now that change has become significant in a year when Republicans are likely headed to their first brokered national convention since 1976, making every delegate vote important.
At some point in mid-May, state GOP officials say, Trump, Kasich and Cruz will be informed of their assigned delegates. But they may not be people who stick with their assigned candidate on multiple ballots at a brokered Republican National Convention.
Already, the candidates are mapping strategy for an aggressive campaign in each of New York's congressional districts to make sure they are assigned the delegates who will stay loyal to their candidate.
The Trump campaign has assigned Erie County Republican Chair Nick Langworthy to help lead the effort and push for people they want named as New York delegates, said Michael Caputo, a Trump strategist in the state.
Langworthy and other Trump operatives must convince some 300 state committee chairs with a vote in the process to appoint delegates who will stay loyal on multiple ballots at the convention.
Trump's campaign believes it has an advantage in the process because 33 of the 62 Republican county chairs in the state have endorsed him, Langworthy said in an interview.
More important, Langworthy said, is that those chairs represent about 75 percent of the weighted vote statewide because they are from the largest counties with the highest Republican voter turnout.
Trump's campaign wants to sweep all of New York's 95 delegates, a key to his attempt to clinch the GOP nomination with 1,237 delegates before the July convention -- eliminating the possibility of a contested convention.
Trump will have to capture almost 70 percent of the remaining delegates in primary contests to reach his goal.
The New York City businessman especially wants to dominate the delegate count in his home state, after losing dozens of delegates elsewhere in recent weeks who promised to vote for Cruz -- rather than Trump -- if given the chance on a second ballot at the convention.
The Cruz campaign has built up a reputation in recent weeks for being able to convince delegates to commit to Cruz after the first ballot. That has led Trump to charge that the system is rigged.
Now the Cruz campaign plans to wage an aggressive battle in New York to make sure it secures delegates who will remain loyal to the Texas senator through multiple ballots at the convention, said Catherine Frazier, a Cruz spokeswoman.
Frazier declined to discuss the campaign's delegate strategy for New York.
Kasich's campaign also declined to discuss its specific delegate strategy, but a spokeswoman said the effort has already started.
"We want to make sure we identify delegates who will vote for Gov. Kasich in a second or third ballot at the convention," said Emmalee Kalmbach, a Kasich campaign spokeswoman.
Kasich himself spent two hours in a private meeting with state legislators in Albany, hoping to win over influential Republican friends before the delegate assignments take place.
Several state GOP committee members from Central New York said they had not been contacted as of last week by any of the three presidential campaigns.
Helen Kiggins Walsh, an Onondaga County elections commissioner and one of the state Republican committee members, said she was not aware that members will have a vote in the delegate selection process next month.
Kiggins Walsh said it's possible that some local committee members will designate Onondaga County Republican Chairman Tom Dadey to cast a proxy vote.
New York Republican leaders had expected -- and even wanted -- the new selection process to lead to intense lobbying of its committee members by the presidential candidates.
Jessica Proud, a spokeswoman for the state GOP, said the party will allow the presidential candidates to have representatives at the mini-conventions. But the delegate assignment will not be disclosed until they are publicly filed with the state Board of Elections.
"This change was done to get the grassroots of the party more involved and to make New York more relevant," Proud said. "We certainly encourage the campaigns to reach out to the local county committees."
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ALBANY, N.Y. -- A 19-year-old from Upstate New York has admitted to a federal felony for possessing a machine gun provided to him by an undercover FBI agent who saw his requests for weapons on social media.
Shane Robert Smith, of Whitehall, New York
Shane Robert Smith, of Whitehall in Washington County, pleaded guilty to a charge that carries a possible prison term of 10 years.
Smith sent an email to Switzerland-based Bitmessage and a query to a Russian social media platform asking to buy fully automatic guns or semi-automatics he could convert to fully automatic, authorities said.
Contacted by undercover investigators, Smith explained that he would use the weapons to kill blacks and Jews and that he planned to form the "Silent Resistance Army," authorities said.
"Shane Smith repeatedly sought to acquire illegal firearms with the stated goal of executing members of racial and religious minority groups. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force stopped Smith before he could carry out this nightmare scenario," United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian said in a statement.
The agent provided him a MAC 10s and an M16 in August, and he was arrested. He has been jailed since.
Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 15.
The National Desk contributed to this report.
News / National
by Livingstone Marufu
LOCAL mining companies continue to push for a downward review of electricity tariffs, especially in the wake of declining commodity prices on international markets.Government, however, is determined to hike the tariff to USc14 per kilowatt hour, which is the regional average, from the current UcS9/kWh.The mining sector is presently being charged about USc13/kWh for power, and mining houses want the tariff cut to USc7/kWh.The Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe claims that besides the effects of power shortages and high tariffs, the sector is grappling with depressed metal prices, low capital and FDI inflows, and generally high local cost structures.Chamber of Mines CEO Mr Isaac Kwesu indicated in a recent report that, "Most producers feel that the current electricity tariff regime is too high and not sustainable for the quality of deposits being exploited hence there is need for a review."The average tariff for the mining industry is currently around 10cents per kWh, though most gold producers are paying around 13 cents per kWh compared to the national average or general tariff around nine cents."Most mines interviewed would like to see a tariff that is competitive to regional standards, and reflective of their cost structure."Around 50 percent of the mining houses said they would prefer tariff between US8c and US9c to remain in business or to improve their production."The other respondents feel a tariff between US6c and US7c is fair and would help to improve the feasibility of the sector or even to break even to match US$1,85 billion," said Mr Kwesu.The mining sector requires about 120MW to operate viably though demand is forecast to rise if the sector secures investment capital.It is understood that if the planned US$3,8 billion mining projects are achieved by 2020, electricity demand will soar to 210MW."The sector currently requires about 120MW to remain in business, while the demand is anticipated to rise steadily if the industry secure additional investment capital."The demand is rising to as much as 150MW in 2016 and as high as 210MW in 2020 if requisite capital is secured," explained Mr Kwesu.Regional experienceThe continued lobby by mining companies for lower electricity tariffs is not peculiar to Zimbabwe.In a region where power utilities are increasingly adjusting power tariffs upwards to fund better generation capacity, mining companies are unsurprisingly seeking concessions from governments.Despite spirited attempts to dissuade their government from increasing electricity charges by the South African Chamber of Mines, the National Energy Regulatory Authority of South Africa approved a 9,4 percent increase for 2016 to 2017.Similarly, Zambia's government increased tariffs for mining companies on January 1 to USc10,35/kWh.Increases for commercial and industrial customers were reversed on February 6, but mines did not get any reprieve.Zambia is importing electricity at USc19/kWh.Before the increase, Zambian mining companies had filed a lawsuit against the proposed increases and the case is before the Lusaka High Court.Zambian mines consume about half of the country's power output. The country has capacity to generate more than 2 200MW.Like Zambia, Zimbabwe imports power to meet domestic and industrial demand.With a decline in output at Kariba South Hydro Power Station, which has for long been the country's workhorse producing 750MW the Zimbabwe Power Company has had to negotiate with suppliers like South Africa's Eskom and Mozambique's HCB.Eskom is supplying Zimbabwe with 100MW.But the power comes at a cost: the estimate is that it is at over USc14/ kWh meaning the utility sells to its customers at a loss.Emergency power supplies are even more expensive at USc18/kWh.Estimates suggest that the local mining sector loses more than US$10 million annually to power outages.With mining being a 24-hour operation, most mines are partially bridge the gap between demand and supply, particularly during times of peak demand, through self-generation.Mining companies such as Old Nic, a subsidiary of listed Falgold, have been mothballed due to challenges associated with power supply.The mining sector has been the backbone of the economy since 2009 and last year it contributed more than US$1,85 billion in revenues and accounted for more than 62,5 percent of export earnings.Falling commodity pricesDeclining international commodity prices, occasioned by slowing economic growth in China, the world's largest consumer, has hit many countries hard.Zimplats, Zimbabwe's biggest platinum producer, has been reeling from declining prices and in an analysts and media briefing in February, group CEO Mr Alex Mhendere said the miner slashed its capital expenditure budget for the year to June 30, 2016 by US$50 million to conserve cash.The company's revenues in the six months to December 31, 2015 fell 12 percent from US$234 million realised in the same period a year earlier, as platinum prices sank 42 percent.Among other cost-cutting measures, managers' salaries have been cut by 2,5 percent, while executive managers had theirs slashed by 15 percent.Recruitment has also been frozen.According to a recent report from the IMF, oil prices dropped 32 percent between August 2015 and February 2016. Coal and natural gas prices, which are linked to oil prices, declined as well.Metal and agricultural commodity prices tumbled nine and four percent respectively.As revenues fall, miners fret that an additional cost through a power tariff increase will serious dent their viability.
Lyft and Uber drivers in San Francisco that work at least seven or more days a year must now obtain a business license to come into compliance with city regulations.
As the San Francisco Chronicle correctly points out, Lyft and Uber drivers have been operating in the city for years. Why drivers are just now being asked to obtain a business license isn't entirely clear. City Treasurer Jose Cisneros did tell the publication, however, that one reason for the change has to do with the fact that the city launched its online business registration system just last month.
Prior to March, those interested in registering for a business license had to do so in person at City Hall.
Another likely reason the treasurer is just now taking action is the fact that he now has a list of Lyft and Uber drivers. When questioned on the matter, Cisneros would not say how he came into possession of the list which is comprised of 37,018 drivers. Both Lyft and Uber have long refused to provide the data to the city.
A business license in San Francisco is priced at $91 per year for those that collect less than $100,000 a year in fares. Assuming that every driver paid for a business license this year, the city would receive more than $3.37 million in revenue.
What's more, drivers that met the criteria for needing a business license in previous years must back pay those fees, too.
Cisneros is in the process of mailing out letters to those he has identified as drivers for the two ride-hailing services. Recipients have 30 days to obtain a license; failure to do so may result in penalties and payment obligations, the letter states.
Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy company sets its sight to a $3.6 billion investment that would usher in more wind turbines to supply renewable energy in the State of Iowa.
MidAmerican Energy announced its plans to provide 1,000 wind turbines that could supply 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy in Iowa. This plan makes it the biggest economic development project in the state.
The Wind XI could dominate the Alta Wind Energy Center, the current largest wind farm in the United States.
"We don't know of another U.S. energy provider that has staked out this 100 percent position. Our customers want more renewable energy, and we couldn't agree more," said Bill Fehrman, president and CEO of the company.
Fehrman added that this investment will provide the State of Iowa a cleaner, 100 percent renewable energy, which is equivalent to 85 per cent of annual client sales.
Along with Fehrman is Iowa Governor Terry Branstad who praised the company's plan on wind farm.
"[Wind XI] puts Iowa on track to be the first state in the nation to generate more than 40 percent of its energy needs from wind power - far ahead of any other state. Today, Iowa is the only state to have crossed the 30 percent mark," said Branstad.
The governor added that every single wind turbine means job, revenue and income to the farmers, counties and Iowa citizens.
According to American Wind Energy Association's yearly market report, wind power currently provides 88,000 jobs in which the 7,000 is from Iowa alone.
The wind farm will be complete without any additional cost on Iowa's citizens. The capital is said to be recouped from the 10-year tax incentives.
Negotiations are still ongoing to where the plant will stand. According to Fehrman, if the project gets is approval from the board by fall, the construction will begin in 2017, aiming to complete the majority of the project by 2018.
This is not the first time that the MidAmercan Energy company stored a wind farm in Iowa. In 2004, they had already built a facility producing 3,450 megawatts of energy.
The MidAmerican energy company is currently supplying the 752,000 users in four midwestern states.
"We make history. Today's a great day for Iowa," said Branstad.
Photo: Jim Hammer | Flckr
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
People shelling out thousands of dollars for stinky whale vomit may seem disgusting to some, but experts believe that this waste, known as ambergris, is indeed floating gold.
Ambergris, a fatty substance secreted in the intestines of sperm whales that hardens over time, is extremely rare. More than that, experts say that ambergris is a valuable substance as it is used as a valuable ingredient in drugs and perfumes.
As oxidation removes air and water from the excreted chunk, an aroma similar to tobacco or mulch is produced by the ambergris. The length of time the ambergris undergoes oxidation determines its quality and value. Known ambergris broker Bernard Perrin compares its aging to a fine wine that gets better over time.
Based on historical data, Middle Easterners pulverize ambergris and ingest it to improve virility and strength, fight brain and heart illnesses as well as flavor their food and drinks.
A treaty dating back to the Middle Ages stated that the substance can help relieve colds, headaches and even epilepsy. The so-called whale vomit is so valuable that it even forced the Portuguese to take over the Maldives in the 16th century just so they could have access to the flourishing bounty of ambergris.
Ambrein, the chemical component of ambergris, is used in perfume because it helps enrich the olfactory notes and prolong the scent. It is present in the sought-after Chanel No. 5 perfume.
Odor chemist George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center explained that like perfume molecules, ambergris molecules are lipophilic or fat-loving, but they are heavier and larger.
"The odor molecules have a high affinity for the other lipophilic molecules, so they stay associated with the ambergris molecules and don't go into the vapor phase all at once," said Preti.
Much is still to be known about ambergris, as experts are yet to explain why it is particularly more common to see it in the southern hemispheres and why only male sperm whales can produce it. What probably adds to the value and rarity of the ambergris is the dwindling number of sperm whales, which is now estimated to be at 350,000 from approximately 1.1 million before whaling.
Photo: Peter Kaminski | Flickr
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Canadian health officials issue a recall of homemade mustard relish due to botulism risk.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued a recall warning of HardyWares Preserves Mustard Relish brand packaged on Dec. 3, 2015 after test results showed that the product can cause potential growth of Clostridium botulinum, a motile bacterium that can produce neurotoxin botulinum.
CFIA advised consumers to dispose unfinished product or return it to the store where it was purchased. The agency warned against the consumption of the said product.
Clostridium botulinum-contaminated foods may still look safe to eat as it will not smell or look spoiled but it can cause botulism. Symptoms of botulism include blurred vision, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, dry mouth, dizziness, paralysis, respiratory failure, and in some cases, even death.
So far, there have been no reported illnesses.
HardyWares Preserves, owned by Nova Scotia couple Larry and Margaret Hardy, sells homemade mustard relish along with jellies and jams that they make in their home kitchen. The recall came after they voluntarily sent seven types of products to a food safety lab at Dalhousie University. The couple says they are surprised by the recall.
"It was a shock, an absolute shock. Because we've had nothing of this nature before," said Larry Hardy. He clarified that no botulism toxin was found in their products, but the agency noted that the level of acidity of the relish was too low and that might cause the bacteria to grow. He admitted that he might have overlooked it and was not able to put enough vinegar into the product.
Larry Hardy asked their consumers to return the products to them or to the CFIA. About 10 of the 21 jars sold are yet to be accounted for. He said they sold it at the Alderney Landing Farmer's Market.
"We would never do anything to hurt anyone - our customers are everything to us at the market, we love going there," he said.
The couple have been making preserves for eight years but only registered as a business two years ago. Despite the recall, the Hardys are still planning on expanding their business by selling to bigger stores.
Around the same time last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued tips on how to safely and accurately preserve food following a botulism outbreak in New Mexico and Ohio that killed one person and caused serious illness in 20 individuals.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A shortened URL is so much easier to work with, especially for those who like brevity of things or struggle with keyboard shortcut options. You can think again.
What seems to be a convenient service is actually the doorway for malware infecting the systems or your confidential data getting exposed, say Cornell Tech computer scientists Martin Georgiev and Vitaly Shmatikov, who have now made their findings public.
The researchers came across this issue while looking at the shortened web addresses used by leading technology players like Google, Microsoft, and Bit.ly. Almost 18 months ago, Georgiev and Shmatikov noticed that Microsoft OneDrive and Google Maps generated web addresses that seemed to have six random characters, through Bit.Ly's URL shortening service.
That would be enough for hackers of the world to slap their hands together and start analyzing the millions of possibilities of generating the shortened URLs until they hit upon the real thing. "With a decent number of machines you can scan the entire space," says Shmatikov. "You just randomly generate the URLs and see what's behind them."
Microsoft, for instance, had the shareable files and folders made up of shortened URLs residing on the OneDrive storage platform and deemed them to be private and secure. This theory was proved wrong by the researchers when they generated about 71 million random short URLs directed at the OneDrive content and hit upon 24,000 live working files and folders. The researchers claim they never accessed the files, but any unscrupulous hacker can take undue advantage of such a flaw. Around 7 percent of the content were editable by anyone who visited the pages.
The Cornell Tech duo also pointed out a synchronization feature that leads any malware directly to an unsuspecting user's PC. "If someone wanted to inject a lot of malicious content into people's computers, it's a pretty interesting way of doing it," they warned. "By scanning you can find these folders, you put whatever you want in them, and it gets automatically copied to people's hard drives."
Similarly, the scientists also broke through people's apparently private information like medical details, juvenile detention facility visits, and other such confidential data. In this case, around 23 million random short Google Maps URL generation made the researchers privy to such private, personal details, and all because the shortened Google Maps URLs generally contain direction codes between two (seemingly) confidential addresses.
When the pair contacted Google with their findings, the company responded immediately by increasing the length of their URL characters to 11 or 12, up from the dreaded six. Microsoft, on the other hand, had dismissed the whole thing initially but later removed the URL shortening feature from OneDrive to tighten up security.
The researchers say that the aim of sharing their paper [pdf] is to make both companies and people more aware of the vulnerabilities their systems are exposed to. "It's not clear that users understand this," says Shmatikov. "They think they're sharing a document with a collaborator. But if you're sharing a six character shortened URL, you're sharing it with the whole world."
Photo: Alper Cugun | Flickr
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Some people have felt series of complications related to the dreaded Zika virus and this has been linked to the sudden surge of microcephaly cases in Latin America. Now, there's another reason to fear this mosquito-borne illness since the virus could mutate rapidly, a new study found.
A team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College have tracked down some genetic mutations that happened in the Zika virus. They hope to finally explain why the virus had suddenly caused birth defects since its outbreak in 2015.
The findings of this new study support what other scientists claimed in the past. The strain of the virus that ravaged Latin America and the Caribbean over the past couple of months is not the same strain of virus observed in Africa. The latter strain is harmless and had not caused the same complications seen among babies born to mothers infected with the virus.
The virus that has been dubbed an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO), emerged from a strain that circulated in Asia before going across the Pacific, the researchers found.
Mutation seems like bad news especially when it comes to pathogenic microorganisms. These microbes could cause a wide range of infections and once they mutate, current effective drugs and therapies might not work anymore. The worst thing is, mutation makes them more resistant, robust and stronger.
"The Zika virus has undergone significant genetic changes in the past 70 years," said Genhong Cheng, professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine.
"By tracing its genetic mutations, we aimed to understand how the virus is transmitted from person to person and how it causes different types of disease," he added.
Aside from being linked to the increased number of babies born with microcephaly a birth defect causing the baby to be born with a smaller head and brain damage it has also been associated with a form of paralysis called Guillain-Barre syndrome. New modes of transmission including infection through mother-to-fetus and sexual intercourse have also emerged.
The scientists said they are not sure why the virus has not been linked to serious diseases in the past, not until now.
They compared individual differences in genetics among 41 Zika virus strains 30 strains from humans, 10 from mosquitoes and one from monkeys.
Along the process, they identified DNA changes between the strains, showing major differences between the African and Asian strains. There were also differences between mosquito and human strains.
The mutations could help the virus to divide more efficiently, allowing them to escape the immune system of the body and invade new tissues that could provide them a shelter for them to spread.
The researchers hope to soon analyze the viral strains in order to look for genetic targets for the development of drugs and vaccines.
The study was published in the Cell Press journal, Cell Host & Microbe.
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About 65 million years ago, a killer asteroid wiped out life on Earth. Everything from giant marine reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals and other animals to microscopic organisms became extinct except for deep sea creatures, but how did they manage to survive?
Scientists at Cardiff University has found new evidence to shed light on why deep sea creatures had survived from what is dubbed as one of the most widespread mass extinction events in the history of the planet.
This asteroid, about as big as England's Isle of Wight, struck the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, triggering gigantic tsunamis, big killer earthquakes and landslides across the globe.
The survival of these deep sea creatures has puzzled scientists throughout history since many believe that the impact of the asteroid could have stopped food supply in the oceans, killing free-floating organisms like bacteria and algae. If the ecosystems in the waters are altered, this could have led to death of sea creatures as well.
Fortunately for these creatures, they survived.
The new study analyzed data from fossilized shells and their chemical composition that were dated back from the period when the mass extinction happened. The results show that some forms of bacteria and algae survived, sunk and served as food for deep sea creatures after the disaster.
By about 1.7 million years after the disaster, ocean food supply has fully recovered, the calculations of the experts showed.
"Our results show that despite a wave of massive and virtually instantaneous extinctions among the plankton, some types of photosynthesizing organisms, such as algae and bacteria, were living in the aftermath of the asteroid strike," said Heather Birch, from Cardiff University and co-author of the study.
Despite taking nearly 2 million years for the food supply to bounce back, the creatures' survival instinct has paved way to the evolution of species to occupy the vacated extinct ones.
The findings of the study, which was published in the journal Geology, may finally answer a long-time puzzling question among scientists.
Photo: Mark Waters | Flickr
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Not every one of us will have the chance to watch a rocket launch in person, or explore the planet Mars in all its red glory.
Thanks to virtual reality, however, you can very well be in Cape Canaveral or on the dusty, red planet.
Watching A Rocket Launch
A VR app developed by United Launch Alliance (ULA) debuted this week at the 32nd annual Space Symposium, a space industry conference held in Colorado.
Attendees of the symposium were able to use an Oculus Rift VR headset and were virtually sent to the Air Force Station's Cape Canaveral.
The fantastic 360 app created by ULA can transport you to an actual Delta IV rocket launch at night, giving you a tour of the launching site first.
Afterwards, you get to watch as the rocket blasts off into the sky, complete with smoke and pillar flame from the rocket's boosters.
The rocket launch footage, made with the help of Koncept VR, is so close that if you were really in the same spot, you would be scorched with hot steam and debris from the combusting engine.
The ULA app can be downloaded from the company's website. Users who don't want to buy a VR headset can opt for Google Cardboard instead, a device you could assemble yourself. It's less impressive, but it's also less expensive.
Explore Mars With A Rover
ULA wasn't the only one with a VR experience. American aerospace company Lockheed Martin also had its own brief VR tour.
Users were transported into the facility where NASA's Orion capsule is loaded onto an airplane known as Super Guppy.
The massive aircraft is named that way because it resembles the tiny fish from up above while remaining an imposing sight on the ground. Incidentally, NASA's Orion capsule is tasked to bring humans to Mars.
Lockheed Martin also had users play a VR game set in the red planet. With the VR, you would have to navigate a Mars rover along the Martian surface, attempting to reach specific locations without toppling over the rover.
Unfortunately, Lockheed Martin's programs have yet to be available to the public, but the company is currently working on developing some very advanced VR tech, as well as using VR as part of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.
There is still good news, though: anyone who wants a tour of Mars could visit NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex this summer for an exhibit called "Destination: Mars." Visitors will be give VR headsets that will provide them a 360-degree VR view of the surface of the red planet. It's as if you're actually walking on Mars.
In the meantime, you can watch the 360 video of the Delta IV rocket launch below.
Photo : Phil Konstantin | Flickr
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Uyisiphephelo - Angie ( $0.98 )
Harare-based political commentator Vivid Gwede said Tsvangirai had shown that he still had what it took to march to State House in the 2018 general elections by pulling a crowd that some estimated at over 5 000."The role of opposition parties is to speak to power on issues affecting the people, and this is what Tsvangirai did yesterday [on Thursday]. This puts him on the pedestal," Gwede said."The good attendance at the march puts Tsvangirai back on the radar of Zimbabwe politics in challenging Zanu-PF's imaginary popularity."He said the MDC-T had not been showing a significant presence after the electoral loss of 2013 and this could have left some of its supporters demotivated."This made their position weaker but the party is now reconnecting with the people. It is establishing itself as a strong opposition to force government to fulfil its promises," Gwede said"In the case of Mujuru, it is clear that she still has a lot to do to assert herself as the main opposition. She has tried to mobilise for a diaspora vote in South Africa, but People First is still to get a foothold."People First became subdued after its launch and we are still to see if they will maintain the hype that characterised it before it was officially introduced to the nation."MDC-T forced Mugabe to the negotiating table to form a government of national unity in 2009 after Tsvangirai thumped the veteran leader in the first round vote.Some believe Tsvangirai won the vote, but was prevented from taking power by securocrats.Mugabe has in the past inadvertently let slip that Tsvangirai had won 73% of the vote, but the official line is that the MDC-T leader failed to get past the 50% plus one vote stipulated by the country's electoral laws.After the end of the inclusive government, everything appeared to be going downhill for the MDC-T until Tsvangirai, last Thursday reminded his supporters of the heydays when he stormed into Zimbabwean politics.Tsvangirai was propelled to fame by leading several demonstrations against Mugabe while he was still secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and as the MDC leader in 1999.But after entering government through a Sadc-negotiated power-sharing agreement after disputed polls, observers said his party became attracted by the luxuries enjoyed by top government officials and lost touch with the masses, until last week's march.However, there are some who still believe the veteran trade unionist's career will not be resurrected.Zanu-PF dismissed Tsvangirai's march as whistling from the graveyard and a gimmick to lure the international community for funding."Those are whistles from the grave, we are not moved, and we are implementing ZimAsset and improving the welfare of our people," Zanu-PF spokesperson Simon Khaya-Moyo said after the demo."A meaningful demonstration that we will talk about is a protest against sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the Americans and their allies at the invitation of the MDC."But political analyst, Pedzisai Ruhanya said the people who attended Tsvangirai's protest march confirmed that the MDC-T leader's star was rising.He said the march showed that Tsvangirai still connected with the people, both in the formal and informal sectors, who were suffering due to Mugabe's misrule."This is the kind of opposition politics we expect from him - being part of the people, feeling their pain and sharing with them their sorrows," Ruhanya said.Another political analyst Ernest Mudzengi said: "It is too early to judge. For me, I have never believed that Tsvangirai had fallen. To conclude that he had fallen would be wrong. He has always managed to pull numbers. The issue is about the electoral playing field."He said it was only an assumption that Mujuru was more popular than Tsvangirai."Those conclusions that Mujuru would be the biggest player were made out of emotions, not facts on the ground."We haven't seen much about Mujuru. That she has the numbers is still mere conjecture. It's a prediction. Time will tell," Mudzengi said.ZimPF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said opposition parties were not in competition, but complementing each other in the fight to dethrone Mugabe."We are not in competition. The political space is free, as opposition, our efforts complement each other in fighting the ruling party," Gumbo said.Tsvangirai and Mujuru have reportedly been trying to reach out to each other for a possible coalition to remove Mugabe from power.
Driving an Uber or Lyft car in San Francisco is about to get more expensive by at least $91 a year.
In a letter that the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector started mailing Friday, City Hall is now requiring some 37,000 Uber and Lyft drivers who operate in San Francisco and work seven or more days a year to secure a license. A license fee of $91 shall be paid by drivers who earn less than $100,000 a year.
The new mandate takes effect upon receipt of the letter and must be complied with within 30 days after receipt or face penalties and payment obligations. For those who have been in business for years, they will have to pay for the years they have missed.
San Francisco law also requires businesses to display their registration certificate in their place of business and, in the case of the Uber and Lyft drivers, their car. Lyft has serious concerns with how the city intends to implement the law.
People in San Francisco who want to earn additional income by driving at Lyft shouldn't sacrifice their privacy to share a ride, said a Lyft spokesperson.
The implementation of the new license is supported by an old law that requires all businesses operating in the city to register their business with the city.
"This has been a law that has been around for many years. It's very clearly spelled out on our website - the law here in San Francisco requires you to register your business with the city. If they missed that requirement, they are still obligated to do that," said SF City Treasurer Jose Cisneros.
Cisneros does not expect all the identified drivers to be still connected with either Uber or Lyft, but said that if all of them register, it would generate a potential $3.37 million in tax revenue for the city.
Uber And Lyft Are Split On The Issue
While Uber is exploring the impact of the new licenses on its on-demand ride services, the company is not putting up a fight for now.
"Uber partners with entrepreneurial drivers and as independent contractors, they are responsible for following appropriate local requirements," emailed Laura Zapata, a spokesperson for Uber.
The new licensing comes on the back of legal challenges Uber is facing. A class-action lawsuit has been filed by its drivers, claiming that the company improperly classifies them as independent contractors. While the trial is set to be heard in a California court in June, the licensing requirement may strengthen Uber's argument that the drivers are independent contractors and not employees.
Lyft, on the other hand, is taking a different stand. It is not supportive of how the license requirement will be implemented, asserting that protecting the privacy of its drivers is a priority.
Lyft has also been hit with lawsuits by drivers fighting for employee status. The company has agreed to a $12.25 million settlement, but a federal judge rejected the deal.
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The Canadian distributor of a U.S. based sperm bank is being sued by at least three families from Ontario, Canada, as their perfect sperm donor turns out to be a schizophrenic and convicted felon.
The families claim that the Georgia-based Xytex Corporation and its Canadian partner Outreach Health services willfully misled them into believing that Donor 9623 was a "perfect" donor healthy, popular, and highly educated.
In a statement filed in Ontario, the families claim that the donor was in fact a diagnosed schizophrenic with narcissistic personality disorder, a convicted burglar, and did not attain any of the degrees claimed in his file. They allege that the sperm bank knew of the information and chose not to disclose it to any of the families.
Lawyer James Fireman who represents the families said that the sperm bank misrepresented the donor to the families even claiming that the donor has an IQ level of a genius. The lawsuits claim that the donor could have fathered about 36 children.
"The claims allege Xytex continued to sell the sperm even after it knew the truth about the donor's health, his education, and his criminal past," said Fireman.
The lawyer representing Xytex, Ted Lavender, commented that the company will defend itself from the lawsuits, citing that one of the families filed a similar case in the U.S., which was dismissed by the Georgia court.
Lavender said what the families claim are mere public opinions and that these claims have no actual proof and evidence presented in court.
"Xytex is an industry leader and complies with all industry standards in how they safely and carefully help provide the gift of children to families who are otherwise unable [to] have them without this assistance," defended Lavender.
Kevin M. O'Brien, Xytex president, posted an open letter on the company website and disputed the claims in the lawsuit.
"In this case, the donor underwent a standard medical exam and provided extensive personal and health information. He reported a good health history and stated in his application that he had no physical or medical impairments," the letter said. "This information was passed on to the couple, who were clearly informed the representations were reported by the donor and were not verified by Xytex."
Its Canadian distributor, Outreach Health Services has yet to comment on the allegations.
The families filed the lawsuit after donor, James Christian Aggeles, admitted that he lied about his illness, criminal record, and education. Aggeles said that no one in Xytex questioned him when he filled out the questionnaire that he is working on a PhD in neuroscience engineering.
The document filed in court questioned why no one in Xytex tried to verify the information provided by Aggeles but instead promoted Aggeles or Donor #i9623 as a perfect donor with extreme intelligence.
"The Xytex Corporation has admitted no wrongdoing, it has done absolutely nothing to warn affected parents that schizophrenia may develop in their children," the document stated.
The issue on having "designer babies" from "perfect" donors has become a topic. Health officials want to make sure that sperm banks would follow a guided practice of eugenics.
London Sperm Bank has come under fire in 2014 when it refused Oxford graduate Fred Fisher due to his dyslexia. The United Kingdom's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said that Fisher should have not been refused, as dyslexia is not a genetic disease. However, they ruled that sperm banks should inform their prospective parents of the medical history of donors to help them make an informed decision.
Photo: Karen Blaha | Flickr
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In case Mars proves to be a habitable planet for humans, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has started to grow potatoes on a Peruvian desert that is similar to Martian soil.
A number of space visionaries like Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos want people to start living and working in space, and they are slowly making it happen by designing and building space habitats.
NASA, for one, is preparing for this by planting spuds on Pampas de La Joya Desert. Scientists from International Potato Center in Lima are also working with the space agency to study the types of potatoes that may be suitable for farming on Mars.
"When humans go to Mars, they will want to grow things. They'll need food," said Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "I think we'll be able to find varieties of potatoes that will grow at cold and low-pressure conditions."
Why Potatoes On A Peruvian Desert?
In 2012, Curiosity rover found that water flows in Mars, which means farming could be possible.
Potato, as a major and global crop, has high adaptability to changes in climate. It is rich in proteins, carbohydrates, iron, vitamin C, and zinc.
According to the International Potato Center, Peru has more than 4,500 varieties of potatoes. The tubers grown in the country are not only good for eating, potatoes can also serve as batteries that humans can use while in space.
Pampas de La Joya Desert is one of Earth's driest spots, receiving only a millimeter of precipitation annually. The desert is part of the large Atacama Desert, which NASA studies for its Mars-like conditions.
Space Spuds For Nutrition
For the potato study, the scientists chose 65 variants of resilient spuds that will be plated in more than 1,300 pounds of soil from the desert.
If the potatoes successfully grow, they will be replanted in a simulator that mimics the atmospheric conditions present on Mars. The atmosphere of Mars has little oxygen and about 96 percent carbon dioxide. The red planet's temperature varies from minus 84 degrees Fahrenheit. It also has high levels of radiation and 60 percent less gravity compared to Earth.
Peruvian scientist Walter Amoros, from the International Potato Center, predicted that 50 percent of the potatoes will successfully grow, but only about 10 percent will produce a good-sized spud. Amoros also stressed that high temperature and severe drought can change the flavor of the yield.
"I don't think they'll grow in the open air [on Mars]. They will have to plant them under controlled conditions, in domes," Amoros added.
At present, astronauts feed on beef, chicken, and salmon jerky. Spices like salt and pepper are available in liquid forms and beverages are consumed with straws.
NASA is also currently conducting other studies of plants like lettuce, which is presently grown in plant chambers inside the International Space Station.
Raymond Wheeler, NASA plant physiologist, said if humans would live in space, they should not rely on delivered supplies only. Nutrition should also be produced in situ, as it is cheaper and more practical.
If the soil on Mars cannot cultivate the spuds, Wheeler said it could still be produced by hydroponics and aeroponics, with fertilizers coming from inedible plants and urine.
Photo: Nick Saltmarsh | Flickr
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Reports of Motorola refusing to honor its warranties have been making rounds on the Internet and social media. Customers expressed dissatisfaction with the way Motorola has been handling things and started to take their grievances to popular forum sites.
One user has made a lengthy post on Reddit narrating his disastrous experience with Motorola support.
"Motorola simply can't honor the warranty on their devices because they don't have replacement devices in stock," says the user.
More Reddit users have joined the conversation and shared similar stories. It appears that Motorola is unable or unwilling to issue warranty replacements, leaving its customers without a phone or smartwatch for days, or sometimes even months.
Motorola's warranty covers its device for one year starting the date of purchase. Users, however, claim that they are being refused repair or replacement even if their warranties are still in effect. Some customers who have been waiting longer than a month for a replacement device have demanded their money back, but Motorola has similarly denied their requests.
This news may come as a surprise to the loyal Motorola fan base. For many years, Motorola has been a trusted brand known for its devices' sleek design, quality and affordability. In 2011, Google purchased Motorola for $12.5 billion but later sold it to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. Google, however, made a deal with Lenovo to keep control of the software patents, as well as existing projects.
Motorola has been striving to make a comeback in the smartphone scene with the release of the Moto X series. The Moto X is a greatly customizable Android smartphone device that primarily targets mainstream consumers. Motorola currently offers more smartphone and watch design options that customers find attractive compared to its competitors.
This marketing strategy, however, may have backfired. A lot of the current warranty-related complains stem from Motorola's inability to re-stock its products on time. Keeping a lower inventory of goods is a common business practice among companies that tend to sell their products at a lower price point, but issues may arise. As Lenovo has gained full control of Motorola, changes in internal operation, marketing and branding strategies may all have contributed to the problem.
Motorola is yet to release a statement regarding this issue.
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A human mission to Mars is one step closer due to facilities housed and managed by companies based in Colorado. Currently, NASA plans sending people to the Red Planet sometime in the 2030's.
The Journey to Mars would provide a means to bring human space travelers to the Red Planet and back to Earth. As mission engineers design the equipment and procedures needed to ferry a human crew to Mars, they will need to overcome several obstacles. Among these are protecting space travelers from radiation, providing fuel and life support, and designing spacecraft capable of landing on the Red Planet and taking off again for Earth.
"A fleet of robotic spacecraft and rovers already are on and around Mars, dramatically increasing our knowledge about the Red Planet and paving the way for future human explorers. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover measured radiation on the way to Mars and is sending back radiation data from the surface. This data will help us plan how to protect the astronauts who will explore Mars," NASA officials report.
Several companies based in Colorado are assisting NASA in developing the technology needed to bring humans to Mars. Among these are Sierra Nevada Corp., Ball Aerospace & Technologies, and Lockheed Martin.
For a mission scheduled for liftoff decades in the future, it is vital for NASA to continue receiving funding to carry out operations. Frequently, presidential administration alter the goals of the space program to suit their own needs and desires.
"The idea of going to Mars is a long-term vision that really needs to be sustained over a period of numerous administrations... NASA doesn't want to (promise) something unless they believe they have the money to do it. It really is an effort to continue to build public interest, particularly at a time when the private efforts are gaining so much interest," Marco Caceres of Teal Group Corp said.
As private space developers such as SpaceX continue missions to the International Space Station, some aerospace officials are becoming concerned the American public may lose interest in NASA. The national space industry could seize the publicity of a human mission to Mars in order to drive interest in space, mission engineers suggest. However, to put boots on the ground on the Red Planet, the agency will likely require a significant increase in funding over its current budget of approximately $18 bllion a year, scientists report.
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Nearly 150 nations are planning to attend the United Nations climate agreement signing ceremony on April 22 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
There are currently 147 confirmed countries for the signing ceremony, which include approximately 50 heads of state.
The April 22 event is a testament to the momentum set during COP21 or Paris Climate Change Conference held in December 2015. During this historic gathering, world leaders hammered out the consolidated global efforts on how to address global warming.
"That means that momentum for the Paris accord has not subsided," said Segolene Royal, the environment minister of France and UN climate change process.
Royal added that the April 22 ceremony should give world leaders the chance to announce a firm statement on carbon pricing policy. These individual statements should aim to set an "elevated, stable, discernible and coordinated" carbon policy that can help develop clean energy.
The attending countries list includes the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases - United States, China, India, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany.
U.S. President Barack Obama will be going on a fence-mending mission with ally Saudi Arabia during the week of the UN signing ceremony. Washington has yet to announce his representative for the April 22 signing event.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted that the signing ceremony is merely the first step in pushing forward the global efforts to address climate change.
The climate agreement pushes for the significant reduction of global greenhouse gases from participating countries. The goal of this worldwide effort is to keep the global warming levels at "well under 2 degrees Celsius," which is comparable to pre-industrial times, by 2050.
The collective effort also includes limiting the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The participating countries are also required to submit updated climate action plans every five years.
To mark the historic day, the UN is also launching a global social media tree-planting event on April 22. To join, people can do any of the three activities - plant a tree in their backyards, hug a full-grown tree or sketch or take a photo of their favorite tree.
You can post status messages or images on any social media platform and use hashtags #ParisAgreement, #Trees4Earth and #EarthDay2016.
"The link between the Paris Agreement and trees is clear - forests will be key allies for combating climate change and meeting the long-term goal of restoring the ecological balance of planet Earth by the second half of the century," wrote UN on its website.
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After asking a federal judge to uphold a magistrate court's ruling on unlocking an iPhone, Apple has asserted that it is still a friend of the Department of Justice. However, the FBI has asserted that things are different now, and Apple has "changed course."
A week or so ago, the Department of Justice informed a federal court that it intended to appeal a decision reached by a magistrate court, which ruled that the FBI couldn't compel Apple to assist it in unlocking the iPhone once possessed by a confessed drug dealer. And now Apple is asking the federal court to uphold the lower court's ruling.
The last time the two sides sparred over unlocking an iPhone, the back and forth ended with an unnamed third-party stepped in and help the FBI crack a phone that belonged to one of the two perpetrators of December massacre in San Bernardino, California.
In the case of the San Bernardino iPhone, a 5C running iOS 9, the FBI wanted Apple to help build a backdoor into the phone's operating system and retrieve data from the device. And a court ordered the company to do so, though Apple fought the order.
In the case of the Brooklyn iPhone, a 5S running iOS 7, the FBI has called for Apple to help decipher the handset's pin code.
Apple's Latest Defense
Federal prosecutors appealed to the magistrate court last month before moving to federal court with its appeal to compel Apple into pinning down the code to the iPhone 5S. Last Friday, Apple filed a 45-page brief in response to that appeal
"The government has utterly failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that Apple's assistance in this case is necessary," said Apple in the brief. "The government has made no showing that it has exhausted alternative means for extracting data from the iPhone at issue here."
Supporting its stance on the Justice Department ability to crack the phone on its own, Apple, in the brief, pointed to the FBI's success in unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone and its tougher-to-break encryption.
On top of that, Apple used FBI Director James Comey's own words to argue that court isn't the ideal venue for debating "a complicated policy issue."
"[Litigation] is a terrible place to have any kind of discussion about a complicated policy issue," Apple quoted Comey as saying, "especially one that touches on our values, on the things we care about most, on technology, on trade-offs and balance."
Friendship
Apple initially agreed to aid the feds with the iPhone in the Brooklyn case, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce stated in response to the company's push to have the lower court's ruling upheld.
"As we have made clear in our previous filings, Apple expressly agreed to assist the government in accessing the data on this iPhone -- as it has at least 70 times before in similar circumstances," she said. "Apple has said it would take them only a few hours to open this kind of phone, because they already have a mechanism that would allow them to do so."
Apple, in the past, has assisted with Justice Department's order that leveraged the Wall Writs Act of 1789, the tech company has "changed course," she said. The new course, going by an Apple letter to customers, is to work with a panel of experts on determining the implications of the All Writs Act.
Whatever degree Apple has or hasn't complied with orders under the All Writs Act, the company called the FBI previous usage of its "unprecedented" and deemed that interpretation of it to be a move to "justify an expansion of authority."
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Facebook Employees Asked Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try to Stop a Donald Trump Presidency
Facebook employees have asked their boss whether they should try and halt Donald Trumps presidential bid. The Facebook staff posed this question as part of a internal poll which allows employees to vote on what to ask CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a weekly Q&A, Gizmodo reports.
According to Gizmodo, for the March 4 session, the fifth most popular question with 61 votes was; What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?
While Facebook employees may want an answer from Mark but Facebook insists that it does not try and influence the way people vote.
Gizmodo points out that such questioning shows that Facebook can and will influence the future presidency in United States. But whats exceedingly important about this question being raisedand Zuckerbergs answer, if there is oneis how Facebook now treats the powerful place it holds in the world. Its unprecedented. More than 1.04 billion people use Facebook. Its where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians. Its also where those politicians are spending a greater share of their budgets, Gizmodos Michael Nunez reports.
This is not the first time Facebook had a brush with politics. In 2010 the social networking firm conducted a 61-million-person experiment to discover if Facebook could affect Americans voting behaviors. They posted an I voted button on 98 per cent of users Facebook walls which also allowed them to see how many of their friends had voted, and the location of local polling station. The Facebook team managing the experiment found that it had resulted in a 0.14 per cent increase in voter turnout at total of 340,000 people.
A similar 2012 experiment, found that by promoting hard news posts on Facebook users walls, resulted in an increased voter turnout.
However this is that first time Facebook is debating about voting for a particular person, Donald Trump. It is well known that Mark is fiercely anti-Trump. He spoke out against the Republican front runner during the companys annual F8 developer conference.
I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others, said the CEO, who did not mention Trump by name. I hear them calling for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, for reducing trade, and in some cases, even for cutting access to the internet.
It doesnt matter whether Mark and his Facebook team votes against Trump, those few votes would hardly matter to Trumps campaign. But it does matter if Facebook decides to work against Trump, it could have a devastating effect on The Donald which has run a hugely effective publicity campaign.
Legally, Facebook are not required to stay neutral in the 2016 presidential race. The company would be in its right, under the First Amendment, to remove all pro-Trump stories from its site and would not have to inform its users it was doing so.
Sabu aka Hector Xavier Monsegur says he helped Turkish hacker group RedHack gain unauthorised access to servers
Everybody who is linked with the online hacktivist group knows Sabu aka Hector Xavier Monsegur. Sabu was the chief informant of the FBI team that brought another Anonymous member, Jeremy Hammond in.
Sabu has claimed that the U.S. government disregarded his interactions with the Turkish hacker group RedHack, with which he brokered an alliance with his own group, AntiSec.
Sabu, formerly a hacktivist when caught by the FBI in June 2011, was given a choice of collaborating in taking down other hacktivists as an FBI informant. Sabu chose to be an informant and proved to be an efficient asset for FBI, playing a key role in the arrest of Jeremy Hammond, a wanted hacker with Anonymous at the time.
A 2014 Daily Dot report based on the court reports and chat logs said that Sabu directed Hammond to hack hundreds of websites outside the United States, including Turkish government website servers. Monsegur contacted a member of RedHack in a chatroom on Jan. 25, 2012, and Hammond passed on the unauthorized access to these servers to RedHack.
Sabu is a much talked about man in Ankara after news surfaced in Turkish about his connections with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Bharara was the key person in getting Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab arrested in Miami last month. Zarrab was arrested on allegations of evading U.S. sanctions on Iran. Bharara was the same U.S. attorney who released Monsegur in return for his cooperation with the FBI in 2014.
I highly doubt the U.S. government cared much that I had interactions with RedHack. The U.S. government was more concerned with attacks focused towards U.S. infrastructure, Sabu told Daily Sabah via email about his role in helping RedHack.
The Turkish hacking group, RedHack remains the number one enemy of the Turkish government. RedHack was able to infiltrate Turkish police websites, the Interior Ministry website and the Turkish Land Forces Command website in spring, 2012. Sabu apparently helped them with gaining unauthorised access to these websites. FBI knew about RedHack hacking campaigns but did nothing to warn the Turkish authorities.
Daniel Stuckey, an American writer who also published articles about Monsegur and his activities, said on Twitter, The FBI did not care nor closely monitor these Turkish hacks. Hacks of foreign countries were happening more because FBI wanted hacks of US targets to stop.
Vigilante hacker who brought The Hacking Team to its knees explains how he hacked it
The hacking of the controversial government spying and hacking tool seller Hacking Team made headlines worldwide back in July of last year for being breached by an outside attacker. Further, there was no information about the offender or how it was done.
However, that secret has finally been disclosed.
The pseudonymous digital vigilante behind the hack has reappeared after maintaining eight months of virtually complete silence, printing a thorough account of how he broke into the companys systems and laid bare its most closely protected secrets.
The hacker who slipped into Hacking Teams network calls himself Phineas Fisher not only quietly exfiltrated more than 400 gigabytes of data, but also has provided an insight of his policy of political ideals and the reasons behind the hack in his write-up.
And thats all it takes to take down a company and stop its abuses against human rights, the hacker announced at the end of his guide. Thats the beauty and asymmetry of hacking: with just 100 hours of work, one person can undo years of a multimillion dollar companys work. Hacking gives the underdog a chance to fight and win.
And thats all it takes to take down a company and stop its abuses against human rights.
According to Phineas Fisher, as opposed to doing consulting work for companies who are often the ones that actually deserve to be hacked, leaking documents to show corruption and abuse of power is real ethical hacking.
Hacking Team is an Italian company that sells spyware and hacking services to police and intelligence agencies worldwide. Several cases have been documented by the researchers through the years where Hacking Teams tools were used against journalists, protesters, or activists.
I see [Hacking Teams CEO David] Vincenzetti, his company, and his friends in the police, military and governments, as part of a long tradition of Italian fascists, Phineas Fisher continued, writing in Spanish. (Vincenzetti often signs his emails with the fascist motto Boia chi molla)
The hacker who is only known as Phineas Fisher, though his Twitter accounts handle is now Hack Back, apparently went undetected for weeks after he broke into the corporate servers of Hacking Team last year.
However, the hacker concluded his invasion in early July of 2015, by leaking online a huge treasure trove of files that included thousands of internal documents, emails, and even the source code of the companys hacking tools. In other words, Phineas Fisher took everything there was to take, laying bare all the companys secrets, including its once secretly guarded list of customers.
The night that the hacker published the data, he disclosed that he was the same person who in 2014 breached Gamma International, a Hacking Teams competitor that sells spyware called FinFisher. However, for months, there was one giant question that has remained unanswered: how did the hacker manage to humiliate and entirely own a company whose whole business model rested exactly on hacking other people?
The hacker at that time promised he would declare to the world. But he just wanted to wait for some time, he said on Twitter, until Hacking Team had some time to fail at figuring out what happened and go out of business.
More than eight months later, Hacking Team is still in business. Hence, Phineas Fisher decided to reveal the detailed account of what happened, so we can laugh them off the internet for good, he tweeted.
The hacker whose guide got published on Friday described how he used an unidentified vulnerability, or zero day to get the first footing into Hacking Teams internal network. The bug still has not been patched; however, Phineas Fisher refused to divulge any more details on what the vulnerability is exactly, or where he found it. (The hacker also declined to comment for this story.)
The hacker said that after getting he moved around cautiously, first downloading emails, then obtaining entry to other servers and parts of the network. Phineas Fisher said after getting administrative rights inside the companys main Windows network, he snooped on the system administrators, mainly on Christian Pozzi, given that they typically have access to the whole network. The hacker said he gained access and exfiltrated all the companys source code having stolen Pozzis passwords by recording his keystrokes, which was hosted on a separate isolated network.
At that point, he reset Hacking Teams Twitter password using the forgot password function, and on the late evening of July 5, he declared the hack using the companys own Twitter account.
The hacker said that he was inside Hacking Teams network for six weeks, and that it took him approximately 100 hours of work to move around and retrieve all the data. Going by his words, its clear that Phineas Fisher had a strong political drive to attack Hacking Team.
Making reference to the bloody raid on the Italian school in Genoa in 2001, where police forces took over a school where anti G-8 activists of the Genao Social Forum were held, leading to the arrest of 93 activists, he added, I want to dedicate this guide to the victims of the assault on the Armando Diaz school, and all those who had their blood spilled by Italian fascists. However, the techniques of the raid and following confinement were so debateable that 125 policemen were brought to trial, indicted of beating and torturing the detainees.
The hacker also rejected being defined as a vigilante, and selected a more political definition.
I would characterize myself as an anarchist revolutionary, not as a vigilante, he told in an email to Motherboard. Vigilantes act outside the system but intend to carry out the work of the police and judicial system, neither of which Im a fan of. Im clearly a criminal, its unclear whether Hacking Team did anything illegal. If anyone, Hacking Team are the vigilantes, acting in the margins in pursuit of their love for authority and law and order.
Hacking gives the underdog a chance to fight and win.
In the guide, Phineas Fisher inspires others to follow his example.
Quoting the anarcho-syndicalist labor union Comision Nacional de Trabajo, or CNT, he wrote, Hacking is a powerful tool. Lets learn and fight! In 2014, after Phineas Fisher hacked Gamma Group, the CNT said that it was clear technology was just another front in class warfare, and that it was time to take a step ahead with new forms of fighting.
Given that neither Hacking Team nor the Italian authorities have revealed anything connected to the hack, it is not possible to confirm whether all the information in the guide is factual.
In in an email to Motherboard, Hacking Teams spokesperson Eric Rabe said, Any comment should come from the Italian police authorities who have been investigating the attack on Hacking Team, so no comment from the company. No information was provided by the Italian prosecutors office.
There is no clarity as to how the investigation is going, but Phineas Fisher seems unfazed about him getting caught. In another section of his guide, he labelled Hacking Team as a company that assisted governments spy on activists, journalists, political opponents, and very occasionally terrorists and criminals. The hacker also referred to Hacking Teams claims that using the Tor network and on the dark web, it was making tech to track criminals.
But considering Im still free, he wrote snarkily, I have doubts about its effectiveness.
The hacker finally ends with a call to arms after sharing a contact email address, in case anyone wants to send spear phishing attempts, death threats in Italian, or to gift him zero days or access inside banks, corporations or governments.
If not you, who? He wrote. If not now, when?
Source: Motherboard
News / National
by Staff Reporter
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Although things improved relatively under the coalition government, Tsvangirai and his party were accused of being weak and indecisive. Even though the coalition government was dissolved in 2013, after another controversial election, Tsvangirai has not vacated the mansion he used as Prime Minister sparking accusations he was "bought".
Tsvangirai's office insists he has a right to buy the mansion under the agreement. They also claim he used $400 000 of his own money as a deposit for the property. The claims and counter-claims have not helped his image either way.
Many in his party believe the continued use of the mansion compromises him and he should move out or buy a house elsewhere.
Although things improved relatively under the coalition government, Tsvangirai and his party were accused of being weak and indecisive. Even though the coalition government was dissolved in 2013, after another controversial election, Tsvangirai has not vacated the mansion he used as Prime Minister sparking accusations he was "bought".Tsvangirai's office insists he has a right to buy the mansion under the agreement. They also claim he used $400 000 of his own money as a deposit for the property. The claims and counter-claims have not helped his image either way.Many in his party believe the continued use of the mansion compromises him and he should move out or buy a house elsewhere.
Source - Nehanda Radio
Comments
Exiled Zimbabwean music legend Thomas Mapfumo has claimed that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sold out the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe and has since joined what he called "the money brigade".Nehanda Radio reported that Mapfumo who is based in the United States, said Zimbabweans no longer had anyone to lead them in the fight against President Robert Mugabe's oppressive regime.Mapfumo claimed Tsvangirai had come away from a trip to the United States "empty handed because of his behavior". The fiery Chimurenga music icon did not elaborate on what this behavior was but claimed;"People no longer have anyone to stand with. They (Zanu PF) bought Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai joined the money brigade. Here the Americans did not give him money because of his ways. So whom should the people follow? There is no one who genuinely stands for the people in Zimbabwe," Mapfumo said.Tsvangirai a former trade union leader has been President Robert Mugabe's biggest political rival since the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was formed in 1999. He forced his way into a coalition government as Prime Minister after a victory over Mugabe in the March 2008 presidential elections.
These hackers made some daring hack attacks and never got caught
Hacking was a term that originated in 1990s and is associated with the unauthorized use of computer and network resources. By definition, hacking is the practice of altering the features of a system, to accomplish a goal which is not in scope of the purpose of its creation.
Hacking is more commonly used in context of Computer Hacking where threat is posed to security of the computer and other resources. In addition, hacking has few other forms which are less known and talked about .e.g. brain hacking, phone hacking etc.
Hacker was a term used to denote a skilled programmer who had competency in machine code and operating systems. Such individuals were proficient in solving unsatisfactory problems and often interpreted competitors code to work as intelligence agents for small software companies. While many others do it for monetary gain or Lulz, while some do it in protest.
We take a look at such mysterious hack attacks where the perpetrator has neither been identified or caught.
WANK Worm
WANK stands for Worms against Nuclear killers and its authors are thought to first hacktivists who made a worm as a statement. WANK worm infected the NASAs DEC VMS computers in 1989 over the DECnet in Maryland. It was written in DIGITAL Command Language. The worm executed a ran a ASCII banner on the NASA computers to protest against plutonium-fueled, Jupiter-bound Galileo probe.
Though NASA managed to clean up its systems, it supposedly cost them half of a million dollars in time and resources.The WANK worm hackers were never identified while some that the worm was created by Melbourne-based hackers, the first to be created by an Australian or Australians. The federal police of Melbourne thought the worm was created by two hackers who used the names Electron and Phoenix. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange was also believed to be behind the WANK worm, however, it was never proved.
UKs Skynet military satellite hack
In February 1999, an unknown group of hackers managed to hijack a Ministry of Defence Skynet military satellite. The unidentified hackers were traced to Southern England but were never caught. The hackers managed to reprogram the control system before their exploit was discovered. UKs military authorities alleged that the hack was done to gain information as to military plans. UKs Scotland Yards Computer Crimes Unit and the U.S. Air Force thoroughly investigated the case but failed to identify the hackers nor was their ultimate aim known.
Anti-DRM Hack
This is one hack attack which millions of users appreciated and the unidentified hacker was heralded as a hero. The case was Windows DRM and hack was meant to strip its DRM and give users free access to songs and videos. The hacker who was known as Beale Screamer had made a program FreeMe which became a overnight hit. FreeMe allowed users to remove digital rights management security from music and video files, freeing them for viewership across the world.
Screamer was never identified or caught and to this day some organizations continue to search for him while many others regard him as a hero.
Hackers stole Military Source Code
This cannot be termed as a good deed hack because the hacked object involved source code that controlled missile-guidance systems. In winter of 2000, a hacker broke into government-contracted Exigent Software Technology and stole two third of the source code of Exigents OS/COMET software which runs missile and satellite guidance system.
The hack attack which occurred in Naval Research Lab in Washington was detected before the full code was stolen. Without the full code, the hackers were not able to do any real damage. However, it is still now known what the hackers intended to do with this code. Authorities identified the hacker as Leaf and traced his trail to the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, but it ended there.
CDUniverse hack
A malevolent computer hacker claims to have pulled off the greatest information technology heist in history after temporarily posting credit-card numbers stolen from a large US e-commerce firm.
It is thought to be a blackmail scheme which went horribly wrong for the hacker. The hacker who is only known as Maxus, apparently demanded $100,000 from CDUniverse for in exchange for destroying the data. Maxus had earlier hacked into CDUniverse website and stolen a wealth of information from its servers.
When the company refused to copy to his ransom demands, Maxim responded by leaking 300,000 credit card numbers on Website entitled The Maxus Credit Card Pipeline. Maxus was never identified after being traced to Eastern Europe.
ApplyYourself hack
ApplyYourself was an automated application system developed to help students find a good MBA college for themselves. However, in March, 2006, an unknown hacker were able to crack the software and track his status. Happy with his exploit, he shared publically for the students on Business Weeks online forum.
Dozens of top business schools, including Harvard and Stanford, saw applicants exploiting the hack in order to track their application statuses. The unknown hacker was never identified and the students who used the hack were rejected by the business schools.
Such weird hack attack have been happening since computers were first developed and Internet became a phenomenon. While these hacks are known, there are many such mysterious hack attacks which will never see the light of day.
Microsoft is suing U.S. government for the right to tell its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails
The latest in a series of clashes over privacy between the technology industry and Washington,
Microsoft Corp has sued the US government over the right to inform its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails.
In the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Western District of Washington on Wednesday, Microsoft accuses the government of violating the US Constitution by preventing the tech giant from notifying thousands of customers about data requests for their emails and other documents.
Microsoft says in its suit that it received 5,624 federal demands for customer information in the past 18 months, and nearly half of them came with gag orders stopping the company from telling customers the government was looking at their data. Even though the company always complies with legally binding orders, it said that 1,752 of those secrecy orders had no time limit, so it might never be able to tell customers that the government obtained their digital files.
The government seeks and executes warrants for electronic communications far more frequently than it sought and executed warrants for physical documents and communicationsapparently because it believes it can search and seize those documents and communications under a veil of secrecy, the suit alleges. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing the lawsuit.
It is unclear how often the government blocks tech companies from telling customers about requests for their data, since officials dont disclose details of such requests.
However, the governments actions not only violate First Amendment rights but also contravene the Fourth Amendment, which establishes the right for people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Microsoft alleges that federal agencies focuses on the storage of data on remote servers, rather than locally on peoples computers, which Microsoft says has provided a new opening for the government to access electronic data.
People do not give up their rights when they move their private information from physical storage to the cloud, Microsoft says in the lawsuit. It adds that the government has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations.
The US Justice Department has not commented on the lawsuit.
The move puts Microsoft on the front lines in the ongoing battle between technology companies and the government over how much businesses should help in government surveillance.
Apple has ruled the discussion in recent months after it refused an FBI request to crack an iPhone used by one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino attack.
Microsoft supported Apples position that co-operating with the government would turn businesses into arms of the state.
Separately on Thursday, a congressional panel said Apple and the FBI will resume testifying in their encryption dispute next week, despite the FBI dropping its suit against Apple after using a third-party hacker to unlock the phone.
URL shorteners could expose your PC to hackers and cyber criminals
Security researchers find shortened URLs could expose your personal data to anyone motivated to look. In other words, URL shorteners provide a useful, simple, way of sharing links; however, these links can unintentionally expose your most personal information.
According to a new report released out of Cornell Tech, we should be showing some concern over the use of URL shorteners. Martin Georgiev and Vitaly Shmatikov discovered the issue after looking at the abbreviated web addresses used by companies like Google, Microsoft and bit.ly. After analysing millions of bit.ly generated short URLs, the duo found that randomly generating the addresses allowed them to access the content behind them.
For instance, the standard Google Maps URL takes up around 150 characters, but for simple use, the product provided a six-character alternative. However, a combination of six-characters is small enough that its possible to break simply with trial and error, exposing your cloud storage files and mapping requests to the world. In particular, Georgiev and Shmatikov were able to find that the links related to Google Maps data and documents stored on Microsofts OneDrive were shared with short URLs.
The researchers also said it would be theoretically possible to add malware and malicious documents to OneDrive folders, which would then automatically synced to a users computer.
Much like how attackers can brute force a password by hurling hundreds or even thousands of password attempts against a hash for hours, they could use related method to find all the shortened URLs on a particular service. URL shorteners typically generate 6 8 random characters at the end of their URLs to make them unique, but because so few characters are actually used, it makes the job of brute force attackers a whole lot simpler.
According to the research, just over 3,000 of the 42 million short URLs scanned, led to publicly-accessible OneDrive folders. The researchers warn that such a folder could be easily exploited, once people find it.
The researchers at the end of the paper disclose the contradictory ways in which Google and Microsoft handled the news of the hack. Google doubled the character length and later told WIRED that it appreciate contributions to the safety of Google Maps and Google products. In the meantime, Microsoft is cited by the researchers as saying that the vulnerability does not currently warrant an MRSC case, even though did quietly remove the shorten link function within OneDrive . However, it is no comfort to existing users who still remain exposed.
Source: ArXiv
In addition to Xi, the new Standing Committee is composed of Wang Huning, director of the Political Research Office of the CCP Central Committee, and Zhao Leji, secretary for the... | Read More
News / National
by Staff reporter
Caps United defender, Method Mwanjali and midfielder, Archiford Gutu were today arrested for allegedly stabbing a Harare man two times in the stomach.It is alleged that between 3:30 and 4:00 am a man driving a Toyota Altezza in the company of three colleagues allegedly used the wrong exit when leaving Long Cheng Plaza, thus blocking Mwanjali and Gutu who were entering the shopping mall.Gutu allegedly reacted angrily and broke the windscreen of the complainant's car.A brawl is then said to have erupted and in the midst of the fracas, Mwanjali is alleged to have gone back to the car they were using where he took a knife which he used to allegedly stab the complainant two times in the stomach.It is alleged that those at the scene of the incident had to restrain Mwanjali as a way of restricting any further injuries to the complainant.Mwanjali and Gutu are alleged to have fled from the scene before handing themselves to police at Milton Park police station hours later.The two are now in police custody.The complainant is recovering at Parirenyatwa Hospital where he underwent surgery.Police spokesperson chief superintendent Paul Nyathi confirmed the incident and said ongoing investigations will determine charges against the duo.The two are however likely to appear in court soon facing charges of assault and malicious damage to property.Chief Superintendent Nyathi encouraged people involved in disputes to desist from violence.
News / National
by Staff reporter
The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Portal Welby says he is happy that the church-state relationship in Zimbabwe has vastly improved and there are now bright prospects for a fruitful association.Archbishop Welby, who is the 105th archbishop of Canterbury and the most senior bishop in the Church of England, made the remarks after paying a courtesy call on President Robert Mugabe at State House in Harare this Sunday afternoon.Accompanied by several Anglican bishops and the British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms Catriona Laing, Archbishop Welby was warmly received by President Mugabe upon his arrival at State House.The delegation's meeting with Mugabe was also attended by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi and several senior government officials.Emerging from the meeting, Archbishop Welby expressed satisfaction with the church state relationship."Affairs of the church, the past and future, and mistakes that have been made are some of the issues that we discussed with the President," he said.The Archbishop could not be drawn into disclosing exact details of what they discussed with the President, saying the meeting was private and confidential.He however said they talked about the ordination of women bishops and they shared notes on that issue with Mugabe who is Catholic.Archbishop Welby arrived in the country yesterday (Saturday) on a pastoral visit from Zambia where he had come to attend the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting.This is the first time that the ACC is being held in central Africa.Earlier in the day, the archbishop attended a church service at the Harare Showgrounds and drew Anglicans from across the country.From 2007, the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe suffered a division between the internationally recognised Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) now led by Bishop Chad Gandiya and a breakaway faction led by Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of Harare.The matter was finally settled in the courts of law.
Prakash Karat accuses Centre of neglecting poor
Hyderabad, April 17 (INN): CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat has accused the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre of neglecting the poor people in the country.
Speaking on the 24th death anniversary of Communist leader Makineni Basavapunnaiah at Vijayawada on Sunday, Karat said that the Central Government was focused on benefitting the corporate institutions and a few select individuals. He alleged that Centre has benefitted the corporates to the tune of nearly Rs. 62,000 crore. He said that the Central Government has been reducing the subsidy being extended to poor sections.
Karat feared that the new reforms being introduced by the Centre would hurt India's economy.
The CPM leader also slammed TDP Government of Andhra Pradesh and accused of swindling huge public money. He said looted public wealth was being used to purchase the legislators of opposition parties.
News Posted: 17 April, 2016
News / Press Release
by BMV Zapu Europe
Zapu will hold a demonstration to protest against the continued oppression of Zimbabweans by the current Zanu-pf led government. This will take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 18 April 2016. The Zapu Belfast branch will be supported by the Zapu Europe province as the Belfast branch will lead a coalition of Zimbabwean political activists who have agreed to share the stage with Zapu.Their key theme is the recognition that while Zimbabwe itself is a free country since 1980, the people of Zimbabwe have never tasted true freedom.The only notable change is the colour and ethnicity of the oppressor. Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the new Ian Douglas Smith. Soon after attaining political independence in 1980, the Mugabe-led regime immediately set upon its citizens whom it perceived to be enemies of the new republic. From day one Zanu-pf made it clear that different political opinions would not be tolerated in the new state.Supporting any political party other than Zanu-pf would be dealt with head on using the state machinery if need be. Opposition party supporters have continued to be subjected to inhuman torture, harassment, arbitrary arrests, being maimed, killed or made to disappear without trace, never to be seen alive again. This culminated in the mass killings of about 20 000 Zapu supporters between 1982 to 1987. Although it is largely accepted that this persecution was carried out at a small scale in all areas of Zimbabwe, it remains undisputed that it was perpetrated at a grand scale in Matebeleland and Midlands. In this part of the country every man, woman, dog or structure was fair game. Woo unto you if you happened to speak IsiNdebele or any of the local languages in this region because you had to be automatically labelled a Zapu supporter and, therefore, an enemy deserving to be killed. By 1987 the once mighty Zapu democratic institution had succumbed to its knees as they could not bear to witness further massacre of innocent and unarmed civilians. Such was the state of affairs which led to the Zapu leadership being frogmarched to sign the useless 1987 Unity Accord. To this day, opposition supporters are still being subjected to the same harassment and torture cited above. Zapu Belfast asks: where is Itai Dzamara? This is the independence we are supposed to celebrate. To say thank you Zimbabwe for killing our families and to say thank you for a direct assault on our culture by forcing all of us to communicate in the new oppressor's language.No freedom of association. No freedom of speech or expression. No respect for basic human rights. No rule of law. A collapsing economy. Ever rising unemployment. A failing health system. Dilapidated and failing schools. No social care worth talking about. And look at the state of the roads.Is this the independence for which our people sacrificed life and limb for? To watch our children die from hunger and disease as a result of crazy economic policies. To watch every able-bodied Zimbabwean troop out of the country one by one in fear for their lives or to seek just green pastures, not greener pastures (sic). To watch our once proud fellow citizens reduced to paupers, beggars and asylum seekers in far far lands. This is not independence. Zapu Belfast says no to celebrating a false political and economic independence and they choose to side with their fellow Zimbabweans, the majority that have little or nothing to celebrate. The struggle for independence from Zanu-pf and its corrupt practices is on course. Victory is certain. One way or the other.
Republican candidate Ted Cruz promised to roll back what he calls President Barack Obama's 'war on coal' if he's elected president.
The Texas senator made the pledge in a speech to the Republican State Convention in Casper on Saturday.
US Senator Ted Cruz, who is seeking the Republican Party's presidential nomination promises to roll back federal regulations that hamper coal production if elected. Credit:Pete Marovich
Wyoming, the nation's leading coal-producing state, has seen hundreds of coal industry layoffs in recent months as several of the nation's largest coal companies have filed for federal bankruptcy protections.
Calling America, "the Saudi Arabia of coal," Cruz promised to roll back federal regulations he says hamper coal production.
Bangkok: The frontrunner to be elected president of the Philippines has joked about an Australian missionary who was raped and had her throat slashed during a jail siege.
The comments by tough-talking mayor Rodrigo Duterte a self confessed womaniser provoked immediate condemnation only three weeks before Filipinos go to the polls in an election seen as crucial to the nation's future.
Grace Poe, the nearest rival to 71-year-old Mr Duterte, said the comments were "distasteful and unacceptable" and "reflect his disrespect for women".
News / Religion
by Staff reporter
The Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Zimbabwe has urged Zimbabweans to come in their numbers for the church's international conference which runs from the 18th to the 24th of this month.Thirty-two countries will converge for the AFM in Zimbabwe international conference which is held every 3 years.AFM in Zimbabwe president Dr Aspher Madziyire urged members of the church and Zimbabweans in general to attend the conference as there will be a special message.AFM in Zimbabwe general secretary Reverend Amon Madawo said the first leg of the international conference runs from 18 to 21 April in Harare while the second leg will be held at Rufaro grounds in Masvingo from 21 to 24 April.The international conference will run under the theme: 'Being a Missionary Church in a Globalising Environment'.
Clive Palmer wants to reopen his Townsville refinery when world nickel prices recover and says prices are already on the rise.
The federal MP hopes to create up to 1000 jobs in Townsville, where almost 800 people were left unemployed after the collapse of his company Queensland Nickel.
Clive Palmer says Queensland Nickel is "certainly finished" but it could be operating again in a short period of time. Credit:Michelle Smith
Mr Palmer has called on the Queensland government to work with him to ensure refinery jobs can be salvaged down the track.
"Queensland Nickel is certainly finished ... but if we're talking about the refinery certainly it's being kept in care and maintenance at the moment, and can start up within a short period of time," he told ABC radio.
There is increasing concern among Western security agencies that as Islamic State suffers military reverses and loses territory in Syria and Iraq, it will retaliate in frustration with more attacks on the West and lash out against countries like Australia that are part of the US-led military coalition. IS leaders have already called for retaliatory strikes and there is credible reporting that IS has set up an international attack planning unit.
IS carrying the fight to the enemy makes sense from a propaganda point of view as well as being a religious imperative and helps to divert attention from its territorial losses.
Najim Laachraoui died in the Brussels airport bombing. Credit:AP
IS' main appeal in Syria and Iraq had been its success, apparently favoured by God, in defeating its enemies and seizing large tracts of land for the caliphate. The call for young Muslims to join the caliphate was based on IS' expectation of continued expansion and consolidation of its governance and its concomitant need for more foreign fighters. Like most brutal occupiers, it is now finding it hard to hang on to its territorial gains and convince potential Arab recruits that it still has God's backing.
While IS was advancing, it held the initiative in choosing when and where to attack. Now that it has lost momentum, its enemies have the initiative and opportunity to pick off IS outposts and interdict its road communications and logistic support.
Canberra Times readers with long memories will remember Rumpole of the Bailey and the famous Mr Justice Bullingham, aka the Mad Bull. One of his famous lines, when Rumpole wascross-examining witnesses, was to intercede with: "Are you questioning the evidence of the police?" It seems that the recent reviews of the Eastman case were also tinged with the same approach. The DPP and senior police who are so ardently pursuing Eastman may think that they are protecting the reputations of their agencies. They are not. The ability to admit the mistakes of the past is crucial to any real credibility and, now, the more they pursue Eastman, the less credibility they retain. Stan Marks, Hawker Scheme a bit fluffy There's something wrong with Planning Minister Mick Gentleman's arithmetic about the cost of the government's Mr Fluffy Homes scheme ("Fluffy blocks go under the hammer as new phase begins", April 13, p1), which suggests the government paid Mr Fluffy home owners less than the market value of their homes.
For example, he says the government has committed $740million to the scheme, and the net cost after selling the Mr Fluffy blocks will be $400million, which means the government will get $340 million from the sale of the blocks. However, earlier statements said the ACT government would repay 70 per cent of the Commonwealth's $1 billion loan for the scheme ($700 million) from the sale of the blocks. That's a total of $731,000 for the 1022 blocks involved, almost the $740 million the government has committed to the scheme, so the government's profit on selling the land virtually recovers the cost of decontaminating the blocks. This means Mr Fluffy home owners are paying for the cost of decontamination, by being paid less than their land's market value, even though the scheme is said to protect 12,000 neighbours, and therefore should be a government responsibility. R. S. Gilbert, Braddon Health shake-up Somehow doctors have gone from being upright, respected citizens in our community, dedicated to their cause, serving to heal and cure, to being not very well regarded "process workers", focused only on referrals, the issuing of scripts and making a bigger buck.
Dallas Stow and Jack Pennington (Letters, March 31) provoke thoughts of the political spin surrounding doctors and the cost of medical services in Australia. As pointed out by Bruce Haigh ("Patient or piece of meat", Times 2, March 21, p4), the medical profession can charge whatever it likes and mostly get away with it. Medical funds are a rip-off and a joke. Why should anyone take out medical insurance when there are still huge gaps to be met? They appear only to allow one to dodge a waiting list and the right to elect a specialist, who will then more than likely hit you with an enormous fee. Perhaps there should be "para medicos", who do basic referrals and scripts, and deal with malingerers and hypochondriacs who make bee lines to doctors and hospital emergency rooms when they have only minor afflictions. Perhaps there are better ways to reduce traffic and the strain on doctors and hospitals, reducing costs in the process. The government's current conundrum about state spending on medical and hospital services would be a move in the wrong direction. Instead of funds going to the states, it should be taken off them. The states must be abolished and funding to them cease. Cutting state duplications of the Commonwealth health and education departments would save taxpayers billions of dollars.
Money from Canberra could go directly to areas of need, administered by one central body, dealing directly with councils reduced from 250 to 50, about the needs within their municipalities. State public servants, from state to state, would be absorbed into the federal department which, intime, would be downsized, saving predictably billions. P. M. Button, Cook Bad grammar Team Pedantry fully supports Michele Quirk (Letters, April 15) in her condemnation of singular verbs used with plural subjects. The problem is not confined to the media, though. It is virtually universal in all forms of print, everyday speech, politics, advertising, academia just about everywhere. And nowhere is it more annoying than when it is partly hidden in a contraction, eg, "There's problems with ..."
Sure, the language changes, but subject and verb needing to be in grammatical agreement is one of the basic rules of English. Still, I suppose we won't really hit semantic rock-bottom until it is OK to announce: "We is going to the movies tonight." Eric Hunter, Cook Take a look at other side of expansion
Chief Justice Helen Murrell waxes lyrical about the new Knowles Place-facing glass walls of the ACT Courts expansion reflecting the "transparency of justice" ("Upgrade of ACT's court infrastructure under way", April 12, p 2). Maybe another side of justice is expressed with the opposite facade. The Kremlin comes to mind. There, we'll see a long, tall, bleak wall of buildings slammed down right on the Vernon Circle footpath, obliterating a whole facade of the splendid 1960s Supreme Court, and blocking vistas from the City Hill summit along Griffin's important radiating University Avenue axis. This was avoided in ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell's earlier plan for City Hill. He envisaged court expansion to the south-west of the Supreme Court. A trial-industry facilitator has given us the new plan, wrecking the splendid landscaped campus-like arrangement of civic buildings and places at City Hill. That arrangement was adopted when Griffin deleted his hilltop City Hall after it became clear that the Commonwealth would be running Canberra. He installed the existing formal structured hilltop tree planting instead. That transferred the ACT's eventual civic functions to the City Hill doughnut (in between London Circuit and Vernon Circle). The National Capital Authority failed to preserve or understand that when they unprofessionally succumbed to commercial land sales as the new paradigm for City Hill.
Thesouth-west expansion of the courts can work, saving City Hill. Do it, Corbell. Jack Kershaw, Kambah Policies ring my bell The sexy policies that Ross Fitzgerald advocates ("It's never too late to make a foray into politics", Times2, April 11, p5) certainly ring my bell. Sophia Yates, Parkville, Vic
Hottest year on record should be a prompt for genuine commitment Both the US and Chinese presidents will sign the Paris Agreement on April 22, which is also Earth Day. For the agreement to come into force, 55 countries that emit a total of 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions must first sign it. China and the US together are responsible for 40 per cent of emissions, and Australia is responsible for 1.3 per cent of the global total. The World Meteorological Organisation recently reported 2015 was the hottest year on record, and 1 degree above the pre-industrial era.
This record average temperature caused record heatwaves, droughts, floods, fires, and cyclones in different regions around our planet. In Australia we've had our highest sea surface temperatures, 2015 was our hottest year, and this March was our hottest on record. Right now, the Great Barrier Reef, from Cairns to the Torres Strait, is experiencing the worst coral bleaching in history. During the Paris conference on climate change, Julie Bishop said the agreement was "a historic step in the global response to climate change". So will our government also sign the agreement on Earth Day with China and the US at the UN headquarters in New York, and will it then table the agreement in the upcoming sitting of Parliament? Stuart Walkley, Lyneham
Sea-level monitoring On reading Michael Thomas's excellent article "Why CSIRO climate cuts could threaten security" (Times2, April 8, p5), I looked up the US National Security Strategy, issued last year, which says it "is clear that climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water. These impacts are already occurring, and the scope, scale, and intensity of these impacts are projected to increase over time." The US appears to be taking seriously the monitoring of sea-level rise, at least. Back in 2014, the then defence secretary wrote: "We are almost done with a baseline survey to assess the vulnerability of our military's more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities. In places like the Hampton Roads region in Virginia, which houses the largest concentration of US military sites in the world, we see recurrent flooding today, and we are beginning work to address a projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years." Half a metre in 20 to 50 years? Assuming Australian coastal bases are also vulnerable, is the Australian Defence Force monitoring sea-level rise or was it depending on CSIRO climate scientists to do it?
If so, now that they have been hobbled by CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall, who will do it? Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW Submarine stance Dr Michael Keating's and Jon Stanford's detailed analysis of "the most costly acquisition ever for the ADF", the $50 billion dollar project for 12 submarines ("Subs: are we in too deep?", Times2, April 14, p4), raises disturbing questions in regard to Australia's strategic relation with the United States. The least of our concerns is that these SSK, or conventional (non-nuclear powered) submarines, which will not be deployable until the early 2030s, will create a 10-year gap in effective submarine capability in replacing the Collins-class submarines.
But of far greater concern is that they are no match in forward-projection combat operations compared with their nuclear-powered counterparts, the SSNs, which are already being deployed by Russia, China and India. Keating and Stanford go as far to suggest that Australia's participation in such operations with the US should be "contingent" upon the US allowing Australia to acquire nuclear submarines. So then why are we not investing instead in half the number and a smaller version of the SSK for only $6 billion to simply protect our shoreline, as recommended by Keating and Stanford? The answer lies in the fact that we are spending billions upon billions of dollars in mere strategic posturing just to artificially maintain our most-favoured-nation status with the US and to secure our place in a nuclear-armed world. Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin, Rivett
Distorted history As we approach Anzac Day, I am saddened that Japan has at last achieved formal recognition by US Secretary of State John Kerry of their significant losses due to the A-bombs dropped on them during World War II. I am saddened, not because I don't recognise the terrible price these civilians paid, but because the Japanese themselves have yet to acknowledge the terrible treatment their forces inflicted on both POWs, mainly British and Australians, and conquered peoples, significantly Chinese. They have written their own atrocities out of their history books, so that modern Japanese are only aware of what the allies did to them. This might not be an issue in the US I can recall an article recently where stories of maltreatment of US POWs by Japanese were a revelation to modern Americans, because the Pacific conflict hadn't been as widely reported as the European front, apart from victories achieved and, of course, the Bomb. However, I feel for those Diggers who suffered at the hands of cruel and vicious Japanese captors, and for Japanese civilians who suffered through the intransigence of their military leaders who would not accept that victory was beyond their capacity. Nothing in war is truly honourable, but I hope the press recognise that we should not be made to feel guilty about Hiroshima or Nagasaki, while the "other side" refuses to recognise its war crimes.
K. N. Bell, Kambah Deaths in custody Shane Duffy and Jackie Huggins' article "Time to change the record for the next generation" (Times2, April 15, p5) was an interesting lament of Indigenous victimhood since the 1991 publication of the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Pity they didn't mention paragraph 3.5 of the report's summary: "The proportion of deaths in police and prison custody was similar for indigenous and non-indigenous people." Bill Deane, Chapman
TO THE POINT WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Apropos Bill Blick's comments on attempts by senior federal public servants to water down FOI laws (Letters, April 15, and "Top bureaucrats acting out of self-interest in relation to FOI", April 15, p4), I agree. If advice from senior officials is demonstrably sound, what's the problem with disclosure? If it isn't sound, why on earth was it put forward in the first place? Chris Whyte, Higgins
LET'S RATE MOODY'S Moody's credit rating agency has lectured the Turnbull government on Australia's budget deficit and hinted that our AAA credit rating is at risk. But isn't this the same organisation that gave the top credit rating to packaged sub-prime mortgages? Rod Matthews, Fairfield, Vic EASTMAN ENDGAME The editorial "Eastman case is far from compelling" (April 15) ended saying "many people will struggle to identify what public purpose will be served by staging another expensive trial of Mr Eastman, other than, perhaps, shielding the AFP and the DDP from accusations of ineptitude". May I suggest massive damages for Eastman as well as a reopening of the case to find the real killer?
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor FORTUNATE TIMING North Queensland's Yabulu refinery workers can thank their lucky stars the refinery went belly-up with an election just around the corner. Those old enough may remember John Howard bailing out his brother's company so that workers could get their entitlements. And it didn't do him any harm. D. J. Fraser, Currumbin, Qld INSULT TO RATEPAYERS
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr's salary is to rise $299,000 from July 1, making an increase of 7 per cent in two years ("4 per cent pay rise for ACT politicians", canberratimes.com.au, April 15). What an insult to ACT ratepayers, who've continually had to wear many and varied tax and levy increases. And from October this year, ratepayers will have to pay for an extra eight MLAs. Exciting times ahead. Michael Attwell, Dunlop EUTHANASIA RISKS Bob Hawke expects his wife, Blanche d'Alpuget, to organise euthanasia for him should he go gaga ("Hawke blasts lack of will on euthanasia", April 15, p4). He doesn't expect to be smothered with a pillow, but for d'Alpuget to organise something with the family doctor. Doesn't Hawke realise that the doctor could end up in prison and lose his/her career if the plan went ahead? Anne Prendergast, Reid
A Citizenship Loss Board has been created within the federal bureaucracy to enable dual nationals to be stripped of their Australian citizenship. It will consider the cases of more than 100 Australians involved in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Despite first meeting in February, the board is not mentioned on any government website, and its members have not been revealed. We know only that it comprises intelligence and police officers, and officials from a range of government departments.
The board is not mentioned anywhere in the law. It operates in secret according to its own rules. It can act on untested evidence and questionable intelligence, including hearsay and information gained from a person subjected to duress or torture. It can also make decisions about a person without giving them an opportunity to be heard. There is no requirement that it act fairly, or even that it be free of bias.
Individuals can now be stripped of citizenshup status Credit:Weibo
The body is not politically accountable, as it lies outside the normal chain of ministerial responsibility. The public servants on the board, and not the minister, determine whether citizenship is revoked. The minister is left with the option of exempting a person from losing their citizenship, or of informing them of that fact. The board is a power onto itself, as it is difficult to see scope for review of its work by a court.
This is especially concerning because of what is at stake. Citizenship is one of the most fundamental of human rights because so many other privileges flow from it. In determining whether a person should lose their citizenship, the board is in effect casting judgment on whether that person should continue to enjoy political rights, such as the right to vote, and a host of other entitlements, including welfare benefits and the ability to enter and live in Australia.
This is not only untrue, but it runs the risk of reducing the opposing view to a caricature, and that snuffs out the chance of genuine progress in the debate. It becomes a mud-slinging match instead.
But, as always with sensitive debates like these, it is important to unpack the claims carefully. First, by identifying the current hesitation with 'quasi-moral and religious' opposition, he is implying that there are no grounds for concern about euthanasia that don't stem in some way from religious opposition.
It is hard not to sympathise with Bob Hawke's comments on euthanasia. He says that he can see no logical or ethical reasons for the 'absurd' position of making a person 'suffer and suffer and suffer'.
Second, I don't think anybody, not even the most staunch opponent of euthanasia, would deny Hawke's point that it is wrong to make someone suffer from severe pain. But the problem is whether euthanasia can justifiably be restricted to those people.
One example that prompted the Supreme Court in England to encourage Parliament to address the issue was the case of Nicklinson, who suffered from locked-in syndrome. Having been very active before a catastrophic stroke, Nicklinson found his situation unbearable, and wanted to end his life. He was not terminally ill, so any law introduced in the UK to cover this situation would have to be liberal enough to deal with this type of case.
Hawke himself speaks of a different situation, one in which, as he puts it, 'I lose my marbles'. This, too, can happen without you suffering from a terminal illness. And it does indeed seem right that, if you are suffering unbearably, you shouldn't have to be terminally ill to gain access to euthanasia or assisted suicide. Why should we privilege terminal suffering over other forms of unbearable suffering?
But this is where the real problem comes in. If we draft a law liberal enough to avoid the illogical choice of restricting euthanasia to the terminally ill, is that going to mean that people who are tired of life and claim to be suffering unbearably can also avail themselves of euthanasia?
What if Bob Hawke makes his decision about euthanasia while passing the legal test of competence one of the inevitable safeguards that will be included in any legislation but later changes his mind when he has lost the mental competence legally required to make any decision about his future?
Opinion / Columnist
Although stakeholders in the education sector applauded the efforts being made to curb abuse of funds by school heads and bursars, calls have been made for Government to show a political will to curb broad corruption.Some of stakeholders are urging the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to reconsider some of its policies with a view to tie the loose ends.In 2015, Government commissioned an audit of schools following indications of fraud and abuse of funds. The audit report has since revealed that more than US$1,2 billion in development levies is circulating in Government and mission schools and a chunk of that money is being abused by heads and bursars.The report revealed how some school authorities have been duplicating receipt books as cover to lay their hands on development funds. Some of the schools allegedly sunk boreholes and bought buses at inflated prices.According to the report, a learning institution in Harare allegedly falsified its yearly wage bill and officials then pocketed the difference.One of the schools allegedly falsely stated that it purchased a bus for $180 000 when the actual cost was no more than US$100 000. This was also despite a standing Government directive for all schools to buy buses from State Procurement Board- approved dealers.Most culprits have been flouting tender regulations, inflating invoices and quotations, and under receipting and banking.Maxwell Rafemoyo of the Zimbabwe Education Coalition said Government must first tackle corruption in all sectors of the economy."Corruption is the country's enemy number one. Zimbabweans must be seen frowning on corrupt tendencies. Corruption is endemic in all sectors of the economy and the education sector has not been spared," Mr Rafemoyo said.Rafemoyo said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education re-look some of its policies."In my view, I think the ministry must introduce a clear policy and practice on how all schools should manage their accounts. Annual financial audits must be conducted," added Rafemoyo.He called upon the ministry to introduce expenditure tracking systems and to train school development association members how to manage issues to do with financial management and school development.Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora last week threatened to remove cash control from SDAs."We know for a fact that more than US$1,2 billion is collected through levies, and if only half of that was used to develop the schools we will be talking of something else."We have a backlog of 2 000 schools and are collecting a lot of money. How then do we explain the backlog in infrastructure development? Some schools are overstaffed and these employees earn far more than teachers and heads on civil service salaries. This has become a conduit for corruption."There is a disconnect between the levies collected and their use. Most of these schools' levy collection systems are robust, but when it comes to use, (it's a different story altogether). What the auditors observed was shocking. It's clear the situation cannot remain like that."Dr Dokora wants schools to operate a single account which is managed under statutory provisions.A look at the way schools manage their finances reveals that the system is easily prone to manipulation. For instance, the Schools Services Fund and General Purpose Funds accounts have the school head and the deputy as the only signatories.This exposes the accounts to abuse since the two can connive and loot the funds.The School Development Association levy account has both the school head and a member of the SDA as signatories. Again, this account can easily be abused.William Mukuwapasi, an educationist, said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education must advocate for a Statutory Instrument that manages how school funds are managed."Each school must have a single account which is governed by statutory provisions. School heads must not be allowed to do as they please. Without such a provision, the abuse of funds will never be curbed," said Mr Mukuwapasi.Zimbabwe Schools Development Associations secretary-general, Mr Everisto Jongwe, said SDAs were important to education."Parents are important stakeholders in the development of school and must, therefore, take a leading role in the development of schools. SDA members must be trained so that they will keep abreast of current trends in financial management and school development," Jongwe said.SDAs are primarily responsible for school development and hiring additional staff were the need arises, and are funded from levies.Although the Public Service Commission has started firing school heads linked to abuse of development levies, Rafemoyo said the punishment was not deterrent enough.As of last week, 74 schools heads had appeared before provincial disciplinary panels.
The occasional leadership characteristics series allows pollsters to track the perceived performance of our political leaders and against both their immediate competitors and predecessors, according to 11 headings.
It is this disappointment factor, more than any other, which has seen Mr Turnbull's extremely high popularity slump in the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll.
Voters have reacted savagely to the reality of Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister when measured against their own expectations, sending a clear warning to the Coalition that the election will be close and victory cannot be assumed.
This poll shows that Mr Turnbull's numbers have all turned sharply against him. A massive 25 per cent drop in his ability to make things happen headlines the decline. This seems to sum up the sense of disappointment in voterland at the slow pace and performance of the Turnbull government and a disturbing tendency to set out ambitious policy goals and then retreat from them. The poorly conceived debates about the GST and the states gaining income taxing powers stand out.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's personal attribute ratings have taken a hit. Credit:Andrew Meares
Ten of the 11 characteristics are expressed in positive terms and Mr Turnbull has gone backwards on every one.
The only one where he has registered an increase is the one which is regarded as a negative characteristic in a politician, that of being easily influenced by minority groups. On this heading, there was no joy either: Mr Turnbull went up by seven percentage points from 27 in October 2015, to 34 last week.
His performance as a strong leader has been marked particularly harshly by voters against their high expectations expressed just weeks into his prime ministership registering a 20 per cent fall on this index. Yet with 55 per cent support for this characteristic, he still holds a commanding lead over his rival Bill Shorten.
1. 60 Minutes case back in court
Double Shot comes to you this week from Beirut, Lebanon where the botched 60 Minutes abduction case, over which seven people have been charged, is due to resume in court on Monday afternoon Australian time.
Sally Faulkner, the mother at the centre of the failed child-recovery operation, could file for release from jail today. You can read my story here.
On last night's 60 Minutes, the network again avoided answering the question everyone is asking: did the network pay for the child-recovery operation? Never mind, Adam Whittington, the ex-soldier turned professional child recovery operative, has told News Corp he's ready to testify against Nine and has the receipts to prove it.
In the early days of the Herald, one of the names which garnered press for his reputation as an excellent party host was Sir Richard Bourke, whose term of office as Governor ended in about 1837. Actress Deborah Kerr at lunch at Romano's in 1959. Credit:Noel Stubbs According to reports of his various soirees, invitations to Sir Richard's parties "caused many jealousies and heartburnings", especially for those not on the guest list. One hundred and sixty years later, the much cherished Cointreau Ball invitations engendered similar feelings, but rather than entertaining social climbers and their parasol-duelling wives for "tea", the Cointreau Ball was a wild party where the likes of celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey arrived wearing hot pants adorned with giant pink peacock feathers while lathered in fake tan and body glitter. Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman. Credit:Mark Davis/Getty Images
Bailey's predecessors also knew how to party. Our greatest colonial dynasty was founded by 'the bastard son of a highway robber by a convict whore': WC Wentworth, the father of colonial self-government and an explorer of the Blue Mountains. He was also one of Sydney's wealthiest citizens, the owner of magnificent Vaucluse House where he threw a fete in 1831 for a staggering 4,000 guests, about four times the size of the biggest Cointreau Ball. Just as the Herald's "Women's Pages" would document how Sydney's social luminaries dined during the 1940s and 1950s at hotspots like The Hotel Australia, Romano's restaurant on Castlereagh Street and Prince's on Martin Place, where men wore black tie and women sipped from champagne saucers, coverage of Wentworth's fete more than a century earlier also included an inventory of the catering: a bullock and 12 sheep, roasted on a spit. PR mogul Roxy Jacenko has courted controversy over her daughter Pixie Curtis' (pictured) Instagram profile. Reporting of such social gatherings was mostly done in polite prose by teams of predominantly female journalists, who were not allowed to cover "hard news" rounds for many decades and worked in entirely separate offices to their male colleagues. Interestingly, the juicier stories would often turn up in the Herald's "personals" columns, where lonely hearts would be seeking like-minded souls with "industrious and temperate habits" or "good physiognomy".
Lady Mary Fairfax and Kirk Douglas at a party given by the Fairfaxes for Kirk Douglas at Fairwater in Sydney on 16 September 1980. Credit:Keith Byron Imagine the plight of a young widow in mid-19th century Sydney. Back then, a carefully composed plea for another tilt at love might find itself filed under "Miscellaneous", and nestled between ads for "New milch cow for sale, very superior" and "1000 kegs of Lochfine Herrings". Even in the 1940s the Herald would report at length on individual divorce cases, with "adultery" often cited as a reason for the marriage breakdown, along with the couple's full names and addresses. Sir Laurence Olivier and Lady Olivier at Romano's restaurant. Credit:Fairfax Archives Two world wars and such 20th Century technological wizardry as flash photography and the Telex machine would again re-shape how Sydney's social fauna was covered in the Herald, the pace of news quickened and the desire for gossip beyond fawning coverage of one's dinner ensemble grew.
Joining the Wentworths on the social radar came other great families feted in the Herald's pages, some for generations, including the then owners of the paper the Fairfaxes, with the second wife of Sir Warwick Fairfax, Lady Mary, taking a particular interest in how such matters were covered in "her paper". Russian New Year's Eve party at Romano's in Sydney. Credit:Gordon Short Lady Mary's glamorous house parties at Fairwater, where she would often entertain visiting international celebrities and heads of state, were covered in great detail by the Herald, from the guest list to her famous kangaroo ice sculpture, the pouch of which was filled with the finest Beluga caviar. The Herald had responded to the launch of the Australian Women's Weekly in 1934 by publishing a weekly inset 24-page women's supplement every Thursday. One of the early Women's Editors was Jean Hamilton, a formidable figure who during the 1930s was known around the Herald offices as Machine Gun Kate. Herald journalist Connie Robertson and Buster Keaton during World War II in 1939. Credit:Fairfax Archives
She was replaced by Connie "Sweetheart" Robertson, a daughter of AG Stephens, the former literary critic and editor of The Bulletin's Red Page. Robertson became something of a journalistic institution in her own right, staying at the Herald for 28 years running its women's pages until her retirement in 1962. Gala night at the Opera house: Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax with the General Manager of the Opera house, Mr Frank Barnes and Mrs Barnes. Credit:Fairfax Archives According to her biographer, former Herald journalist Valerie Lawson, Robertson would famously "stand at the top of the stairs at Romano's looking down on the crowd, tapping her teeth with her pencil, and choosing the favoured ones for portraits. At Prince's Robertson and her team of reporters would be greeted by Jean Cheriton, or "Cherry" as she was known, who claimed to know all the society women of Point Piper and Bellevue Hill. At work, Cherry served reporters with coffee and chicken sandwiches".
National treasure: Cate Blanchett. Credit:Ian Gavan/Getty Images But it wasn't all florid prose. The Fairfaxes' great rivals, the Packers and Murdochs, also provided plenty of fodder. The Herald reported with particular glee Sir Frank Packer's boys, Clyde and Kerry, starring in bloody street brawls, just as his grandson James did in more recent times at Bondi Beach with his former best man David Gyngell. In the early 1980s the Herald published a photograph of a young James Murdoch, asleep during a press conference while on work experience as a budding reporter at his father's newspaper. By the second half of the 20th Century, the private lives of Sydney's old society matrons and families like the Wentworths, the Horderns and Lloyd Joneses, were of less interest to readers, who were increasingly becoming fascinated with the burgeoning world of celebrity, from local television personalities to Hollywood heavyweights like Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, all of whom have called Sydney home. And while mentions of bullocks on spits may have disappeared from the Herald's social coverage, our city continues to offer plenty of other fodder for readers to graze on.
There is no question the new world of the social media celebrity is a peculiar place where brigades of bloggers, from fashion to food, are revered like Hollywood film stars as they assume the mantle of style and trend arbiters, dictating what's hot and what's not to their many millions of followers around the world.
But don't be fooled, not all of them are being totally upfront about what they're doing.
Singer Beyonce is reportedly sent 15 free designer purses and a lot of other products each month by firms hoping she will mention their brand or wares. Credit:NCP/Star Max
Sydney has a staggering number of social media "influencers" who are carving up the city aboard an almighty gravy train that bears little scrutiny. They have been able to convince not just small fashion labels and local restaurants to give them free gowns or a meal in return for a Facebook post, but some now have giant corporations coughing up huge royalty cheques, sometimes worth many thousands of dollars, to present their goods and services in a glowing light in a single Instagram shot.
And yet rarely do these new generation "influencers" reveal the rather more telling details of the payments behind their glowing social media posts whether it be in cash or kind to their many followers, who naturally would interpret such endorsements as being based on a product or service's merit.
A man has been charged with attempted murder after a stabbing at a men's hostel in inner-city Brisbane.
The victim, a 51-year-old man, was rushed to the nearby Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in a serious condition following the alleged assault about 2.15pm on Sunday.
Police have taken a 37-year-old man into custody and charged him with attempted murder later in the evening. Credit:Michelle Smith
He was given first aid at the Butterfield Street address in Herston before paramedics and doctors treated him for stab wounds to his neck, chest and abdomen.
Police took a 37-year-old man into custody and charged him with attempted murder later in the evening.
Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs pictured with an Apple I computer. In the foreground Jobs launches the iPad at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2010. Credit:Tony Avelar The Apple l, the first Apple computer made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Credit:Andrew Burton via Getty Images He's still officially an Apple employee receiving, according to one estimate, a very modest salary of $120,000 a year but these days enjoys a rollicking life as entrepreneur, academic, mentor, and critic. He turns 66 this year, and while he can walk down any street beyond Silicon Valley unmolested, in electrical engineering and computer programming circles his status is pretty much godlike. He also has a long relationship with Australia. In 2014 he accepted a role as adjunct professor at the impressively named Centre for Quantum Computation and Intelligent Systems at Sydney's University of Technology. He's heading over here at least twice this year in August for a speaking tour, and this month for family reasons. An Apple I computer held by the US Smithsonian Institution.
"My son lives in Sydney," he said, "and his wife recently gave birth, so I'm heading over to meet my first grandchild." He said it over a landline, as per instructions. The disjunction between the ubiquity of smartphones and the inability of a call company to deal with them wouldn't have surprised him. Expectations of technological promise, he said, always run well ahead the actuality. It's all the fault of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. A photographer takes a picture with his own iPhone of a tribute to Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs outside the Apple Store in Covent Garden in 2011 in London. Credit:Peter Macdiarmid "I believe the narrative is running way ahead of the reality, especially because much of it has been written by science fiction writers, starting way back 150 years ago or more," he laughed. This is especially so, he said, in the current case of the Internet of Things (IoT) the much-hyped state at which all household components are internet-linked, autonomous, and controllable via an app on your smartphone.
Often portrayed as the logical next step in industrial or perhaps post-industrial society, to Wozniak the IoT is not a done deal. There is no plan; only trial, error and guesswork. "It can already control all these little personal things in our life the lights in the house, our radio stations and everything," he said. "Once it's all on the internet, it's nice to have access to it. I can access my car with it, for instance. If I want, I can honk the horn or set the temperature before I get into it. "Clothing will soon have devices built into it that monitor us and transmit the data to the internet. Then there are things like Fitbits or the Apple Watch that can tell us how far we're running. "These are all good, helpful things but I don't see anything like, oh my gosh, every appliance in our life is hooked up to the internet. It's coming gradually, one thing at a time. It's like getting apps on your phone: one app for this device, one app for that." The piecemeal nature of digital development can easily lead to piecemeal operating systems complex and confusing bunches of software that seem reluctant to co-operate with each other. It's an outcome that runs counter to the intuitive simplicity that Wozniak and Jobs both made the defining design element of Apple products.
Indeed, there is a definite theme that characterises all of Wozniak's work, during and after his Apple years. As an engineer and programmer, he's all about integration, about doing more things with fewer controls. It's easy to overlook now, but the fact that the Apple II comprised computer, keyboard, and screen all in the same unit was groundbreaking. It rapidly became the norm across the industry. After leaving Apple, Wozniak designed another piece of mass-market labour-saving household technology albeit one far less glamorous. In 1987, having formed a company called CL9, he lodged a patent for the world's first programmable universal remote control for televisions and VHS players. In 2002 he formed another company, called Wheels of Zeus (yielding the acronym WoZ, of course). It played a key role in developing wireless GPS technology. A few years later he signed on as chief scientist with a mob called Fusion-io, a company that designs flash memory systems for really, really big things like cloud computing. UK musician Paul Weller, a near contemporary of Wozniak's, has released a dozen critically lauded solo albums since 1992, but for a whole generation of people he will forever be known as the man who founded the genre-defining neo-Mod trio called the Jam in 1976. Wozniak has the same issue it doesn't matter what he's achieved since, he's always going to be the Apple Guy.
This remains the case no matter what he says about the company he co-founded. Although he remains an employee, he is not perhaps a completely loyal one. Last month he told fans on Reddit that he thought the Apple Watch had taken the company into the jewellery market. He said he wasn't a big fan of the product, noting that "basically about all you can do on it is talk and tap a little". Apple refuses to release sales figures for its watches, leading pundits to suggest that the invention might have been a commercial flop. That's significant because the company's world-changing success has never been just about innovation and invention. It's also been about business, and building an extremely efficient corporate structure. That same combination will ultimately determine the shape of the Internet of Things, in which Apple plans to play a central role. Indeed, it may well be that the business side of things is most influential, given that, at least for computer wiz Woz, the technical challenges of the IoT are pretty minor. "I see it evolving," he said. "It's not like there are many homes now that function at any level you would call complete today. But lots of these little things on the internet are things that have existed before. "It's very easy to apply some kind of intelligence and make them communicate regarding their status, and their controls. And that means they're good for start-ups.
"It doesn't take a whole huge company to necessarily make a whole lot of these new products. Each one individually is fairly small and simple on its own but it becomes a part of something much bigger." It's hardly surprising that Wozniak views small business as the likely driver of the next great digital cultural shift. Net-based commerce is increasingly portrayed in terms of rags-to-riches disruptive businesses like Uber and Airbnb. More personally, though, he has been several times reminded this year that it was exactly four decades ago that he and his geeky mates changed the world from inside a California garage. Then, just as now, there was no blueprint for the technological future. Recently, Wozniak has spoken of the great promise of machine learning the use of "smart" machines to automate research and analysis tasks. He is happy to admit, however, that he has no idea what tomorrow will look like. "You know what? The way we live our lives was defined before the internet," he said.
"We already had closets and bathrooms of a certain shape, and things like that. And no one's thought out how a home could be designed very differently. How could it serve my patterns, respond to them, and make them available on the internet? "You see, we never think out all these crazy things, and they sound unrealistic, but some of them will catch on just like all fads catch on and some of them stay. Hey, who could have predicted what the value was of a pet rock? That was the best novelty in America, ever." In time, history may judge the Apple Watch to be a novelty that failed to emulate the success of a lump of sandstone with googly eyes glued on. By then, it's quite likely the Wozniak the man who, decades before, engineered the product's DNA will be living in happy retirement in New South Wales. He has spoken often about his desire to relocate to Australia especially now his first grandchild has arrived. "It won't be for a few years yet, because I have to do a lot of travel to fulfil my public speaking commitments around the world," he said. "I could buy a house there now, but I wouldn't have the time to live in it. But having a two passports remains a very important goal for me."
Meet the Woz Wed 24 August 2016 | HBF Stadium, Perth Fri 26 August 2016 | BCEC, Brisbane Sat 27 August 2016 | MCA, Melbourne Sun 28 August 2016 | ATP, Sydney
Enrolments at Victorian TAFEs have plummeted up to 27 per cent, despite their financial turnaround.
The decline in enrolments has been blamed on scandals in the private training sector that have damaged the reputation of vocational education.
Although Victorian TAFEs have had a financial turnaround, their enrolments have declined up to 27 per cent in the past year. Credit:Louie Douvis
Labor campaigned heavily on TAFEs in the lead-up to the state election, promising to reverse cuts by the former state government and resurrect the struggling sector.
TAFE annual reports, tabled in State Parliament last week, revealed Sunraysia Institute had a 27 per cent decrease in enrolments in 2015, and enrolments at the Gordon Institute dropped 24 per cent.
A 7-Eleven store, an office tower nicknamed the "black stump" and a Brutalist cinema are among a motley collection of buildings granted interim heritage protection this month.
But the historic Princess Mary Club, a 1926 apartment building on Lonsdale Street designed to house young women, will be demolished to make way for a 34-level office tower, as the Planning Minister has decided the building has deteriorated too far to restore.
7-11 on Elizabeth Street granted heritage interim protection. Credit:Joe Armao
"It's a shame we're losing the Princess Mary Club but this is a good outcome for the site long term," Planning Minister Richard Wynne said.
The club is owned by the Uniting Church, which has teamed up with Leighton Properties to develop the site. Under an agreement, the builder will restore the church and buildings, and create a substantial new park.
Opinion / Columnist
CHRISTIAN organisations have castigated the Primary and Secondary Schools Ministry for imposing a national schools pledge without a prior consultation process, expressing fears that there could be an agenda to kick out the Lord's Prayer recited by students during assemblies.The Lord's Prayer is deduced from Matthew 6 and Luke 11 when Jesus Christ's disciples asked him to teach them how to pray.The prayer has been a common feature at many public and missionary schools over the decades.Christians feel this could be stopped by introduction of the Pledge of Allegiance, which is proposed in the curriculum review embarked on in 2014 by Primary and Secondary Schools Minister, Dr Lazarus Dokora.Instead of the Lord's Prayer, infant pupils will say: "Almighty God in whose hands our future lies, I salute the national flag, I commit to honesty and dignity of hard work."Junior and secondary school students' Pledge of Allegiance reads, "Almighty God in whose hands our future lies, I salute the national flag, I commit to honesty and dignity of hard work. United in our diversity by our common desire for freedom, justice and equality.Respecting the brave fathers and mothers who lost lives in the Chimurenga/Umvekela and national liberation struggles."We are proud inheritors of the richness of our natural resources. We are proud creators and participants of the richness of our natural resources.We are proud creators and participants in our vibrant traditions and cultures. "With pupils already singing the national anthem and reciting the Lord's Prayer in 10-30 minute school assemblies, churches fear the Pledge of Allegiance will clutter the programme and eventually see the prayer being kicked out.Founder and leader of Word of Life International Ministries, Dr Goodwill Shana, said their general sentiment was that if this was pursued, Zimbabwe would follow in the footsteps of the United States which stopped prayer in public schools in the name of separating faith and the state."The national pledge (in the US) did away with prayer in schools. The general concern is the process will have Christian values done away with. The process itself was not open, it will be wonderful to have consultation."I think EFZ (Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe) is concerned with inroads the multi-faith agenda is making in trying to be as inclusive we slowly find ourselves doing away with Christian values. While we think, a pledge doesn't appear outwardly negative but in the process where is it going," the former president of EFZ said."From the Constitution, I have a right of association and (that applies) for children as well. The pledge isn't on the curriculum and it's an imposition and it might play the role of violating my Constitutional right. When you read newspaper articles (on the pledge) you see that the language used is arrogant, that it's not optional, what kind of language is that?" Our country doesn't need division, imposing is not the way. I have made (known) my concerns to EFZ that the church should register concerns strongly."We shouldn't just be against it but let's have dialogue with the series of stakeholders involved. Politicians say we (church) are important but exclude us in these important decision processes," Dr Shana said.ControversyAccording to online sources, the US pledge of allegiance is recited in schools at the beginning of every day.However after introduction of the pledge in the 1880s, several legal battles followed." prominent legal challenges were brought in the 1930s and 1940s by the Jehovah's Witnesses, a group whose beliefs preclude swearing loyalty to any power other than God, and who objected to policies in public schools requiring students to swear an oath to the flag.They objected on the grounds that their rights to freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment were being violated by such requirements."In 1962, the US supreme court also ruled that government-endorsed prayer in public schools was unconstitutional. This followed a contention which was started by parents who in 1958 sued New York over state-endorsed prayer being recited in schools.The supreme court sided with the complainants and the decision was issued on June 25, 1962."The landmark decision, which continues to lay at the center of the nation's debate over the separation of church and state, forever changed the way that faith and religion are handled in classrooms."What followed was the eradication of prayer and religion from schools, something many on the conservative end particularly those with a faith bent lament," an article from theblaze.com says.Zimbabwe has a secular Constitution and seeks to keep the State and Church separate while at the same time "Acknowledging the supremacy of Almighty God, in whose hands our future lies". (Preamble to the Constitution of Zimbabwe)EFZ secretary-general Mr Blessing Makwara said several of their members were concerned with the pledge."There have been mixed reactions. Some conservatives are strongly against the pledge. It's like an oath that can be held against oneself. Children in primary up to 16 years, are they able to appreciate what pledging is without parental consent?"Scriptures clearly state that don't swear, if its yes let it be yes, and a no be a no . When you talk of saluting flags vis-a-vis worshipping God alone! To Minister (Dokora), he was saying it's a commitment to inculcate national identity and hard work.If you read the words of the pledge for primary and secondary schools they are taken from Constitution of Zimbabwe. It's just a replacement with simple words to suit the children. It's an issue bringing forth that do you understand what is in the Constitution," Mr Makwara said.Former EFZ secretary-general Reverend Tim Tavaziva added: "The trend in the world is to go the New Age style where you bring all the religions and like a big sanguage you eat. That's not going to work with Christians. There is going to be major sidelining. In fact I personally think it's a subtle attempt to remove prayer from the schools. It means we stop praying, stop catching them young and teaching our children to communicate with God."In the Constitution we have freedom of religion. That's what you volunteer. I would like to submit that most people in this country are Christians and they volunteered the Christian way of doing things.In courts the Bible is used, when ministers are sworn for office, the same."If they wanted they could argue that a few children are being forced to do the Lord's Prayer. But they aren't forced they can choose shut up during the prayer. But with the pledge I don't know if they say aaah it's voluntary."I am glad that Parliament said 'minister, hold it'. Let there be a debate and consensus because his (Dr Dokora's) approach has been we are consulting. But it's really been from top down rather than engaging genuinely."He added that while there were many Christian denominations, there was consensus on teaching the Lord's Prayer.Moral declineAn article titled "Banning Prayer in Public Schools has led to America's Demise" outlines how that country has plummeted from righteous living, prosperity and success in the last quarter century.Deriving its analysis on research titled "America: To Pray or Not to Pray", the article states that America's moral decline rapidly accelerated following the US supreme court's ruling to remove prayer from public schools."America has experienced radical decline in each of the four areas which the children's prayer touched upon: youth, family, education, national life. Minor recovery has occurred only since 1980 when the election of president Reagan brought forth a renewed emphasis on 'traditional' values."The writer quotes Matthew 5:33-37 to illustrate how a pledge infringes on God's Word."Besides forbidding perjury (calling God to witness a lie) and false swearing, this passage also forbids all rash and unnecessary swearing, and especially warns against promissory oaths that require a performance. Our 'Yes' should be 'Yes,' and our 'No' should mean 'No.' If understood, our word uttered in integrity should of itself be a sufficient and proper bond."The 'evangelical prophet,' Oswald Chambers (18741917), saw that the empty promises made by so many Christians actually result in great "spiritual leakage."He admonished his followers: "Always beware of vowing, it is a risky thing. If you promise to do a thing and don't do it, it means the weakening of your moral nature. We are all so glib in the way we promise and don't perform and never realise that it is sapping our moral energy."
Hundreds of Victorian students with disabilities are starting high school each year without support because the system ceases to recognise their problems as serious enough.
A landmark review of Victoria's $659 million-a-year program for disabled students has highlighted a system plagued by a lack of transparency and consistency.
"There is no certainty that two students with the same disability and the same educational needs in different schools will receive the same level of support," the review says.
The review, provided to Fairfax Media, comes before a $22 million package to be announced in the April 27 state budget designed in part to plug funding gaps that have left thousands of students without support because they do not meet key criteria.
The boost includes:
Doctors fear a young Melbourne woman is dying from a complication of measles a preventable disease that higher rates of immunisation could eradicate.
Over the past two years the woman, in her 20s, has gone from being a fit and healthy student to somebody who cannot walk or talk. She is bed-bound and suffering regular seizures at home, where her family is caring for her 24 hours a day.
Dr Eloise Williams, an infectious diseases registrar, said the woman presented to the Western Hospital in Footscray last year suffering from involuntary jerks in her arms and legs, visual disturbances and reduced speech which had developed over nine months. The mysterious symptoms were causing her to fall over and wet herself.
WA police are seeking witnesses to a Friday morning incident in which a bicycle crashed into a pedestrian on Hay Street in the city, seriously injuring the walker.
The 22-year-old pedestrian, a woman from Wembley Downs, was crossing Hay Street from north to south when a bike ridden by a 53-year-old Maida Vale man, travelling west along Hay Street, crashed into her near the William Street intersection at 8.18am.
The woman was taken to Royal Perth Hospital with serious injuries but has since been released. The cyclist received minor injuries.
Police would like to speak to anyone who may have seen the cyclist or pedestrian prior to the crash and asks that witnesses contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or www.crimestopperswa.com.au.
It was Monday night and the Public Theater looked like the hottest club in town a DJ spun in the mezzanine as raucous revelers packed into the lobby to celebrate the opening night of Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes. Camped out in Joe's Pub, the cabaret space just off the Public's main lobby, Shaina Taub and her crew seemed determined to outdo them. No fewer than 20 musicians took the stage to celebrate the release of her album Visitors. The ensemble, made up of strings, brass, woodwinds, and a gospel choir, could have been called the Shaina Taub Orchestra. Such a massive assembly would be a novelty in any other cabaret space in the city, but not at Joe's Pub, a venue that has distinguished itself as a showcase for the unconventional.
"The first thing we look for is diversity," says Joe's Pub director Shanta Thake. She and her team schedule 75 to 80 performances a month encompassing a wide variety of artists and genres. Recent acts have included Adele, French stand-up comedian Gad Elmaleh, and Mongolian folk rock band Tengger Cavalry. Joe's Pub frequently hosts outrageous cabaret performer Bridget Everett (who debuted her acclaimed show, Rock Bottom, there in 2014). On April 21, Venezuelan-American performer Migguel Anggelo and his band, the Immigrants, will share a night with the reunion of Kiki and Herb. Thake explains, "We want artists at the highest levels of the industry alongside those just starting out, artists with whom we can put a stake in the ground."
Taub is one of those artists. "The first concert I ever saw in New York was here," she announced while seated at the piano, "and the first concert I ever performed in New York was also here." It was Taub's night off from her regular gig at Signature Theatre's Old Hats, so this was the perfect time and place for her album release party.
"I've known Shaina for years," says Thake. "It's been amazing to watch her career flourish." Taub's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is set to play the Delacorte Theater (the Central Park amphitheater where the Public presents Shakespeare in the Park) in September. "One of the benefits of having Joe's Pub within this organization," says Thake, "is that it can be a platform to introduce new voices to the Public Theater."
Really, that was always the theory (if not the practice) behind Joe's Pub. "In the beginning," says managing partner Kevin Abbott, "it was a space for artists to create." Abbott has been with Joe's Pub since it was founded in 1998, so he has seen the club shift away from that mission and then come back to it over the years. "For a while," he says, "performance became secondary to the idea of a space for pre-theater dinner and a nightclub." It seemed unavoidable that the room attached to the kitchen would become a convenient place to grab a bite before seeing a show at one of the Public's five other theaters. What is more surprising is the fact that the Public Theater briefly had an in-house dance club.
Patrons flock to Joe's Pub for two to three performances every night.
( Kevin Yatarola)
"We had a velvet rope and a dress policy," Thake recalls with a chuckle. At 11 o'clock every night, the chairs and tables were cleared out to create a dance floor. Abbott speculates that 9/11 led to a pause in nocturnal excess, making the operation of such a nightclub less lucrative. Also, the 2013 opening of the Library (the Public's gourmet restaurant operated by Andrew Carmellini) meant that another space could serve the needs of pre-theater diners. This allowed Joe's Pub to come back to its original purpose: introducing innovative artists to an adventurous audience.
One immediately feels a sense of camaraderie upon stepping into the room. While the term has been maligned in recent years (not least because so many artists have moved to Brooklyn), one gets the sense that there is an actual downtown community at Joe's Pub. During Taub's show, rising cabaret star Shakina Nayfack sat with choreographer Sam Pinkleton (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) under a giant portrait of Patti Smith (one that looks like she's performing live from a hurricane). Glee star Ali Stroker sat a few tables away, near Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis. Some guests worked the room, moving from table to table to greet friends. The whole place was teeming with working theatermakers, and not just on the overpopulated stage. They were there to see Shaina and they were there to drink.
After 18 years at Joe's Pub, Abbott has developed an instinct for what an audience is going to imbibe on any given night. "I can look at a show and know immediately if it's a martini crowd or a wine crowd," he says while sipping on his cocktail of choice: a variation on the Manhattan called 'The Dandy Riot' (Old Overholt Rye, Byrrh, Aperol, Colonial Bitters, and a Talisker 10 Year rinse). For downtown cabaret, it's mostly martinis. "We had Noche Flamenca this past week," he says, "so it was a lot of wine." For wine drinkers at Joe's Pub, Abbott recommends the Alhambra Malbec: "It's absolutely delicious and has a little spice to it."
It proved to be the perfect drink to accompany Taub's show, a spicy and soulful evening of her original songs. She led her choir in gorgeous harmonies for "O Luck Outrageous" and took us to church with "A Joyful Noise." The whole room joined in for her infectious drinking ditty, "Reminder Song." It was like being inside an early scene of a Verdi opera.
Following this rollicking finale, the tipsy audience spilled out of Joe's Pub and into the lobby to mingle with the remnants of the Head of Passes opening, now considerably mellowed. Performers embraced guests and everyone retired up to the Library for more drinks. It was just your typical Monday night at Joe's Pub.
DENSO to Form Joint Venture with Toyota Tsusho in Thailand to Strengthen Its Automotive Software
KARIYA, JAPAN, Apr, 15 2016 - DENSO Corporation and Toyota Tsusho Corporation have agreed to form a joint venture in Bangkok, Thailand. The new company, Toyota Tsusho DENSO Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd., plans to start developing software in July 2016 to help improve the efficiency of engine electronic control unit (engine ECU) development.
Recently, it has been challenging to improve efficiency when developing software used in engine ECUs because, as the control of powertrains becomes increasingly complex, the development scale expands accordingly. The joint venture will use models in all phases of software development including control-program development, design, and verification.
Moreover, to be capable of supporting a wide variety of ECUs to be developed, the new company will standardize software and improve development efficiency and speed.
The new company will be capitalized at 20 million baht (Approx. US$0.6 million).
Profile of the joint venture
1. Name: Toyota Tsusho DENSO Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd. 2. Location: Bangkok, Thailand 3. President: Hideya Ito while also serving as President and CEO of Toyota Tsusho Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd. 4. Establishment: July 2016 (planned) 5. Capital: 20 million baht (Approx. US$0.6 million) 6. Ownership: 51percent owned by DENSO INTERNATIONAL ASIA PTE., LTD. and 49 percent owned by Toyota Tsusho Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd. 7. Employees: Approx. 30 (FY2016) 8. Business desc.: Designing and developing software used in automotive engine ECUs
1. Location: Bangkok, Thailand 2. President: Hideya Ito 3. Establishment: 2005 4. Capital: 32 million baht (Approx. US$0.9 million) 5. Employees: 200 6. Business desc.: Developing embedded automotive and related system software and selling in-vehicle electronic devices.
ReferenceProfile of Toyota Tsusho DENSO Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd.* The foreign exchange rate used in this news release is US$0.03 to thebaht.
How strange that Australia has so few listed fast-food stocks, given the nations love affair with takeaways and franchised food chains. Markets such as the United States are full of listed quick-service restaurants but Australia has only a handful.
Some key US fast-food stocks have shot up in the past year. Sector bellwether, McDonalds Inc, has rallied from US$90 at the start of 2015 to US$127, aided by signs of a more sustainable earnings turnaround and growth in emerging markets.
Coffee behemoth Starbucks Corporation has also rallied since the start of last year, and Yum! Brands, operators of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut also rallied before giving up some gains. Consumers increasing preference for healthier food options, if true, is not hurting the global fast-food giants, particularly in Asia and other developing markets.
Back home, Dominos Pizza Enterprises continues to defy the sceptics who say its valuation has been too high for too long. The $5.2-billion company is clearly priced for perfection, trading on a breathtaking forecast price-earnings (PE) multiple of almost 60 times. Its remarkable that Dominos is more than twice the size of JB Hi-Fi by market capitalisation and rapidly catching up to the $6.2-billion Coca-Cola Amatil.
The market has underestimated the growth prospects of Dominos for years. I rate it one of the markets best-run companies. Few billion-dollar companies have a CEO who knows their product and customer-base needs as well as Don Meij, or drives as much innovation.
Meij has successfully led Dominos into Europe and more recently Japan, and overseen the development of a valuable competitive advantage in technology-based food ordering. I have written for years that Dominos was becoming more like a technology company than traditional fast-food outlet, hence its technology-like market valuation.
I note Dominos has recently dropped Pizzas from its brand and marketing. Theres more to that than brand simplification. Dominos has potential to disrupt other parts of the fast-food sector through its cutting-edge ordering, food production and delivery technology by selling a wider range of fast-food.
It is a classic example of the benefits of investing in companies with strong, sustainable competive advantages. Other pizza operators cannot match its prices or deliver goods as efficiently and quickly because they do not have the same scale. This advantage gives Dominos significant pricing power, which it unloaded on the pizza sector when its dropped the price for its basic pizza to $5 almost unthinkable in the industry.
I am not a regular consumer of Dominos or pizzas generally, but an impromptu family gathering meant a quick dash to the nearest Dominos outlet. Six standard pizzas and a few sides came in under $50 and it took less than 10 minutes. The pizza was surprising tasty and it was obvious there was a strong customer-value proposition.
However, after a 65 per cent total return over 12 months (including dividends), Dominos is long overdue for a share price consolidation or pullback. I would not chase it higher or buy at these levels because it has run too far, too fast, despite being a great company.
Five of 11 brokers who cover Dominos have a buy recommendation and six have a sell. A median share price target of $58.82 suggest Dominos is fully valued, but not excessively so after strong recent price gains.
Nevertheless, investors should watch and wait for better value in Dominos during a market correction or pullback. It is a clear candidate for profit-taking, given the extent of its 12-month gains and nosebleeding valuations. A share price between $45 and $50 would bring Dominos closer to value territory and provide a rare buying opportunity.
Chart 1: Dominos Pizza Enterprises
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Source: The Bull
Other fast-food stocks offer better value. Retail Food Group, owner of Donut King, Brumbys Bakery, Michels Patisserie, bbs cafe, Esquires, The Coffee Guy, Gloria Jeans, and Pizza Capers Gourmet Kitchen and Crust Gourmet Pizza franchise systems, are worth watching.
Retail Food has been pummelled in the past 12 months. It slumped from a 52-week high of $7.22 to a low of $3.98 before improving to $5.45. The selling looks overdone. Five broking firms that cover Retail Food have a consensus share price target of $5.65.
That suggests Retail Food is fully valued at the current price but it can do better than the market expects as it beds down recent acquisitions, improves its legacy franchise systems in donuts and pastries, and expands its pizza and coffee operations overseas. I suspect the market is undervaluing Retail Food Groups growing international footprint.
Chart 2: Retail Food Group
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Source: The Bull
Collins Food, owner of KFC and Sizzler outlets, has delivered a 65 per cent total return (including dividends) over 12 months, despite being well down from its $5.34.
The market might be concerned by Yum! Brands recent news about refurbishing and revamping its store network and if that would require Collins to invest more capital in its KFC stores. The news does not seem too significant, given Collins has already upgraded its network and is delivering higher profit margins as a result.
Collins PE of about 11 times is not excessive for a well-run company in a defensive, growing sector and it is approaching price support on its chart around $3.50. It and Retail Food offer reasonable value at their current price, but both suit long-term investors who are comfortable with small-cap stocks.
Chart 3: Collins Food
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Source: The Bull
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Tony Featherstone is a former managing editor of BRW and Shares magazines. This column does not imply any stock recommendations. Readers should do further research of their own or talk to their adviser before acting on themes in this article. All prices and analysis are at April 14, 2016
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Lucas Beaumont, Lincoln Indicators
BUY RECOMMENDATIONS
Bellamys Australia (BAL)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Produces organic food and formula for infants. BAL recently reported a strong first half result, with net profit after tax up by 325 per cent to $13.7 million. Chinese demand for BAL products has driven growth and we expect this to continue as disposable income increases. The foreign website sales tax recently announced by the Chinese Government led to a share price retreat. But, in our view, its unlikely to materially impact the companys outlook. The stock was recently trading at a 35 per cent discount to our valuation. The shares were trading at $9.88 on April 14.
TPG Telecom (TPM)
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Chart: Share price over the year
TPM is Australias second largest telecommunications service provider following the 2015 acquisition of iiNet. The company recently reported a strong half year result on the back of integrating synergies ahead of expectations and a strong performance from the corporate segment. Management has a history of successfully integrating acquired businesses, so thats a good performance sign for fiscal year 2016. The stock was recently trading at a 5 per cent discount to our valuation. The shares were trading at $10.93 on April 14.
HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS
Blackmores (BKL)
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Chart: Share price over the year
A vitamin and nutritional supplement producer thats taken advantage of strong Chinese demand for foreign, high quality consumable products. BKN offers a solid earnings base and distribution channels. The joint venture with Bega Cheese to enter the infant formula market leaves BKL well positioned for robust growth during fiscal year 2016 and beyond. We expect positive growth expectations already priced in to be met, and the company could potentially surprise on the upside.
Premier Investments (PMV)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Has a stable of specialty retail brands, with the recent growth pipeline driven by the rollout of Smiggle into the UK. Managements revised guidance is to open between 46 to 60 stores a year between calendar years 2017 and 2019. PMVs expansion into Hong Kong and Malaysia will likely provide a positive catalyst for future growth and justify continuing to hold despite its current full valuation.
SELL RECOMMENDATIONS
WorleyParsons (WOR)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Delivers project management expertise to the energy and resources sectors. The mining downturn has slashed company earnings, and the cycle hasnt finished. Were concerned about debt levels and possible earnings declines going forward.
MYOB Group (MYO)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Provides desktop and cloud based accounting software packages mostly to small and medium sized enterprises. The challenge is to improve profitability despite fierce competition from the likes of Xero and Reckon, which offer similar products. Competition may be great for consumers, but it can be challenging for companies and investors.
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Darren Jackson, Sanlam Private Wealth
BUY RECOMMENDATIONS
TikForce (TKF)
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Chart: Share price over the year
A newly listed, disruptive tech stock thats improving workplace compliance. The company is already close to cash flow positive and has strong sales momentum. The company operates in a similar space to iSignthis (ISX), CVCheck (CV1) and Xref (XF1), which have all been strong recent listings. Sanlam acted as lead manager to the TKF capital raising.
N1 Holdings (N1H)
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Chart: Share price over the year
An Australian mortgage broker servicing Asian borrowers. We view N1H as a play on strong Asian demand for Australian property. We expect strong growth to continue, aided by the recent launch of Australias first Chinese language mortgage comparison website www.chengdai.com.au. Sanlam also acted as lead manager to N1Hs capital raising.
HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS
The a2 Milk Company (A2M)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Since our buy recommendation late last year, A2Ms valuation has soared. The company reported strong interim results underpinned by growth in infant formula sales to China, which was the main reason behind our buy recommendation. However, given recent regulatory changes in China to foreign imports and a big increase in valuation, we reduce to a hold.
Burson Group (BAP)
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Chart: Share price over the year
The auto parts company represents growth at a reasonable price. It recently reported strong operating results. Factoring in future growth and quality of earnings explains the high multiple BAP trades on. Last years acquisition of Metcash Automotive Holdings appears to be paying off.
SELL RECOMMENDATIONS
Primary Health Care (PRY)
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Chart: Share price over the year
We expect the Federal Governments Budget in May will aim to reduce the deficit. Health care is a huge government cost that may be cut. PRY depends a lot on government for it revenues. Other stocks appeal more to us.
Recall Holdings (REC)
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Chart: Share price over the year
This leading document manager and information solutions provider is currently involved in a complex merger transaction with US acquirer Iron Mountain Inc. Given the complexity of the deal, which requires approval from multiple competition regulatory authorities, we see limited upside should the deal go through and significant downside if it falls apart.
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Gavin Wendt, MineLife
BUY RECOMMENDATIONS
Strike Energy (STX)
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Chart: Share price over the year
Our preferred unconventional energy play, STX is focusing on defining the commercial viability and overall resource of its emerging Southern Cooper Basin Project. It aims to deliver gas under long term supply arrangements to growing markets in eastern Australia. Strike is one of the sectors few success stories a reflection of its methodical approach to acreage selection, proximity to energy markets, high levels of exploration activity and securing significant cornerstone gas customers.
Anova Metals (AWV)
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Chart: Share price over the year
An Australian based junior gold developer, focusing on its Big Springs project in northern Nevada. Since acquiring it in 2013, Anova has steadily progressed towards production status. Final permit approvals are expected in the late second quarter of 2016, with open pit mining set to start in the second half of 2016. Anovas share price performance reflects the progress its making in overcoming often frustrating permit delays.
HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS
Gascoyne Resources (GCY)
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Chart: Share price over the year
The company recently released a robust pre-feasibility study for its Dalgaranga gold project. The company has grown its WA gold resource inventory to 2.05 million ounces, comprising three advanced projects located on granted mining leases.
Aurora Minerals (ARM)
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Chart: Share price over the year
The shares have risen from 2.9 cents on March 3 to close at close at 3.5 cents on April 13. The company is investing in a trio of promising up and coming ASX-listed resource plays, encompassing gold exploration in West Africa and base metals, lithium and graphite in South Korea. Its trading at a significant discount to its asset backing.
SELL RECOMMENDATIONS
West African Resources (WAF)
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Chart: Share price over the year
The emerging gold producers share price has surged from a recent 12-month low of 5 cents in February to finish at 16.5 cents on April 13. In our view, the rapid move reflects the market recognising high grade mineralisation at its Tanlouka project, reinforced by recent diamond and reverse circulation drilling, which potentially could boost overall project economics. But at these price levels, it must be tempting to take some profits.
Pilbara Minerals (PLS)
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Chart: Share price over the year
On December 31, 2015, the shares were priced at 32 cents. The shares hit 60 cents on April 12, 2016 and closed at 55 cents on April 13. In our view, successful exploration, appraisal and pre-production activity on its Western Australian tantalum and lithium resource assets are contributing to the share price rise. The companys low risk exposure to lithium a major component in high-tech applications via its WA Pilgangoora project is a key attraction. We remain positive about the stock, but locking in profits at these levels is worthy of consideration.
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Fast-forward to the night of July 20, 2016. Despite all the agonizing, the plotting, the Superpac ads, the embarrassing interviews, the assurances that followed the Wisconsin primary that his days were surely, clearly, numbered, Donald Trump has emerged as the nominee of the Republican Party for president of the United States.
What are the party elders to do, assuming they are convinced that a) Trump will lead his party to a defeat of historic proportions, jeopardizing their candidates at every level of the ballot, and that b) should he manage to win election, he would as president pose a clear and present danger to the national interest?
Do they refuse to endorse him? Throw their support behind an independent campaign? Join a Republicans for Clinton effort?
In their desperation, they might find a tempting, if clearly unacceptable alternative in an 80-year old short story by celebrated humorist James Thurber. While its plot is very different from a political campaign, and its conclusion far too dark for reality, GOP traditionalists might find themselves recognizing an establishment rocked by the arrival of a figure who has violated every norm, yet stands on the brink of immeasurably high status.
Thurbers story, The Greatest Man in the World, (PDF) was published in The New Yorker in 1931, five years after Admiral Richard Byrd claimed to have been the first person ever to fly over the North Pole, and four years after Charles Lindberghs solo non-stop flight to Paris made him a worldwide celebrated hero. The story, set in 1950, looks back to 1937, when the most astonishing aviation feat ever was pulled off by the most unacceptable hero, ever.
Using words that might well apply to the current political campaign, Thurber writes, it was inevitable that some day there would come roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence, background, and character successfully to endure the mounting orgies of glory prepared for aviators who stayed up a long time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had been gentlemen; so had our other famous aviators. (Thurber wrote before Byrds feat was called into question and well before Lindbergh embraced isolationism seasoned with a generous dose of anti-Semitism).
In Thurbers tale, a mechanics helper named Jack (Pal) Smurch flies a one-engine, secondhand airplane non-stop around the world; the plane was powered by auxiliary gas tanks, Smurch by a gallon of bootleg gin. By the time Smurch returns to Long Island after his nine-day flight, his feat has become a global obsession, and the world is ready to celebrate his astonishing feat. The press and the political leaders, however, have discovered an unhappy fact: Jackie Smurch is a lout, a vulgarian, a train wreck of a man. (His father and brother are criminals; he himself knifed a school principal and tried to steal the altar cloth from a church).
When he recovers from exhaustion, he spouts insult after insultat Lindbergh, and at two French fliers who died attempting a long-distance flight (I made an ass of them two frogs, he says.) And when he meets with a group of high-ranking public officials, including the president of the United States, he snaps, Lets get the hell out of here? When do I start cuttin in on de parties, huh? And he asks, what about money! An big money!
Its at this point that, at a silent signal from the president, one of the men in the room seizes Smurch by the seat of his pants and hurls him out of a ninth-story window and the world organizes a solemn tribute to the sudden, sad loss of the worlds greatest hero.
Soassuming I do not have to deny that I am proposing defenestrationwhats the parallel? For one thing, a Trump nomination would be the political equivalent of a round-the-world non-stop flight in a single-engine, secondhand plane. He would have won with a staggeringly small amount of money, an effort devoid of any strategic thinking, a campaign that sought to attract voters with none of the tools of the 21st century save Tweets.
For another, Trump has indeed come roaring out of the skies [with] insufficient intelligence, background, and character Whatever his IQ, Trumps cluelessness about geography, economics, any public policy issue, is nothing short of staggering. His background, at least once you get past the bluster, suggests a life spent in personal aggrandizement and lawsuits by aggrieved customers and colleagues. As for character, put it this way: George W. Bush got a lot of mileage in 2000 with his pledge to restore honor and integrity to the White House. If Trump were to utter those words, its hard to know who would start laughing firsthis audience, or himself.
All of which means that the older, more traditional slice of the Republican Party would find itself in a position utterly unlike anything we have seen in elections past. Sure, weve seen losing factions of a party unwilling to support a nomineethink Goldwater, think McGovernbut weve never seen a situation where a nominee so blatantly ignored or flouted the most fundamental standards of speech or conduct, all while lacking the most basic qualities weve (perhaps allegedly) thought necessary for any president of any party.
So maybe, just to be on the safe side, if Trump wins on the first ballot, and finds himself invited to a unity meeting on the ninth floor of a Cleveland hotel, he might want to suggest that the meeting be moved to a ground-floor lounge.
It was New Years Eve, 1863.
The bushwhackers arrived at dawn, already sufficiently liquored and armed, the moon and the sun still hanging in the sky. Disguised in Union army coats, with kerchiefs covering their faces, three men set upon the house in Johnson County, Arkansas. Packing their saddlebags to the gills, pillaging the preachers house and the surrounding fields, one held him at gunpoint while the others took turns raping his wife in front of their childrenthe youngest, Thomas, just 4 years old.
Then they turned their attention to the minister, who was standing on the wood-plank front porch. His arms spread wide, palms open like the Christ himself, Rev. Vincent Wallace offered no resistance.
One who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
The first bullet took him in the shoulder, another struck his chest. A female slave named Missouri shielded his sons from the horror. The pastor lingered a few hours before he died. When the doctor had left and the preachers soul had gone on to Glory, Missouri cleaned and dressed the body. As she wrung the bloody rags over a washbasin and the house filled with shrieking and crying, she had one thing in mind: vengeance.
Missouribelieved to be the preachers illegitimate daughter sired with a slaveknew the assassins by name, despite the masks wrapped around their faces. They were young, maybe in their late teens or early twenties. But it was something in their voices, something in their eyes, and something about they way they smelled, and how one of them walked with a pronounced limp. Another was missing two fingers, shot off at the nubs when his gun misfired during a brawl over in Coal Hill.
Their time would come.
When the time was right, nearly a decade later, Missouri helped her half-brother track the killers across county and state lines in a bloody crusade to avenge their fathers death. As one man after another met his Maker, Missouri remained in the shadows while her younger brother Sidneywho was only 11 the day his father diedbecame a folk hero with a price on his head.
When Sid Wallace was finally arrested and sentenced to death by hanging in 1874, the question became: How much would Missouri sacrifice in his name and could she pull off one last scheme to save him from the executioners noose?
Like tears in the rain, some moments will be forever lost to the ages. But Missouri Daniel Blackarda freedwoman who was born a slave in 1840was my paternal second great-grandmother. And Pastor Wallace, a descendent of Irish colonist and Revolutionary War veteran William Wallace, wasif family lore is correctmy third great-grandfather.
In the summer of 2009, I stumbled upon a box of old family photographs. I knew little about my fathers family. That night, I poured a glass of wine. As began I shifting through the stacks of Kodak envelopes that my grandmother Catherine had neatly organized and packed away, I missed her immediately.
I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted her to tell me the stories behind the pictures. By then, she had been gone for 15 years. And, frankly, there was no one else. My father, who was an only child, died in 1973 and his father passed away long before I was born.
It started with a search for birth and death records from St. Louis, Missouri, where I was raised. And as day turned to night and to day again, I found myself absorbed with piecing together their historymy history. There was a 1927 death certificate for Catherines grandfather, Major Blackard. He was interred, the document said, in Clarksville, Arkansas. His parents, Henderson and Missouri Blackard, were also listed.
There was scant information about Henderson Blackard, who was born a slave in Person County, North Carolina, around 1830. I found him in the 1870 U.S. census. Missouri, on the other hand, had somehow found her way into the newspapers of the day and was somewhat of a legend among the locals.
As I poured through genealogical research, dusty court documents, newspaper archives, and century-old family narratives, Missouris story began to unfurl. Retracing the pathways of her life, from the piedmonts of North Carolina through Arkansass rugged backcountry, I discovered a woman who risked her life to challenge the strictures of race, gender, and family.
I have always known that I was the descendent of slaves. However, nothing prepared me for reading the earliest known record of Missouris grandmother. The fact that she and her children had been someones property, handed down from father to daughter like a set of rusty pots and pans, tore at my soul.
***
I cheerfully resign my soul into the hands of the God who gave it, Mathew Daniel wrote in his last will and testament.
The document, registered in Pittsylvania, Virginia, in 1825, bequeathed 12 slaves to his surviving children. Presumably, the remaining 20 remained in his wifes possession. Specifically, he left a servant named Molly, her childrenBiddy, Russell, Henry, and Elizaand their increase to his daughter Jane Smith Daniel and her husband, Robert Wallace. Included in the inheritance were the anticipated profits from the sale of his stock of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and all household and kitchen furniture and plantation utensils. Together with his land, bonds, books, and accounts, all proceeds were to be divided among his children upon the death of his wife, Agatha.
Vincent Wallace was 10 years old the day his grandfather, affectionately called Old Mat, died.
In 1840, a decade after Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and President Andrew Jackson signed it into law, Mats son-in-law, Robert Wallace, decided to move out across the American frontier. Armed with a map of the trails, Robertalong with his son Vincent, Toliver Goldstone Blackard, John Penn, and their familiesjoined what became known as the Western Expansion.
Taking a small contingent of slaves, Robert Wallace led a wagon train out of Roxboro, North Carolina, to the sounds of snapping harnesses and creaking wheels. With Toliver as the keeper of the road or the navigator, they weathered the slog of walking hundreds of miles, suffocating dust, extreme weather, bad water, disease, and death. Among the human chattel were Molly Daniel, who was my fourth great-grandmother, her four children, and a granddaughter born that same yeara baby girl named Missouri.
The journey would last three years. After winding through Kentucky and southeast Missouri, in 1843 the caravan finally came to a stop in Spradra, just outside of Clarksville, along the Arkansas River. The Wallace and Blackard descendants would fight there, love there, and most often die there.
When his father, Robert, passed away in 1848, Vincent and his wife Ruth inherited 8-year-old Missouri. Believed to have been the illegitimate child of Mollys youngest daughter, Eliza, and Vincent, the girl was said to have shared her fathers close-set, crystal blue eyes, shock of dark brown hair, and his narrow angular chin. Vincent was a Christian school teacher and, in time, would go on to become a wealthy farmer, pastor of a Methodical Episcopal Church, and a member of the 9th Arkansas State Legislature.
Missouri lived in the Wallace house from the time she was a babe-in-arms, and enjoyed a rare relationship with her father. When he was elected to the Arkansas statehouse in 1852, to Ruths dismay, Missouri would often join him on the 80-mile trek to Little Rock. Beginning with passages from the Bible, Senator Wallace taught his daughter to read, write, and figure numberssomething that was exceptional but not illegal in Arkansas.
Missouri was baptized in the Arkansas River when she was 10 and allowed to marry a slave named Henderson Hence Blackard when she was 16 or 17. The actual date of their wedding is not recorded, but Hence was 10 years older than Missouri and had been brought with them on the journey from North Carolina by his master, Toliver Blackard.
Their first child, Ann, was born in 1858.
The Civil War touched off three years later and because of the towns proximity to the river, both armies regularly passed through. Col. Thomas J. Churchills Confederate troops camped south of Clarksville during the winter of 1861. The Cumberland Presbyterian church was used as a hospital and then burned by departing Union troops, who also torched Rev. Wallaces church and the Johnson County jail and damaged the courthouse on their way out.
***
But on the morning of Dec. 31, 1863, federal soldiers were in possession of Clarksville when three men rode up to the home of Rev. Wallace and told the preacher they wanted a horse he had. It was not unusual for soldiers to confiscate anything and everything they needed or wanted. According to R.G. Miller of the Daily Oklahoman, the preacher complied, led them to the barn, and handed over the steed. They then demanded that the minister go into town with them.
Missouri handed Rev. Wallace his hat and he left the house. His wife, Ruth, watched them as they started to ride away. Just outside the front gate, approximately 150 feet from the front porch, once of the soldier said, Take charge of him!
Contemporary newspaper accounts said Missouri quickly realized that they werent soldiers, but rather bushwhackers who regularly harassed, robbed, and sometimes murdered loyal Union farmers.
Most of the bushwhackers were illiterate young men in their teens and early twenties, according to Civil War on the Western Border, a project of the Kansas City Public Library. They clung together in bands of 12 to 20
No motive was ever determined, as Rev. Wallace was nothing if not loyal to the Confederacy. Although there were Union soldiers from Spadra and Clarksville, his eldest son, John, best friend Toliver Blackard, and others were in service of the CSA fighting for states rights.
As the three men went about their villainy, the pastor was held at gunpoint. He heard his wife screaming from inside the house. He knew what was happening. There was no need to see it for himself.
Are you not afraid? one of the men asked.
Let us never think strange that which the word of Christ has told us to expect, the preacher said, Whether the sufferings of this present time or the Glory that is to be revealed.
We will make you fear us, another said.
All three men raised their guns and shot him where he stood. They kept firing, even after the body had fallen. One round entered the sole of his boot and lodged in the preachers groin. As the clouds of smoke drifted and faded in the December wind, Rev. Wallace lay twitching in a pool of his own blood under the morning sun.
When the deed was done, the bandits rode off laughing and swigging whiskey as their horses hooves set upon the dusty road.
The pastors son, Sidney, then only 11 years old, bolted through the screen door lugging his fathers shotgun. He didnt get far. Missouri, then 23 and pregnant with her third daughter, tackled and pinned him to the dirt. The boy kicked and shouted, boiling with rage. Missouri covered him with the full of her body, draping her housedress over his face to keep him from seeing the perpetrators.
This aint the time, Missouri whispered, soothing and quieting the boy. Our day will come.
Together with Ruth Suggs Wallace, Missouri then took up Master Wallaces body by the shoulders and boots and dragged him inside.
Did you see them? Ruth asked the slave woman. Did you see the men who did this?
Yes, she answered. I know them by name.
Missouri cleaned the blood from her masters mouth as he lay dying in his bed. A doctor from a neighboring farm tended to his wounds. Rev. Wallace lasted a few hours, long enough to admonish his children to lead Christian lives. The physical pain is intense, but my mind is at rest, he told to his wife.
And then, he slipped away.
Rather than prepare for evening church services as had been planned, Ruth busied herself with her husbands funeral clothes. As she arranged a freshly pressed necktie over the shoulder of Vincents black suit, she turned to Missouri and said, Sidney is not yet of age and does not share his fathers Christian mind. I fear the harm that would most surely come to him if he tries to seek the bastards out now.
Missouri nodded in agreement.
The devil is in his head, even now, and I fear I cannot keep this from him. Let it stay with us for now. Do not reveal their names until my Sidney reaches his 21st birthday.
Yes, maam, Missouri answered.
***
Missouri kept that vow even after she gained her freedom two years later. In fact, years after the war ended, she remained employed in the Wallace household and quietly kept tabs on the murderers for nearly a decade. In the intervening years, she gave birth to two boysWilliam and Georgeadding to three daughters: Ann, Lucinda, and Susan.
Those were hard years after the war. Ruth Suggs Wallace and her children suffered great losses after the death of Rev. Wallace. Prior to her husbands death, Ruth had never known a days work. With no other means of support, she and her sons worked the land.
The coming railroad lines, for Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, were key to the areas growth. But the influx of Reconstruction officials, coal mine workers, and construction employees brought with it a criminal element, and Clarksville quickly became known for its unsavory reputation. Soon enough, Sid Wallace and his brothers fell into the culture of lawlessness. And, some eight years after the assassination, when Sid was about 20, he confirmed his mothers early suspicions.
In 1871, he and his brother George tried to rob a man named Turner, who was armed and prepared for such things. Turner shot and killed George during the robbery. To pay him back, Sid later hunted down and murdered Turners best friend.
The charges against Turner were dropped as self defense, and Sid was charged with attempted murder in the case. Undaunted, Sid went after the men who freed his brothers killerConstable R.W. Doc Ward and Judge Jeremiah Elisha Mears. Even though he was once one of Rev. Wallaces closest confidants and an elder in the church, Sid didnt blink before he shot Judge Mears through the heart.
Sid set off into the thick woods of the Ozarks, hiding out for months. With Missouris help, he evaded authorities even as Arkansas Gov. Robert Lindsay offered a $5,000 reward for his capture ($100,000 adjusted for inflation). He was apprehended, but based on the words of the dying judge he was acquitted on the murder charge.
The following year, Missouri decided it was time to hand over the names of the men who killed their father. Sid struck out immediately and tracked down the first of his fathers attackers. Based on Missouris word, he located one of the killers at his home in Kansas. Sidney charmed his way into the house, stayed the night with the family, had breakfast with them the next morning, and then pumped a bullet into the mans head before he calmly walked out the door.
He shot a second man, at point blank range, square in the chest on a road outside of Clarksville, Arkansas. Sid beat the lone witness to within an inch of his life. He was not hard to find, as he was discovered resting at home with Ruth. Missouri was preparing supper for him when the city marshal arrived.
He did, however, prove to be a difficult man to keep locked away.
Within hours, Sid removed a jailhouse window, mounted a horse left hitched to a post by Missouri, and returned home again. According to family lore, a posse arrived soon after to take him back into custody. But Sid escaped again, this time by hiding under Missouris skirts when she went to the family well. The fugitive hid in the well for several days, coming up only in the dead of night and returning to the well before first light. Over her husbands objections, Missouri sneaked him food.
Hence, Missouris husband, was increasingly uneasy about his wifes actions. She had become a co-conspirator, helping Sid find his victims and then helping him break out of jail, and Hence feared the deadly consequences if the night watchmen ever showed up at their two-room, plank board house situated on the Wallaces 160-acre tract.
A spy for the city marshal watched Missouri head out to the well one time too many. Sid and his younger brothers, Mat and Thomas, were arrested after an armed standoff. Several days later, the three men overpowered the guards and seized their weapons. Taking aim through a broken window, Sid shot a man named Tom Payne who was standing in the gathering crowd outside. Paynes crime had been to testify against Sid regarding the murder of the constable. According to an 1874 New York Times article, the incident ended only after Clarksville authorities threatened to blow the jailhouse to atoms if Sid and his brothers refused to surrender.
It was decided that the Johnson County jail was not secure enough to hold him. Sid was taken to the state penitentiary in Little Rock for safekeeping. Unlikely sisters-in-arms, Ruth and Missouri visited regularly, if only to plot his next escape.
According to the Arkansas Historical Society, the ever-charismatic Sid was allowed out of prison one evening to accompany the wardens daughter to a social ball. The warden quickly changed his mind about the prisoner when his daughter begged that Sid be permitted to escape so that the couple could elope. But she wasnt alone in singing his praises.
On March 10, 1874, the Daily Arkansas Gazette reported that 1,068 Johnson County residents signed a petition requesting that the death sentence be commuted. For them, Sid was a heroa man who was simply avenging his fathers death. That appeal and all others, including one to the Arkansas Supreme Court, were denied.
The death warrant was signed.
***
According to an article the following day in the same newspaper, Sid arrived in Clarksville to great fanfare. The people are coming in town from all parts of the country, the Daily Gazette reported.
Fearing the convict would escape once again, Sid was brought in on an unscheduled train. The city marshal reportedly stopped all other trains from running through town. Church services were canceled and businesses shuttered. A reporter from the New York Herald came to town, but Sid refused to see him.
Never slept better in my life than last night, he told another journalist.
At one point, he nearly confessed to the string of killings. His mother Ruth stopped him, chiding her son to die like a man.
Parson Barrows offered a prayer and then sang the hymn Sing Praises to God.
Well, I am ready, Sid told the preacher.
Throngs of people lined the roadside as they brought him in. Leaving two pistols to his young brother, Sid was firm, cool and self-collected to the last, the Daily Gazette reported. Bury me with my shot-gun, he said.
A company of guards lined both sides of a two-horse spring wagon, loaded with an empty coffin. Johnson County Sheriff Kline read a proclamation from Gov. Elisha Baxter. It was then that Sid spoke his last words.
Gentlemen, you have all come here no doubt to hear a long confession. I have no confession to make, but to God. What I have done has been in defense of myself and my friends, he said. All I regret is I havent half a dozen lives to die.
A black cap was pulled over his face, and the rope was adjusted around his neck. He died with a prayer on his lips, Lord, remember me.
Hundreds of people witnessed the hanging of Sidney Oscar Wallace on March 14, 1874, but according to legend, Sid refused to die and Missouri refused to let him. News reports of the day said his heart was still beating 25 minutes after the hanging and that Sid was short roped, meaning his neck did not snap and he likely strangled to deatha far more excruciating experience. After another 40 minutes, satisfied that he was dead, the body was surrendered to his mother for burial. But, if the enduring folklore is to be believed, Sid survived the execution and his family buried a pine box of filled with sand bags.
On March 15, 1874, a story in the Daily Arkansas Gazette noted that hed received a mysterious letter accompanied by a bouquet of flowers and a basket of fruit at the jail. Other accounts describe a mysterious woman in black who attended the hanging. Some say she was a well-moneyed mistress from Little Rock, maybe even the wardens daughter, but most believe it was Missourithe sister who would never betray him. Had Missouri risked her own lynching by stepping forward to save her brother one last time?
***
For more than a century, Sid Wallaces honor has been a matter of debate. Portrayed by some as a man who brazenly challenged bushwhackers and carpetbaggers, for others he was a symbol of lawlessness and violence in Reconstruction-era Arkansas. In An Arkansas Tale, the New York Times printed an account of Sids crimes and the execution a week after his hanging, sadly concluding that his mother Ruth was nothing like her God-fearing husband. She encouraged, the story said, her two younger sons to follow in the footsteps of their martyred brother. The Times story, published on March 23, 1874, noted that Ruth was an educated woman, but lamented her blood-thirstiness and called her attitude shocking.
Missouri is not mentioned.
Fondly remembered by white and colored townsfolk alike as Aunt Missouri, she died quietly in her daughters home in Clarksville, Arkansas, on Sept. 20, 1931. There was no grand memorial at her passing and, save for a few footnotes, no lasting tribute to her life. She was laid to rest at age 91, alongside her husband, Hence, and their children. For decades, her story has remained buried with her in tiny Spadra (now South Clarksville) and largely forgotten.
The morning after Missouris interment, a nattily dressed stranger arrived in town and registered at a local motel as Richard Johnson. He was later spotted laying a bouquet of flowers at Missouris grave. Some believe he had also attended Ruth Suggs Wallaces 1914 memorial service in Van Buren, Arkansas. But the man was never positively identified. Many think it was Sidney Wallace, who is said to have resettled in upstate New York, where he started a family.
I am the scion of Missouris youngest child, Major Blackard, who was born in 1880 and migrated to St. Louis around the turn of the century. Major, a laborer, believed he was cursed by his mothers sins. He died of cancer of the left jaw in 1927 and his body was returned to Johnson County. His wife, Effie, preceded him in death. Their son, Murray, was my great-grandfather.
After his death, Murray Blackards daughtersCatherine and Juanitawere placed in the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home sometime in the late 30s. A wealthy black farmer from Macon, Missouri, named Thomas Hubbard and his wife, Nina, adopted the girls and raised them in The Ville neighborhood.
My fathers mother, Catherine, was a prolific storyteller. Waving her hands as if conducting an orchestra over the breakfast table, she recounted the bygone years, unspooling the decades like musical stanzas. She often spoke of the beauty she had experienced in this life, the cities shed seen, the world shed known.
But some of her memorieswhether because they embarrassed her or because they caused too much painshe kept tucked away, like the photos in the cardboard box. My brothersTerrence and Christopherand I were the light of her life, though she embraced Lori and Donnie, my mothers older children, like they were her own. But I was the babythe child who shared her temperament, her only sons face, and her obsession with books. Catherine told me I was a writer long before I could know it for myself and, in time, it became my lifes work. Even so, some songsold cuts and abrasionsstill sting too much to sing.
Until her memorial service in 1994, I never knew she had been adopted or even that her middle name was Marilyn. And she never once uttered the name Missouri Daniels.
The lives of the dead, she once told me, belong to the living.
Opinion / Columnist
LEADER of Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Forward in Faith, Archbishop Ezekiel Guti, has described the recently deceased Prophetess Clara Apphia Manjoro as a "giant" who "fought the good fight".Prophetess Manjoro, who founded Faith World Ministries and the Bible College with her husband Dr Bartholomew in 1993, died last week at the age of 68 after a short illness.After coming through Archbishop Guti and Zaoga, Prophetess Manjoro founded the Virtuous Women Community.Archbishop Guti said though it is painful to separate in the flesh, Christians ought to celebrate a heroine of faith in Prophetess Manjoro, and find comfort in her good works."And while we join you in mourning the loss of this great heroine of faith, we also celebrate her well-lived life. My daughter served Christ so faithfully during her memorable lifetime she endured in this painful yet rewarding road of faith," Archbishop Guti said."Certainly this is true for Prophetess Manjoro, a giant of the faith, who showcased the true qualities of a true prophetess, evangelist, wife and mother. Even as we grieve her passing from this earth, we rejoice that she fought a good fight."What an amazing life! She was a giant in so many ways, and I was privileged to have her as my dear daughter, for years. Through the years I have often thought of the standard she has set for so many ministers and believers to follow, and on this day of her departure from earth, it is once again a time for all of us to reflect even more upon her tremendous impact in the Christian world," said Archbishop Guti.Family spokesperson, Pastor Bartholomew Manjoro Junior added: "Without her influence, the church would not be what it is today. So many areas bear her fingerprints. The prophetess was a mother figure for the whole congregation and she has left a void which will be hard to fill."Miracle Workers International Ministries leader, Apostle Tawanda Muchena, said the greatest tragedy was not death but a life without a purpose."In as much as I knew mum, she was God-fearing and with that we should take this chance to thank God for the time He awarded us with this great woman. Yes it's painful but we ought to celebrate her well lived life," said Apostle Muchena."She served Faith World Ministries well for years and she has left an indelible mark upon the religious and societal landscapes.The way she wanted to be remembered is as a caring mother, and a woman who was full of the Holy Spirit, who many people came to Christ through," said Ms Margret Mabhena, a member of the church.Another congregant, Mrs Hilder Kasveto said Prophetess Manjoro's weighed in: "I feel extremely fortunate to have known her, and I know that her legacy will stay forever. She built the church into a haven where you got the Gospel and also physical needs.She made sure that people have what they need in order to survive."Prophetess Manjoro was buried in Nyabira yesterday.She is survived by her husband, three children and four grandchildren.
With Aggie Muster coming up Thursday, it seems an appropriate time to mention the excellent new book by John A. Adams Jr. -- The Fightin' Texas Aggie Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor (Texas A&M University Press, $30 hardcover).
Adams is the author of three other books about Texas A&M, including one on Muster, when Aggies get together every April 21 (San Jacinto Day) to share a meal and call the roll of those who have died in the past year. Two dozen Aggies observed Muster on Corregidor shortly before it fell in 1942.
Adams' new book tells the stories of the 89 Aggie soldiers who fought at Bataan and Corregidor during the early days of World War II and were subjected to incredible brutality after being captured by the Imperial Japanese forces.
Of the 89, six were killed in the battles and five escaped or were evacuated, two were missing in action, 31 died on prisoner ships and 15 in prison camps, and only 30 returned home after surviving capture. Adams lists all 89, what camp or ship they were held, and their fate.
"While there have been many books on the saga of Bataan-Corregidor, none has focused solely on the contributions and sacrifice of the citizen soldiers from Texas A&M University," Adams writes. "This is their story: A chronicle of valor, grit, and sacrifice that has never been told and should never be forgotten."
Texas Ranger: Whiskey River Ranger: The Old West Life of Baz Outlaw by Bob Alexander ($34.95 hardcover) is the 16th book in the University of North Texas Press's Frances B. Vick Series that focuses primarily on biographies of legendary Texas Rangers.
Several of the previous bios have dealt with notable Ranger captains and commanders such as J.A. Brooks, John Rogers, John Brooks, Bill McDonald, John B. Jones and Frank Jones. In this volume, Alexander traces the life and times of a good-bad Ranger sergeant.
Outlaw, says Alexander, "could be a fearless and crackerjack lawman, as well as an unmanageable maniac" who fought a losing battle with alcoholism and died in a brothel brawl in El Paso in 1894 at age 40. Whiskey River Ranger is Alexander's sixth book in the UNT series. The author is a retired federal agent.
Now in paperback: The University of Oklahoma Press has brought out new paperback editions of two books by Charles M. Robinson III that have been around for awhile.
The Frontier World of Fort Griffin: The Life and Death of a Western Town ($14.95) was first published in 1992. It tells the story of the frontier post and the wild west town that grew up in its shadow, once known as the "toughest town in the west."
The Indian Trial: The Complete Story of the Warren Wagon Train Massacre and the Fall of the Kiowa Nation ($14.95) first came out in 1997. The book concerns the Jacksboro Indian Trial involving Satanta and Big Tree and the aftermath of the verdicts.
Each book is a compact, fast-paced account of about 200 pages plus index.
Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
Texas A&M class of 73 author and College Station resident John A. Adams Jr. will soon release his third book centered on the history of the university and its students.
Titled The Fightin Texas Aggie Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, the book will serve as a collective biography told through the eyes of 89 soldiers and officers who were former students and citizen soldiers from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas during World War II in the battles of Bataan and Corregidor, according to a release announcing the book.
Adams previous work includes Keepers of the Spirit: The Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University, 1876-2001 and Softly Call the Muster: The Evolution of a Texas Aggie Tradition.
The topic will be especially relevant at this years Muster ceremony on the Texas A&M campus, as it will feature several of the surviving Aggies who participated in the iconic 1942 and 1946 Corregidor Muster ceremonies.
For more information about the book, visit tamupress.com.
Barbara Klarich Bryant December 19, 1931 - April 9, 2016 How does one sum up a life well-lived and well-loved in a few words and paragraphs? It is not an easy task when the person being remembered was one of many facets and dimensions--full of life. The woman we called wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois by John and Teresia Klarich. Her older sister Polly was often at her side. Barbara relocated to Chicago to attend nursing school where she received her RN pin and cap. She was a compassionate and skilled obstetrics nurse at Lying-In Hospital. Chicago is also where, on a blind date, she met her husband of 60 years William (Bill) Bryant. They bore three children in rapid succession: John, Ann (spouse Fred) and Chris (spouse Robyn). In these children, Barbara instilled a deep love of reading, learning, and exploring. Though Yankee born and bred, Barbara quickly embraced the Southern life upon their move to Texas. Known throughout the community as a cook and hostess extraordinaire, she loved to entertain Bill's students and colleagues. They traveled the world together and saw places and experienced cultures many only dream of seeing and doing. Barbara was an avid collector of beautiful things. She cultivated orchids and knitted amazing works before her vision failed. This special woman was a fiercely loyal friend to many and a mischievous role model to her adoring grandchildren: William David, Stephen, Benjamin, Christina and Alexander. She is now a guardian angel for her great-grandson Bode. Barbara will be remembered for generations to come. A funeral mass will be held on May 16, 2016 at 11:00a.m. at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Bryan, Texas. All are welcome to attend. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Hospice Brazos Valley.
As of Aug. 1, licensed gun permit holders will be allowed to carry concealed guns on college and university campuses around Texas. We are not particularly reassured that doing so will somehow make our campuses safer. In fact, we believe, as do so many others, that our campuses will be less safe.
Thank you to our Legislature for caving into the powerful gun lobby.
But, campus carry soon will be the law and it is up to our colleges and universities to device clear, understandable rules. Last week, Texas A&M announced its proposed rules and they make sense. Pretty much, people licensed to carry concealed weapons may do so pretty much anywhere except in counseling and health care facilities. They will be allowed in campus dorms, unlike at The University of Texas where guns are not allowed in dorm rooms and must be securely stored.
To be licensed, Texans must be at least 21, receive four to six hours of training, complete a session in non-violent dispute resolution, pass a written test and show proficiency in shooting a handgun. Those requirements certainly will limit the number of young Aggies who legally can carry a concealed weapon on campus. Hopefully the age requirement alone will bring some maturity to concealed handgun permit holders.
Still there are a lot of stressors on college campuses: relationship issues, grade questions and so on. We understand why so many faculty members are uneasy about the prospect of armed students in the classrooms and offices.
At the same time, we understand how many students, faculty and staff will feel safer should something terrible happened as we have seen on far too many other campuses, from Virginia to Oregon. Perhaps, but we caution that shooting at an unmoving paper target with no stress is far different is far, far different than acting wisely, thoughtfully and carefully during a high-stress situation with moving targets that may well be shooting back. God forbid that ever happens again on another American campus.
When Aug. 1 rolls around, we urge those licensed to carry handguns on campus to use caution and all good sense. You carry a responsibility not only to yourself but to every other person on campus.
Opinion / Columnist
It is with great shock that Zimbabwe is continuously losing her prolific thinkers. This past week I was shocked to receive the news about Alexander Kanengoni's departure for eternal rest. "Gora" (His Norm De guerre) the veteran writer was no more. The late critical thinker and war-veteran, Kanengoni has not lived to see Zimbabwe turning 36, something I am sure would have delighted his heart.Kanengoni will be mainly remembered for his articles in the Patriot Newspaper where he was deputy editor. The same paper and its editorial policy complimented Kanengoni's role as a sharp critic of neo-coloniality. Kanengoni, just like his late colleague Dr Vimbai Gukwe Chivaura was an essential asset of literary decoloniality in Zimbabwe. His call further extended to the decolonisation of knowledge at continental level. He committed his life to making Africans understand their role in the civilisation of humanity and largely how Zimbabweans need to cherish their hard earned freedom.I remember reading his highly patriotic poems in "The Ghetto Diaries and Other Poems" a book that was given to me as a souvenir by Professor Nhamo Mhiripiri and his wife, Mai Joyce Mhiripiri. This was during my last days at the Midlands State University (MSU). I still remember it was on the evening of Professor Nhamo's birthday at his house where I was given the book. So I consider the poetry anthology given to me by the Mhiripiri intellectual couple as a farewell package and a gift that further connected me to Kanengoni's writing beside his newspaper articles.The Mhiripiri literary darlings, Nhamo and Joyce are also published in the same compendium. I am happy they chose to give me a book with Kanengoni's poems. I enjoyed reading his poems mainly: Nyadzonya massacre, One day at Roerei Refugee Camp and one titled; The lost times of our lives. The book carries poetic narratives of a generation that had lost its being to marginalities of coloniality, it represents an awakening and a consciousness of distinguished patriots. I always feel inspired to defend African epistemology every time I read the poem: Lest we forget Nkosi sikelela iAfrica by Prof Mhiripiri in the same collection. All the poems reflect a unique perspective of a patriotic proclivity shared by African writers considering their backgrounds of first-hand experiences with both colonial Rhodesia and free Zimbabwe. Some poems carry messages of optimism for continuity from a horrid past which heralded the contemporary nation-building challenges manifesting in the form of our split patriotic consciousness.Like his other colleagues and contemporaries, Kanengoni's writing expressed a high level of what I have described in the two previous articles as a benchmark of 'Afrocentric patriotism'. This is the kind of patriotism that acknowledges and embraces the ethos of the African liberation struggle and conceptualises it as a medium of making sense of the present.This is the same medium that informs the analyses of Msipa and Coltart's books from their varying patriotic inclinations as explained in the other two articles. However, within the public sphere there is too much lenience onWhite narratives of patriotism as some strongly feel that there is need to be silent about the cruelties of the White past as part of reconciliation. Some fellow African scholars think tolerance to manifestations of neo-coloniality misguided as "moving-on" can produce cadres who are in essence relevant to contemporary matters of integrating humanity as that defines modern thinking. Responding to last week's article a colleague, Eric Donald Mabuto highlighted that:[] The insistence of analysing the two texts on the basis of how they treat history is almost a way of escaping analysing them in the way they treat contemporary issues. We know about the colonial heritage and how it undermined blacks there is ample scholarship on that subject. What is of interest to contemporary African scholars like me is analysing existing inequalities that cannot be summarised by racial condemnations. I am talking about inequalities between blacks themselves. The type of inequalities that led to the Rwanda genocide, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the migration of educated and uneducated Ndebeles to South Africa in search of better pastures.Mabuto's demand for us to look into contemporary issues offers an interesting dimension to the analysis of Msipa and Coltart's memoirs. One omission of his observation is that the contemporary black on black violence and inequalities are products of the colonial empire. Therefore to dismantle these contemporary challenges we need to go back to their space of origin and unmask individuals and institutions responsible for Africa's current disintegration.That space is the empire founded on racial essentialism constructed to divide Africans. This is why the colonial boundaries set for administrative convenience of colonial governance catalyse our "perceptions of difference". At local level this is what defines the aspect of split patriotic consciousness. We have been torn asunder such that the measure of patriotism for one is their allegiance to a particular political party if not one ethnic group fighting the other. Moreover, if the past is not important as emphasised by my fellow African scholar, why do people like Coltart and Msipa revisit it in explaining their place in the contemporary matters of nationhood? If issues of race condemnation are now trivial why are they evoked at a time we should be forgetting about them? Over and above, if they are raised should we be silent about them because we think they do not matter in advancing interests of faking modernity and reconciliation?The subject of racism, colonial privilege versus disenfranchisements and colonial heritage cannot be omitted in analysing the two books. These are issues that voluntarily find themselves at the centre of Msipa and Coltart's memoirs. Moreover, racial falsehood is unavoidable and worth critiquing especially in Coltart's book. Coltart's focus is on his life and its link with the "50 years of tyranny" The periodic setting of the book from the title gives life to the sanitisation of anecdotal capturing of history.By merely looking at the title of Coltart's book, one notices an omission of the more than 100 years of tyranny constructed by Rhodes not to mention the architecture of the illicit trading and prazo systems which served Portuguese interests dating back to the rise and fall of Great Madzimbahwe stretching forth to the Mhonumutapa and the vaRozvi empires. Then later the British fronted expedition shouldered on Cecil John Rhodes the brains behind the British South-African Police where Coltart was conscripted as a force member.If indeed the idea of the book was to capture the history of Zimbabwe from the lens of tyranny as purported by Coltart there was need to go beyond the stated 50 years. However, what is clear from the structural make-up of the book is that more emphasis was to be placed in reconstructing the political image of Zimbabwe after the fall of colonialism. This further explains why Coltart finds no offence in reminding Africans about his position of privilege which shaped the oppressive output of being Black which is carefully captured through the life of Cephas Msipa in his memoir.It is the "Coltart mentality" among some fellow Africans that influences their conglomeration of narratives that divide the country and the continent. This is why every time race matters are raised those Africans inclined to the "Coltart mentality" pick up the Gukurahundi issue to suffocate any ideas that challenge residues of Rhodesia in our midst. The Gukurahundi issue has been used to cover up for genocides committed by Rhodesian forces to the nation at large. Likewise, Coltart brings the similar subject in his book all in the interest of vilifying the current Zimbabwean government yet ignores how colonialism constructed the 'perception of difference' among our people. I appreciate how Professor Ngwabi Bhebe has attempted to give a refreshing submission to this subject that is constantly raised by those interested in further marginalising our people to promote 'perception of difference' at a time we should be working on uniting as Africans:It is not unreasonable for readers to ask how such close allies [as ZANU and ZAPU] could be involved in a civil war that saw many lives being lost in Matabeleland. On the other hand, to us such a question would only show that the reader has not read this book with attention.For the book has shown how factional conflict in Zimbabwe, or among Zimbabweans, is quite close to the surface. It does not matter whether people belong to the same party. The situation is worse when people belong to different political parties. ZAPU and ZANU followers started killing each other when they were dumped together at Mboroma by the Zambian authorities. The ZIPA experiment in Mozambique collapsed for just that same reason. In Libya, ZAPU and ZANU were put in the same training camps and they killed each other. The reason was very simple.These young men and women were trained to hate each other Thus, the cadres were brought up to hate (Bhebe 2004:254).This is the major reason why Msipa continuously argues that he was ZAPU since his entry into nationalism. The same patriotic perspective guided by ZAPU principles followed him right through his ministerial service in a ZANU-PF dominated government. These are the aspects of split patriotic inclinations that confront us when we read literature by those who claim belonging to Zimbabwe and use their lives as templates of conveying that message. This makes the subject of race and partisan fraternal belonging unavoidable when attempting to understand the variant or split perspectives of patriotism in Zimbabwe.Next week's focus will be on the aspect of protagonist representation of White characters featured in Coltart and Msipa's memoirs. I have chosen to call this the "good makiwa" mentality to unpack how liberal race perspectives cement the existence of split patriotic consciousness in Zimbabwe's literature from the lens of the two memoirs under review. I wish I had jumped to that particular subject this week. However, the writing inspiration led me to something different as I strongly convinced that the issue of split patriotic consciousness needs further elucidation.Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com
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By Gleaner Staff
Kindergarten registration for the 2016-17 Henderson County school year will be held during the week of April 25.
Children who are five years old on or before Oct. 1, 2016, are eligible to attend kindergarten for the 2016-2017 school year.
All elementary schools will take registration from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Each elementary school will have one night each week to register during the evening. To find out dates and times for evening registrations, please contact that particular school.
People who have questions about which school is considered their local school should contact the Henderson County Transportation Department at 270-831-5120.
Children who attend Thelma B. Johnson Early Learning Center will have their paperwork i.e. immunizations, birth certificate, eye exam, etc. forwarded to their receiving elementary school. Children who are not enrolled at the ELC should register their children at the local elementary school which they plan to attend.
Before the first day of school on Aug. 10, parents/guardians will need to provide the following:
A state-issued copy of the birth certificate;
Updated Kentucky Immunization Certificate;
Current physical on Kentucky form. Parents have 30 days from enrollment to complete and provide this to the school;
Vision Exam required by January 1st of the kindergarten year; and
Kentucky Dental Screening Exam by January 1st of the kindergarten year.
Every kindergarten student enrolled in Henderson County Schools will receive a notice for a free mandatory screening, which will take place this summer.
Preschool registration: The Thelma B. Johnson Early Learning Center will soon begin registration for preschool students for the 2016-2017 school year.
Parent/Guardians can complete the registration packet starting April 25. Registration will take place at the Early Learning Center, located at 631 N. Green Street in Henderson.
The preschool program is income based. Tuition spots will also be available.
Children will need to meet the age requirement of four years old on or before Aug. 1, 2016.
If your child does not meet this requirement, some 3-year-old tuition spots may be available. If you believe your child may qualify with a disability, please call 270-854-0140.
Before the first day of school, parents/guardians will need to provide the following:
A state-issued copy of the birth certificate;
Updated Kentucky Immunization Certificate;
Current physical on Kentucky forms;
Proof of income W2, pay stubs, tax returns, proof of child support, etc.
Free developmental screenings will be available for students age 3-4.
If interested, sign-ups will be available at registration times.
E.N. Johnson / Associated Press Members of a United Nations assault force move across Hwachon Reservoir in North Korea on April 11, 1951, enroute to the north side of the dam where they attacked defending communists.
SHARE A United Nations assault force loads into small craft for trip on April 11, 1951, across the Hwachon Reservoir in North Korea. Civilians carry supplies to be loaded on the light craft, some of which are powered by outboard motors. (AP Photo/E.N. Johnson) Cpl. Arthur Jean Ligon
By Jessie Higgins, jessie.higgins@courierpress.com / @RFallenSoldiers
A small group of Army Rangers silently crossed Korea's Hwachon Reservoir in the early morning hours of April 11, 1951.
Their mission take the Hwachon dam.
It was the type of covert attack Cpl. Arthur Ligon a young man from a little town in Kentucky dreamed of when he joined the Rangers. The elite team would paddle to the opposite shore, crest a hill and surprise the Chinese soldiers at the dam before dawn.
That was the plan. It didn't happen that way.
"We got to the far shore around 4 a.m.," said James Carbonel, a Ranger who served with Ligon. "We climbed up a hill and we thought, from what they told us, we were going to go right down to the dam. But all we saw were more hills."
And in those hills, an entire division of Chinese troops was waiting for them.
The Rangers fought hard, but they were woefully outnumbered.
"By the afternoon, we were running low on ammo," said Carbonel, now 86.
Carbonel wasn't there when Ligon got hit, but he later heard the stories.
"I got wounded around 3 p.m.," he said. "Arthur Ligon, he got shot a little before that. Shot in the stomach."
Ligon died somewhere in the forests of Korea. He was 20 years old.
There is no one left alive in his family who remembers much of Ligon. His cousin, Carolyn Blackwell, was 7 when he died. She recalls watching his wake from a distance. In those days, visitations happened in the family's home.
"I remember seeing so many people coming and going from the house all day," said Blackwell, now 71. "It was a little town of 2,000 people. The church was filled for the funeral."
The little town was Providence, Kentucky. Ligon grew up there in a well-known black family.
During his childhood, Prohibition was in full swing. Ligon's father, Arthur "Jack" Ligon Sr., was a notorious local bootlegger. Even now, longtime Providence residents still remember Jack Ligon selling his liquor to their fathers.
"Uncle Jack was quite a dynamic person in the community for his bootlegging and his little joint," Blackwell said. "He had one sort of joint there people would go to."
At some point during Ligon's childhood, Jack went to prison presumably for bootlegging leaving his son fatherless. In his absence, Ligon became close with his older cousin, Lee Carey, a World War II lieutenant and engineer in the Black Army.
"When I was in the Army, he was a youngster around the house," Carey said in a 1986 Courier article about Ligon. "He said he wanted to join up."
Ligon was no doubt eager for a place where he could belong. As a child in the 1940s, Ligon never quite fit in.
His family was black, but Ligon was born with fair skin and light brown hair. He looked white.
"That was during the Jim Crow days," Blackwell said. "He probably didn't have many role models, being that cross between black and white."
Ligon was ready to join the service in high school, but his mother insisted he graduate first.
According to family stories, Ligon became proud of his race during those years before he joined the service. Though he could pass for white, he insisted on riding in the back of the bus with his black friends.
During police raids, officers would try to let "the white boy" go, but Ligon would refuse to leave.
"He took pride in breaking all the stereotypes," said Arthur Carey, Lee Carey's youngest son. "He'd just tell them, 'No, I'm black.' "
That mentality must have changed when he joined the service. Arthur Ligon's enlistment papers show him as a Caucasian. The army was still segregated at that time, so he was put in an all-white unit.
"We didn't know he was African American," Carbonel said. "He was so quiet. If a group of us were talking, he would join the group but he wouldn't say hardly anything. He was almost invisible."
Carbonel does remember Ligon being incredibly hard working.
Ligon joined the Army in January 1949 and quickly advanced. He became a paratrooper after a year and a Ranger the year after that.
"When he got in the paratroopers, he thought he was in a tough outfit," Lee Carey said in the 1986 article.
"When he got in the Rangers, he found out the paratroopers was about like being in the Boy Scouts. To be a Ranger you have to be the best the Army's got."
After he died, Ligon's mother brought his body back to Providence to be buried. He was her only child.
Lee Carey's youngest son was born a year later. He named the baby Arthur so they would never forget.
For years, the family told stories of Arthur, the boy who was black and white. Arthur, the Army Ranger. Arthur, the war hero.
"They were incredible people," Blackwell said. "We think so, anyway. It's nice to know that somebody else does, too."
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By Andy Beshear, Special to The Gleaner
I ran for Attorney General to address child abuse, better protect seniors, seek justice for victims of rape and find solutions to Kentucky's drug epidemic. Not to sue the governor.
But on Jan. 4, I put my hand on my family Bible and made an oath to support the Kentucky Constitution and Kentucky law. I take my responsibility to the constitution and the law very seriously.
I do not take any satisfaction in suing a governor. But as attorney general, it is my job to ensure that no public official acts outside his or her authority, regardless of position. That is my duty.
That duty is why I recently filed suit against Gov. Matt Bevin to undo his unconstitutional and illegal executive order cutting Kentucky's public universities and colleges. I did so only after advising the governor that his order was not legal, and giving him 7 days to rescind it. The governor refused.
This is not political.
It's not about Democrats versus Republicans.
It's not about the upcoming or future elections.
It is about the law and my duty to enforce the laws that govern the Commonwealth.
And it is not personal.
It would be my duty under my constitutional oath to sue any governor who acted outside the boundaries of the law.
Gov. Bevin's cuts simply are not legal.
Kentucky's Constitution creates a strict separation of powers where only the legislature can pass laws to appropriate and spend tax dollars. As such, only the legislature can approve the circumstances under which a budget cut or reduction can occur.
The legislature has done so, through specific laws on budget reductions that forbid any reduction unless there is an actual or projected shortfall. If there is, the legislature includes in the budget a specific plan the Budget Reduction Plan that lists the amount and order of any cuts. The legislature passed this plan into law. It is binding.
When the governor issued his order cutting universities and colleges, he refused to follow this mandatory procedure and thereby violated controlling He also violated his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws including the budget laws passed by the legislature.
The governor's illegal action on higher education cuts is in stark contrast to how he dealt legally with a road fund shortfall. There, he issued an executive order that documented a predicted shortfall from the Consensus Forecasting Group and followed the Budget Reduction Plan. Why? Because that is the law.
And as the people's lawyer, it confounds me that the area the governor is determined to cut so much so he would resort to illegal actions is higher education.
The critical importance of higher education to our state and its future is actually a matter of law, recognized by the legislature in KRS 164.003.
That law tells us in Kentucky, a university or community college education is not a privilege, it is vital for our economic survival. And adequately funded K-12 education in Kentucky is not a privilege; it is mandated by our constitution.
Those are not opinions, they are law.
And, as the state's top consumer advocate, it is my duty to point out who these cuts hurt. It would not be university presidents who absorb them; it would be current and future students. Tuition would go up, and it would go up at a time when higher education has never been more unaffordable.
I know our state has important needs and not enough money. Pensions are an issue. But we cannot take illegal actions to create funding for pensions.
In the end, our state is in the same position of every Kentucky family who would like more money to address their most pressing concerns. But no family should commit an illegal act to meet those needs. These same rules apply to the governor.
Under the governor's view, a budget is merely a suggestion that creates caps. The legislature is merely an advisory body, and the governor can fully defund things like the SEEK formula or the Kentucky State Police. At any time for any reason.
That is the exact type of absolute power that our constitution, our state constitution and our law forbid. It puts our very liberty at risk. No one has that power.
And it's my sworn duty to challenge those who think they do.
Andy Beshear is Kentucky's attorney general.
Iowa wrestler Tony Cassioppi wins bronze at U23 world championships
Tony Cassioppi and Tanner Sloan both earned medals at the U23 world championships this weekend in Spain.
NORWALK --The city's Department of Motor Vehicles branch was packed one recent late morning when Charlie Kuintzle of Monroe waited in line to register a car.
"I've tried them all," Kuintzle said of the DMV offices in the region. "Bridgeport. Waterbury. Now I'm trying Norwalk. So far it looks faster than Bridgeport. That's not saying much."
Kuintzle's sampling of what the DMV has to offer at its various branches is not a novel idea. In fact the department's new leaders are taking the exact same approach as they try to improve the customer experience and bolster the reputation of what seems to be a perennially loathed function of government.
Less than a month after the governor put them in charge of the DMV following Andres Ayala's controversial tenure, Commissioner Michael Bzdyra and Deputy Judeen Wrinn are visiting the main offices around Connecticut for a first hand look at what they inherited.
On April 12 they were in Norwalk. Prior to that the pair stopped by the Bridgeport and Danbury branches.
"I would classify this as a listening tour," said William Seymour, who handles communications for the DMV. "That's somewhat cliche but it's actually very true. They're going to branches, looking at operations, how customers feel about the operations, how employees feel about operations. And they're basically gathering facts and listening to what everyone has to say."
And later this spring the agency will also be surveying as many as 1,500 customers at DMV offices around the state and scheduling focus groups in various counties.
"We are determined to make this a strong customer centric organization," Seymour said. "And we're going to do what it takes to turn it around."
This comes after last summer's troubled replacement of a 40-year-old computer system. The goal was to make the agency more customer-friendly by offering additional online capabilities, from improved registration renewal to ordering vanity plates. The transition from old to new software resulted in the closure of the department's offices for a few days in August and long-lines afterward.
Then a number of motor vehicle registrations were wrongly suspended for lack of insurance.
By late January, Ayala, a former state Senator from Bridgeport, had resigned. Bzdyra, a deputy commissioner, was promoted to the top job, and Wrinn was hired from the private sector, where she at one time worked in customer service for Aetna Insurance at in client relationship management for ING.
"There's no doubt we had problems after the rollout and there were bugs in the system. And there still are bugs in the system that we are working to resolve," Seymour said. "We are holding 3M's (the corporation that produced the new software) feet to the fire and looking at our own internal processes with employees."
Seymour said Wrinn's background in particular lends itself to scrutinizing efficiencies.
Virginia Thom of New Jersey and Lenny Bundock of Stamford are regulars at the Norwalk DMV. The two make a living registering vehicles for automotive dealers.
Both complained about the new software.
"I can get through 11 (registrations) in New York in an hour. I'm getting through 8 here in 7 hours," Thom said. "It is awful."
"It still has glitches in it," Bundock said, adding the DMV's rank-and-file staff is "doing the best they can with what they have."
Annie Vail of Westport said to her the DMV still seems "kind of frozen in time" with long waits. But, Vail said of the Norwalk office, "They're really nice."
Michael Coudriet of Torrington brought son Mason, 16, to the Norwalk branch because that site had the shortest waiting time for learner's permits.
"It wasn't bad, but it was the same as all motor vehicles," Coudriet said on the way out the door. "It seems like (there are) not enough people at information to tell you where to go."
Typically visits to the DMV entail a wait in the "information" line, then receiving a "service ticket" and waiting again to be called for your specific transaction.
Seymour could not immediately provide data for Norwalk, but said the average wait time statewide immediately after launching the new software last August was 2 hours and 41 minutes. That measurement does not include time spent in the information line.
"For the full month of March, the average wait time was 1 hour and eight minutes," Seymour said. "That is a nearly 60 percent reduction. Nonetheless, we are focused on finding a solution to reduce wait times further."
Seymour said another challenge is the fact 34 percent of visitors to a DMV branch could have conducted their business without going to an office.
"People think, 'I need to go to the DMV' as opposed to going online to the DMV," Seymour said. "We think that's a cultural change and are working on it now." Seymour said the upcoming surveys will focus in particular on whether customers could instead accessed a computer and what other online services would be helpful.
The DMV should survey Beth Krane of Westport.
Krane said she spent two hours and fifteen minutes at the Norwalk office to renew her license.
"It's ridiculous," Krane said. "It was 45 minutes just on the information line to get a ticket."
Krane said she should have taken advantage of another effort to cut wait times by offering license renewal at at AAA offices.
"That was my own stupidity," Krane said, adding: "I hope never to come here again."
Chris McCune, a 1995 Hastings High School graduate, is among three University of Nebraska-Lincoln chemists who have been developing a molecule to suppress a stroke-related enzyme.
McCune will receive his doctorate in chemistry at UNL in May. He has been working on the project with David Berkowitz and Matthew Beio from UNL and medical researchers from the National University of Singapore including Peter Wong.All four co-authored a study that was published March 9 in the journal ACS Central Science with six other chemists.
Opinion / Columnist
Mativenga Mbondiya is a human rights activist who has membership with a number of Human rights groups he writes in his own capacity. The views in this article do not represent the organisations he belongs to or affiliated to.
In 1980 there was jubilation throughout the country the masses were celebrating the birth of Zimbabwe. It had been many years of fighting in the bush. Both warring races lost many combatants and non combatants. The mood in 1980 was of happiness and burying the hatchet so to say. The new government started to encourage reconciliation. Liberation struggle songs were banned many opportunities were opened to black majority who have been living as second class citizens in their own country. The independent country formed a very integrated parliament which included all communities in the country. It was an admirable transition from a minority government to this beautiful example of how a nation can move from segregation to integration.This beautiful picture was not to last long. Three years down the line the differences started to show and the country took a different path. Joshua Nkomo and his ZIPRA combatants were accused of wanting to topple the government. Joshua Nkomo skipped the country in an infamous way were it was alleged he wore a dress as a disguise to leave through the Plumtree border post into Botswana. This marked the beginning of mass atrocities committed against those who were considered to be supporters of Joshua Nkomo and his PF-ZAPU party. Many people from Matebeland and Midlands provinces were killed by North Korean trained 5th Brigade. The rest of the story is in writing of Zimbabweans and I do not need to repeat them here.The trade unions protests in the mid 1990s which later formed the labour movement the MDC was a glimmer of hope to many. However that also brought untold suffering to the people many people were tortured and killed for their involvement in the movement. The beatings were indiscriminate, even the leader of the movement Morgan Tsvangirai was beaten to pulp his dehumanising picture of him with a torn shirt and a swollen face was all over the papers throughout many countries. Where a leader of such a popular movement can be beaten like that how much more can happen to an ordinary citizen? Independent Zimbabwe is a pariah state; citizens are exiled in their own country.Over the years the ZANU-PF government of Robert Mugabe has been targeting dissenting voices and silencing them. The silences are usually done by early dawn abductions, disappearances and even day light beatings. Cases which come to mind are that of Rashiwe Guzha, Jestina Mukoko and lately Itai Dzamara and many more who are killed within their villages and do not make it to international news. Pastor Mugadza who stood in Victoria Falls during ZANU-PF conference with his banner telling the President that people are suffering was arrested and spent Christmas in police cells. How can a government of the people by the people refuse the very people who elected it freedom of speech and assembly? It boggles my mind that I am expected to celebrate my independence from one oppressor to other!Zimbabwe is independent from the Ian Douglas Smith regime but it's not independent from the Robert Gabriel Mugabe's regime. The regimes are very similar in their discriminating tendencies. However the difference is the current regime purports to represent the majority of the people, yet it only benefits the minority. For me and my family we have suffered during Rhodesia era and Zimbabwe and they are many people who identify with this suffering. The persecution does not seem to end just on Thursday 14/4/16 Members of Parliament and ordinary citizens were receiving death threats for getting involved in a demonstration. So I question myself how can I be expected to celebrate independence when expressing my opinion is still considered a crime. Ambition to the higher office is also considered an abomination to the President and punishable by being kicked out of the party like Joyce Mujuru. If others dare to support you they can be killed or their homes and livelihood will be destroyed.On the 18th April I will not celebrate but mourn the death of those who died to liberate us. I will remember children who are not going to school and elderly people who go hungry every day. I will remember those who are under continuous threat for daring to challenge the ZANU-PF government. I will remember those who are in exile for many years separated from their families. I will remember those who were burnt to death in xenophobia attacks. I will remember those constantly losing their property to looters during xenophobia attacks in foreign countries. I will remember those who were kidnapped and sent to die in their home country. I will mourn for those who were attacked by crocodiles and lost their life crossing Limpopo River to be in South Africa. I will mourn those who have not been given decent burial because no one knows what happened to them after abduction. I will be standing with a banner in foreign lands making the world aware of the continuous injustices in my country.
Its hard to believe that its already been two years since the Grow Grand Island Initiative or GGI as its commonly called was put into action.
Theres no question its a very comprehensive plan to first build a solid foundation, then do whats necessary to make the plan grow. We feel that its so important that several Nebraka State Fair staff members are involved in GGI committees to move Grow Grand Island forward.
Grow Grand Island is designed to help Grand Islands existing business, our entrepreneurs, our workforce and our community image. The one area of Grow Grand Island that Im particularly interested in are the efforts to use our community assets to bring visitors to town and reaping the benefits of visitor dollars being spent on hotels, restaurants and retail. In addition, the community also collects lodging tax, food and beverage tax and sales tax from our out-of-town guests.
Since the arrival of the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island, a group of community organizations have joined together to create the Grand Island Livestock Complex Authority, or GILCA for short. The Nebraska State Fair, Fonner Park, the Grand Island Chamber of Commerce and the Grand Island Convention and Visitors Bureau have been working together to bring livestock shows to Grand Islands world-class facilities. Close to $50 million dollars, including tax dollars, have been spent on improvements to the campus. As a community, we need to make certain that the facilities are marketed and used to their fullest potential.
So far, GILCA has had reasonable success averaging four to five shows each summer. These shows create a $1 million dollar economic impact to our community. Our goal is to have livestock shows year around. The more folks we bring to town, the better it is for Grand Island.
Its important to note we are competing with much larger communities for the same livestock shows. In time, they too will build premier facilities just as we have in fact, Denver and Kansas City are scheduled to build new facilities within the next five years. What our competitors wont be able to mimic is Grand Islands friendliness and hospitality.
Please, if youre not currently involved with GGI, consider doing so. If we all work together, we can create a stronger and more vibrant community. GGI is a very good starting point.
For more information on how you can become involved, go to, GrowGrandIsland.com.
Joseph McDermott is executive director of the Nebraska State Fair.
Opinion / Columnist
"People no longer have anyone to stand with. They (Zanu PF) bought Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai joined the money brigade. Here the Americans did not give him money because of his ways. So whom should the people follow? There is no one who genuinely stands for the people in Zimbabwe," Thomas Mapfumo, Mukanya, told Nehanda Radio.Mukanya is spot-on, Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC friends sold-out during the GNU there is a mountain of evidence to prove it.MDC were supposed to implement a raft of democratic reforms and draft a new democratic constitution to ensure the next election, the July 2013 elections, are free, fair and credible. SADC, the guarantor of the GPA, did their best to remind MDC to stick to the set task but MDC paid no heed. MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU. The only thing they did was to draft a new constitution only to make a dog's breakfast of that!"Zimbabwe also needs a new constitution," wrote Trevor Ncube in a recent article. "The current document is the outcome of horse-trading between Zanu-PF and the two MDC factions. It fails to lay a strong foundation of the rule of law, strong national institutions, transparency and accountability. And, of course, the sanctity of life and respect for private property must find full expression."In the article, Ncube described the opposition as "pedestrian".In fact Ncube was being very generous here because the horse-trading was actually one way; Mugabe got all he wanted absolute power and MDC got nothing. Mugabe "dictated" the new constitution the Zanu MP Paul Mangwana boasted. He was the co-chairperson of the parliamentary committee appointed to draft the constitution.Instead of admitting the new constitution was weak and feeble MDC leaders came out in full force and campaigned for a yes vote in the March 2013 referendum. They assured the nation the new constitution would deliver the people's freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections. Tsvangirai even claimed the new constitution was an "MDC child"!The people of Zimbabwe believed the MDC lies and without even having the common sense to take time off to study the proposed constitution, they approved it with a whopping 95% yes vote. New constitution failed its very first acid test a few months later as the promised free, fair and credible elections did not materialize. Mugabe blatantly rigged the elections!"MDC vadzidza kudya vanyerera!" was cynical remark from one Zanu PF permanent secretary during the GNU. (MDC leaders have learnt to enjoy the gravy train comforts without rocking the boat!) He was comment on why, years into the GNU, MDC had still done nothing to implement the democratic reforms.Soon after the formation of the GNU Mugabe had seen to that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were given all the gravy train comforts they could ever wish for; the tyrant threw in the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai. MDC leaders showed their appreciation of Mugabe's generosity by kicking the democratic reforms into the tall grass.Of course MDC leaders sold-out; if being bribed with mansions and gravy train comforts in return for doing nothing about the reforms is not selling-out then what is!Thomas Mapfumo is wrong to say the people have no leader; a number Zimbabweans still follow Tsvangirai and the other MDC factions, not as many as those followed MDC before the elections but still a number of people have remained faithful to Tsvangirai.Whilst Mukanya and Ncube can see Tsvangirai as the "sell-out" and "pedestrian", respectively, leader he is sadly there are still many Zimbabweans out there who do not. Even with the benefit of hindsight, there are many Zimbabweans who will never see Tsvangirai and his MDC friends for the breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent individuals they are because they are programmed to follow leaders without ever asking any questions even in the face of a mountain of evidence of the leader's incompetency!Zimbabwe's struggle for democratic change, freedom, justice and human dignity has been a tale of taking one or two steps forward and the nation has a big song and dance to celebrate meanwhile the nation's leader "join the money brigade" to indulge themselves dragging the nation ten or more steps backwards. It is very sad and tragic that these leaders are dragging the nation backwards but what making the whole situation a double tragedy is that the people themselves take forever to notice they are being conned!It is bad enough that Zimbabweans risked life and limp to vote for a pedestrian and sell-out person like Tsvangirai once or twice but to do so a third and fourth time is sheer folly. People get the government they deserve and we cannot say we do not deserve this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship compete with its coterie of equally corrupt and incompetent MDC opposition.
LITCHFIELD -- Gracia Sue Gillming, 63, of Litchfield passed away on Friday, April 15, 2016, at her home in Litchfield.
Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Faith Lutheran Church in Hazard, with the Rev. Dean Hanson officiating. Burial will be in the Sweetwater Cemetery.
Visitation will be from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the church. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the family or to Faith Lutheran Church. Please visit www.hlmkfuneral.com to leave a tribute or message of condolence. Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services in Kearney are in charge of arrangements.
Gracia (Fox) Gillming was born Nov. 14, 1952, in Kearney to Verle and Mardell (Larsen) Fox. She graduated salutatorian from Ravenna High School in 1970 and went on to attend Dana College in Blair, graduating in 1974 with her bachelor's degree in education.
She married Michael D. Gillming in 1974 and to this union two daughters were born, Tenise and Christal. Mike and Graci made their home in Litchfield. Graci was a homemaker and cared for other children while Tenise and Christal were young. Once the girls reached school age, Graci worked at the University of Nebraska-Kearney and most recently for the past 19 years at Educational Service Unit 10 in Kearney. Graci enjoyed working with area teachers on improving the use of technology in the classroom.
Graci battled a rare form of ovarian cancer for the past nine months. She found her peace in the Lord and said many times she felt she was being carried in the palm of His hand. Graci's cancer walk and faith journey became contagious for all who followed it, "This story for His Glory." "See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." -- Isaiah 43:19 became her theme verse. Graci never questioned "why." She always knew God was using her sickness to draw others closer to Him.
Graci was a member of the Ravenna VFW Auxiliary and a lifelong member of Faith Lutheran Church in Hazard, where she taught Sunday school and facilitated many Bible studies. In her community she also dedicated her time to Girl Scouts and led high school youth groups. She loved spending time with her husband, daughters, grandchildren, extended family, and friends. Graci's infectious smile and spirit of the Lord radiated through her generous acts of kindness and gentleness. She was a friend to all and will be greatly missed by many.
Survivors include her husband, Michael Gillming of Litchfield; daughters, Tenise (Richard) Bogus of Ord and Christal (Eric) Kaczor of Lincoln; grandchildren, Carissa, McKenna, Morgan and Isaac Bogus, and Adalynn and William Kaczor; sister, Cindy (DuWayne) Johnson of Lincoln; stepfather, Byron "Broek" Broekemeier; stepsisters, Deb Rouse of Greeley, Colo., Cindy (Al) Monaco of Omaha and Kerri Stoetzel of Omaha; stepbrother, Karl (Kim) Broekemeier of Odessa, Mo.; and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents.
Opinion / Columnist
What demonstration for whose interests?
Political gatherings and multitudes blurring scientific understanding of political trends
Demonstrations as a media for transformative dialogue
Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network - LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com
When war-veterans had a demonstration in February the government was quick to give them attention. Why did the war-veterans get such preferential treatment? One may argue that the war-veterans are ZANU-PF's ideological and hegemonic assets. As a result the party had the mandate to heed to the demands of the war-veterans. In Machiavellian terms that was a good move towards ZANU-PF's internal power consolidation. The war-veterans' demonstration had a fair advantage compared to opposition leader Tsvangirai's demonstration aimed at giving a mirage to Zimbabweans and the international community that he still has control over the electorate. The war-veterans had demands clear enough to command President Mugabe's intervention, as such their demonstration conceived transformative-dialogue. It is always known that when the opposition embarks on pseudo revolutionary moves the idea is to attract funding and not serving the needs of the masses. However, it is the same mobilised masses who are used to substantiate the magnitude of the regime change work which always suffers electoral failure. Private and foreign media has been on the fore of publicizing the demonstration because Tsvangirai receives his mandate from his sponsors with access to such public-sphere outlets. The demonstration has since received limited attention at home where it should be the centre of high political debate. Except for social media posts and private press releases, it is as if nothing happened. The state is not moved at all and had it been shaken there would be moves to engage Tsvangirai. In other words, the demonstration was not intended for ZANU-PF since it did not force the party into a space of compromise. It is clear that from here its 'money in the bank' for Tsvangirai and not transformative-dialogue at home which is the centre of the crisis Tsvangirai's party has claimed to tackle for the past decade.Again, it is not like Tsvangirai expected to get significant attention from the state and the nation at large, because this is not the first time he is clamouring the "Mugabe must go" funding rhetoric. In the back of his mind he is aware that Zimbabweans are worn-out of that same old slogan which he has failed to transform into practical reality considering the millions invested by the West for that project. I am not wholly concluding that the demonstration has gone unseen, but my contention is that it has not addressed the key economic challenges facing the nation as envisioned in its projections. The demonstration makes more sense to regime change assessors than it does to the masses who catalyzed the process yesterday. Again, the demonstration was not driven by noble ideas of engaging the government of Zimbabwe. Rather the demonstration was staged to attract the fading attention of the donor community that has financed Tsvangirai's luxurious life-style under his pretentious whims of vindicating the masses from the wrath of Mugabe's sadistic rule. The demonstration led by Tsvangirai was nothing, but a "keeping-up appearances" type of event. In other terms, the demonstration can be befittingly summarised as a 'political gala' organised by Tsvangirai. Zimbabweans do not want that, Zimbabweans want political opposition that is vibrant enough to bring change; Tsvangirai has failed to do that since MDC was formed. However, the main point here is that the April 14 protest against Mugabe's regime will not be given attention at home because it is not meant for the people of Zimbabwe, but the financers of Tsvangirai's projects. Locally, it will only make sense to those with a less critical appreciation of Zimbabwe's current political situation. The demonstration, here termed the MDC gala was for Western spectators and the masses used in that theatrical practice served as a good complimenting cast for the script written by Tsvangirai the good political playwright.The outcome of the demonstrations by war-veterans was the indaba which was called by President Mugabe on the 7th of April. The indaba was attended by 10-000 instead of the intended 35-000 delegates. The sad irony of the much emphasised Tsvangirai's demonstration only had a fraction of the delegates who assembled for the 7th of April's indaba. What emerges from this fact is that the mentioned 10-000 only constitute a fraction of ZANU-PF's support base. The war-veterans only constitute a constituency which is a fragment of ZANU-PF's electorate. The war veterans do not symbolize the entirety of ZANU-PF's support base as epitomised by the MDC protesters drawn from varying sectors of the opposition party. Moreover, the multitudes that conveyed at the National Heroes Acre a few days ago for the double burial of Mai Chitepo and Cde Mwashita further substantiate that ZANU-PF also has its multitudes. This assertion is buttressed by the opposition's association of national rituals and shrines to ZANU-PF and its patronage interests. This makes it political childish for MDC-T to be highly appraised for mobilizing the approximated 3-000 demonstrators in a country with such a population magnitude. Worse-off in a country that is portrayed by private and foreign media as highly populated by citizens supporting anti-government political initiatives mainly led Tsvangirai the brains behind the demonstration under analysis here. In 2013, ZANU-PF had a massive rally at the White-City stadium in Bulawayo and the election results in favour of the party were not massive as anticipated through the hopes raised from rally congregants. It is not empirically sensible to think that people who attend these partisan crowd pulling forums will be a reflection of ballot outcomes in 2018 for any political party. Zimbabwe's election culture is fatigued though in favour of ZANU-PF's well-grounded ideological standing. Today as Zimbabwe turns 36 it is important for opposition leaders to be reminded that the masses are far too conscious about political manipulation. The people of Zimbabwe are aware of how much the West and its agents are willing to use numbers through the ballot so that coloniality is reversed.History is awash with examples of the role played by public protests in challenging the status-quo. This dates back to the civil protests of the days of Martin Luther, Nkrumah. Even those led by the ANC in apartheid South-Africa and colonial Zimbabwe. These provided opportunity for the protesters and those held accountable for public disgruntlement to map the way forward for change. However, some demonstrations have failed to meet such benchmarks of promoting change as such they have vanished with history as 'events' than they served their expected intention as tools for what I choose to call "transformative dialogue". Demonstrations must create space for transformative-dialogue between the protesters and those accused of giving justifications for particular protests. Political protests must not be events like the just ended political gala misnamed as a 'demonstration' by a man perceived as a formidable opposition leader. Had the demonstration provoked transformative-dialogue, ZANU-PF must be on its knees right now begging to come to terms with MDC's demands. It's sad this did not happen at all as it ought to have happened. Instead the demonstration has worked well in convincing the world the naked lie that Tsvangirai has it all in terms of popular support.Tsvangirai's just ended gala failed to pave way for transformative dialogue which could have benefited the populace of Zimbabwe if he was genuine in his demands. It was just an event, a moment for Tsvangirai to leave the comfort of his Western funded luxury to rehearse empathy for the "suffering masses" under ZANU-PF rule. This yardstick for measuring the role of protests in championing transformative-dialogue qualifies the view that the demonstration by war-veterans was successful as it yield the expected end-result of transformative-dialogue in the form of the indaba that was held on the 7th. The indaba reminded Zimbabwe and her detractors that unity is the binding denominator of this country won through a war in 1980. Basically, demonstrations are an attempt to create transformative-dialogue at all costs, but if the demands of the demonstrators were not met that means the process of mobilizing people into the streets by was "a much ado about nothing" event. The demonstration could not stop Zimbabweans from celebrating their independence as expected. The MDC gala has failed to suppress the independence-day celebrations momentum. It was in only 2008 when Tsvangirai could lead a demonstration that could win his interests from ZANU-PF and not now. He is now a political novice. The recent demonstration is nothing more than a joke considering its mandate, chiefly its call for the ouster of a leader who was elected by a majority in 2013. The main demand of the demonstration to unseat President Mugabe as indicated by several press houses home and abroad does not make sense in democracy and political realist terms.However, Tsvangirai must be wise enough to comprehend the deeper political scheming motive behind the freedom granted to his MDC formation to hold these demonstrations. The opportunity given to him by the courts on behalf of Zimbabwe for him to openly give his demands to the state disqualifies his claims about suppressed freedom of expression in Zimbabwe. This must awaken some members of the international community financing his party to realize that there is need to fund other progressive initiatives since displacing ZANU-PF through Tsvangirai has failed. However, the demonstration may do him well in attracting donor funding ahead of 2018 from die-hard anti-Mugabe initiatives since he has proved that he has a better crowds than his other counterparts in Zimbabwe's opposition politics. On the other hand, ZANU-PF can now bank on the nod it gave MDC to hold the demonstrations as a precedent of portraying itself as a party tolerant of democracy rituals like the just ended gala led by Tsvangirai though its agenda of disrupting the Uhuru fever is known. It was well packaged, but it cannot defeat the spirit of Independence Day celebrations. This is a warning from the martyrs of the liberation struggle that the West can give much material finance to the opposition but it cannot transform ideologies watered by the blood of the sons and daughters of the soil.
WASHINGTON There is a consensus that aggression by one nation against another is a serious matter, but there is no comparable consensus about what constitutes aggression. Waging aggressive war was one charge against Nazi leaders at the 1946 Nuremberg war crimes trials, but 70 years later it is unclear that aggression, properly understood, must involve war, as commonly understood. Or that war, in todays context of novel destructive capabilities, must involve the use of armed force, which the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court says is constitutive of an act of aggression.
Cyberskills can serve espionage the surreptitious acquisition of information which is older than nations and not an act of war. Relatively elementary cyberattacks against an enemys command-and-control capabilities during war was a facet of U.S. efforts in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, in the Balkans in 1999 and against insurgents hacking their emails during the surge in Iraq. In 2007, Israels cyberwarfare unit disrupted Syrian radar as Israeli jets destroyed an unfinished nuclear reactor in Syria. But how should we categorize cyberskills employed not to acquire information, and not to supplement military force, but to damage another nations physical infrastructure?
In World War II, the United States and its allies sent fleets of bombers over Germany to destroy important elements of its physical infrastructure steel mills, ball bearing plants, etc. Bombers were, however, unnecessary when the United States and Israel wanted to destroy some centrifuges crucial to Irans nuclear weapons program. They used the Stuxnet computer worm to accelerate or slow processes at Irans Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, damaging or even fragmenting centrifuges necessary for producing weapons-grade material. According to Slate magazine columnist Fred Kaplan, by early 2010, approximately 2,000 of 8,700 were damaged beyond repair, and even after the Iranians later learned what was happening, another 1,000 of the then-remaining 5,000 were taken out of commission.
For fascinating details on the episodes mentioned above, and to understand how deeply we have drifted into legally and politically uncharted waters, read Kaplans new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. Three of its lessons are that cyberwar resembles war, much of it is very secret and everything essential to the functioning of modern society is vulnerable.
The things controlled by or through computers include not just military assets (command-and-control systems, the guidance mechanisms of smart munitions, etc.) but also hospitals, electric power grids, water works, the valves of dams and the financial transactions of banks. And, Kaplan notes, unlike nuclear weapons or the ballistic missiles to deliver them, cyberweapons do not require large-scale industrial projects or concentrations of scientists with scarce skills. All that is needed to paralyze a complex society and panic its population is a roomful of computers and a small corps of people trained to use them.
Clearly the United States needs a cyberdeterrent capacity the ability to do unto adversaries anything they might try to do unto us. One problem, however, is that it can be difficult to prove the source of a cyberattack, such as that which Vladimir Putin did not acknowledge launching, but almost certainly did launch, in 2007 to punish Estonia for annoying Russia.
To appreciate how computer keystrokes can do damage comparable to a sustained air campaign using high explosives, consider what happened in 1995 in the private sector. Barings, founded in 1762, was Britains oldest merchant bank, having weathered the Napoleonic wars and two world wars, and its clients included Queen Elizabeth. One of its young traders, Nick Leeson, in the banks Singapore office, was so skillful at navigating the derivatives markets that at one point he produced 10 percent of the banks profits. Inadequately supervised, he created a secret Barings account from which he made risky bets, including a huge one on Japans stock market rising. He did not, however, anticipate the Kobe earthquake. Japans stock market plunged, causing enormous losses in Leesons account that Barings could not cover. The bank quickly collapsed and was bought by a Dutch company for one British pound.
If one rogue traders recklessness, motivated by mere avarice, can quietly and quickly annihilate a venerable institution, imagine what havoc can be wrought by battalions of militarized cyberwarriors implacably implementing a nations destructive agenda. It is long past time for urgent public discussion of the many new meanings that can be given to Shakespeares Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.
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 Agus Maryono (The Jakarta Post) Cilacap, Central Java Sun, April 17, 2016
Authorities have claimed that the transfer on Saturday of terror convict Abu Bakar Baasyir from Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, to Gunung Sindur prison in Bogor, West Java, was based on humanitarian reasons.
There was no other motive other than humanitarian reasons. He is old so he needs access to a closer medical treatment center. At Gunung Sindur prison, the medical treatment facility is much closer, Pasir Putih prison warden Hendra Eka Putra told journalists on Saturday.
The firebrand Muslim cleric was kept in an isolation cell at the Pasir Putih maximum security prison on Nusakambangan for the month before he was moved to Gunung Sindur prison. It is believed it will now be more difficult for Baasyirs followers to meet with him.
Before he was placed in isolation in Pasir Putih prison, Baasyir periodically received visits from his followers, enabling him to keep spreading his radical views.
Security authorities transferred Baasyir from Sodong Quay on Nusakambangan Island to the Wijayapura Quay compound in Cilacap before taking him to Wulung Airport to depart for Bogor using a police aircraft.
Baasyir has now been isolated in a special cell to prevent him from communicating with other terror convicts. He is also prohibited from seeing visitors apart from family members, lawyers and his medical team.
The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Baasyir to 15 years in prison in 2011 after he was found guilty of masterminding and financing armed group trainings on Mount Jantho, Aceh. He was locked up on Nusakambangan, where around 70 other terrorists are currently serving sentences.
Baasyir was held in the same prison as Aman Abdurrahman, a terror convict who is said to be a coordinator for the Islamic State (IS) movement in Southeast Asia, before being placed in isolation in Pasir Putih.
The 70 terrorist convicts are housed in several cells across six different prisons on Nusakambangan, namely Batu, Besi, Kembang Kuning, Pasir Putih, Permisan and a narcotics prison. (ebf)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Poso, Central Sulawesi Sun, April 17, 2016
Muhammad Sulaeman alias Sul alias Ifan, a suspected member of the East Indonesia Mujahiddin (MIT) terrorist group led by Indonesias most wanted man Santoso alias Abu Wardah, has promised to reveal all information he has on the whereabouts of his leader.
Sir, Im hungry. Please give me some food, then I will give all the information I have about Santoso, said the teenaged MIT member from Madura, East Java, when he was about to be interrogated by the Poso Police.
Sulaeman was arrested together with Ibadurrohman alias Ibad alias Amru from Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, during an operation in Padalembara village, Poso Pesisir Selatan, at 11:15 a.m. local time on Friday.
Both Sulaeman and Ibadurrohman look very young as they are both apparently under 20 years old. It is suspected they were the two children who were reported to have received self-defense training from terrorist suspect Daeng Koro when the latter was still in Tamanjeka, Poso Pesisir. Daeng Koro, a former Army Special Forces (Kopassus) member, was shot killed in an operation last year.
The police have not yet provided more details about the two teenage terrorists, such as why they decided to join Santoso in the forest.
Surrender This picture shows the latest appearance of Ibadurrohman alias Ibad alias Amru from Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, a Santoso terrorist group member arrested during an operation in Padalembara village, Poso Pesisir Selatan, at 11:15 a.m. local time on Friday. (Courtesy of the Operation Tinombala Task Force/Ruslan Sangadji)
Sulaemans request proved that Santoso's terrorists are running out of food after security personnel who joined with the Operation Tinombala Task Force managed to cut their logistics routes. The joint team earlier killed two of Santoso's couriers in Sanginora village, Poso Pesisir Selatan, on Feb. 9.
Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi said the security personnel confiscated one active home-made bomb, a short machete, one backpack, a flashlight and several other pieces of evidence from the two Santoso group members.
Information obtained by thejakartapost.com reveals that the arrest occurred when several Tinombala Task Force intelligence members got information from residents of Kampung Baru, Padalembara village, Poso Pesisisir Selatan, saying that there were two unidentified people in their village.
The intelligence personnel later approached the two people, asking where they came from. One of them replied that they were from Sumatra but the answer drew suspicion as he spoke in a Madura dialect. The two were then arrested. (ebf)
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Linkedin Martin Crutsinger and Maria Danilova (Associated Press) Washington Sun, April 17, 2016
Finance officials on Saturday pledged a more forceful effort to stimulate a sluggish global economy.
The hope is that stronger growth can boost long-stagnant wages and combat a rising backlash against globalization.
The finance leaders said they will use all the policy tools available to them to promote "strong, sustainable, inclusive, job-rich and more balanced global growth."
The commitment came in a joint statement from the policy-setting panel of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund at the end of its spring meeting in Washington.
Markets have stabilized after a chaotic start to the year, when fears were growing about a possible new global recession. But the IMF's communique cited a long list of threats, from terrorist attacks and the Syrian refugee crisis to the shock to global confidence from a potential exit by Britain from the European Union.
"Against this backdrop, it is important to buttress confidence in our policies," the IMF said.
The IMF discussions followed two days of talks among finance officials of the Group of 20 major economies. Representing the United States were Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
The concern about economic growth was heightened at the beginning of this year by tumult in financial markets. Investors feared that China's economy, the world's second biggest, was slowing more than expected, raising the possibility of a global recession.
Agustin Carstens, the head of the Bank of Mexico and chairman of the IMF's policy panel, said finance leaders realized "there was no room for complacency" even though markets have stabilized.
New threats may imperil efforts to promote greater trade and capital flows between countries.
Many nations buffeted by the forces of globalization have lost jobs and workers' wages have stagnated. In the United States, this anger has propelled the presidential candidacy of Republican front-runner Donald Trump. In Britain, voters will decide in June whether to leave the European Union.
The finance leaders said they believed their actions would help stimulate growth and boost jobs and wages. But they acknowledged there was no time to waste in producing results.
"Clearly the question is how much is going to get done back home," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.
The IMF policy group and the G-20 leaders also worked on a stronger response to international tax evasion, stepping up efforts to penalize countries that do not share tax information.
This issue came under renewed scrutiny after the leak this month of 11.5 million confidential documents from a Panamanian law firm. The Panama Papers show how some of the world's richest people hide assets in shell companies to avoid paying taxes.
Iceland's prime minister resigned after it was revealed that he and his wife set up a company in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to release his tax returns for the first time after the papers raised questions about his family's affairs.
Even as the G-20 and IMF pledged greater cooperation, differences among nations remained.
Lew warned countries to avoid manipulating their currencies to increase trade. He urged countries with large trade surpluses to boost spending to bolster global demand.
But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that uncertainty in financial markets warranted a "high degree of caution" and control of government spending.
In remarks to the IMF panel, Lew said at a time of "slow and uneven global growth, avoiding beggar-thy-neighbor exchange rate policies" was essential. The United States has in the past worried about currency manipulation by China and Japan to help their exports.
Schaeuble said Germany intended to stick to its plans for a balanced budget, warning that rising budget deficits can drag down growth.
World markets were rattled in January by a drop in the Chinese currency and by tumbling oil prices, potential signs of deep trouble for the global economy. Since then, the yuan and oil prices have stabilized. On Friday, China said its economy registered solid 6.7 percent growth the first three months of 2016.
Still, the IMF this past week downgraded its outlook for the economy this year and cited risks that could make things worse: conflict in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Europe, Britain's possible exit from the EU, and the growing political backlash in the United States and Europe against international trade.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters that financial markets are starting to regain "composure." But he expressed concern about risks from volatility in capital flows and foreign exchange rates.
Even China's solid first-quarter numbers raised fears that Beijing is backsliding on commitments to reform its economy. Critics worry it pumped up those figures by investing heavily in inefficient state-owned companies.
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Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman and Matthew Pennington contributed to this report. (**)
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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura, Papua Sun, April 17, 2016
Erik Airlangga, a Freeport Indonesia employee, has died, most-likely from hypothermia, on Carstensz Peak, Papua, after he and his climbing group members were caught in extreme weather, a police officer has said.
One climber died on the Carstensz Pyramid trail. His body has been flown to Tasikmalaya, West Java, said Tembagapura Police chief First Insp. Hasmulyadi in Timika, on Sunday.
Erika was one of 30 Freeport employees who took part in the Carstensz climb to celebrate the companys anniversary and to commemorate this years Kartini Day. In their descent from the summit, they were suddenly caught in extreme weather. Erik, who was the climbing guide, suffered from hypothermia. He died as other climbers tried to bring him to Tembagapura Hospital, said Hasmulyadi.
Erik is a Freeport worker employed in the geotech division at the companys Big Gossan mining area. He was given medical treatment by Freeports emergency unit but could not be saved, Hasmulyadi said. He added that other climbers had been taken to Tembagapura Hospital in Mimika, Papua.
Eriks body was flown from Timika to Tasikmalaya on a Garuda Indonesia flight on Sunday.
US-based gold and copper miner PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) said in a press statement that information about Eriks death was received by the companys command center on Sunday.
Erik and other climbers in the PTFI climbing group, which comprised 32 people, began their trip to Carstensz on April 14.
He was given emergency treatment from PTFIs Emergency preparedness and response team, which also participated in the climbing. His body was flown from Tembagapura Hospital to Jakarta before being taken to his hometown, Tasikmalaya, West Java, at noon on Sunday, said PTFI corporate communications vice president Riza Pratama.
Riza said an investigation into the incident was being conducted by security authorities, adding that the PTFI team had also assisted in the process of returning Eriks body to his hometown, as well as helping with his burial. (ebf)
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 17, 2016
A high school history teacher in Batam, Riau Islands, has brought alternative narratives of the 1965 to 1966 communist purge into class as a way to reveal the truth behind the mass killings done during those years.
In school the lesson materials of our history must reveal the truth about the states failure in the past because history itself should represent the country, said Diah Wahyuningsih, a 42-year-old history teacher at state senior high school SMAN 4 Batam, on Friday.
Dont deceive the people any more. The young generation is not as stupid as they might think because they now could find everything on the internet, she said.
Diah said she had held discussions about the 1965 tragedy and its impacts on society in her classes. She even asked her students to together watch Joshua Oppenheimers documentary film The Look of Silence, which was released in December 2014.
Diah claimed her grandfather had been a spokesperson for former president Sukarno's Indonesian National Party (PNI). However, she said, her grandfather was murdered in West Sumatra during the 1965 tragedy.
The kidnapping and killing of six Indonesian Army generals in Sept. 30, 1965, which was suspected to have been orchestrated by the now defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), led to an attacks against the PKI by the Military under the leadership of Soeharto.
Following the attacks, scores were arrested, tortured and murdered. It is estimated that between 500,000 to 1 million people were killed during the cleansing of people suspected of having leftist connections, regardless of their age or level of connection'.
Survivors and relatives of the victims have also been stigmatized and face discrimination to this day. Moreover, the perpetrators of the mass killings have never been revealed.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the Presidential Advisory Board (Wantimpres) are set to hold a two-day symposium on April 18 and 19 in Jakarta to discuss and bring recommendations on the 1965 to 1966 mass killings. The symposium will involve academics, human rights activists, 1965 victims, politicians and representatives of several government bodies. (vps/ebf)
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Linkedin Elly Burhaini Faizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 17, 2016
Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy Asia director Phelim Kine has said the critical issue of human rights should not get lost in the diplomatic mix during the visit of President Joko Jokowi Widodo to Europe next week.
Kine said that human rights abuses, past and present, remained a serious problem in Indonesia, impacting victims families, women and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. Jokowis interlocutors in Europe needed to keep these issues front and center in their meetings, he said.
That includes expressing support for the Indonesian governments tentative first steps toward accountability for the mass killings of 1965 and 1966 that claimed at least 500,000 lives, Kine said.
A government-supported symposium on April 18 may seem unremarkable, but its an act of political courage that European leaders should praise.
President Jokowi is set to discuss trade ties and intelligence sharing with European Union officials and his counterparts in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK during the visit.
Kine went on to say that Indonesian women were counting on European leaders to express their outrage at the governments failure to stop the abusive virginity tests women are forced to undergo when applying to the National Police and Indonesian Military. Dozens of political prisoners, mostly peaceful activists from Papua and the Moluccas, also needed European leaders to tell Jokowi that they were not forgotten despite their long imprisonment, he added.
The rights activist said European leaders should speak out for sexual and religious minorities who were vulnerable to local-level threats and violence. Government officials have recently jumped on the Islamist bandwagon to make increasingly hostile remarks against Indonesias lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population, he said.
According to the HRW, public rhetoric against Indonesias religious minorities, including the Ahmadiyah, Shia and some Christian congregations, has for a number of years been accompanied by serious violence against these communities.
Jokowi may be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, by failing to protect religious minorities from Islamist and other militant groups, said Kine.
He said Jokowi also needed to hear the concerns of European leaders about the Indonesian governments tight grip on the access of foreign media, academics, and nongovernmental organizations to the countrys easternmost island of Papua. These restrictions defy Jokowis May 2015 declaration that Papua was now open to foreign media.
Kine said the measure of success of Jokowis European trip would be its balance of meaningful engagement on human rights issues with discussions on economic and security ties. (ebf)
Opinion / Religion
The current drought and food shortage in the southern African nations seems to have triggered leaders to recall the prophetic message to their region given by Nigerian prophet, T.B. Joshua as the year 2016 was ushered in.On Sunday 3rd January, 2016, the cleric addressed the Southern African nations as a whole, declaring: "There will be scarcity and shortage of food because of little rain and at wrong times, which is not good for farming. Many farmers will be discouraged." Speaking further on the solution to the crisis, he stated: "Government should be encouraged by building dams and irrigation mechanisms using available water from the sea."Southern Africa endured a poor harvest combined with a strong El Nino weather phenomenon, which resulted in reduced rains across the region. Today, the scarcity of both food and water has prompted intensive discussions on irrigation projects, the building of dams and the use of seawater.The Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) in April assessed the situation, stating: "The low rainfall received by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) calls for an urgent need to invest in regional water infrastructure such as irrigation to ensure that farmers are cushioned from the effects of the changing climate." Analyzing the potential impact of irrigation in the region, it referred to the use of seawater. "Nine SADC member states have access to oceans. It is important, therefore, for SADC countries to take advantage of their proximity to the oceans to draw the water for agricultural use."Seeming to acknowledge the prophecy, Southern African leaders have responded to the current crisis with plans for extensive irrigation projects.Malawi's president, Peter Mutharika, in response to the persistent food shortage officially declared Malawi in "a state of national disaster". He directed all water boards in the drought ravaged country to venture into large scale irrigation programmes, officiallycommissioning the K6.4 billion World Bank funded Salima Water Supply Scheme.The severe drought in the region has scorched maize fields and placed about 16 million people at risk of hunger, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in March. WFP's southern Africa spokesman David Orr, confirmed that it was currently assisting nearly 3-million people in Malawi. "The situation is quite dire and we believe the worst is still to come. It will take a long time before the situation improves. Any improvement in the next months would be negligible."Namibian agricultural minister, John Mutorwa stated that the use of seawater is the only solution to the water shortage the country is experiencing currently.He pledged N$600 million for the water programme budget for the 2016/17 financial year, stating that this figure was merely a drop in the ocean because of the urgency of the crisis. Having exhausted discussions on other remedies, he categorically stated: "The remaining viable option is seawater. It is the only option to embark upon and government has a plan on how to go about doing so". Detailing the water programme plan, he affirmed that a number of new water supply pipeline projects had been initiated and are being developed. Speaking specifically on construction of dams, he explained that construction and extraction works on the Neckartal dam project will continue and be expedited.Mozambique equally issued a "red alert" because of drought conditions in the country's central and south regions affecting 1.5-million people. The government released $9.5m of emergency aid after 90% of crops were destroyed in some areas and thousands of cattle died from lack of water.Other southern African nations are not left out with concerns growing over a hunger crisis spreading across most of the region. Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Zambia are suffering food supply problems, while South Africa has said the recent drought was its worst in more than 100 years.The highlight of this prophetic declaration comes in the midst of intense media attention on the controversial pastor who had also stated that the months of February, March and April would be peculiar for southern African leaders. The recent predicament of South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma sparked international debate on the prophecy. Malawian president, Peter Muthariaka even went to the extent of organizing a prayer vigil for his safety and well-being, fearing that the prophecy was referring to his death, remembering how T.B. Joshua had prophesied the passing of his older brother, four years earlier.
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 17, 2016
The National Economic and Industry Committee (KEIN) has said industrialization should be the locomotive pulling Indonesias economic growth.
KEIN chairman Sutrisno Bachir said Indonesia could no longer rely on raw commodity exports to boost the countrys economic growth amid a sluggish global economy.
"We are in a difficult situation. We should tighten our belts and be smart in dealing with this situation," he said at the State Palace on Friday.
Sutrisno said the newly established committee was set to compose a re-industrialization roadmap as part of its effort to analyze the government's plan to boost domestic manufacturing.
"KEIN will actively provide strategic input in the fields of the economy and industry, not only in the form of papers, but also directly to all communities and regions," he said.
Citing an example, Sutrisno said KEIN would monitor the industrialization and new industry projects that were currently under construction in several regions.
"We aim to boost industrialization in the country, which is now depressed. Thats our main program. We realize we will miss a lot of opportunities if we only export raw commodities amid the global economic slowdown," said Sutrisno, who was formerly chairman of the National Mandate Partys (PAN) advisory council.
He said KEIN would cooperate with relevant ministries to strengthen the role of industry in Indonesias economic growth, including by encouraging the country's citizens to use domestic products instead of imported goods.
"We should be able to follow other countries such as Korea, Japan and India, which are praised for their spirit of nationalism regarding their domestic products," he said.
KEIN secretary Putri K. Wardhani said the ongoing sluggish global economy had led to decreasing exports and increases in imports. To change this situation, Indonesia must increase the use of domestic products.
She said the committee had requested recommendations from industrialization architects such as Emil Salim and BJ Habibie to synchronize Indonesias past industrialization patterns with the current economic situation.
"They both said that to reach double-digit economic growth, industries must be the locomotive of the Indonesian economy and this must be supported by the finance and trade sectors," she said. (ebf)
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 17, 2016
President Joko Jokowi Widodo departed on Sunday for Berlin to begin a five-day working visit to the EU.
During his trip, Jokowi will call on EU leaders to take greater measures to spread peace amid the rise of extremists and terrorism in many parts of the world, the presidential communications team said in a statement on Sunday.
It added that President Jokowi would use the working visit to invite EU leaders to spread the values of peace and tolerance through a variety of channels, including digital methods and social media.
The President would reportedly like to highlight the message that world leaders must work together to seek solutions for new challenges and to promote humanity and justice.
Jokowi is set to visit four countries, namely Germany, England, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The President is scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte.
The presidential communications team said the trip would mark the first time Jokowi had met three EU presidents, namely the president of the European Parliament, the president of the European Council and the president of the European Commission.
President Jokowis working visit is aimed at strengthening cooperation with the EU, especially in economics, and jointly enhancing tolerance and peacebuilding.
Indonesia is looking to prioritize cooperation in trade, investment, maritime resources and water management. The EU is one of Indonesias main trading partners and investors.
The trade value between Indonesia and the EU reached US$26.14 billion in 2015, making the EU the countrys fourth largest trading partner. Meanwhile, the EU is Indonesias third largest investor with $2.26 billion worth of investment in 2015.
President Jokowi expected that his visit to the four countries would provide real benefits that would be felt by Indonesian and EU citizens, the team said. (ebf)
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Linkedin Nicole Winfield (Associated Press) Rome Sun, April 17, 2016
Pope Francis says his gesture is "a drop of water in the sea" of Europe's migration crisis. Yet for 12 Syrian refugees, the pope's decision to fly them back to Italy from Greece is an act of kindness that will resonate for the rest of their lives.
"Thanks be to God," exulted Wafa, mother of two children who made the trip with her husband Osama as she arrived in Rome. "I thank the pope for this very human gesture."
The three Muslim families, including six children, had all fled their homes amid the devastation of Syria's civil war. They were plucked from a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where they have been stranded for weeks. They were chosen because they had their documents in order, not to make a political point to Europe about the need to better integrate Muslims, the pope said.
"Their privilege is that they are children of God," Francis told reporters en route home to Italy after an emotional trip to Lesbos on Saturday.
The Roman Catholic charity Sant'Egidio, which is providing the refugees with preliminary assistance, welcomed them at their headquarters in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood late Saturday. The mothers were given red roses, and they were applauded as they arrived.
Sant'Egidio released some details about the refugees but didn't give any of their last names due to privacy concerns.
Hasan and Nour, both engineers, and their 2-year-old son fled their home in Zabadani, a mountainous area on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus that has been heavily bombed. They headed to Turkey and took a boat across the Aegean Sea to Lesbos, like hundreds of thousands before them, hoping to reach Europe. But Austria and several Balkan nations shut their borders to refugees in early March, stranding more than 50,000 people in Greece.
Ramy and Suhila, a couple in their 50s, came from Deir el-Zour, a Syrian city close to the Iraqi border which has been devastated in street-by-street fighting between Islamic State militants and government troops. They arrived in Greece with their three children in February via Turkey. Ramy is a teacher, Suhila a tailor, Sant'Egidio said.
The third family, Osama and Wafa, hail from the Damascus suburb of Zamalka. Their youngest still wakes each night and even stopped speaking for a time apparently due to the trauma of the war and the journey to Europe.
They were selected after being identified as vulnerable and deserving of humanitarian protection, and after being interviewed about their hopes for settlement in Europe, said Daniela Pompei, the Sant'Egidio official who helped facilitate the project. She said all 12 had been registered as asylum-seekers in Greece but will now actually make their requests in Italy.
They had all arrived in Lesbos in the past two months, meaning they had lived through the brunt of Syria's civil war, she said.
"They resisted for five years," she said.
Francis said his decision to bring the refugees to Italy was a "purely humanitarian" gesture and not a political act.
Many human rights groups have criticized the European Union's new policy of deporting some migrants back to Turkey. The Vatican made sure that all 12 it selected Saturday had arrived on Lesbos before a March 20 deadline, and were not subject to any possible deportation to Turkey.
Speaking on the flight home with the refugees sitting behind him, Francis said the idea of bringing some refugees back came to him only a week ago from a Vatican official. He said he accepted it "immediately" because it was in keeping with the message of humanity that he wanted to send with his trip to Lesbos.
Francis said the Vatican would take full responsibility for the 12 Syrians. He said two Christian families had been on the original list, but they didn't have their documents in order.
Hundreds of migrants have died in the Aegean Sea this year as the flimsy dinghies supplied by smuggling gangs sink or capsize.
The pope cited Mother Teresa in responding to a question about whether his gesture of bringing 12 refugees to Italy would change the debate about Europe's migrant crisis.
"It's a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same," he said.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
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Elena Becatoros contributed from Athens. (**)
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Linkedin Derek Gatopoulos, Nicole Winfield and Elena Becatoros (Associated Press) Moria, Greece Sun, April 17, 2016
In an extraordinary gesture both political and personal, Pope Francis brought 12 Syrian Muslims to Italy aboard his plane Saturday after an emotional visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, which has faced the brunt of Europe's migration crisis.
Refugees on the overwhelmed island fell to their knees and wept at his presence. Some 3,000 migrants on Lesbos are facing possible deportation back to Turkey under a new deal with the European Union, and the uncertainty has caused heavy strains.
Francis decided only a week ago to bring the three refugee families to Italy after a Vatican official suggested it. He said he accepted the proposal "immediately" since it fit the spirit of his visit to Lesbos.
"It's a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same," he said of his gesture, quoting one of Mother Teresa's phrases.
During the five-hour trip, Francis implored European nations to respond to the migrant crisis on its shores "in a way that is worthy of our common humanity." The Greek island just a few miles from the Turkish coast has seen hundreds of thousands of desperate people land on its beaches and rocks in the last year, fleeing war and poverty at home.
The pope visited Lesbos alongside the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians and the head of the Church of Greece. They came to give a united Christian message thanking the Greek people for welcoming migrants and highlighting the plight of refugees as the 28-nation EU implements a plan to deport them back to Turkey.
Francis insisted his gesture to bring the 12 refugees to Italy was "purely humanitarian," not political. But in comments on the flight home, he urged Europe to not only welcome refugees but better integrate them into society, so they are not left in ghettos where they can become prey to radicalization.
Many refugees wept at Francis' feet as he and the two Orthodox leaders approached them at the Moria refugee detention center on Lesbos, where they greeted 250 people individually. Others chanted "Freedom! Freedom!" as they passed by.
Francis bent down as one young girl knelt at his feet, sobbing uncontrollably. The pope also blessed a man who wailed "Thank you! Please Father, bless me!"
The Vatican said the three Syrian families, which including six children, who came to Rome will be supported by the Holy See and cared for initially by Italy's Catholic Sant'Egidio Community. They were treated to a raucous welcome Saturday night in Rome, with drummers thumping, a crowd applauding and the three mothers receiving a single red rose.
"I thank you for what you have done," Nour, a mother of a 2-year-old, said of the pope. "I hope this gesture has an effect on refugee policy."
Nour and her husband, Hasan, are both engineers who lived in Zabatani, a mountainous area near the Lebanese border that has been bombed. Another family with two children hailed from Damascus and a third family with three children came from Deir el-Zour, a city close to the Iraqi border that the Islamic State group has been besieging for months, leading to malnutrition.
Two of the three had their homes bombed, said Sant'Egidio's refugee chief, Daniela Pompei.
She said the three families had been given Italian humanitarian visas and would now apply for asylum. Francis said they were selected not because they were Muslim, but because their papers were in order. They had arrived on Lesbos before the EU deportation date.
"It's a small gesture," he said. "But these are the small gestures that all men and women must do to give a hand to those in need."
In perhaps a first, a baby's cry could be heard aboard the papal plane as Francis spoke. The 12 refugees sat right behind the papal delegation on the aircraft, and Francis greeted each one on the tarmac in Lesbos, again on the tarmac in Rome, and during the flight, said Pompei.
Francis seemed particularly shaken by the trauma the children he met at the detention center suffered as a result of their experiences. He showed reporters a picture one Afghan child gave him of a sun weeping over a sea where boats carrying refugees had sunk.
"If the sun is able to weep, so can we," Francis said. "A tear would do us good."
Hundreds of migrants have drowned so far this year in the waters between Greece and Turkey.
At a ceremony in Lesbos to thank the Greek people, Francis said he understood Europe's concern about the migrant influx. But he said migrants are human beings "who have faces, names and individual stories" and deserve to have their most basic human rights respected.
"God will repay this generosity," he promised.
In his remarks to refugees, Francis said they should know that they are not alone and shouldn't lose hope.
Human rights groups have denounced the EU-Turkey deportation deal as an abdication of Europe's obligation to grant protection to asylum-seekers.
The March 18 deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands since March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe. In return, Turkey was granted billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there and promised that its stalled accession talks with the EU would speed up.
During the visit, Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and the archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos II, signed a joint declaration urging the world to make the protection of human lives a priority and to extend temporary asylum to those in need. It also called on political leaders to ensure that everyone can remain in their homelands and enjoy the "right to live in peace and security."
"The world will be judged by the way it has treated you," Bartholomew told the refugees. "And we will all be accountable for the way we respond."
Francis and the two Orthodox leaders, officially divided from Catholics over a 1,000-year schism, lunched with eight of the refugees to hear their stories. They then went to the island's main port to pray together and toss floral wreaths into the sea in memory of those who didn't survive the journey.
Earlier, Francis met Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the airport and thanked him for the generosity shown by his people despite their own economic troubles. Tsipras said he was proud of Greece's response when other European nations "were erecting walls and fences to prevent defenseless people from seeking a better life."
Hours before the pope arrived, the European border patrol agency Frontex intercepted a dinghy carrying 41 Syrians and Iraqis off the coast of Lesbos. The refugees were detained.
The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope.
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Winfield reported from Rome and Becatoros from Athens.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield and Derek Gatopoulos at www.twitter.com/dgatopoulos (**)
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, April 17, 2016
The head of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), Harry Azhar, has said President Joko Jokowi Widodo will lend a hand in a case concerning alleged irregularities in an acquisition of land by the Jakarta City administration that is being investigated by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
He [Jokowi] said what we had conveyed to him would be followed up. We conveyed the audit results to the President because he had the right to know because they have been in the media, Harry said on Saturday as reported by kompas.com.
KPK investigators questioned Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for 12 hours on Tuesday regarding the acquisition of land in West Jakarta, which the BPK claimed had caused state losses of Rp 191 billion ($14.5 million).
The losses were allegedly related to the procurement of 3.6 hectares of land for which the city administration had paid Rp 755.69 billion, whereas the taxable value of the property (NJOP) was only Rp 564.35 billion.
Speaking to journalists after being questioned by KPK investigators on Tuesday, Ahok slammed the BPK report. "The BPK report is deceitful. Their findings of state losses do not make any sense," Ahok said.
Harry said that during a meeting with the President on Wednesday, a member of House of Representatives Commission III overseeing regional affairs, Eddy Mulyadi, explained to Jokowi about the acquisition of the Sumber Waras Foundation land by the city administration.
I know the President has many staff members who have reported the case, but as an institution, we have an obligation to report the case to the President, Harry said.
Previously, Ahok said that he also reported the case to Jokowi when the governor met the President on April 8, before he was questioned by KPK investigators.
He [Jokowi] asked about the Sumber Waras case. I reported it [to him]. I told him would be questioned as a witness in the case, Ahok said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta, Central Java Sun, April 17, 2016
The Radya Pustaka Museum in Surakarta, Central Java, has been temporarily closed because of financial difficulties brought about by a rule change by the city government. The oldest museum in Indonesia has not accepted any visitors since Monday.
In the last four months, the Radya Pustaka Museum reportedly could not afford to pay electricity, tap water, or telephone bills, or the salaries of its 12 employees, including the three members of the museums management committee.
Earlier, the committee halted a number of programs, one of which was the digitization of old manuscripts. This program was aimed at rescuing old manuscripts in the museum, most of which have been severely damaged by age because they are more than 50 years old. By converting them into digital forms, the museum can let visitors access their contents via Internet in the museum. They will not have to physically touch the manuscripts, which will aid their preservation.
We are forced to stop the program. We dont have money. It is impossible for us the museums employees and committee members to continually contribute to finance the program, said committee chairman Purnomo Subagyo on Friday.
The Radya Pustaka Museum should have received a grant worth Rp 300 million (US$22,731.60) from the Surakarta administration at the beginning of January. The committee had planned to use the money to finance a number of programs and museum operations and to pay employee salaries. This years grant would have been lower than the one it received in 2015, which amounted to Rp 400 million.
Up until now, we havent received it. We have twice asked the administration to disburse it. In the current situation, we cannot do anything, said Purnomo.
He further said that during the last four months, the committee covered the operational activities with revenues from entrance fees and contributions from museum employees and committee members. The museum needed around Rp 8 million per month to pay the electricity, tap water and telephone bills.
Our revenues from the entrance fees amount to a maximum of Rp 3 million per month, while to cover only the electricity bill we spend Rp 4 million. All this time, we have taken some portions of our committee members' and employees salaries to cover the museum's operations. Since January, they even have not received their salaries, said Purnomo.
Radya Pustaka was built in 1890, during the period of Surakartan king Pakubuwono IX. Its development was initiated by Kanjeng Raden Adipati (KRA) Sosrodiningrat IV, who served as chief minister to two Surakartan kings, Paku Buwono IX and Paku Buwono X.
Initially, the museum was located inside the Kasunanan Palace complex in Surakarta. In 1913, Sosrodiningrat moved the museum to its current location on Jl. Slamet Riyadi, next to the Sriwedari Park.
Mitra Museum coordinator Teguh Prrihadi said Surakarta residents and museum visitors are suffering a great loss with the closing of the museum. He said the closure set a bad precedent for the preservation of culture in Surakarta.
Its really unfortunate. Last year, Surakarta was given an award in the category of the best city with cultural attractions and area preservation, said Teguh.
Surakarta Mayor FX Hadi Rudy Rudyatmo said he regretted the closing of the Radya Pustaka Museum. He said the disbursement of the Rp 300 million grant had been delayed because there was a new rule saying that a grant beneficiary must be a corporate body and Radya Pustaka was not such an organization.
Rudy asserted the Surakarta administration would not neglect Radya Pustaka because this museum had become a cultural icon of the city. The mayor promised he would seek a solution to the problem.
It seems quite difficult for us to disburse the grant because Radya Pustaka is not a corporate body, but the Surakarta administration will help cover the routine operational activities as soon as possible, said Rudy. (ebf)
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Linkedin Bishr El Touni and Jamey Keaten (Associated Press) Geneva Sun, April 17, 2016
Two figures from the main Syrian opposition team to the peace talks in Geneva said Saturday that they have rejected a suggestion that was put forward by the UN special envoy to Syria in which President Bashar Assad would stay in power during a transitional period and the opposition would choose three vice presidents.
The UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said it was not an offer but one of many ideas put forward in the attempt to find a solution for Syria's five-year crisis.
The two officials told The Associated Press that the offer is not even worth considering, adding that Assad should not have any role in Syria's future or during the 18-month transitional period during which a new constitution is to be drafted and elections held.
The announcement came after a new round of indirect peace talks resumed in Geneva on Wednesday in which the opposition's High Negotiations Committee, or HNC, and the government delegation met separately with de Mistura.
Assad's future has been a main point of disagreement with the opposition demanding that he has no role in Syria's future even during the transitional period while the government delegation saying any talk about the president's future is a red line.
De Mistura told The AP later that "I clearly indicated that I did not share the idea" and that it "simply came up as one of the many ideas that are being floated by various experts in trying to analyze the current gap between the concepts of political transition of the government and the opposition."
"It is therefore a storm in a tea cup," the envoy said.
Opposition official Yahya Kodmani said in Geneva that de Mistura told them that an expert suggested to the envoy that Assad stays and in return "the three vice presidents will be from the opposition. We consider that we did not hear this suggestion because we categorically reject it."
"We insist that a political solution be based on international resolutions and this (suggestion) is not mentioned in international resolutions," Kodmani said insisting on a transitional governing body with full executive powers to take over power during the transitional period.
The HNC's chief negotiator Mohammed Alloush, when asked if de Mistura gave them an offer, responded by telephone text message: "Yes it is true but it is impossible to even think about it."
Officials at de Mistura's office were not available for comment because of the weekend.
Earlier this week, the HNC's spokesman Salem Al Meslet said they would accept that members of Assad's government could be included in a possible future transitional authority but not Assad himself.
Al Meslet said the HNC wouldn't object to members of Assad's coterie taking part in an internationally sought Transitional Governing Body that would help Syria emerge from war "as long as they are not involved in killing, they are not involved in crimes."
In Syria meanwhile, the Islamic State group captured more than a dozen villages and hills during a fresh offensive in northern Syria, opposition activists said Saturday. The IS territorial gains bring the extremist group close to the main highway that links the capital, Damascus, with the country's largest city of Aleppo.
IS also clashed with rival insurgent groups near the border with Turkey where they have been on the offensive for days, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee toward safer areas near Turkey.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting between IS and government forces is concentrated in areas east of the town of Khanaser, which has changed hands several times in recent months.
An activist based in Aleppo told the AP via Skype that IS launched its latest offensive in the area a day earlier and by Saturday was in control of some 18 small villages. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from IS.
Khanaser is strategic since it's on the highway that links government-held parts of Aleppo with the rest of the country. The extremist group has cut the highway several times in recent months but government counteroffensives were able to push them back.
The Observatory said traffic on the highway was interrupted by IS shelling of the area on Saturday before resuming as usual.
To the north, IS continued in its offensive near the Turkish border capturing the village of Tal Shaaer from opposition fighters.
"Daesh is advancing against the regime and the rebels at the same time," said the Aleppo-based activist, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
Around 30,000 displaced persons have fled from their shelters near the Turkish border, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
___
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. (**)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Cheyenne, Wyoming Sun, April 17, 2016
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took his delegate-by-delegate strategy aimed at thwarting a Donald Trump presidential nomination on Saturday to the least populous US state on Saturday, while the billionaire front-runner focused on running up the vote in Tuesday's primary in his home state of New York.
Cruz's well-organized campaign is trying to pick up pockets of delegates to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention in July. Cruz's hopes for the nomination rest on a contested convention where pledged delegates will be free to switch to other candidates starting with the second round of balloting.
That's what brought Cruz out West on Saturday, where he swept all 14 delegates up for grabs at Wyoming's state Republican convention, handing Trump yet another loss in a string of defeats in Western states.
Saturday's sweep for Cruz follows his victory last month in Wyoming, when he scored 9 of 12 available delegates at county conventions. Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who later quit the race, each won one delegate last month in Wyoming while one remained undecided.
Trump still leads the overall delegate race with 747 to Cruz's 559. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 144.
Cruz was the only candidate to address the convention in Casper on Saturday, promising to end what he called President Barack Obama's "war on coal" if he's elected. Wyoming is the nation's leading coal-producing state.
Trump largely bypassed the state. In a telephone interview Saturday on "Fox and Friends," he said: "I don't want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming many months before to wine and dine and to essentially pay off these people, because a lot of it's a payoff, you understand that?"
Trump's defeat in Wyoming follows his shutout earlier this month in Colorado, where he failed to pick up a single delegate of the 34 in play. He has urged his supporters to protest the results to state officials in that state.
Campaigning in New York on Saturday, Trump said, "I guess I'm complaining 'cause it's not fair to the people." In Wyoming and Colorado, he said, "the people never got a chance to vote."
Cruz, in an interview with The Associated Press after his speech in Casper, said Trump's decision not to campaign in Wyoming is telling. "The reason he decided not to show up is he recognized he couldn't win, he couldn't earn the support of conservatives in Wyoming," Cruz said.
On the issue of coal, Wyoming has seen hundreds of coal industry layoffs in recent months as several of the nation's largest coal companies have filed for federal bankruptcy protections.
Calling America, "the Saudi Arabia of coal," Cruz promised to roll back federal regulations he says hamper coal production.
Cruz also told the crowd he was "pretty sure, here in Wyoming, y'all define gun control the same way we do in Texas and that is hitting what you're aiming at."
Trump was focusing on New York where he was looking for a big victory to grab the lion's share of the 95 delegates at stake. He was holding campaign events across the state over the weekend.
On the Democratic side, neither candidate had events planned in New York on Saturday. Polls show Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the state which she formerly represented as a US senator. Sanders needs an upset win in New York to make inroads into Clinton's 200-plus lead in pledged delegates,
Sanders met briefly with Pope Francis Saturday morning at the papal residence at the Vatican, saying it was a "real honor" to call on "one of the extraordinary figures" in the world. The pope said his brief encounter with the US presidential candidate was a sign of good manners, "nothing more," and hardly evidence of interfering in American politics.
The brief encounter came a day after Sanders addressed a Vatican conference dealing with his lifelong passions of economic and social justice.
The trip gave Sanders a moment on the world stage, putting him alongside priests, bishops, academics and two South American presidents at the Vatican conference. Sanders has been at a disadvantage during his campaign against Clinton, the former secretary of state, on issues of foreign policy.
Before returning to the United States and resuming his campaigning in New York, Sanders said he had the chance to tell the pope that "I was incredibly appreciative of the incredible role that he is playing in this planet in discussing issues about the need for an economy based on morality, not greed."
Clinton was in California for a pair of big-dollar fundraisers hosted by George and Amal Clooney, with some donors agreeing to raise or donate six-figure sums. California doesn't hold its primary until June 7.
She also told a cheering crowd at a Los Angeles rally on Saturday that if elected she would push Congress to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. She credited California for recently enacting the nation's highest statewide minimum wage $15 an hour by 2022.
To date, Clinton has 1,289 delegates from primaries and caucuses to Sanders' 1,045. When including superdelegates, or party officials who can support any candidate, Clinton has 1,758 to Sanders' 1,076. (**)
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Miami Sun, April 17, 2016
The US has released nine more prisoners from its base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent them to Saudi Arabia for resettlement, officials said Saturday.
The move announced in a Pentagon statement is part of an effort by President Barack Obama's administration to release detainees considered low-risk while seeking to transfer the remainder to the US.
"The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the Pentagon said.
With this latest release, there are now 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, including 26 cleared men expected to be sent home or to another country by the end of the summer.
Congress, however, has prohibited sending Guantanamo prisoners to the US for any reason and some lawmakers want to place new restrictions on future releases and transfers.
All of the men whose release was announced Saturday are Yemeni but could not be sent back to their homeland because US officials fear that the instability there would enable them to resume the militant activities that landed them at Guantanamo in the first place. They are expected to take part in a Saudi rehabilitation program for an undisclosed length of time.
The nine Yemenis include Tariq Ba Odah, a frequent hunger striker whose weight dropped to a dangerously low 74 pounds (34 kilograms) at one point as the military fed him with liquid nutrients to prevent him from starving to death. His lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights had sought a court order to force the US to free him earlier due to his health.
"Mr. Ba Odah's transfer today ends one of the most appalling chapters in Guantanamo's sordid history," said Omar Farah, an attorney for the prisoner. "Now that Mr. Ba Odah is finally free, we are hopeful that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will provide him the sophisticated medical care he desperately needs."
Eight of the prisoners, including Ba Odah, had been cleared for released from Guantanamo since at least January 2009, when an Obama administration task force evaluated all of the prisoners held at that time. The ninth, Mashur Abdullah Muqbil Ahmed Al-Sabri, was cleared by a review board last year.
The other prisoners in this release were identified as: Ahmed Umar Abdullah Al-Hikimi; Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Nasir; Ali Yahya Mahdi Al-Raimi; Muhammed Abdullah Muhammed Al-Hamiri; Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman; Abd al Rahman Al-Qyati; and Mansour Muhammed Ali Al-Qatta. (**)
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Here to stay: Soldiers on Phuket streets to bolster police efforts, take down influential figures
PHUKET: Soldiers seen on the streets over Songkran are to become a familiar sight as the Army has now assigned personnel to assist and support police in performing their duties.
militarypolicecrime
By Tanyaluk Sakoot
Sunday 17 April 2016, 06:00AM
Lt 1st Class Yotsawan Raknuanlaong has taken up direct command of the Armys Phuket headquarters, located on Sakdidet Rd. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot
The order to join police ranks in performing their duties was handed down on March 30, but it was not until the Songkran holidays that soldiers in Phuket joined police in manning checkpoints and carrying out raids.
Following the order, soldiers from the rank of sub-lieutenant up have been given police powers to summons, arrest and detain criminal suspects in a wide range of crimes including extortion, labour abuse and human trafficking. (See story here.)
But in Phuket, those powers will be restricted for use only in the presence of a police officer, assured Maj Gen Teenachat Jindangern, commander of Royal Thai Armys 41st Military Circle, assigned to Phuket, under ISOC Region 4 Army base in Nakhon Sri Thammarat province.
Our job is to assist and support police in Phuket, he told The Phuket News. Soldiers will be only assisting police. They will not conduct patrols on their own. Police will be ranking offices in all joint operations.
Local police will still be in charge in all areas on the island, Gen Teenachat assured.
While soldiers joined police in conducting patrols 24 hours a day to strictly crack down on any illegal activities, especially drunk driving, on Phuket roads, during Songkran, We will continue carry out patrols in Phuket after Songkran, but not be as strict as during Songkran, Gen Teenachat confirmed.
However, the Army will stand apart in its investigations into influential people, the general noted, adding, This is part of the reason why we have set up an Army office in Phuket (on Sakdidet Rd).
At the military base in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, we handle many cases involving influential people and we are currently collecting information of influential people in Phuket, Gen Teenachat said.
Priority targets are people who encroach on public land, set up illegal gambling or casinos dens, illegal possession of weapons.. and others he said, but declined to elaborate on in detail.
We are most interested in economic crimes, by Thais and foreigners, such as using illegal nominees to set up companies, he added.
We have directly received many complaints about economic crime on the island, and we have also received some from the Phuket Damrongtham Centre (Ombudsmans Office).
Our Control and Command Centre in Phuket was set up in February. We will be here to oversee the whole island, Gen Teenachat said.
Lieutenant 1st Class Yotsawan Raknuanlaong has taken up direct command of the Armys Phuket headquarters, located on Sakdidet Rd.
We receive our orders directly from Gen Teenachat, We will work with officials in Phuket, and report directly back to the General, Lt Yotsawan told The Phuket News.
We have a staff of 10 military officers stationed at our Phuket office, he said, though Gen Teenachat clarified that the Phuket soldiers will have a lot more personnel at their disposal.
We also have extra support of about 40 personnel from the Royal Thai Navy Third Area Command, and if we need more help, we have 80 Reserve Officers from Krabi ready to join our force, Gen Teenachat said.
Languishing in shackles: Chaining of Indonesias mentally ill still rife across country
INDONESIA: In a small faith healing centre in rural Indonesia, Sulaiman chanted in a confused fashion, tugged at a chain attached to his ankle, and shifted restlessly on a hard, wooden bench.
healthculture
By AFP
Saturday 16 April 2016, 10:03AM
A mentally ill Indonesian man is shackled at the Bina Lestari Mandiri healing centre in Brebes. Photo: Adek Berry/AFP
The emaciated man has been chained up for the past two years, and is one of thousands of Indonesians with a mental illness currently shackled, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released recently.
Chaining up the mentally ill has been illegal in Indonesia for nearly 40 years but remains rife across the country, especially in rural areas where health services are limited and belief in evil spirits prevail, according to HRW.
Nobody should have to be shackled in Indonesia in 2016 people told us again and again that its like living in hell, Kriti Sharma, disability rights researcher at the group and author of the report, said.
As well as shackling, the report listed a litany of other abuses the mentally ill face in Indonesia sexual violence, electroshock therapy, and restraint and seclusion in often overcrowded, unsanitary institutions.
There are just 48 mental hospitals in Indonesia, a country of 250 million, most of them in urban areas. Treatment options are scarce for the millions living in remote regions, leaving desperate families to turn to faith healers in the Muslim-majority nation, some of whom chain up patients.
The story of Sulaiman, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is all too common. His family did not know what to do when he began throwing rocks through his neighbours windows, so they took him to the faith healing centre near the town of Brebes on the main island of Java.
Now he spends his days chained to a wooden bench, either in the dilapidated, foul-smelling courtyard of the centre or in a dark room with bare, concrete walls.
I am a stupid man, he chanted, as he squirmed around on the bench. Nearby, another shackled man urinated where he stood unable to reach two reeking, door less bathrooms.
In a dark, cell-like room, a man who only gave his name as Awan said he was often chained up to a wooden bed 24 hours a day.
There is no attempt to give the patients a proper diagnosis, with Sholeh Mushadad, one of the men running the centre, simply saying their families bring them in as they are not normal.
Those confined in the facility are not given medicine but treated with prayers and baths in herbal concoctions, explained Mushadad, who with his brother and elderly father oversee the roughly 25 patients.
He also defended the practice of shackling them: We dont have any other option. Its for safety reasons that their feet are chained.
HRW who interviewed around 150 people for their report, from the mentally ill to health professionals said there are currently almost 19,000 people in Indonesia who are either shackled or locked up in a confined space, a practice known locally as pasung.
At least 14 million people in Indonesia aged 15 and over are thought to be suffering from some form of mental illness, according to health ministry data.
Shackling of mentally ill people happens across Asia but is particularly common in Indonesia, with studies showing that it is due to poor mental health services in rural areas and a lack of knowledge about suitable treatments.
Families that choose not to send mentally ill relatives to faith healers sometimes take matters into their own hands.
In a simple home near Brebes, 25-year-old Waspiah has been locked in a goat shed alongside bleating farm animals for three days, her parents only letting her out to use the bathroom before returning her to the cramped bamboo cage.
Her elderly father Fatoni said the family locked her up after she ran away from home and began disturbing the neighbours, but insisted it would only be a temporary measure not like a previous occasion when they kept her confined for two years.
The Indonesian social affairs ministry vowed in January to stamp out pasung but identical campaigns in the past have failed to break the widely held belief that chaining or confining the mentally ill in stocks or isolated rooms is acceptable.
Nahar, who is the head of disability issues at the social affairs ministry, acknowledged that shackling remained a big problem but said it would take time to fix.
The main problem is fear, fear of what could happen, he said.
Phuket Expat Finance: The Financial Tailors Of Panama
PHUKET: In 1960, a former Waffen-SS corporal named Erhard Mossack moved his family from Germany to Panama, where he was engaged to spy on Cuba on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency. He surely could not have imagined that, 56 years later, his son Jurgen would become a household name for a very different type of covert activity.
By Phuket Expat Finance
Sunday 17 April 2016, 01:00PM
Icelands former Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson makes his way past a media scrum after the new prime minister was announced in the parliament in Reykjavik, on April 6. Photo: AFP
On April 3, the firm his son co-founded, Mossack Fonseca, found itself on the front page of every newspaper in the world, named in the creation of over 214,000 shell companies for 14,153 clients. Among Mossack Fonsecas clients are athletes, politicians, actors, businesspeople and other public figures, accused of avoiding taxation on billions of dollars, which was either held or cleaned by these shell companies.
In early 2015, an anonymous source contacted the German national daily newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) in Munich with the message: Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data? The volume of data was so large that the SZ enlisted the help of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Over the 12 months that followed, 11.5 million confidential documents were analysed and authenticated by 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries.
What have become known as the Panama Papers included emails, copies of contracts, as well as the identities of shareholders and directors of these shell companies. While the firm denies any wrongdoing, the papers uncovered a 2015 audit which confirmed Mossack Fonseca knew the identities of the actual owners of just 204 of 14,086 companies it had incorporated in Seychelles just one of the offshore centres used.
The use of Offshore Companies and banking is a perfectly legal option for those individuals or corporate entities who can demonstrate a legitimate need for such services. Individuals who live overseas may work across multiple tax jurisdictions, and use a single offshore account to receive wages or commissions. They may also move frequently, and wish to avoid the hassle of setting up a new bank account in each country where they live. They may also live in a country where the standards and security of the banks make them uncomfortable depositing their lifes savings there.
Corporations usually have the same multi-jurisdictional grounds for establishing an offshore entity as those mentioned above, and in most cases these have tax advantages which fall into line with all applicable laws.
The journalists who released the Panama Papers acknowledge that they have uncovered companies and accounts which are owned by people who are using offshore jurisdictions for legitimate purposes. But the volume of willful obfuscation and tax avoidance has been obvious enough and rampant enough to warrant what is to date the largest such data leak in history. And the naming and shaming of high-profile individuals has only just begun.
The first casualty occurred on April 5 when Icelands Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned, over revelations that his wife owned an offshore company with big ties to Icelands banks. After initially blocking a move to dissolve parliament, the public uproar was such that he had no choice but to step down.
This reaction is far removed from that of Britains Prime Minister, David Cameron. The leaked documents mentioned, Blairmore, an offshore fund set up in the Bahamas by the PMs late father, Ian. Asked whether his family had in the past or would in future benefit from his late fathers offshore holdings, Cameron dodged the question and answered only in terms of whether he or his family was currently benefiting from the monies.
Also named in multiple sections of the documents is Vladimir Putin, although only in so far as he has close associations with a number of people who themselves directly used the services of Mossack Fonseca.
But the list was not limited to politicians, other notable individuals named were Jackie Chan, Tina Turner, David Geffen, Aishwarya Rai and Lionel Messi. And as if anyone needed proof that FIFA has not actually put their scandals behind them, the following were also named: Michel Platini (already suspended by FIFA), Juan Pedro Damiani (member of the FIFA Ethics Committee), Jerome Valcke (former Secretary General of FIFA) Hugo and Mariano Jinkis (Argentine businessmen already implicated in the FIFA corruption case) and Gianni Infantino the newly-elected president of FIFA.
While the scope and background of this investigation above makes for interesting reading, what we have been asked by countless investors this week is: How does this impact me?
The answer: If you are a dictator, a corrupt government official or a tax cheat with holdings in Panama, then you should be concerned. Otherwise, there is very little to worry about.
When the dust settles, jurisdictions such as Panama which was only recently moved from the OECD Black List to the gray list of cooperative jurisdictions will find themselves under increased scrutiny. But Panama (or Niue, Dominica, or similar) are not jurisdictions which most international financial advisors would recommend.
The governing bodies and regulatory regimes of major jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Malta and Gibraltar have long since scrutinised every cent that enters their realm, and the compliance procedures rival those of any developed onshore country.
Whichever way you slice it, Panama has failed miserably in its regulatory responsibilities by embracing monies which have been rejected elsewhere, and the evidence is available for everyone to see.
For more information about safe, honest offshore investment options, email us at ChatWithUs@PhuketExpatFinance.
Phuket Opinion: Who watches the watchmen?
PHUKET: The move to bestow soldiers with the rank of sub-lieutenant or higher with police powers of arrest and seizure is enough to alarm anyone who knows that having soldiers on the streets is usually not good news.
militarypolicecrimecorruptionculture
By The Phuket News
Sunday 17 April 2016, 10:00AM
Having soldiers on streets is not ideal for tourist destinations, but will it be better for Phuket in the long run?
But that is exactly what has happened on this tourism-dependent isle. (See story here.)
Its no secret that the Royal Thai Police are under immense public pressure, especially following the very suspicious initial lack of action against Janepob Veeraporn for the high-speed car crash in Ayutthaya.
Only due to public pressure over this case has an investigation been launched into why police dragged their heels for so long in the 2012 hit-and-run case involving Vorayuth Yoovidhya, the youngest son of Red Bull executive Chalerm Yoovidhya, that the statute of limitations expired on charging the energy drink empire heir. And that case saw an officer from the polices own ranks killed.
And all this follows the notorious handling of the Koh Tao murder trial.
Graham Catterwell, one the dozens of experts called on for advice for drafting the new Constitution though with some advice heeded, and other key suggestions ignored in Phuket last year said he rated the success of each successive regime change in Thailand by how effective the police force was after each coup.
If calling the army in to supplement or monitor police in carrying out their work is any indication, apparently this current round is not going well.
The rationale for this latest move seems clear that the army is believed likely to be more impartial in executing police action, as military personnel failing to perform their duties can face court martial.
Yet to avoid the same public image the police have suffered, the military will need to keep their own house clean. The current administration, probably through its many highly public experiences over the past two years, seems to be starting to understand that justice not only needs to be be done, but must be seen to be done.
If the army is to avoid the same pitfalls that seem to have snared the police, they will have to tread warily through the minefield of ensuring that no army personnel of any rank is found having any vested interested financial or otherwise in any affairs on which the army is supposed to be executing the law.
Phuket Songkran road deaths reaches three
PHUKET: The death toll for Phukets Songkran Seven Days of Danger reached three today (Apr 16) when a man died after losing control of his motorbike and crashing into a roadside pylon in Cherng Talay.
accidentsdeathtransportpolice
By Eakkapop Thongtub
Saturday 16 April 2016, 12:00PM
The accident happened on Soi Layan 1 on the Koktanod-Layan road. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub
Lt Col Rasada Kleungwong of the Cherng Talay Police was called to an incident at 6:45am this morning where a motorbike had crashed into a pylon on Soi Layan 1 on the Koktanod-Layan road. At the time of the incident it was reported two men had been seriously injured.
Police arrived at the scene with rescue workers to find a wrecked Honda Dream smashed into a roadside.
One man, named as 34-year-old Boontan Sonthong has suffered severe injuries, while his passenger, 40-year-old Mr Wuthiya Teintendee had suffered a back injury. Both men were taken to Thalang Hospital where Mr Boontan died shortly after arrival.
Mr Wuthiya is currently still in hospital receiving treatment for his injury.
Lt Col Rasada said that witnesses told him that the men were travelling from the Sirinat National Park area when the driver lost control of his motorbike before crashing into the pylon located at the entrance to Soi Layan 1.
The driver had wasnt wearing a helmet and we could smell alcohol on both men. We are waiting to question Mr Wuthiya before we conclude our investigation, he said.
Mr Boontan was the third person killed on Phukets roads since authorities launched the Songkran Seven Days of Danger road-safety campaign launched on Monday (Apr 11).
Seven dead as new quake hits Japan, widespread damage reported
JAPAN: A more powerful quake hit southern Japan early today (Apr 16), killing at least seven people, toppling large buildings and triggering a massive landslide just over a day after an earlier tremor which left nine dead.
disastersenvironment
By AFP
Saturday 16 April 2016, 09:22AM
Rescue workers try to save people from a collaspsed house in Mimami-Aso, Kuammoto prefecture after a powerful earthquake hit southern Japan. Photo: AFP
The quake on the south-western island of Kyushu sparked a fresh wave of destruction and was followed by a wave of aftershocks in the region where nerves are already frayed following Thursdays (Apr 14) deadly earthquake.
The powerful shaking set off a huge landslide that swept away homes and cut off a highway in one area, and unlike the earlier quake which mostly affected old houses, larger buildings were damaged and some toppled across Kumamoto prefecture, the epicentre of the quakes.
Separately, an active volcano in the area erupted this morning, a local government official said, cautioning, however, it was unclear if the small-scale event was linked to the quakes.
Takayuki Matsushita, an official with Kumamoto prefecture, said seven were confirmed dead, citing police and fire departments.
Public broadcaster NHK, meanwhile, put the death toll at nine and said there were at least 760 people injured, while a government spokesperson said scores were trapped or buried alive.
Eleven people were stuck in a damaged apartment building in Minami-Aso near the landslide, another Kumamoto prefecture official said.
We dont know their condition, he said, declining to be named.
Meanwhile, a large fire that broke out at an apartment complex in Yatsushiro city killed one person, city official Kiichiro Terada confirmed.
We are also checking if any more people failed to escape, he said, adding that the fire was under control.
In nearby Kumamoto city, authorities were evacuating patients from a hospital over fears it could collapse and images showed the building slanted.
Hisako Ogata, 61, evacuated to a nearby park with her daughter, where some 50 other people sat on blue plastic sheets.
We left my house as we could not stay due to continuous jolts, Ogata told AFP.
It was so scary, she added. Thank God we are still alive.
An AFP journalist in the city at the time said he was jolted awake by powerful shaking, which sent the television set in his hotel room crashing to the floor. Staff urged guests to evacuate.
A ceiling at Kumamoto airport collapsed from the shaking, forcing it to close, Jiji Press reported, with no immediate plans to resume flights, and communications in the area were spotty.
Japan Meteorological Agency official Gen Aoki said todays quake was the strongest to hit Japan in recent days, and that Thursdays was merely a precursor.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 7.0, or 6.3 times bigger than the 6.2 tremor recorded on Thursday.
The quake struck at 1:25 am (1625 GMT Friday) at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles).
Japan Meteorological Agency, which put the magnitude at a revised 7.3, initially issued a tsunami warning for the western coast of Kyushu but later lifted it.
Shotaro Sakamoto, a Kumamoto prefectural official, said the quake felt comparable to Thursdays.
It was really strong... many people on the street appeared panicked, he told AFP.
Some 20,000 soldiers will be deployed to the area over the weekend to help rescue efforts, Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was due to visit Kyushu later today to inspect damage and rescue efforts, but Jiji reported his trip was cancelled.
We are trying our best to assess the damage situation as it could spread, he told reporters.
Japan, one of the most seismically active countries in the world, suffered a massive undersea quake on March 11, 2011 that sent a tsunami barrelling into the countrys north-east coast.
Some 18,500 people were left dead or missing, and several nuclear reactors went into meltdown at the Fukushima plant in the worst atomic accident in a generation.
A nuclear plant on Kyushu was unaffected by todays quake, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the top government spokesman, told reporters.
How to watch and what to know about South Dakota State at North Dakota
Visual artists tend to be people of few words. Such is not the case with Vancouver-based Ben Skinner, however, the creative mind behind the clever, eye-catching window displays at Aritzia, who, in his off hours, just happens to make the kind of text and material-based art that seems to speak to todays collectors. And whose first Toronto solo show, I Will Not be Entranced by Nostalgia at Yorkvilles Mayberry Fine Art, has a lot to say about the words we use and how we want to read them.
Nerd chic in a peach Oxford button-down and expressive eyewear on the afternoon we meet at the gallery as he is finalizing the installation, Skinner, who has shown in major cities from Paris to New York, and whose work has sold out at Art Toronto, admits to a geeky fascination with word games and the visual language of signage.
I have this ongoing list of phrases that I come up with that I think are funny, says Skinner, of his Pangram series, which feature phrases that use every letter in the alphabet, such as Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes framed under reed glass to create a buzzy distortion. Or a work like Lets Pretend Tomorrow Night Never Happened, the title of which appears to be traced by a finger on either a steamy mirror, or one clouded with a pile of cocaine.
Except the piece is not actually a mirror, but, according to Skinner, who is clearly also a geek for odd materials, a disk of laminated aluminum with an iridescent film effect created by a dichroic vinyl that has been digitally printed with white ink. His interest in the innovative use of readily available commercial materials to show-stopping effect also dovetails nicely with his day job in fashion.
If you want to catch peoples attention and show them that they had better check out the new stuff inside, the way to do it is in a store window, says Skinner, of his role as artistic director at Aritzia, where he gets to try out the possibilities of such mad science as digi-printing on chiffon and a rustproofing method that turns steel iridescent before turning to them to create his artwork.
Alongside words and innovative materials, a list of Skinners likes includes such everyday phenomena as folk signage (as in KEYS CUT HERE); collecting and archiving; optical illusions; patterns and puzzles and bouncing things against each other and seeing what sticks. As Skinner says, lightly, I like to play with shallow depth.
This approach finds full flower in works such as He Was All . . . And I Was All . . . And He Was All, a set of Plexiglas and gold-leaf bricks, like desktop signs from an unintentionally droll office-supply company. Or a work called Grouchy, in which the word is written in false eyelashes Skinner bought in gross over the Internet from a supplier in China and meticulously inset on a lipstick-pink background.
I like the irony of it, says collector Heather Partridge, who popped in for a preview only to snap up the work prior to the opening. The pink and the eyelashes versus the meaning of the word itself.
Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. Contact her at kvh@karenvonhahn.com .
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Lawsuits against a U.S. sperm bank and its local distributor are heading into uncharted Canadian legal territory by alleging that the defendants committed battery by misrepresenting a donor, experts say.
Unusual as it seems, the battery allegation may have some basis, according to medical malpractice lawyers who arent involved in the case.
Its fair to say it would be a novel case in Canada, but it would stand a reasonable likelihood of success given the facts that have been disclosed so far, said Toronto medical malpractice lawyer Paul Harte.
Three Ontario families claim the Georgia-based sperm provider Xytex Corporation and its distributor in Aurora, Outreach Health Services, described an anonymous donor as a healthy student with a genius-level IQ working towards a PhD in neuroscience engineering. After giving birth, they learned the donor was Chris Aggeles, a convicted felon who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other types of mental illness, according to court documents. The lawsuits say 36 children were created with Aggeles sperm.
The families are suing for a total of $15.4 million in damages and allege fraud, negligent misrepresentation, wrongful pregnancy and other charges. None of the allegations have been proven in court and the company denies any wrongdoing.
Harte says the case bears some resemblance to a lawsuit against Dr. Cecil Jacobson, an infertility specialist in Fairfax County, Va., who was found guilty of fraud and perjury in 1992 of impregnating patients with his own sperm without their knowledge. Jacobson, who reportedly called himself the babymaker and fathered 70 children, was sued federally eight times and five of those were for malpractice. One civil suit alleged battery, medical rape. The Star is unable to confirm the outcome of that case.
Often in malpractice cases, a person can argue battery if doctors omitted critical details before a risky surgical procedure, said Amani Oakley, one of Canadas leading malpractice lawyers.
This is an analogous situation which youre describing, the women saying We consented to the procedure but you left out an important piece of information, she said. Its possible it will work. It has its place in medical malpractice because consent is vitiated, or spoiled, by non-disclosure or deliberately hiding information from a patient.
The plaintiffs lawyer, James Fireman, said he couldnt talk about the specifics of the case at this time.
Ted Lavender, a lawyer for Xytex, says the allegations are baseless and that the battery charge will be dismissed, as it was when two of the plaintiffs sued the company for the same reasons last year.
You can Google battery and you can see it requires a touching, which never occurred, he told the Star.
A judge of the Fulton County Superior Court, in Atlanta, dismissed the plaintiffs Angie Collins and Beth Hansons previous lawsuit, saying it was more of a wrongful birth claim, which isnt recognized by Georgia law.
Judge Robert McBurney waved off the battery claim. Battery involves the unauthorized touching of another. There is no allegation that any Defendant ever touched or threatened to touch either Plaintiff in a harmful, insulting or provoking manner, he wrote.
But John McKiggan, a Halifax lawyer and author of the medical malpractice guide Health Scare, says the women have a case.
When you hear the term battery, you typically assume it to mean someones hit you, he said. But at law, battery is simply any nonconsensual touching.
In theory, you could argue that the procedure where they were impregnated was nonconsensual and therefore medically at law a battery, he said. Fascinating.
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BEIJINGIts the first day of Juma Studios pop-up presentation at the Four Seasons hotel in Beijing and nothing is ready.
Canadian designers and siblings Alia and Jamil Juma are the faces behind this multi-brand shop launching across China this year. Jamil, on the phone and looking tired and slightly irritated by the showrooms skeletal display, is trying to track down the rest of the merchandise.
What time will the delivery arrive? he inquires while travelling businessmen and fashionable tai-tais colloquially known as ladies who lunch drift into the upscale hotel, located in the heart of Beijings diplomatic community.
Hes assured more items will land later in the afternoon and nods an OK before hanging up.
Well, you know how it is, Jamil says matter-of-factly, referring to how common unpredictability can be in China. But it all works out in the end.
Jamil speaks from experience: Although raised and educated in Canada, he and his sister have called China home since 2013.
Jamil, 38, is based in Shanghai, Chinas fashion capital; Alia, 35, is based in the northeastern port city of Dalian, where the duo has a studio and small factory. Theyve been travelling back and forth to the Middle Kingdom for production since 2007, but decided to stay after a Chinese business partner told them of the factory space in Dalian.
Fashion was an accidental career for Jamil. As the creative director for Juma, he handles mostly the business side of things, while Alia, who studied fashion at George Brown College, is the labels creative designer. He attended McGill University with the aim of becoming a doctor. We grew up in an Asian family youre either a doctor or lawyer, he jokes.
But after his first year, he couldnt stomach the thought of dissecting a fetal pig and switched to biosystems engineering. I hated it, he says, reminiscing how trapped he felt at the time, realizing engineering wasnt his calling either and wanting to drop out after second year. He confided to an uncle about his intention to quit, but was urged to finish the degree. He did. After graduation, he dove into hedge funds and worked as an investment strategist for Swift Trade Securities and Host Marriott Corp. before joining his sister to launch the Juma label in 2003.
It was a complete struggle. We did everything from sourcing fabrics to making everything fit. We learned as we went, Jamil says, explaining how the duo worked seven days a week, slogging through 10-hour days at Alias Queens Quay apartment. They soon outgrew the space and sought help from Toronto Fashion Incubator, a non-profit organization supporting Canadian designers, for a more formal setup before establishing their own studio near Lansdowne and Wallace Aves.
They hustled and pitched Toronto shops they admired, gaining small successes. The first store to stock their clothing was the now defunct Carte Blanche, on Queen St. W.
Unlike her brother, Alia always wanted to be a designer. While studying at George Brown College, she started creating showpieces for drag queens on Church St.: I designed a dress for someone at [the bar] Woodys pageant, and they told me: I want the biggest dress ever. When I walk in the door, I [want to have to] turn sideways. I designed a few more after that, but once I graduated, I wanted to turn to ready-to-wear.
Her signature digital prints have been largely influenced by the sights and experiences gained during a globetrotting childhood. Parents Zaher and Naila, fourth generation Indian-Kenyans, ran an import/export business. And while Jamil and Alia were born in the U.S. and raised largely in Vancouver and Toronto, they spent a lot of time in Congo, Kazakhstan and Kenya.
When Jamil was 16 and Alia 13, the family moved to Almaty, Kazakhstan. There, they bore witness to the fall of communism, where youd be lucky if you got bread, says Jamil, who was then sent to Trinity College boarding school in Port Hope; his sister followed later, attending Thornhill Secondary School. Almaty wasnt an ideal place for kids at that time, Jamil concedes.
Today, the siblings are experiencing success within the realms of communism in China, where an emerging middle class is projected to reach 630 million by 2022, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company, making it the worlds largest and most important consumer market.
Where else in the world can you get those numbers? says Jamil.
From Toronto catwalk to Beijings Four Seasons
When Alia first visited China in 2007 for a factory tour, she walked out of Changping railway station and decided she hated it. The small southern city, located along the factory belt of the Pearl River Delta, was brimming with soot. I just saw crowds of people and lots of smoke because of the factories. It wasnt glamorous, and quite dirty, she says.
Today, she cant think of being anywhere else but China. Conversationally fluent in Mandarin, Alia oversees a team of 40 staff at their design studio and factory in Dalian. She has also found love, with partner Lee Ming, who works in the industrial construction sector.
Dalian reminds me a lot of Vancouver, she says. Its by the water, its less hectic and laid-back. The coastal city has attracted designers from neighbouring Japan and Korea, creating a small hub for emerging talent.
Prior to China, the Jumas were regulars at Toronto and New York fashion weeks, dressing celebrities such as Nicki Minaj, Coco Rocha and Solange Knowles. While continuing to produce their clothes in China, they moved the business to New York in 2011 to expand their brand globally, something they felt they couldnt achieve by remaining in Toronto.
Sometimes in Canada, peoples ambitions are a little restricted and theyre very, very risk-averse, says Jamil, who is single. Theyre just slow-moving when it comes to operating and making things happen. Its kind of this less aggressive nature which is also what makes Canadians pleasant.
In New York, people there are f---ing at it; theyre fist-fighting on the street trying to make s--- happen. Its super-competitive; its intense, Jamil says. In New York, youre not competing against Canadian designers, youre competing against all designers . . . If youre not doing that, its difficult, right?
There have been some bumps on the way to that global expansion. When the siblings arrived in China in 2013, the pair tried to open a shop in the frigid northeastern city Harbin, but it was a flop. It wasnt the right time or place, they note, adding they learned the hard way about understanding the market.
But business appears to be on the upswing. The Four Seasons hotel in Beijing commissioned the siblings two years ago to inject life into its traditional interiors. In the ground-floor restaurant, posh patrons rest on Juma silk pillows printed with African elephant motifs and zebra stripes, and servers stride in light chiffon gowns Alias interpretation of a modern qipao, or traditional Chinese dress: I didnt want them to look like regular waitresses, Alia says. I wanted them to look beautiful.
Beijings fashionistas gathered at the hotel last month to fete the Jumas pop-up, which showcased a handful of local and foreign brands that are part of Juma Studio, their new multi-brand shop thats been rolled out in Dalian and Tianjin. The siblings are now looking to expand in Beijing and Shanghai.
They have more than 100 points of sale globally including Zane on Queen St. W., and at Torontos Aga Khan Museum. They earned twice as much revenue in 2015 as the previous year. The siblings decline to disclose exact figures, but say they are self-financed.
Their clothing line, ranging in price between $130 and $1,500, is made exclusively at the Dalian factory, where staff is paid about 30 per cent more than the average factory salary of $600 per month. Its to keep people happy and build a team, a family, and thats important to us, Jamil said.
Tapping into the Chinese market where many brands, even big ones, fail hasnt been easy, but the duo believe the country is a golden door of opportunity.
Since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, one of his core mandates has been to stamp out corruption. The anti-graft campaign has led to the arrest of several top officials and has proved to be a cautionary lesson for Chinas rich to hide their displays of wealth. Thus, logo-obsessed consumers are looking beyond the big brands, seeking out niche designers who provide quality, fashionable wears.
Juma should benefit from this, according to Nels Frye, a Shanghai-based consultant and founder of fashion blog, Stylites.com. Because the brand also offers a full-range lifestyle line of pillows, throws and toys, such as teddy bears, Juma is also poised to cater to a new segment of consumers: Chinese people previously have cared more about outward displays cars, bags, spending at restaurants but are fine with leaving the home with fluorescent white lighting and Ikea-type furniture, Frye says, adding that Chinese consumers are starting to care more about whats inside their home.
Tim Coghlan, a China fashion consultant, commends the siblings foray into the multi-brand world, a retail concept thats new to China. In the West, a department-store buyer might scour the world for suitable brands to match the mood of the space and target customers, whereas in China, department stores act like landlords, leasing space to those who can afford it rather than being curators, creating an unbalanced and random shopping experience.
There is room for multi-brands in China but that future is happening quite slowly, says Coghlan, who cautions that distribution channels are still murky, calling into question the authenticity of merchandise. If you dont know your stock well, its tricky.
Finding the right partners is vital, says Jessica Brus, 26, of Ottawa, a co-founder of Missy Skins, a leather-inspired apparel company in Shanghai that sells through the Taobao e-commerce giant.
On the day to day, you dont feel the communism but (the government) closely controls and likes to see where the money is going and coming in and out from, Brus says. International companies (in China) are closely audited and monitored.
Despite the challenges, Brus says it is all worth it: One of the benefits of starting out in China is that things grow very quickly here, and you can go from one shop to 80 in a matter of two years. I havent quite seen anything like it in Canada or America.
Barriers to business
Chinas rise to become the worlds second largest economy in 35 years has been nothing short of a miracle, but doing business in the Middle Kingdom is complicated. Other than Ports and Aldo, few Canadian-born fashion retailers have traction. Here are some notable challenges for newcomers.
1. Language
Language is an obvious barrier. Not many people in China speak English, and with the governments policies to clamp down on foreign influences, there has been less emphasis on learning the language. Alia Juma is conversationally fluent in Mandarin, which she says has been incredibly beneficial, not only allowing her to communicate with staff but also to better understand Chinese culture. She says the Chinese also appreciate foreigners who take the time to learn their language.
2. Understanding the consumer
I understand the China fashion retail sector pretty well, but I wouldnt dare, nor try, to market to the Chinese, says consultant Tim Coghlan. According to Coghlan, not being Chinese but trying to understand their consuming habits is like trying to decode a black box. Tracking trends is difficult due to fickle and fast-changing habits. Juma has adapted some merchandise to target Chinese consumers. For instance, it created a digitally printed bear that has become popular: Youd see these young women carry these bears around with them so I thought, why dont we try to make our own? Jamil Juma says.
3. Marketing strategy
Forget Google, forget Facebook, forget Amazon none of those things exist here, says Coghlan, explaining how foreign brands face different marketing platforms and channels in China. This is partly due to heavy censorship but also because there are specific services catering to the local market, such as search engine Baidu, e-commerce giants Taobao and JD.com, microblog Sina Weibo and power chat app, WeChat, which also doubles as a Facebook feed and e-wallet. Recognizing how popular e-commerce is in China, Juma has launched an e-shop on WeChat.
4. Finding a local partner
Collaborating with a Chinese partner can help tremendously. China is a country tangled in bureaucracy and heavily reliant on guanxi, or social networks, to get things done. Locals understand the tone of the business environment and have the agility to react to changing policies that could come into effect overnight. The Jumas dont have a local partner, but all staffers are Chinese and they credit Chinese friends and business contacts, particularly a factory they initially worked with, for showing them the ropes and helping them understand doing business in China.
5. Taxes
Taxation, says Jamil, is one of the hardest things hes encountered. We need to submit our taxes monthly instead of annually, he notes, adding that tax laws can change on a whim. We have two full-time staff doing our accounting to keep up to date with everything, he says.
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On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver harbour from Hong Kong, bearing 376 Indian subjects of the British Empire. But those on board were not allowed to come on land. A 1908 amendment to the Immigration Act required that all immigrants arrive by continuous journey from their country of origin. It was neutral on the face of things, but effectively excluded migrants from India, who had no way of traveling directly to Canada. And so, the Komagata Marus passengers were detained on the ship for two months, and then forced to return to India.
The exclusion of the Komagata Maru is now memorialized as a shameful episode in Canadian history; not because it was illegal, but because the law itself was racist, exclusionary, and unjust. The Komagata Maru incident was not, as is claimed repeatedly, a dark chapter in Canadian history, nor was it incidental, writes Ali Kazimi, director of Continuous Journey, a documentary about the Komagata Maru. Rather, it was a manifestation of a white Canada policy a set of selective legislations, regulations, and agreements that effectively prevented non-European (i.e. undesirable) immigration to Canada for a century.
Hindu Invaders Now in the City Harbour on Komagata Maru, proclaimed a Vancouver Sun headline at the time.
Last Monday, Justin Trudeau promised to apologize in the House of Commons for the turning away of the Komagata Maru 102 years ago. The passengers of the Komagata Maru, like millions of immigrants to Canada since, were seeking refuge, and better lives for their families. With so much to contribute to their new home, they chose Canada and we failed them utterly, he said.
Apologies can be a balm for injuries still felt many years after infliction. But apologies can also misleadingly relegate the source of injury to the past, disguising continuities with the present. While the goal of a white Canada has officially been abandoned, the treatment of many migrants as dangerous invaders persists.
Migrants are the only population in Canada that can be incarcerated for long periods of time, without being charged or convicted of any crime; thousands are detained every year, including hundreds of children.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act gives the Canadian Border Services Agency broad powers to detain migrants if they believe they are a flight risk, a danger to public safety, inadmissible to Canada on security grounds, or inadequately identified. The vast majority, 94.2 per cent, are detained on grounds other than posing a security threat. Since 2012, the Protecting Canadas Immigration System Act has also imposed mandatory arrest and detention for all migrants designated as irregular arrivals, including children as young as 16.
The law may appear neutral, but effectively attaches punishment to circumstances commonly connected with migration and asylum-seeking, particularly for the most vulnerable: irregular arrival using smugglers; lack of identity documents; fear of deportation to the country one has fled, leading to application of the flight risk label. The most recent data made available by the government shows 7,300 were detained in 2013.
And Canada unlike many other countries permits migrants to be detained indefinitely, often in maximum-security prisons. At least 14 have died in Canadian immigration detention since 2000, including Melkioro Gahungu and Francisco Astorga just last month.
The exclusionary force of the border is also exerted far outside the boundaries of Canadian territory, preventing undesirable travellers (in the terminology of the border services agency) from arriving in Canada at all. Such undesirable migrants are intercepted at airports or at sea long before they reach Canada, allowing the state to deny them the Charter rights owed to people physically present on its territory. The border is transformed into something more malleable and movable, explains law professor Ayelet Shachar, which can be placed and replaced . . . in whatever location that best suits the goals of restricting access. Between 2001 and 2012, Canada intercepted over 73,000 migrants offshore, many of whom were likely refugees.
Canadas present practices may align with contemporary ideologies of aggressive state sovereignty and punitive border enforcement but this does not mean that they will be remembered as just or wise or humane. Will Canadas Prime Minister 100 years from now find herself apologizing to the descendants of migrants kept out and locked away in the name of preserving the border? Or will our current Prime Minister reform immigration law and policy to protect all those seeking refuge, and better lives for their families, forestalling future shame and remorse?
Azeezah Kanji is a legal scholar based in Toronto.
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Numeracy is an essential skill not only for individuals who want to participate fully in a modern technological society but also for Ontario as a whole, as increasingly high levels of numeracy are fundamental to many areas of the economy. Yet evidence has been mounting for a number of years that many Ontarians, both children and adults, are lacking basic levels of numeracy. This difference between necessary numeracy and actual numeracy is the numeracy gap, a gap that needs understanding, explaining and most important of all, closing.
The evidence has been known for some time:.
The 2013 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) survey of adult skills shows more than half of Canadians now score below the level required for full participation in a modern technological society, a decline in the level of numeracy from a decade ago.
The College Student Achievement Project, using data from all 24 Ontario colleges, has found that, consistently over the past nine years, more than one-third of all students taking mathematics (over 12,000 every year) are at risk of not completing their college programs because of weakness in numeracy.
The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) compares the numeracy of 15 year-olds internationally; in this study, Ontario students have shown a steady decline from 2003 to 2012.
Provincial assessments of reading, writing, and mathematics at the Primary (Grade 3) and Junior (Grade 6) divisions have shown steady increases in reading and writing achievement over the past five years but steady decreases in mathematics achievement over the same period.
Numeracy is related to mathematics but is not exactly the same thing. Where mathematics is abstract, numeracy is concrete. Where mathematics is about conceptual knowledge and procedural skill, numeracy is about using these to solve practical problems. Where mathematics education is about obtaining correct answers to simplified problems, acquiring numeracy is about fluency and confidence in grappling with real-world and often open-ended problems. Numeracy is, in summary, the ability and the confidence to use mathematical knowledge and skills in concrete real-world situations.
It follows that while relatively few students those entering the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) require an educational background in relatively advanced mathematics, all students require strong numeracy skills. Some of these students will apply these in career or occupation-specific contexts (such as business, health care, social services, or teaching) but all require them for everyday living, including personal finance, leisure activities and parenting. Numeracy for all is therefore key to Ontarios future and to that of its citizens.
Research has underscored the economic benefits of improved numeracy both for individuals and society.
A Stanford University study, using OECD data, shows that a modest increase in numeracy scores corresponds with almost 20 per cent higher wages.
A Harvard University study estimates that poor mathematics skills in the United States could cost that countrys economy $75 trillion over the next 80 years.
A report out of the United Kingdom entitled The Fear Factor argues that mathematics is a social justice issue because outdated science, entrenched attitudes and the lack of role models have systematically disadvantaged women and girls. Similar factors can account for the lower levels of numeracy among aboriginal people and members of some ethnic groups.
The most important step is one of changing public and private attitudes. Whereas lack of literacy is a matter of personal shame and embarrassment in our society, a corresponding lack of numeracy is not. Indeed, many people openly claim to be unable to do mathematics. This is not an attitude found in Canada alone; it is encountered in many western (but few Asian) societies and is one that we dismiss as the myth of the math gene. Instead, Ontario should adopt and then act on these two principles:
Everyone can be numerate as well as literate.
Everyone needs to be numerate as well as literate to function fully in the 21st century.
A campaign to change public attitudes to align with these principles is a foundation for closing the numeracy gap. Along with this public awareness campaign, a Provincial Roundtable on Numeracy is required to develop a comprehensive strategy for closing the numeracy gap and to advise on its implementation.
The Minister of Education is to be commended for her leadership in recognizing the numeracy gap and for recently proposing a series of useful measures designed to close it. But much more is needed and the roundtable can help identify and implement these.
Graham Orpwood is Professor Emeritus at York University. Emily Brown is Professor of Mathematics at the Pilon School of Business, Sheridan College.
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The trading slump that bedeviled Citigroup (C) , JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) during the first quarter is showing few signs of abating, according to executives at the firms.
Second-quarter trading revenue could be roughly on par with that of the first three months, Citigroup CFO John Gerspach told investors on a conference call Friday. The bank posted a 13% decrease from a year earlier in revenue from trading stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. The decline helped push net income down by 27%.
The environment is "better than it was in January and February, but it's still not a robust market," Gerspach said. "I'd rather be a little cautious and plan that way than tell you that everything is bounding back and it's all going to be a great and glorious second quarter."
Any lack of improvement would bode ill for the banks' full-year results, since the first and second quarters are typically the most active for trading businesses. U.S. banks are already suffering from higher defaults on loans to the beleaguered energy industry as well as recalibrating their expectations for Federal Reserve rate increases, which many investors had hoped would provide a boost to interest income.
JPMorgan's trading revenue fell by 11% from a year earlier, while Bank of America's dropped by 1.4%.
"We remain somewhat cautious about the second quarter," JPMorgan CFO Marianne Lake told investors earlier this week. "Markets are still quite illiquid in certain parts."
Citigroup is making adjustments to its corporate-bond-trading unit as a result of the market's outlook, Gerspach said.
"We've got some work to do as far as adjusting capacity," he said. "We're taking care of it."
Bank of America CFO Paul Donofrio said that March was better for trading than January and February, and so far April seems more like March. He conceded, however, that Britain's vote on whether to remain in the European Union, scheduled for June 23, may affect trading this spring.
"There's going to be volatility potentially around the vote and around any changes after the vote, and we're working very closely with our customers to address how they need to manage their risk," Donofrio said.
One markets-related area that might recover is investment banking, since the lack of activity during the first quarter created pent-up demand, according to Gerspach. Citigroup's first-quarter revenue from advising on mergers and underwriting stocks and bonds tumbled by 27% from a year earlier.
"We've probably got one of our best backlogs we've had in several years," Gerspach said. "If we can get some kind of reasonable environment, I think you could see a lot of transactions coming through the pipe there."
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said that the investment-banking environment is "stabilizing as we speak."
"But there's still a few more weeks of stability that you have to see for people to actually pull the trigger on financings," Moynihan said.
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Donald Trump came to Patchogue, N.Y. in eastern Long Island, a Republican stronghold in deep blue New York State, armed with his usual talking points on immigration.
"What are we going to do?," shouted the New York businessman. "Build the wall," shouted the crowd of some 1,200 that had gathered at a music hall on the town's modest main drag. "You, of course, know whose paying for the wall?," Trump rejoined. "MEXICO," bellowed his audience.
The audience, a $150 per person fundraiser for the local Suffolk County branch of the Republican party, seemed to get what they paid for. Trump told the mostly male audience that the federal government had failed to protect them, their wages and their communities. He blamed trade pacts, lax immigration laws and disloyal corporate executives.
It was a message that has appeal in an area that has lost nearly half its manufacturing jobs over the past 25 years just as Long Island home builders, lawn contractors and restaurant owners eagerly hired Mexican and Ecuadoran men and boys.
"We're losing a lot of jobs to people who come here illegally," said Cliff Schadt, a horse trainer who moved to Long Island from Montana and attended the Trump rally. "They're willing to work for a lot less than the Americans, which pushes down wages. Donald Trump isn't afraid to shake things up and change that."
The eastern towns of Long Island are no stranger to hardened views on immigration. Between 2000 and 2008, Long Island's foreign-born population increased by 21.5%, according to a 2010 study by Hofstra University's Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy. At present, there are roughly 500,000 Latinos living in Long Island, about half of them foreign-born, according to Make The Road New York, an immigrant rights organization based in Brooklyn.
The Latino population in Patchogue has grown to nearly one-third of its residents.
Near the Trump rally, Tom Wedell, 56, a construction worker from nearby Center Moriches, held a six-foot hand-painted sign that read "When They Jumped The Fence, They Broke The Law," and said that he was grateful that someone, Trump, was finally paying attention to native born workers who can't find employment like they used to.
"What happened to America, what about Americans," Wedell said. "I have to obey the laws. I have to go by the book, pay workers comp, liability, all these things that these people don't have to pay. It's not a level playing field anymore."
Outside the music hall where Trump spoke for about 40 minutes, more than 100 protesters gathered near the spot where an Ecuadoran immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, was murdered in 2007, a victim of a stabbing attack by a group of seven local youths. One man was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison while three others received sentences of seven years.
The Lucero murder served to punctuate 10 years of growing hostility among longtime residents and the emerging immigrant population. In 2003, a home in nearby Farmingville, a semi-rural community, was firebombed as a family of Mexican immigrants slept inside. Though the home was quickly enveloped in flames, neighbors who heard the blast helped ferry the family out without injury.
Politically, Suffolk County's former executive director, Steve Levy often stoked these tensions with inflammatory statements about the new arrivals. He attempted to authorize local police forces to act as immigration officials to deport undocumented immigrants. Levy reportedly referred to Lucero's death as a "one-day story."
For years, a group called the Sachem Quality of Life Organization, using an older name for the area, held protests at day laborer pick-up sites, discouraging contractors from employing the immigrants. Over time, efforts were made by some towns to create a safe place where day laborers could get work. But more often than not, towns couldn't agree on how to handle the day laborer issue.
Wary that Trump's speech could provoke problems, the police presence around the area was heavy. On one side of Railroad Street, behind crowd control barricades, stood a mix of protesters, some wearing Bernie stickers and others holding signs that read "Stand Against Xenophobia" and "Hate is not welcome in Patchogue."
"We wanted to be out here to say it's wrong that Trump is saying all these hateful words about Hispanics and Mexicans," said Natalie Saravia, 18, a Patchogue student. "We're not murderers or rapists. We are hard workers -- excuse us for trying to make a better life.
Some of the world's largest oil producing countries ended talks late Sunday without an agreement on whether to cap production, amid tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produce about half the world's oil, ended their meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar, around 9 p.m. local time, more than 10 hours after the expected end time. Also attending the meeting were oil-producing countries like Russia and Azerbaijan, which are not members of OPEC.
The countries disagreed even before the meeting began, with Saudi Arabia and Russia said to have agreed to cap production at current rates, Iran refusing to alter production until a pre-sanctions level is restored, and Saudi Arabia ruling out a production cut unless Iran agrees to one, too.
"If all major producers don't freeze production, we will not freeze production," Saudi Arabian deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg in a Thursday interview. The prince said that his country, the world's largest producer, would agree to a cap of about 10.3 million barrels per day only if other countries agreed to a freeze, warning that Saudi Arabia could immediately increase production to 11.5 million barrels per day, and hit 12.5 million in less than a year "if we wanted to."
In contrast, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said April 6 that the country, which has been boosting exports since nuclear sanctions were lifted earlier this year, plans to boost output to its old level of 4 million barrels per day. On Saturday, Zanganeh said he would not attend the Doha talks and would not sign onto any deal.
Oil costs less than half of what it did in June 2014, crippling oil companies around the world. Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund warned that low oil prices would hurt the economies and political stability of oil-producing countries, and the prices were unlikely to stabilize this year.
Oil prices have rallied recently in the hopes that a production freeze was imminent. Brent crude, for example, is up 60% since January.
"Frankly, only an idiot would have believed the freeze would work because, going in, the Saudis insisted on no freeze unless Iran chose to freeze its production, while Iran said that, no matter what, it wouldn't freeze production because it has invited every major oil and oil service company into the country to dramatically BOOST production. As we have been telling subscribers to ActionAlertsPlus.com, the media bought into this 'freeze' story which was propagated chiefly by totally promotional oil ministers who wanted to talk up the price to make a little extra money," says Jim Cramer.
"It is true that talk of a freeze did bring the price up from $26 to $40, but we do not expect the price to fall back to those levels because -- while the Saudis have some spare capacity -- Russia is already pumping full out. What matters far more is that the demand side is coming on while the U.S. shale production is dropping quickly, as the vast majority of shale wells are not profitable below $40, and the oil companies are going to be stretched to maintain anywhere near their production. My advice and our advice to our subscribers, where we are radically underweighted in the group, is let it come down but don't be too cute, after a day or two's time the bargains will resurface, and I would look to add to our holdings of Occidental and Schlumberger if they dip below our basis," Cramer added.
Notably absent from the meetings, in addition to Iran, were two of the world's biggest oil producers, the United States and China. Both countries, despite their large production, export little, instead consuming almost all of it domestically.
According to oilfield services company Baker Hughes, the number of active oil rigs dropped again last week to 351, down from 1600 in early 2015.
"The bottom line is, if we get a freeze agreement this weekend, we would expect a positive reaction in the crude markets," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brad Carpenter wrote in a Friday note. "However, from our perspective, any agreement would not change the near-term bearish fundamentals facing prices -- and these forces could ultimately regain control over crude markets."
Industry watchers said that a potential freeze would have little impact on U.S. oil stocks, which already have the impact of the meeting priced in.
"Bottom line: A production freeze is optically good, but the trend of improving U.S. inventories is more important and should be the market focus," analysts at energy-focused investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt wrote.
An Algerian immigrant to the United States convicted under a rarely invoked New York state terror statute of plotting to blow up synagogues and churches in Manhattan was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison.
Ahmed Ferhani, 28, pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy as a crime of terrorism, related weapons charges and other crimes. He admitted to conspiring with another man, Mohamed Mamdouh, to bomb synagogues in retaliation for what he viewed as Jewish mistreatment of Muslims throughout the world.
This defendant walked far across the bridge to and from terrorism, prosecutor Gary Galperin said. Now he must stand and watch it burn.
Ferhani, arrested in May 2011 after he and Mamdouh discussed their plans with an undercover New York police detective, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus that he was not the dangerous individual described by authorities.
The government has tried to depict me in the worst light, he said. My spirit has not been broken, and never will be.
Mamdouhs case is still pending. His lawyer, Aaron Mysliwiec, declined to comment on Ferhanis sentencing.
The case is one of only two brought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance under the terrorism statute since the law was passed following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The other involves a Dominican-born U.S. citizen, Jose Pimentel, who was also arrested in 2011 after a police informant secretly recorded him as he bought bomb-making materials and planned to target police stations, according to police.
Police characterized Ferhani and Mamdouh as lone wolf terrorists with no known ties to Islamist militant groups. They were arrested after purchasing guns, ammunition and what they believed was a live grenade, police said.
Ferhanis defense lawyers renewed their argument on Friday that Ferhani suffered from mental problems that made him an easy target for an overeager detective.
This was clearly a case of entrapment, his lawyer, Lamis Deek, said following the hearing.
Deek said Ferhani agreed to plead guilty because entrapment is a difficult defense to prove and because the sentence was appropriate for what she said was essentially a weapons case. He faces deportation at the conclusion of his prison term.
City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement that Ferhani posed a real threat to New Yorkers.
Like Ferhanis attorneys, lawyers for Pimentel have argued that the unemployed Bronx man was prime pickings for an overreaching police department.
A Bronx gang member, Edgar Morales, was the first defendant convicted under the terrorism statute in 2007, but his conviction was overturned when an appeals court ruled that the statute could not be used to prosecute street gangs.
When attached to certain offenses, the statute functions as a punitive escalator, allowing for harsher prison sentences.
Todays sentencing marks an important first for local law enforcement officials in New York State, Vance, the district attorney, said in a statement.
(Reuters)
The raging political fight over immigration comes to the Supreme Court on Monday in a dispute that could affect millions of people who are in the United States illegally.
The court is weighing the fate of Obama administration programs that could shield roughly 4 million people from deportation and grant them the legal right to hold a job.
Among them is Teresa Garcia of suburban Seattle, who has spent 14 years in the United States illegally after staying beyond the expiration of her tourist visa in 2002.
She already has gotten much of what she wanted when she chose not to return to her native Mexico. Her two sons are benefiting from an earlier effort that applies to people who were brought here illegally as children. Garcias 11-year-old daughter is an American citizen.
Thats why I come, for the opportunity for the children and because it is much safer here, the 45-year-old Garcia said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Now, she would like the same for herself and her husband, a trained accountant who works construction jobs. Neither can work legally.
To have a Social Security number, that means for me to have a better future. When I say better future, we are struggling with the little amount of money my husband is getting for the whole family. It makes for stress every day. We struggle to pay for everything, Garcia said.
The programs announced by President Barack Obama in November 2014 would apply to parents whose children are citizens or are living in the country legally. Eligibility also would be expanded for the presidents 2012 effort that helped Garcias sons. More than 700,000 people have taken advantage of that earlier program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The new program for parents and the expanded program for children could reach as many as 4 million people, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Texas and 25 other states sued to block the new initiatives soon after they were announced, and lower courts have ruled in their favor. The programs have never taken effect.
The states, joined by congressional Republicans, argue that Obama doesnt have the power to effectively change immigration law. When he announced the measures 17 months ago, Obama said he was acting under his own authority because Congress had failed to overhaul the immigration system. The Senate had passed legislation on a bipartisan vote, but House Republicans refused to put the matter to a vote.
Fundamentally, we dont think the president has the statutory or constitutional authority to issue these executive actions, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
House Republicans told the court that Obama is claiming the power to decree that millions of individuals may live, work and receive benefits in this country even though federal statutes plainly prohibit them from doing so.
The administration and immigration advocates say the immigration orders are neither unprecedented nor even unusual. Rather, they say, Obamas programs build on past efforts by Democratic and Republican administrations to use discretion in deciding whom to deport.
The courts last major immigration decision, the 2012 case Arizona v. U.S., lends some support to this view.
A principal feature of the removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials. Federal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns. Unauthorized workers trying to support their families, for example, likely pose less danger than alien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime.
The administration and its supporters said the challenged programs do not offer blanket protection, but depend on case-by-case reviews. The protection from deportation also would be temporary, for three years.
Its not permanent status, not a green card, not a path to citizenship. It doesnt get you a ticket into a voting booth. At best, its a tolerated presence, said Angela Maria Kelley, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress.
The programs also could be revoked by the next president, as the Republican contenders have promised. That might leave people who have provided the government with information about themselves in greater peril of being deported.
Immigration advocates acknowledged that some people might not be willing to raise their hands until they know the outcome of the election.
The Supreme Court case might not even address the issue of executive authority if the justices determine that Texas and the other states dont have the right to challenge it in federal court. Such a resolution, which could attract support from both liberal and conservative justices, could enable the court to sidestep the potentially divisive details over immigration and avoid a 4-4 tie following Justice Antonin Scalias death in February.
A decision in favor of the administration would allow the programs to take effect in the waning months of Obamas presidency. A loss or even a tie vote would block them for the foreseeable future.
Garcia said she is eager to apply for the relief Obama offers if its made available.
Garcia said she volunteers in the local schools teaching Spanish to children, providing translation for interactions between parents and the schools and working on the school districts strategic planning effort. But she has had to turn down offers of a paying job with the school system.
Armed with the Social Security number she so desires, Garcia said, I would work starting right now.
A decision in U.S. v. Texas, 15-674, is expected by late June.
(AP)
The armed men drove right into the nighttime ambush. The militants, led by a veteran jihadist blamed for a bloody attack on Westerners just 10 days earlier, were winding their way along a narrow desert road in central Tunisia.
When the elite Tunisian forces hidden in the surrounding hills opened fire, their tracers lit up the night sky, and some of the militants tried to flee. All nine suspects, including the senior militant, Khaled Chaib, were killed. An informant in the truck at the time of the ambush was wounded in the shoulder.
The March 2015 operation was a badly needed victory for Tunisias fragile democracy, whose leaders were struggling to deliver on the promise of the 2011 revolution. Prime Minister Habib Essid called the ambush by Tunisian National Guard forces the crowning success of a growing counterterrorism capability. One newspaper headline proclaimed: The country has been saved from catastrophe.
But what Tunisian leaders did not reveal was the pivotal role that U.S. Special Operations forces had taken in helping to design and stage the operation.
According to Tunisian and U.S. officials, American communications intercepts tracked down Chaib, an Algerian also known as Loqman Abu Sakhr, allowing the local troops to position themselves in the desert. An American team, made up of Special Operations commandos assisted by CIA personnel, helped the Tunisian forces craft and rehearse the ambush. And while the raid unfolded, an American surveillance aircraft circled overhead and a small team of U.S. advisers stood watch from a forward location.
Speaking by telephone, Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Africa Command, praised the counterterrorism efforts of Tunisian forces but declined to comment on the operation in Tunisias Gafsa region. The CIA also declined to comment.
The operation illustrates the central but little-known role that U.S. Special Operations troops can play in helping foreign forces plan and execute deadly missions against militant targets.
In recent years, U.S. forces have provided this kind of close operational support a range of activities including whats known in military parlance as combat advising or accompany and enabling assistance in a growing list of countries beyond the active battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, including Uganda, Mauritania, Kenya, Colombia, the Philippines and Tunisia.
Those activities have taken on greater importance as the Obama administration has scaled back the direct combat role of U.S. troops overseas and instead sought to empower local forces to manage extremist threats.
At the same time, the strategy, while low-risk to Americans, has done little to change the overall security picture in countries with deep political and economic problems. It is an approach that some analysts say may provide the partner forces and the United States with a false sense of security while having little lasting effect.
Much of this hands-on support has taken place in Africa, where the growth of militant groups, often allied with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, has outpaced under-equipped and under-trained local militaries.
There is still this misunderstanding that we have one mode which is combat, and another mode which is [training], said Linda Robinson, a scholar at the Rand Corp. who tracks U.S. Special Operations activities. Theres this whole spectrum in between, which is operational advise and assist.
In that role, American forces help partner forces plot out risky operations, which are often enabled by U.S. hardware and intelligence, including spy planes and other advanced intelligence systems. U.S. aircraft have flown foreign forces to the site of an operation or stood by to evacuate casualties. In certain cases, U.S. troops are authorized to act as combat advisers, accompanying foreign forces into battle and stopping just short of the front lines.
The operations differ from the U.S. direct action missions such as the 2011 assault on Osama bin Ladens Pakistan hideout or the 2014 raid to rescue American hostages in Syria.
In those operations, President Obama has proved willing to risk American lives to capture or kill a high-value militant or rescue hostages. But he has also instructed his military leaders to look for opportunities for indirect U.S. action, which puts both the risk and the glory on partners shoulders.
This enables them to take those responsibilities themselves and reduces what are often very politically sensitive issues, said a senior U.S. defense official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate operations. It reduces our footprint, our presence, and it gives credit to the [partner] country.
William F. Wechsler, who was a senior Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations activities until last year, said that preparing foreign forces to carry out assaults, rather than a direct U.S. strike, involved a balance between long- and short-term objectives.
Its almost always easier for U.S. forces to do it directly, Wechsler said. But if your wider mission is to build up the capabilities of our partner, you accept some risk to mission and support local forces doing it.
Done right, this becomes a virtuous cycle.
The partnerships, which typically involve small Special Operations teams, are seen as a lower-risk, lower-cost approach than the massive programs that former president George W. Bush launched to rebuild the militaries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those experiences created lasting doubts at the Pentagon about the United States ability to transform foreign forces.
In Afghanistan, the shortcomings of local troops may prompt the White House to once again delay Obamas troop withdrawal. In Iraq, the army that American troops trained at a cost of more than $20 billion collapsed to advancing Islamic State fighters in 2014.
This is one of the big debates right now: Does this work? Robinson said. A lot of people have been pessimistic about the U.S. ability to build partner capacity and whether it has been able to take care of the security threat.
Military officials said the growth in programs providing hands-on support to foreign operations grew out of earlier experiences in places such as Mali, where U.S. Special Operations troops trained and did exercises alongside local forces between 2005 and 2009. After conducting training exercises, U.S. officials were disappointed to watch Malian troops stumble in battle.
That was one of the lessons learned, that . . . we probably would be more effective if we stayed with them, the defense official said. Youre trying to bring guys from a pretty basic place in terms of their knowledge set and give them some advance skills, and then youre tossing them into the deep end of the pool.
So it sort of evolved, and we began to ask for the authorities to stay with them, the official said.
Pentagon officials describe the ongoing U.S. mission in Somalia, where Special Operations forces are advising troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as a successful illustration of this kind of operational support.
Although the United States had trained AMISOM troops in their home countries in the past, officials realized those forces needed extra help when they faced the militant group al-Shabab. U.S. troops now help allied forces in Somalia plan and execute missions. They provide aerial surveillance and, under authorities that allow them to protect partner forces, conduct airstrikes against militants.
The African troops do the bulk of the work, but weve been able to help them through particularly tricky problems they may have, the official said.
While U.S. officials say the strikes reflect the increasing scope of AMISOM activities, the attacks also point to the continuing strength of al-Shabab fighters even after they were dislodged from major Somali cities.
Mark Mitchell, a former White House official and Green Beret who worked closely with local forces in Iraq, said that sending U.S. troops on missions with local forces allowed opportunities for training and mentoring, including on human rights. It also ensures efficient exploitation of evidence obtained during operations, he said, and increases the confidence of local forces.
They know Americans are not going to be left out to dry, he said. So if things go badly, were a security blanket for them.
But even missions that are not supposed to expose U.S. troops to combat can bring deadly risks.
The renewed U.S. mission in Iraq suffered its first combat casualty last year when a Delta Force soldier was killed during a mission accompanying Kurdish peshmerga troops. Although American forces were supposed to remain in a supporting role, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler became engaged in a firefight when he came to the defense of the Kurds.
The broader effect of U.S. support, even if it can hone the skills of foreign counterterrorism forces, has at times amounted to little when assistance is too narrowly focused on small, elite units.
In Yemen, a long-running combat advisory mission was halted after the disintegration of the government at the end of 2014. After U.S. Special Operations troops departed abruptly several months later, the United States ability to counter al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was severely curtailed. U.S. officials were unable to account for hundreds of millions of dollars in fighting gear provided to local forces.
The experience with combat advising in Yemen highlights the risk that U.S. training may succeed in building up the tactical ability of those forces for a period of time but fail to shape the larger security organizations or political environments in which they operate. Without broader changes to military leadership, systems to equip and pay troops, or efforts to tackle corruption, the impact of U.S. help can quickly vanish.
Heres where the downfall or flaw is, Mitchell said. The minute we leave the organizations that we create . . . they have a half-life. After about a year, that capability we built is squandered, and its back to square one.
Robinson said a long-running American advisory mission in the Philippines, where U.S. troops helped local forces plan missions against Abu Sayyaf and other militant groups, had managed to avoid that transition problem by spreading training across a wide array of Philippine units. That mission concluded in 2014.
It was also pretty carefully done so U.S. forces wouldnt end up inadvertently in the front line fighting the fight, meaning local units were forced to gain their own skills, she said.
In Tunisia, officials were forced to grapple with intensifying security threats after the 2011 revolution. The security services that former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had employed to keep tabs on Tunisians struggled to contain growing radicalization, which spread in the countrys newly permissive environment. Chaos in neighboring Libya allowed jihadist groups to gain strength.
You have so many different types of threats that intersect in Tunisia, with limited resources to address it, said Haim Malka, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Its overwhelming.
On March 18 last year, the costs of insecurity came into stark relief when a small cell of attackers stormed the Bardo, the famed national museum in Tunis. At the end of the siege, at least 20 people, mostly Western tourists, were dead.
The bloodshed at a beloved national monument was a stunning blow to the countrys tourism industry and, since at least one of the gunmen was known to local authorities, an indictment of the governments ability to keep people safe.
Although the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the government pointed the finger at Chaibs group, al-Qaida-linked Okba Ibn Nafaa, which had also launched repeated attacks on Tunisian forces.
After 2011, Tunisias new democratic leaders knew they needed help. Officials asked allies, including the United States and Germany, to help tighten the border with Libya. U.S. military personnel, who number up to about 100 in the country at a time, are also training national guard and army special forces soldiers.
The United States arranged to provide ScanEagle surveillance planes to Tunisia; the Tunisian government is also waiting for Black Hawk helicopters that it purchased. In a recent interview in Tunis, President Beji Caid Essebsi said that U.S. support is valuable but that more is needed.
If our friends are keen to help us, we will be happy, he said.
But officials there, mindful of Tunisians feelings about foreign involvement, want to play down any perception of overt U.S. military involvement. The Tunisian government has to be careful about being seen as working too closely with the United States, Malka said.
According to a Tunisian security official, the low-profile U.S. assistance was critical in staging the Gafsa mission. The Americans provided the training and supported the operation with intelligence and other means, the official said. U.S. forces also helped rig the vehicle that militants drove into the ambush.
The day after the raid, Tunisias Interior Ministry hailed the operation, showcasing photos of the dead men, splayed in the truck or lying on the rocky ground.
The operation was intended to kill them, the official said. We did not intend to arrest them.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post Souad Mekhennet, Missy Ryan
Even though both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders werent in New York over the past 48 hours traveling or campaigning elsewhere instead the high tensions in the Democratic race havent eased as Tuesdays primary in the Empire State nears.
Clinton traveled to California for two days to attend high-dollar fundraisers hosted by actor George Clooney.
Sandwiched between the posh events, she campaigned in the Los Angeles area at Southwest College, a campus in a what was once a predominantly African American community. But her speech was interrupted three times by protesters carrying signs and chanting epithets.
Clinton backed by nearly 500 supporters in the crowd continued with her stump speech. But over the cacophony of protesters, she had a message for them that seemed to be ever-present on this West Coast swing: We dont need another diagnosis of the problem, we need solutions! she said.
The campaign stop came as Clinton is locked in an increasingly bitter primary fight with Sanders that has raised such issues as gun control and Clintons ties to Wall Street to the fore.
Sanders supporters picketed outside of Clintons fundraiser in San Francisco that was headlined by Clooney on Friday night. Clooney and his wife, Amal, a human rights attorney, will host a second fundraiser in their Los Angeles home on Saturday night.
The events, which raise money for Clintons Victory Fund a joint committee between the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties come at a hefty price tag. Individuals can attend for $33,400 or chair the event by raising or contributing $353,400.
Sanders has made hay of such high-dollar events, contrasting them with his fundraising from small-dollar donors.
On Friday, the Sanders campaign said it planned to air a new ad entitled $27 during Clintons California swing: The number refers to the average amount that contributors have given to the Sanders campaign.
Meanwhile, Clinton spokeswoman Christina Reynolds emphasized in a statement that Clintons fundraising at these events are intended to also benefit the Democratic Party, through the joint fundraising committee.
Hillary Clinton has made it a priority to raise money for Democrats up and down the ballot and were grateful to everyone who supports the party, Reynolds said. We frequently hear how much money Senator Sanders is raising, maybe he can send a few of those $27 donations to the DNC and state parties across the country to help the party he hopes to lead.
It seems, however, that Sanders isnt the only person critical of just how much money is being funneled from the wealthy into the political system: George Clooney is too.
In an interview that will air on NBC Newss Meet the Press on Sunday, Clooney said Sanders and his supporters are right to protest the fundraiser that he headlined.
Yes, I think its an obscene amount of money, Clooney said. I think that, you know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and theyre right to protest. Theyre absolutely right. It is an obscene amount of money.
The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. Its ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely, he added.
Sanders on Saturday was traveling back to New York after finishing visit to Rome, where the senator from Vermont spoke at a Vatican conference and met briefly with Pope Francis. Both candidates are expected to be in New York on Sunday to campaign ahead of the states April 19 primary.
In Los Angeles, Clinton challenged Sanders on gun control, an issue that is a key part of her argument against him in the New York primary and is likely to play a role in the California primary on June 7.
No matter how often hes asked by family members of those who have been murdered, he sticks to his talking points, Clinton said, as she dismissed Sanderss claim that his views on gun control stem from his home state of Vermont where there is virtually no gun control. We all need to be concerned about the greed and recklessness on Wall Street, thats why I have a plan to go after them.
But we also need to be concerned about the greed and recklessness of the gun lobby as well, Clinton said.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post Abby Phillip
A man who admitted plotting to bomb New York City synagogues has tried to kill himself in prison after guards tormented him because of his terror case, his lawyers said.
Ahmed Ferhani, who is halfway through a 10-year sentence in a rare state-level terror case, is in a medically induced coma after trying to hang himself in New Yorks Attica prison, according to his lawyers.
He was neither protected nor acknowledged in prison, lawyer Lamis Deek said, calling Ferhanis treatment an outrage.
The state Corrections Department would say only that Ferhani, 31, has been taken from Attica to an outside hospital and officials were investigating, though the agency wouldnt say what was being investigated. Deek said a Buffalo hospital informed Ferhanis family April 7 of what had happened, but details are unclear.
Ferhanis suicide attempt is a somber afterword to a case freighted with the rise of homegrown terrorists, the legal legacy of Sept. 11, complaints about police tactics and questions about his mental health.
While most terror cases are handled by federal prosecutors, New York created its own anti-terror law days after 9/11. It had been used only once against a gang leader who, appeals courts concluded, wasnt truly a terrorist before Ferhani and a co-defendant were arrested in May 2011.
An undercover investigator recorded Ferhani, an Algerian who came to the U.S. as a child, disparaging Jews and talking about attacking synagogues in retaliation for what he saw as the mistreatment of Muslims worldwide. Then Ferhani bought guns, ammunition and an inert grenade in a police sting.
The case showed the threat of terrorism from these lone-wolf radicals is real, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. once said.
But officials faced questions about why federal authorities had declined to pursue the case.
Police said there was no doubt about its strength. But Ferhanis lawyers accused investigators of entrapping a mentally ill man hospitalized at least two dozen times before his arrest to justify extensive surveillance of Muslim communities, a program illuminated in stories by The Associated Press. The New York Police Department has since disbanded a unit at the heart of the program but still uses informants and undercovers to hunt for terror threats.
A grand jury rebuffed a top terror conspiracy charge but indicted Ferhani and his co-defendant on other terror and hate crime charges with the potential for 32 years in prison.
Ferhani pleaded guilty in December 2012, in exchange for 10 years. At his sentencing, he said hed use this time to strengthen my mind and character.
Ferhani and his lawyers say guards at Attica and another prison beat and taunted him because of his terror conviction. One attack left him needing 12 staples in his head, he said in a letter to The Nation, which first reported his suicide attempt.
Ferhani also recently wrote to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, saying hed kill himself if guards abuse continued, Deek said. The Department of Justice couldnt immediately say what became of Ferhanis letters.
He wasnt on suicide watch when he tried to take his life, though Ferhani has made prior attempts and has been on suicide watch before, Deek said.
Prison disciplinary records show Ferhani was assigned March 14 to 30 days of keeplock confinement in his cell for using an unspecified drug. Corrections Department policy calls for not imposing such punishment on inmates if its known that they are threatening to harm themselves.
The agency wouldnt discuss Ferhanis circumstances, citing its investigation.
(AP)
A significant number of Muslims, who are Belgian citizens, danced after the Brussels deadly attacks on the aiport and a metro station, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said in an interview with Flemish language newspaper De Standaard.
32 people were killed and over 300 injured in the Brussels attacks on March 22.
A significant section of the Muslim community danced when attacks took place, Jambon told the newspaper.
He also accused Muslim residents of Brussels of attacking police officers when the police launched an operation last month to arrest Salah Abdeslam, a suspect from the Paris attacks that took place last November. Police were attacked by Muslim residents of the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels which is known as a Muslim-dominated neighborhood and is considered as a hotbed of radical islam and jihadism in Europe.
They threw stones and bottles at police and press during the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. This is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil. Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it wont be overnight, Jambon told De Standaard.
He also stated that the country had failed to integrate Muslims into its society and for many years ignored the warning signs that emanated from the Muslim community.
He said that radicalization within a large number of the Muslim youth from third- and fourth-generation Muslim families in Belgium is too deeply rooted.
(Source: EJP)
A detained minor interrogated by the ISA over the past few days and under an order prohibiting him from meeting with an attorney has been urgently evacuated to a hospital from an ISA facility.
ISA officials informed the detainees family on erev Shabbos that he had been rushed to hospital, but are refusing at this stage to allow a member of his family to accompany him.
The detained minors family stated that, They took a healthy child from us and now he has been rushed to hospital. The concern that he is being tortured is changing from a concern to a certainty. We call on everyone who can, to do something. To not remain silent. This is a genuine matter of life and death.
Honenu Attorney Adi Kedar, who filed an urgent request for the minor to receive his legal right to be accompanied by someone of his choosing to the hospital, reported that, The contempt for the rights of interrogated detainees has risen to the level of contempt for their health. We regard with severity the fact that despite the medical problem which arose, the intensive interrogation and also the refusal to allow the minors family and his attorney to meet with him still continue.
In response to the update that the ISA returned the minor to interrogation his family stated that, There are no human rights in Israel. A healthy child was taken into interrogation. During the interrogation a medical problem arose which necessitated stopping the interrogation and evacuating the child for medical tests and treatment, and despite that he was returned to interrogation? Where are human rights? Where is the limit?
Honenu Attorney Adi Kedar filed an urgent demand with the interrogating authorities that the interrogations be stopped immediately.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
On Thursday 6 Nissan, the families of five ISA detainees turned to the Chief Rabbis of Israel Rishon LTzion Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef Shlita and Rabbi Dovid Lau Shlita in an urgent request that they ensure that their sons being interrogated by the ISA will be able to keep Shabbos. The request followed publication of a conversation between one of the detainees and his attorney earlier the same day. After not meeting with an attorney during 10 days of interrogation, Shenior Dana revealed to Honenu Attorney Aharon Roza that in addition to having their rights severely violated, being humiliated and subjected to violence, the detainees were denied the possibility to keep Shabbos.
Dana said that the detainees were interrogated all day long on Shabbos, for many hours loud music was played in the interrogation rooms, and the interrogators smoked in close proximity to the detainees. Several times Dana was offered a cigarette.
The families wrote a letter to the Chief Rabbis: Honorable rabbis, at this time our sons are being interrogated by the Israeli Security Agency. Some of them have been detained for 10 days without meeting with an attorney, and without us being aware of their status. We are very concerned for their well-being, particularly since in recent months detainees in their situation were tortured under interrogation. We wish to inform the honored rabbis of what we became aware of today.
One of the detainees, Shenior Dana, who has been detained for 10 days, was permitted to meet with an attorney today for the first time. The things which the attorney heard from him do not allow us rest. The remainder of the detainees have not been permitted to meet with an attorney. In addition to the violence, humiliation, and unreasonable pressure, the detainee Shenior Dana said that on the Shabbat he spent in the ISA facility he was interrogated throughout the entire Shabbat. The holy Shabbat was denigrated and trampled. During the interrogation music was played, he was offered cigarettes, and the interrogators smoked in close proximity to him, denigrating the holiness of Shabbat and violating it.
In conclusion the families called on the Chief Rabbis to act on the matter and to ensure that their sons will be able to keep Shabbos. We are ashamed and disgraced that in the State of the Jews, men of law denigrate the dignity of Shabbat, offend the sensibilities of a Jew who requests to keep Shabbos, and prevent him from observing the commandments of Shabbos according to hagalah. These things, which shock anyone with a Jewish soul, cannot be allowed to occur in the State of the Jews. We request that the honored rabbis do all they can to ensure that our sons will be able to keep the upcoming holy Shabbos as required by halacha.
Honenu Attorney Aharon Roza responded to what he heard from one of the detainees: Today, in a discussion I was permitted to have with the detainee Shenior Dana, after he had been barred from meeting with me for almost 10 days, I was horrified to hear that in the framework of the ISA investigation, and in the framework of interrogation methods which someone delusional thinks are legitimate, a religious man was taken for interrogation on Shabbos, a telephone playing extremely loud music was placed in front of his face, cigarettes were lit in front of him, and he was offered a smoke. There are no words to describe the goings-on other than embarrassment and disgrace.
Four of the five detainees are still under an order prohibiting them from meeting with an attorney, and some of them have been for more than 10 days. The remand of all of the detainees was extended until Monday, April 18, at which time a deliberation is expected to take place on their case at the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court.
A similar situation occurred approximately two years ago. In May 2014, after being informed that youths had been forced to violate Shabbos while under interrogation, the father of an 18-year-old detainee held under severe conditions, including during interrogations, in the Kishon Detention Center wrote an urgent letter to the Chief Rabbis of Israel requesting that they intervene on behalf of his son.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Hoodlums broke into the home of Rosh Yeshivas Chafetz Chaim in Argentina HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Aryeh Levin Shlita and threatened his life. The break-in occurred on Shabbos morning before sunrise. The rebitzen was lightly injured.
Some sources are reporting the thugs may chas vsholom have been sent by the Reform and Conservative communities as part of the pressure against the chareidim to accept them in the kehilla and to include the Reform in the communitys governing organization, AMIA. Police investigators arrived on the scene to interview people and crime scene technicians gathered evidence from the scene including fingerprints.
It is explained that attempt to intimidate the rav was connected to elections that were scheduled to be held in the Jewish kehilla but were canceled suddenly close to Shabbos following government intervention with the courts stamp of approval. Jewish residents were expecting to elect the Jewish leadership for the coming three years but after a stormy session in a Buenos Aires court hours before shabbos, elections were halted. The Reform and Conservative communities turned to the court claiming the Jewish kehillas AMIA government body was not run properly. A veteran resident explains this marked the first time the 122-year history of the AMIA umbrella organization representing the Jews of Argentina that Jews were against one another in an outside body, in this case the court. Rabbi Levin is quoted explaining the Reform and Conservative Jews cannot accept the fact the chareidi community is flourishing.
The chareidim explain they have been running AMIA for the past eight years, adding with significant success.
Rabbi Eliyahu Amar, a member of the tzibur in Argentina told Kol Chai Radio on Sunday morning 9 Nissan election were to take place today. He confirms the elections were canceled by court order due to the intervention of the Reform and Conservative.
The elections are to determine who will head AMIA in the next years. He adds there are parties that make up AMIA, similar to the government of Israel and there is a strong chareidi party, ABUD ( ) that can build a coalition alone.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Despite statements from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the contrary, the government last week returned the body of yet another terrorist for burial by the family, on erev Shabbos 7 Nissan. This was the body of a terrorist killed while trying to murder a soldier in Gaza Etzion.
The body returned was that of Ibrahim Bardiya, a Hamas terrorist who was released from Israel prison. Last week he attacked a soldier over the head at Gush Etzion Junction with an axe near el-Aroub and was shot and killed by soldiers. Bchasdei Hashem the soldiers helmet saved him.
After the incident in Hebron on Purim, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon announced they would halt the return of the bodies of slain terrorists contrary to the position of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Major-General Yoav Mordechai and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott. The latter two feel the bodies should be returned.
However, in reality the body was returned with an explanation it was a mistake and officials did not understand the change in the directive.
It is added that about 200 terrorists were killed since the start of the wave of violence on erev Rosh Hashanah 5776 but at present, Israel is holding only three bodies of terrorists. The remainder have been returned.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Shell and Iberdrola-owned Scottish Power have been found guilty of fraud and market manipulation which led to power blackouts in the San Francisco bay area.
The finding by a Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) judge alleges that Shell and Iberdrola made 809million of illegal profits which may now have to be repaid to the citizens of California.
Evidence presented during the hearings says that energy traders at Shell and Iberdrola used similar tactics to the collapsed energy firm Enron to drive up the prices which Californian residents had to pay on their long-term contracts.
US energy market: Evidence suggests that energy traders at Shell and Iberdrola used tactics to drive up the prices which Californian residents had to pay on their long-term contracts
As a result Shell received 548million in excessive profits and Iberdrola 261million. At the time Scottish Power, which has previously won Money Mails Wooden Spoon Award for poor customer service, was a quoted UK company and owner of PPM Energy in California.
It was heavy losses in the US which weakened the Scottish firm and led to it being sold to the Spanish power giant Iberdrola in 2007.
The case has been a long-running sore in San Francisco and done nothing to enhance Shells reputation in the US. Newly-released transcripts of telephone conversations are reminiscent of some of those recorded during the Libor fixing scandal.
As the blackouts were taking place across the area 15 years ago, one trader said to another: I dont know how honest that is, but we are not in the honesty game are we?
Another replies: Its not a question of honesty its a question of optimization.
Under another scheme allegedly deployed known as ricochet or megawatt laundering the companies involved would buy electricity in California to sell out-of-state and simultaneously buy it back at a higher price.
The initial decision and the call for redress must still be approved by the full FERC board.
Shell is not the first UK company to fall foul of the American authorities over energy market rigging.
In 2013 US regulators imposed a fine on Barclays and four traders of 300million for allegedly manipulating energy markets over a two-year period.
A Shell spokesman said: Shell Energy has received and is reviewing the administrative law judges initial decision in the long-term contract case currently before FERC. We take our business and compliance with regulations very seriously.
Sky has signed its first pan-European rights deal with Hollywood, in a bid to get first dibs on the latest film releases over competitors.
The pay-TV firm has teamed up with Sony to ensure it shows more blockbuster movies like the Lady in the Van starring Maggie Smith (pictured) ahead of its rivals across the Continent.
Since its 7billion takeovers of Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia in 2014, Sky has netted 21million customers across the UK, Germany, Austria and Italy, giving it more bargaining power to secure big deals.
Skys reach is expanding beyond Europe into the US and Asia
In 2015 it spent 4.2billion on rights to show 126 Premier League football games per year until 2019, with BT securing rights to show just 42 matches annually.
And Skys reach is expanding beyond Europe, after it signed multi-million-pound deals with US sports streamer fuboTV, and Asian streaming company Iflix in recent months.
The Sony deal, set to be announced today, comes ahead of Skys third-quarter results on Thursday which will give the first insight into the take-up of the firms latest package SkyQ.
The new set-top box, which was revealed in January, allows viewers to store favourite shows on phones and tablets, and pause a programme in one room then carry on watching in another. Its premium package, SkyQ Silver, costs 54 per month.
Analysts predict Sky will add up to 80,000 new customers, and will see its revenues grow 4.6 per cent with profits expected to rise 11 per cent to 391million.
OIL TALKS FAIL
Tensions were felt between Saudi Arabia and Iran at an oil summit in Doha, where talks on curbing supply collapsed.
A draft agreement stipulated countries should fix monthly output at January 2016 levels until the next meeting in October.
Saudi Arabia said at the last minute it wanted all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to participate, despite previously excluding Iran because it refused to freeze production.
Oil talks: Tensions were felt between Saudi Arabia and Iran at an oil summit in Doha
TAILOR TAKEOVER
British suit-maker Austin Reed has been bought by American hedge fund Alteri Investors.
Alteri, which lent the retailer 6million in 2015, purchased 12million of loan notes and an equity stake held by Darius Capital in the company for an undisclosed sum.
Austin Reed, founded in 1900, employs almost 1,000 people and has more than 160 shops.
TEAM BONDS
Rugby union club Harlequin FC is to launch a retail bond to fans and investors offering a 5.5 per cent annual return and club perks.
The club is hoping to raise between 7.5million and 15million by selling minimum investments of 2,000. The 150-year old club have launched the bonds today and the offer closes on Monday May 16. The funds raised will be used to pay for its expansion.
BUSINESS BOOST
HSBC has launched a 10billion lending fund to support small-and-medium-sized firms. From today, the banks website will give provisional decisions on loans up to 30,000 within three minutes.
BRUSSELS BLOCK?
Mobile operator Three is limbering up for a European refusal of its 10.3billion takeover of O2.
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.
photos byPatrick Johnston/Times Record News Entrepreneurs with various lemonade stands try to draw in customers to their stand during Contest Day at the Wichita Falls Farmers Market Saturday morning. Lemonade Day will be April 30 and feature stands run and designed by young entrepreneurs from around the city.
SHARE Patrick Johnston/Times Record News Judges evaluate one of about a dozen lemonade stands competing to be named the Best Stand and Best Taste during Contest Day at the Wichita Falls Farmers Market Saturday morning. Lemonade Day will be April 30 and feature stands run and designed by young entrepreneurs from around the city. Patrick Johnston/Times Record News Entrepreneurs with the Little Rascals' lemonade stand serve one of the Gold Coat Ambassadors during Contest Day at the Wichita Falls Farmers Market Saturday morning. The Little Rascals won the People's Choice and were awarded second place in the Best Stand competition. Representatives with the Gold Coat Ambassadors, Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce and Lemonade Day cut a ribbon outside the Wichita Falls Farmers Market Saturday morning to officially open Contest Day. Lemonade Day will be April 30 and feature stands run and designed by young entrepreneurs from around the city.
By Patrick Johnston, patrick.johnston@timesrecordnews.com
Wichita Falls got a preview at this year's crop of young entrepreneurs preparing to participate in Lemonade Day at the end of the month.
Judges and attendees awarded the participating children with Best Taste, Best Stand and People's Choice during a special contest event Saturday morning at the Wichita Falls Farmers Market. A stand will also be crowned the Falls' Favorite on the actual Lemonade Day April 30.
Vanda Cullar, director of America's SBDC at Midwestern State University, said there are over 230 children registered this year. The stands range from having one to eight children working together on the business, so there won't be nearly as many stands as participants.
A variety of business models and ideas were present in the farmers market for the contest, with pricing strategies and amount of decorations ranging quite a bit from stand to stand.
Some of the participants offered smaller glasses of lemonade for $0.50 while others included larger glasses for $1.50 or $2 or specials if multiple glasses were purchased.
The Best Stand award was given to Pinkalicious an all-girls partnership from Jefferson Elementary that wore matching tulle tutus and routinely sang songs to draw customers.
The People's Choice award, and second place for Best Stand, was given to the Little Rascals Pinkalicious' male counterpart from Jefferson. Their stand and their outfits were modelled after the movie, and they recited the "Dear Darla" letter in response to the girls.
"It's so fun to see how creative they are. It's really fun to see parents and mentors working with the kids on something nostalgic," Cullar said.
According to a social media post, the two groups will be battling again for customers on Lemonade Day when they set up their stands at United Market Street.
The best tasting lemonade was awarded to Lemon Locks another excitable young entrepreneur who routinely sang and danced to draw attention to her stand.
The young entrepreneurs go through around 14 lessons including how to run a business, creating a plan and running projections.
After April 30, they wrap up their business side, determine their profit or loss and turn in their results. An award for the Best Business will be named after all the results have been turned in.
"The kids over the years have learned it's important to plan, you have to work hard and you have to honor your word and be a good team member if you've chosen to be a partnership. Everyone needs to carry equal weight and responsibility." "We just really hope this is something they will not forget."
Cullar also said the experience gives the children an early taste of business and entrepreneurship, which is one of five endorsements a student can work for in high school.
Endorsements were added to graduation requirements as a way for students to pursue fields they were interested in for possible future careers.
"Entrepreneurship (business and industry) is one of the paths that students can choose," Cullar said. "We want to instill in them what joy can come from starting something and finishing it and the pride from seeing something through."
For more information on Lemonade Day, visit wichitafalls.lemonadeday.org.
TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS A group calling itself Clay County Against Wind Farms met Tuesday evening to share information about the many negative effects of wind turbines and to voice growing public opposition to additional wind farms in Clay County. The wind turbines pictured are in far southwest Clay County.
By Christopher Collins of the Times Record News
In the past, the Department of Defense and wind energy developers in Texas have been able to work out agreements when conflicts have arisen between the two parties, contracts show.
This stands in contrast to remarks made earlier this month by a Sheppard Air Force Base colonel who said wind energy plans in Clay County could force Sheppard to move its flight training operations to another Air Force base. Contracts between the DoD and alternative energy companies in Nueces and Parmer counties show the entities have worked cooperatively to mitigate interference with military operations.
In Nueces County last year, Chapman Ranch Wind Farm entered into an agreement with the government to curtail wind energy operations when asked to do so by the Navy. This "temporary cessation" of wind turbine operations generally applies to establishing baselines, performing flight checks or conducting other tests, according to the contract.
In agreeing to turbine curtailment and paying a maximum of $375,000 to the DoD, the Chapman Ranch Wind farm won language in the agreement that the government would not "posit any objection to the construction and operation of the Wind Project" under certain parameters.
"In order to mitigate the potential impact of the Wind Project upon the operations and readiness of the Navy, the Parties have worked cooperatively and will continue to work cooperatively to meet the desired goals of supporting military operations and readiness simultaneously with the production of renewable energy," the agreement reads.
Buzz around possible wind projects in Clay County began last year, leading opponents of the developments to organize and host town hall meetings about the dangers of the projects.
Despite this, plans for two projects in the county have moved forward and at least 20 landowners have signed leases with Alterra Power Corp., a Canadian alternative energy company.
The two projects are expected to cost approximately $450 million combined.
In early April, a town hall meeting was called in Henrietta where base leaders apprised attendees of how the wind projects could negatively affect the operation of government radar systems, along with how they could marginalize flight training missions. The message was clear: if the wind projects reach fruition, Sheppard's flight missions could be moved elsewhere.
If Sheppard's missions were moved, it could affect the North Texas economy by $750 million or more.
A representative of Horn Wind PM LLC has told the Times Record News that Sheppard has not been willing to cooperate to find a workable solution for both parties.
In December 2014, an agreement similar to the Nueces deal was reached between the Air Force and Scandia Wind Southwest LLC in Parmer County, despite an initial conflict between two entities.
In that contract, Scandia agreed to limit the number of wind turbines to 114 and the height of the turbines to 497 feet. Per the agreement, the DoD promised to not object to the project under certain conditions.
Read the DoD's agreement with Scandia Southwest Wind LLC below:
Agreement between DoD and Scandia Wind Southwest LLC.
On Friday, George Woodward, Sheppard's chief of public affairs, wrote in an email that the base is willing to partner with renewable energy firms if they assist in completing Sheppard's mission. He said the base has reduced its energy use by 26 percent since 2003.
" ... and if we can include renewables as part of our overall energy strategy then we want to do that," Woodward wrote. "But our mission is and will always be our top priority, and wind farms within 25 miles of the base will impede our ability to conduct our flying mission."
Last Sunday, the Times Record News won a tremendous award.
In a classification that included the Abilene Reporter-News, Amarillo Globe-News, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, El Paso Times, Longview News-Journal and the Victoria Advocate, the TRN was named Online Newspaper of the Year in Texas.
We could hardly contain our excitement. The award affirmed our staff's dedication to a relative 24-hour newsroom, one that believes digital news drives our mission into the future of journalism. Our devotion to the printed newspaper is in no way diminished by such a strategy, of course, but our digital reach into the millions of visits each month inspires us to be relevant every minute of the day.
Our excitement last Sunday spilled over into the following week as news broke that we would become part of USA TODAY NETWORK and the Gannett Newspaper Company.
New ownership brings new challenges and new opportunities, and we know we're the kind of newsroom to face each one with quality, timely reporting.
The familiarity with The USA Today brand adds to the excitement.
We know this brand.
You know this brand.
You may not know, however, what that brand means for this community.
The Times Record News now joins 106 other dailies in 34 states and Guam, in addition to Newsquest in the United Kingdom. Five Texas newspapers are included TRN, the Abilene Reporter-News, San Angelo Standard-Times, Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the El Paso Times. More than 3,000 journalists are represented in those newsrooms.
As one Gannett vice president pointed out, the TRN joins a network of newsrooms spreading from sea to shining sea.
The USA TODAY NETWORK and Gannett Newspaper Company champion digital journalism, the penultimate platform for the future of newsrooms. Our CEO said as much when announcing the purchase of our previous company, Journal Media Group, on April 8.
"Today's announcement marks an important milestone as we combine two award-winning media companies with a passion for delivering outstanding news and information, each focused on digital growth across all platforms and devices and being the market leaders in our communities," Robert Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett, said in a statement.
The TRN will be privy to expanding national coverage, with an enhanced ability to bring you news from all corners of the country and the world. In addition, and perhaps as important to us, we in Wichita Falls are telling your unique stories to a larger audience.
We've already witnessed such collaboration. In just the first few hours with Gannett, the TRN contributed a story about territorial battles between storm chasers and spotters that also appeared in sister newspapers. In turn, we published a piece from the Palm Springs Desert Sun concerning reported EPA lapses in oil and wastewater safeguards.
These are interesting and exciting times. In our first week with Gannett, we at the TRN have been exposed to the company's rich history, one that includes a commitment to community.
On its timeline, you can find where in 1935, Frank Gannett, the company's founder, used his private plane to transport typhoid serum to communities in desperate need.
While we have not transported lifesaving serum, we at the Times Record News have devoted countless hours to reporting on such critical issues as our city's threatened drinking water sources as well as the transformation of our treasured downtown area.
Joining Gannett last week, we feel like we fit right in.
Claire Kowalick/Times Record News Local home decorators will showcase their talents to benefit Faith Refuge at this year's Decorator Show House from 1-4 p.m. May 1 at 3311 Robin.
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By Sarah Johnson
Come see the latest in home interiors at the sixth annual Decorator Show House from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 29 and April 30 and from 1-4 p.m. May 1 at 3311 Robin. Beautiful furniture and accessories from 10 decorators, designers and businesses will fill the one-story home in the Country Club neighborhood.
Tickets, available at Stork Land, Mik's, Market Street, Tangles, United on Jacksboro Highway, Faith Mission and Faith Resale, are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Don't miss a great chance to support Faith Refuge while checking out the latest trends. Many of the items on display in each room will be for sale.
"People enjoy watching the home take shape," Joellen Tritton, chairman of the committee, said. "Every year we ask Realtors which house is for sale and available. We pick the largest house with the most rooms for our designers. And it's fun because every year the house has sold."
The idea for Faith Refuge came from Johnelle Donnell's vision for a safe place for women who had fallen on hard times.
"The Designer Show House is one of the two major fundraisers for Faith Refuge," Donnell said. "All profits will be used to pay salaries of our staff and to pay the general operating expenses of the facility. The women on our staff are highly skilled in helping marginalized women and young mothers with children to overcome the barriers that have kept them from living independently. Our client load does not become overwhelming because staff requires them to meet certain criteria each week that keep them progressing toward employment and housing. We could not be more pleased with what we see happening within our walls."
Walk against drugs
The Wichita Falls Campus Crime Stoppers will host the Moonlight Walk against Drugs at 7 p.m. April 23 at D.L. Ligon Coliseum. The walk is designed to bring awareness of drug use within the community and school campuses, while raising funds for 16 local campus Crime Stoppers. Proceeds will help pay rewards for tips leading to arrests.
The event is free and T-shirts are available for purchase at mwsu.edu/police/crime-stoppers. For more information, contact Elwyn Ladd at elwyn.ladd@mwsu.edu or 704-3095.
Oil and gas expo
The Texas Alliance of Energy Producers Oil and Gas Expo will be from 5:30-7:30 p.m. April 19 and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 20 at the Multi-Purpose Events Center's Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall. The event will feature more than 350 vendors, an equipment showcase, free technical seminars, industry speakers and networking opportunities.
Save a life
Someday you might be able to save a life if you are a certified lifeguard. The YMCA is offering a lifeguard class this spring at the downtown Y. Classes are April 17-21 with the following hours: April 17, 1:30.-8:30 p.m.; April 18, 4-10 p.m.; April 19, 7-11 p.m.; April 20, 6-11 p.m.; and April 21, 7-11 p.m. A second session of lifeguard classes will be April 22-25 with the following hours: April 22, 4-10 p.m.; April 23, 2-10 p.m.; April 24, 1:30-8:30 p.m.; and April 25, 4-10 p.m.
Participants must be 16 years old by the first day of classes. The cost is $230. To register, call 322-7816.
Ballet boot camp
Achieve your wellness goals by attending Ballet Barre Bootcamp at the Kemp at the Forum. Classes are from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays April 19 through May 26 at the Forum, 2120 Speedway.
Join certified instructor Alicia Ayers as she helps get you on your way to good health.
Celebrate Earth
Encourage your kids to celebrate the Earth at two programs April 23 at River Bend Nature Center. Science Saturday, from 1-2:30 p.m., is for kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. Nature Tots Story Time, from 11 a.m. to noon, is for ages 2 to 6.
For more information, call River Bend at 767-0843.
Sheppard Air Force Base
Every now and then good ol' fashioned capitalism crashes into the public good.
Even though our economy thrives on honest capitalism and, more specifically, individuals having ample opportunity to improve their status in such an economy, sometimes the devastating impact on a populace outweighs the individual gain.
Especially if the devastating impact involves killing about $750 million in annual revenue for Wichita Falls.
Three-quarters of a billion dollars are at risk if developers of a proposed wind farm in Clay County get their wish.
The instant bump in income for a select few would ravage the North Texas economic landscape. Wind farms would put the viability of Sheppard Air Force Base at risk, a risk we simply cannot allow.
High-ranking military officials said as much recently when a town hall meeting addressed the proposal and concerns.
Col. Gregory Keeton said the installation of wind farms could force the Department of Defense to move the base's pilot training programs to another Air Force base.
That cannot happen.
In a newsletter, Henry Florsheim, president and CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce & Industry wrote, "SAFB plays a vital role in our economy and in our everyday lives," and that residents need to be "protecting what you have."
In the same newsletter, Florsheim, incidentally, placed the economic impact of the base at $1 billion.
Sheppard is paramount to our survival. Sheppard is our economic water source. This is critical. Much like the water crisis we faced in recent years, we must do whatever we can protect what keeps us alive.
Pleading to the developers' good graces and common sense has yet to prove to successful.
"I'm from Windthorst, and I don't want to close the base down. I don't think it will close down," said Jimmy Horn, owner of Horn Wind PM LLC, who is developing two future wind farm projects in Clay County for owner Alterra Power Corp., a Canadian alternative energy company.
"We're not trying to kill the Air Force base."
Perhaps Horn isn't trying to kill Sheppard, but impediments to air space would indeed drastically reduce the mission's training ability.
As Wichitans, we've known for decades that the military could pick other locations for Sheppard's tasks. As Wichitans, we've stressed upon our representatives the importance of keeping Sheppard here and most importantly, our appreciation for the base being right here, in our community.
If the missions at Sheppard are moved elsewhere, there will be no community, at least not resembling anything we've enjoyed to date.
If the wind farms are placed in Clay County, our future could be blowing in the wind.
TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS FILE: Barricades warn drivers of high water on East Scott Street.
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The National Weather Service in Norman has issued a flood warning for the Wichita River at Wichita Falls from Sunday morning to Thursday morning. Moderate flooding is forecast.
The weather service predicts the river will rise above flood stage Sunday morning and crest near 21.5 feet Tuesday evening. At 22 feet, flooding occurs in Harrell and Lucy Parks and flooding occurs in homes north of Third Street and in Tanglewood Hollow and in Scotland Park.
Flood depths up to 2 feet occur in an area north of Sixth Street and east of Scott Avenue. Agricultural areas upstream and downstream from Wichita Falls experience widespread flood depths up to 4 feet.
A flood warning has also been issued for Beaver Creek near Electra.
Much of North Texas is in a flood watch through Tuesday morning. Rainfall amounts of four to six inches are possible, according to the weather service.
When unregulated food is sold around the world in markets, grocery stores and online, it puts consumers at risk.
Sometimes, rotting food is treated with chemicals to make it appear fresher. Other times, food is labeled as a high-quality product or a name brand when it is in fact adulterated with fillers or is another type of food altogether.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
An Ethiopian official says that armed groups have killed more than 140 civilians near Ethiopia's border with South Sudan.
The attackers came from South Sudan and killed civilians, including women and children, Getachew Reda, Ethiopia's communications minister, told the Associated Press on Saturday.
"The Ethiopian defense force is currently chasing after the perpetrators," said Reda, adding that there is no relation between the attackers and the South Sudanese government or the country's rebels. "Our defense forces have so far killed 60 members of the attackers."
Ethiopian forces may cross into South Sudan to pursue them, he said.
The attack took place on Friday in Jakawa, in Ethiopia's Gambella region and the attackers were members of South Sudan's Murle tribe, said Reda.
A number of children were abducted and taken into South Sudan, he said. The latest attack is much larger than past skirmishes, he said.
The Ethiopian region hosts thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled after war broke in their country in December 2013.
It is also home to Ethiopian and South Sudanese armed groups that attack government installations and soldiers.
The United States, Russia and China are aggressively pursuing a new generation of smaller, less destructive nuclear weapons. The buildups threaten to revive a Cold War-era arms race and unsettle the balance of destructive force among nations that has kept the nuclear peace for more than a half-century.
It is, in large measure, an old dynamic playing out in new form as an economically declining Russia, a rising China and an uncertain United States resume their one-upmanship.
U.S. officials largely blame the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, saying his intransigence has stymied efforts to build on a 2010 arms control treaty and further shrink the arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers. Some blame the Chinese, who are looking for a technological edge to keep the United States at bay. And some blame the United States itself for speeding ahead with a nuclear "modernization" that, in the name of improving safety and reliability, risks throwing fuel on the fire.
President Barack Obama acknowledged that danger at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit meeting in Washington early this month. He warned of the potential for "ramping up new and more deadly and more effective systems that end up leading to a whole new escalation of the arms race."
For a president who came to office more than seven years ago talking about eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons, it was an admission that a U.S. policy intended to reduce the centrality of atomic arms might contribute to a second nuclear age.
One of the few veterans of the Cold War in his administration, James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his annual global threat assessment, "We could be into another Cold War-like spiral." Yet it is different from Clapper's earlier years, when he was an Air Force intelligence officer weighing the risks of nuclear strikes that could level cities with weapons measured by the megaton.
Adversaries look at what the United States expects to spend on the nuclear revitalization program estimated at up to $1 trillion over three decades and use it to lobby for their own sophisticated weaponry.
Moscow is fielding big missiles topped by miniaturized warheads, and experts fear that it may violate the global test ban as it develops new weapons. According to Russian news reports, the Russian navy is developing an undersea drone meant to loft a cloud of radioactive contamination from an underwater explosion that would make target cities uninhabitable.
The Chinese military, under the tighter control of President Xi Jinping, is flight-testing a novel warhead called a "hypersonic glide vehicle." It flies into space on a traditional long-range missile but then maneuvers through the atmosphere, twisting and careening at more than a mile a second. That can render missile defenses all but useless.
The Obama administration is hardly in a position to complain. It is flight-testing its own hypersonic weapon, but an experiment in 2014 ended in a spectacular fireball. Flight tests are set to resume next year. As part of the modernization process, it is also planning five classes of improved nuclear arms and associated delivery vehicles that, as a family, are shifting the U.S. arsenal in the direction of small, stealthy and precise.
"We are witnessing the opening salvos of an arms race," James M. Acton, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last year told a congressional commission that assesses China's power.
One fear about the new weapons is that they could undercut the grim logic of "mutual assured destruction," the Cold War doctrine that any attack would result in massive retaliation and ultimately the annihilation of all combatants. While much debated and often mocked in classics like the movie "Dr. Strangelove" MAD, as it was known, worked. Now, the concern is that the precision and less-destructive nature of these new weapons raises the temptation to use them.
A key question that Obama addressed is whether America's planned upgrades are helping drive this competition. Or are Russia and China simply using the U.S. push as an excuse to perfect weapons they would build anyway?
Moscow and Beijing, analysts say, are testing space weapons that could knock out U.S. military satellites at the beginning of a nuclear war. In response, Washington is launching space observation satellites meant to deter and help defeat such attacks.
Obama, speaking at the summit meeting's closing news conference, acknowledged the tension stirred by the refurbishment of the nation's aging nuclear arsenal. He noted, for example, that communication links between the weapons and their guardians needed better protections against cyberattack. But when asked if warhead miniaturization and similar improvements could undermine his record of progress on arms control, he replied: "It's a legitimate question. And I am concerned."
William J. Perry, defense secretary under President Bill Clinton and one of the most influential nuclear experts in the Democratic Party, said he worried that Moscow would soon withdraw from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 and begin perfecting new warheads in underground detonations. (The United States has abided by the treaty, but the Senate has never ratified it.)
For two decades, the main nuclear powers have observed a shaky global ban on testing, a central pillar of nuclear arms control.
"I'm confident they're working on a new bomb," Perry said in an interview, referring to Russian nuclear arms designers. "And I'm confident they're asking for testing."
"It's up to Putin," he added.
Advocates of the U.S. nuclear modernization program call it a reasonable response to Putin's aggression, especially his 2014 invasion of Crimea.
Military experts argue that miniaturized weapons will help deter an expanding range of potential attackers. "The United States needs discriminate nuclear options at all rungs of the nuclear escalation ladder," said a report last year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group in Washington.
In February, the White House backed development of an advanced cruise missile. Dropped from a bomber, the flying weapon is to hug the ground for long distances and zip through enemy air defenses to smash targets.
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Albany
A brash New York real estate mogul bucks the Republican establishment to capture his party's nomination, eliciting barely suppressed groans from party leaders who fear disaster in the general election.
On the Democratic side, a left-leaning challenger with a Vermont pedigree barnstorms the state in the hope of chewing away at the support of a battle-tested front-runner with a famous last name.
Been there, done that.
More Information Cast your vote The Republican and Democratic presidential primaries will be held Tuesday. In the greater Capital Region, polls are open noon to 9 p.m. Republicans will vote only for their candidate. The name of Ben Carson, who suspended his campaign last month, remains on the ballot alongside Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Democrats will select either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, and cast additional votes for individual delegates. The delegates will appear on the same horizontal line as the candidate they support. Source: state Board of Elections See More Collapse
The first scenario describes Donald Trump's current dominance, and Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino's insurgent victory over former Rep. Rick Lazio in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial fight.
The second sketches U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' maverick challenge to Hillary Clinton, and law professor Zephyr Teachout's unsuccessful 2014 Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Comparing a state's gubernatorial primary to its presidential version is a bit like putting a weather balloon next to a Zeppelin. But those looking for clues to the outcome of Tuesday's hard-fought delegate battle in New York might turn their magnifying glasses to the recent past.
For both parties, New York's presidential primary is actually 27 separate contests within each of the state's congressional districts. The Democratic delegates from each district between five and seven depending upon the level of party turnout in the most recent presidential races, for a total of 163 will be selected proportionally based on the percentage of votes rung up by Clinton and Sanders.
The Republican primary will hand out three delegates per district (plus 14 more for the statewide winner), but the math is more complicated: A candidate who pulls in more than 50 percent of the vote in a given district will take all three; if the winner gets less than a majority, one delegate will go to the column of the second-place finisher, as long as that candidate receives at least 20 percent of that district's vote.
Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena Research Institute, rejected the idea that either the 2010 Paladino-Lazio or 2014 Cuomo-Teachout gubernatorial primaries were at all predictive of Tuesday's presidential vote.
"I don't think there's a historic precedent for anything that's happening in this race," Greenberg said. "All historic wisdom has been thrown out in the last six months of this nominating fight."
But that's similar to what people said about Paladino's rise to prominence in the 2010 GOP primary, when he bested Lazio by a whopping 24 percent margin. It was a reminder of the numerical power of upstate within the Republican party the same reason you see Trump and his rivals Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz crisscrossing the region this month.
While almost 480,000 Republicans voted in the 2010 primary, only 44,187 of them came from the five boroughs of New York City. Lazio, a former congressman and Wall Street-connected GOP moderate who holds the dubious distinction of being the first person to be defeated by Hillary Clinton in an election (in the 2000 U.S. Senate race), won the city and its suburbs, and eked out narrow wins in the North Country counties of Essex, Franklin and St. Lawrence. Fueled in part by the rise of the tea party, Paladino won the rest of the state.
Paladino and Trump have been friends and political allies for years. The Buffalo businessman emceed the GOP front-runner's rally last Monday at the Times Union Center, serving up red-meat rhetoric to a crowd of more than 15,000.
But while there are points of overlap in their maiden political voyages, there are significant differences.
Paladino was largely unknown outside western New York prior to the spring of 2010, while Trump has been a national media figure for more than three decades. And while Lazio performed well downstate, New York City is where Trump's support is strongest, according to the most recent polls.
A Siena Research Institute survey released last week showed Trump as the choice of 56 percent of Republican respondents in the city's five boroughs over Cruz and Kasich. Trump's support was also strong in the suburbs (52 percent) and upstate (48 percent). Kasich performed best in the suburbs, though he only drew 32 percent of respondents there. Cruz's strongest support in the poll was upstate though at just 21 percent, that personal best is anemic.
Several polls have been remarkably consistent in showing Trump leading Cruz and Kasich each by more than 2-to-1 among New York Republican voters. Those same polls have shown Clinton besting Sanders among the state's Democrats by more than 10 percent, though the gap has tightened.
While there are numerous comparisons between Sanders and Teachout who grew up in Vermont comparisons between their New York political endeavors are similarly tricky.
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Cuomo was a sitting governor when the virtually unknown Teachout challenged him, while Clinton has been out of elective office since taking the post of Secretary of State in 2009. The ongoing criticism of Clinton's email management during her years at the State Department and the firestorm over Cuomo's 2014 decision to mothball his Moreland Commission panel on public corruption are analogous political bruises both involve the shadow of a federal investigation for the two Democratic races.
Turnout in the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary was low at 574,350, split roughly evenly between upstate and downstate. Just as Paladino's 2010 win over Lazio was a reminder of the power of upstate in the GOP, Cuomo's win turned on the dominance of downstate among the Democratic electorate: While he dominated every large upstate population center except for the Capital Region (Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo) plus the western quarter of the state, his biggest returns came in New York City and its suburbs. Teachout, who hammered Cuomo on the end of the Moreland Commission and tapped into anti-Common Core fervor, won counties throughout the Hudson Valley and central New York, though often by exceedingly narrow margins amid abysmal turnout. (In Chenango County, she won by a single vote, 355-354.)
According to the head-to-head Democratic matchup in last week's Siena poll, Clinton performs best in many of the areas that were Cuomo bastions in 2014: New York City (where she beats Sanders 54-41 percent) and the suburbs (57-38 percent); Sanders led upstate 48-46 percent a gap that's within the survey's margin of error.
With those many caveats in place, New Yorkers may recall what happened after the 2010 and 2014 primaries.
While Republicans nationally saw success in the 2010 general election taking control of the House of Representatives Paladino's campaign careened to disaster. In the general election, Cuomo beat him 63-34 percent. And in 2014, Cuomo stepped past Teachout to defeat Republican candidate Rob Astorino by a 14 percent margin.
Paladino and Trump aren't the only political doppelgangers on the campaign trail this year. Cuomo, a strong supporter of Clinton, has appeared with the Democratic front-runner several times in recent weeks including at her debate with Sanders on Thursday night.
Last week, Sanders sent out a fundraising plea to his supporters seeking donations that would be evenly divided between Teachout's current congressional campaign in the 19th District, which encompasses areas where she performed strongly in 2014 and his presidential effort.
"She's the real deal," Sanders wrote.
cseiler@timesunion.com 518-454-5619 @CaseySeiler
A series of aggressive sweeps targeting parole violators were carried out by the state beginning in December using heavily armed, SWAT-like teams made up largely of correction officers.
State prison officials said the unprecedented sweeps, including two in New York City, led to the arrests of dozens of convicted criminals who had strayed from supervision.
But the operation, which prompted civil rights complaints in Rochester from residents whose homes were searched, was about more than rounding up wayward parolees.
It also revealed an effort by the beleaguered department of corrections to improve its image at a time when state legislators are calling for a major overhaul of the agency, including shutting down the troubled internal affairs unit, known as the Office of Special Investigations, which led the parolee sweeps.
During the past two years, the OSI has been a focus of intense public scrutiny for its handling of internal investigations, especially guard-on-inmate brutality cases and the bungled 2014 inquiry of the relationship between a female employee and two convicted killers she later helped escape from a maximum-security prison in Dannemora.
The transformation began two years ago when the OSI underwent a shakeup that included renaming the unit, pushing out the former correction officers who ran it and installing new leadership. The restructuring took place as allegations of rampant cronyism and sexual harassment engulfed the unit, including an investigation that led to the arrest and conviction last year of OSI's former director of operations, James A. Ferro, on charges of official misconduct.
Yet agency insiders are questioning whether the recent parolee sweeps were a costly and misguided effort that broke down community relations in the Rochester area, accomplishing little more than publicly justifying the workload of the OSI.
The house searches began a few days before Christmas, less than three weeks after the state Assembly's Committee on Correction held a hearing about the historic prison escape in Dannemora, and with legislators asking whether the time had come for the department of corrections to close its internal affairs unit.
An agency spokesman said they did not perform a cost-analysis of the parole-absconder operations. But people briefed on the three-day effort in Rochester said it utilized about 100 law enforcement personnel, many of whom were paid overtime, and took more than 3,800 man-hours at a cost of about $250,000, not including travel and lodging.
When it was over, there were 14 absconders arrested, according to an agency spokesman, although people briefed on the detail said two arrests took place later and it's unclear if any of those arrested were wanted for crimes other than a parole violation.
The public-relations effort included allowing reporters from The New York Times to accompany and document the work of a follow-up parole absconder sweep in Manhattan last month. The agency quickly posted the glowing Times' story, published April 1, on its Facebook page.
A week later, another Times story was published revealing that its reporters were given unprecedented access to OSI officials in Albany.
The second story highlighted assertions by department of corrections officials that they're standing up to the correction officers' influential labor union and will more thoroughly investigate inmate-abuse cases. The second story was also quickly posted on the agency's Facebook page.
Still, several employees within the agency said the recent parole sweeps were arguably a waste of resources and poorly coordinated, at least in Rochester, and intended only to justify the work of the OSI at a time when it's facing heightened criticism. Department of Corrections and Community Supervision employees interviewed by the Times Union, who are not authorized to comment publicly, noted significant changes they said took place between the sweeps in Rochester, when correction officers searched private residences armed with assault rifles, K9s and ballistic shields, and the New York City sweeps, including one monitored by Times reporters in Manhattan, where the assault rifles and shields were not used.
One of the officers involved in the sweeps said it wasn't clear whether the tactical changes were prompted by the complaints in Rochester or the presence of the Times reporters, or both.
The sweeps unfolded as the FBI investigates at least two severe beatings of inmates by correction officers, including the fatal beating of a mentally ill inmate at Fishkill prison last April.
Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell, who chairs the Assembly's Committee on Correction, said the legislative hearing he organized in early December raised questions about whether an outside "ombudsman office" should handle DOCCS' internal affairs, which is done in many other states.
"We are currently exploring whether or not we should institute a similar system in New York," O'Donnell said.
O'Donnell is also sponsoring a bill in the Assembly that would remove internal affairs from DOCCS', although it has not gained traction in the legislature.
"DOCCS investigators, most of whom are former security staff, are not impartial or unbiased, nor is it reasonable to expect them to be so given the very polarized atmosphere of some prisons in which both inmates and staff feel unsafe," the bill states. "An independent investigator would provide needed impartial oversight of the state prison system as well as a mechanism for both staff and inmates to feel that there is a safe place to turn when they experience or observe improper conduct by agency employees."
Last month, the agency took six days to respond to questions from the Times Union about the absconder sweeps and the SWAT-like tactics used in Rochester.
The agency initially said it did not document any complaints in Rochester. A spokesman also delayed responding to questions about the sweeps until after the April 1 feature story appeared in The New York Times noting the success of the roundups.
Stephen Maher, who heads the OSI and is a former deputy bureau chief with the state attorney general's office, defended the sweeps in a prepared statement issued through the agency's public information office. Maher declined to be interviewed for this story and an agency employee said his decision, in part, was in response to a Times Union story in January that reported details of misconduct and coverups in the OSI dating back years. The employee said Maher would "re-evalute" the Times Union's request for an interview after this story was published.
Several DOCCS' employees interviewed for this story said they believe the effort to prop up the OSI and publicly document its work in the parole sweeps could also be an effort to preserve the job of Chris Martuscello, a deputy inspector general for OSI's narcotics unit. The absconder sweeps in Rochester were led by Martuscello, whose brother, Daniel F. Martuscello III, is the agency's director of human resources. Their father, Daniel F. Martuscello Jr., is superintendent at Coxsackie Correctional Facility.
The January article in the Times Union cited court records and reports from the state Inspector General's office in which a former OSI investigator described the Martuscellos as powerful figures in DOCCS who allegedly arranged agency jobs for friends and family members.
O'Donnell, the assemblyman, said he questions whether it was appropriate to have OSI investigators and other correction officers leading absconder roundups that would normally be done by veteran parole officers. In 2011, the Division of Parole was merged into the Department of Corrections, giving DOCCS' leadership control of the parole officers. Parole officers are required to have four-year college degrees and three years of social work experience.
Correction officers must have a minimum of a high school diploma.
"Those people, they have a much different skill-set and education requirements," O'Donnell said. "I am very concerned that it may not be legal for the corrections department to take that authority away and that function away from parole officers, which is dealing with people who are not currently incarcerated."
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Some parole officers who took part in the sweeps said they were not given details of the investigations. "They had a folder they did their leads from but they wouldn't tell us case names or anything about the cases," one officer said. There was also hard feelings from some residents or relatives of parolees whose homes were searched at gunpoint.
"I saw dogs. I saw men with guns surrounding my house," said Angelica Perez, who believes they targeted her house because her son's father, who is on parole, has the same name as her son, whose name was on her mailbox. "They had (guns) like on standby, like ready to aim. I felt violated. I felt like they treated me like I was beneath them. I felt like what they did was wrong, was unprofessional."
Perez said she felt she had no choice but to let them enter her house without a search warrant. The parolee they were seeking was not there.
Israel Cruz, who retired in February after 26 years as a parole officer, said the searches in Rochester may have damaged long-term relationships with the community.
"If they can't feel they can trust the POs, and the POs are going to break their doors down, they're not going to trust them," Cruz said. "I think they're destroying those relationships and the POs are the eyes and ears in many of these urban neighborhoods. They help solve crimes and apprehend suspects in crimes by gathering intelligence from the people they deal with on a daily basis."
Mary Jo Johnson, 55, was in the shower last December when a SWAT-like team banged on the door of her residence along a rural road in Farmington, 15 miles southeast of Rochester. They were looking for her son, Anthony D. Marrero, who was paroled from prison after serving less than two years for a low-level drug conviction.
Marrero, 27, was an absconder but not implicated in any new crimes or considered a violent offender. Although he didn't live with his mother, the officers insisted on searching her residence, she told her attorney. When they failed to find her son he was later arrested in Louisiana they turned their focus to her laptop computer.
"They wanted her to access her Facebook page so they could look through her posts to see if she's been communicating with him," said James L. Riotto II, a Rochester attorney who wrote a letter and warned the agency to stop harassing Johnson.
The agency initially declined to acknowledge or provide access to the letter, saying the "commissioner" had not received any letters. (It was addressed to Marrero's parole officer and the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.)
Riotto, who provided a copy of the letter to the Times Union last week, said the pre-Christmas raid was about the fourth time parole officers visited Johnson's residence since last fall. The attorney said Johnson reluctantly let the officers look through her computer that day because she needed it for work and they allegedly threatened to get a search warrant and take it if she didn't do as they asked. No communication between Johnson and her son was found on the computer, Riotto said.
A DOCCS' employee familiar with the Rochester raids said many of the searches were done in such a way that residents felt threatened.
"You're not really getting consent when you point a gun at someone and ask to come in their house," the employee said.
blyons@timesunion.com 518-454-5547 @brendan_lyonstu
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that some correction officers in the Rochester absconder sweeps wore helmets.
The article "$3.6B for green energy," April 9, underscores the fact that solar, wind and other renewables must become a much larger part of New York's power generation if we are to protect our families from the growing impacts of climate change.
With one in every 10 adults and children in New York state diagnosed with asthma as of 2013, millions here are already living with the enormous economic costs and human health consequences that our failure to take action on the pollution contributing to climate change is creating.
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#TheChalkening, a pro Donald Trump campaign, hits KU, Mizzou: Following last month's controversy at Emory University when students protested against pro-Donald Trump messages in chalk, "The Chalkening" movement has advanced to several colleges across the nation. Those include campuses at the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri . . .
THE SO-CALLED #CHALKENING IS BASED ON THE MISAPPREHENSION THAT ANYBODY CARES ABOUT TRUMP CHALK SUPPORT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES!!!
most ambitious
Internets Authority Snopes.com: A controversy at Emory University over graffiti promoting Donald Trump led to some predictably inaccurate media reports.
SNOPES . . . WHAT'S FALSE: "Emergency counseling" was offered to or demanded by students; Emory students complained that their "safe spaces" had been violated; students were afraid of or traumatized by the chalk markings.
With a great deal of respect to the fact that. . . Here's a bit of Internets fact checking for our friends working mainstream media gigs . . .The story goes on to report chalk "investigations" at local college which may or may not be important to locals . . .Here's the thing . . .Seriously, with all of the sexual experimentation, causal drug use and semi-decent music scenes . . . Only the absoluteworst college students are politically active.Again, we turn to the Internets for confirmation that "chalk outrage" is mostly hype . . .This meme is tagged as mostly false . . .All of this is based on the stereotypes propagated by old, busted and naive baby boomers claiming that the younger generation is far too sensitive, politically correct and unambitious . . .From The Atlantic . . .The reality is that college students today are quite brave in confronting some of the worst professional job prospects this nation has ever seen, the losing battle against overseas outsourcing and the very real prospect thatDeveloping . . .
We blogged this one a few days ago thanks to ourof readers wanting to talk about tragic local topics throughout the land . . . But this one deserves a quick update now that local news has picked it up . . . The spin on this story is obvious and correct . . .. . . Kiosk ordering is simply more accurate and the days of the minimum wage cashier are numbered by way of kiosk and smart phone app. Here's the Golden Arches firing the first shot in this ongoing tech war starting less than an hour drive away . . . McDonald's of the future opening in St. Joseph
Saturday comment from our reader community not only has some valuable info but also features a fact check to so much MSM talk about their commitment to Kansas City.Checkit:- Tweaked her look and landed in Boston, where she continues to make the blooper reel.- Head West young reporter! Moved over to KMGH Denver. Living the Mile-High life.- Weather anchor at KXTV Sacramento where it's sunny everyday!- Howdy, country music fans! She's no doubt reporting on drinking, divorce, pick-ups and dogs at WKRN Nashville.- After 11 1/2 years in KCMO, forced out . . . BUT, after what looks like arefresh, she's landed at KGAN Cedar Rapids.############What have we learned here . . . First of all, credit to 41 for coming up in the ratings by way of news hottie. Also, the transient Kansas City news scene often proclaims love for this town but nowadays that dedication if short lived . . . Very much like real life.You decide . . .
A tidal wave of Kansas City donations and almost unanimous support among local power brokers have propelled SecState Jason Kander to amazing heights and now make his contest with a GOP powerhouse more competitive than anybody would've expected.But let's go beyond the pressers and campaign finance report transcription to decipher what's really happening in this contest . . .As always, Jason Kander is two steps ahead of everybody else and his broken promise to run for SecState reelection might have been motivated by a unique opportunity and defining moment in American political history. In Missouri and throughout the nation there is unprecedented rage against the status quo . . . Both Democratic Party loyalists and Republican hardliners confront challenges to their party platform from constituents who were formally their most strident supporters. SecState Kander has seized upon this opportunity and presents an increasingly viable alternative.More to the point . . .He's progressive, but not really, he served in Afghanistan and holds a solid record of support on veterans issues and, most importantly, he's young, good looking for a politico and has been able to walk the tense tightrope between union and upper-class class support.This may read like a love letter . . . It's not.Remember that Sen. Blunt has beaten opponents with even more funding and is now working to tie the Kander campaign to Prez Obama which could check the talk about voter frustration with incumbents.Either way, credit Jason Kander with a high stakes gamble that will make or break his political career . . . If Kansas City's favorite son doesn't win this ambitious bid then he's yesterday's news among Missouri Democrats with a no soft landing and no more support from lame duck Gov. Jay who was burned worse than any other politico by the Ferguson riots . . .Real talk . . . National media support is nice but the reality is that if SecState Kander FAILS in this dramatic leapfrog effort then he'll be knocking doors in low turnout elections until his 50s if he plans to maintain a career in politics. As Saturday sunset turns into a moment of pause for Sunday . . . The fate of Kansas City's favorite politico is something to contemplate for the local chattering class who may or may not have confronted their own tough choices.Check our math and read some of the more important headlines on this topic . . .And all of this has inspiredbecause they're coming to town soon enough, the band's moniker speaks to the SecState's war and peace time contributions and because Kander went to the same crappy Catholic high school as TKC at around the same time when these tunes were first popular . . .As always, thanks for reading this week and have a safe and fun Saturday night . . .
Greek state television ERT reports Pope Francis has apparently offered to take 10 refugees back to Italy with him when he departs the Greek island of Lesvos after a historic visit
Greek state television ERT reports Pope Francis has apparently offered to take 10 refugees back to Italy with him when he departs the Greek island of Lesvos after a historic visit.
ERT says it appears eight Syrians and two Afghans will be offered passage Saturday. The inclusion of the latter would be a highly symbolic move at a time when Europe has stopped automatically considering Afghans to be refugees and doesn't include them among the nationalities whose asylum applications are approved.
The state television channel didn't cite a source for the information. Asked about the report, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi told The Associated Press: "I have nothing to say at this time."
Asked if he would have an update later, Lombardi said: "Each moment has its significance."
Source: AP
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
Ankara expects the next wave of migrants returning from Greece to Turkey to start within a "few days" and to be around 250 people
Ankara expects the next wave of migrants returning from Greece to Turkey to start within a "few days" and to consist of around 250 people, Turkish EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir announced on Thursday.
"We will take back everybody, every irregular migrant who has reached the five Greeks island after March 20 and some of them will be non-Syrians," he noted during a news conference. "In the second wave there will be more Syrians."
Moreover, The European Commission wants Greece to set up border controls here on its northern border with FYROM with Europe's border control agency Frontex, to stop the kind of violence that occurred in the border on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Private sector companies are expected to invest about RO297.5 million ($766 million) in projects to develop the Special Economic Zone Authority in Duqm (Sezad) in Oman, a report said.
The projects, upon completion, will offer more than 11,000 direct jobs, reported Oman Observer.
The new projects include a tourism aspect that will comprise hotels, commercial centres, residential areas, recreational centre, waterpark and other facilities. Duqm Marine Company will implement a marina over 741,000 sq m at a cost of RO283 million ($733 million), which will provide 800 jobs when completed, the report said.
Sezad also signed an agreement with Al Taman Holding Company, enabling the company to build an international school at a cost of RO6.5 million ($16.8 million) including RO4 million ($10.3 million) as construction cost and RO2.5 million ($6.5 million) as working capital investment, according to Observer.
Iran is considering deals worth over $165 million with 12 domestic universities and research centres to study downstream projects in the petroleum industry, said a senior official in a report.
The development of olefins and ethylene units as well as oil and gas refineries will be taken into account in the deals, Irans Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was quoted as saying in the Iran Daily News report, citing IRNA.
He said that Iran aims to promote technological borders of petroleum industry with the help of credited research centres in the world.
Zanganeh noted that National Petrochemical Company (NPC) is to ink a deal with a leading European firm for the construction of a propylene via methanol (PVM) unit in Iran, added the report.
Terra Sola, a Bahrain-based investor and developer of solar power projects in the region, is in talks with the Egyptian government to build solar plants generating 2 gigawatts (GW) of power and costing $3.5 billion, a report said.
The funding for the projects are expected to be raised through Germany.
The plants may be built in regions including Aswan and Luxor on the Nile and Salloum and Masrah Matruh on the Mediterranean coast, said the Gulf Times report.
The group, which began talks with the Egyptian government last year, comprises RWE New Energy, Hareon Solar Technologies, Terra Nex Financials and a number of German tech companies including LTi ReEnergy, added the report.
Switzerland-based Terra Nex is managing a fund comprising German investors to finance the planned projects, while Hareon will supply solar modules and RWE will help operate the plants.
Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that German energy investments can help improve the living conditions in Egypt and avert blackouts that hurt companies and citizens, added the report.
Plans for the implementation of a major flour mill and grain storage facility at Sohar Port and Free Zone, part of the Omani governments national food security strategy, will be announced shortly, revealed a senior official from the free zone.
The flour mill and associated silo-storage scheme, which are part of the ports new Agro Terminal, will position Sohar Port and Freezone as a major food logistics and distribution hub for the region, Jamal T Aziz, deputy chief executive officer, was quoted as saying in the Oman Daily Observer report.
He said that the announcement will be made very soon with regard to the construction and operation of the terminal.
Aziz added that as for the silos, the government has been looking at various models for investment in this project, and they will announce very soon how they intend to execute the project.
Sohar Flour Mills, a subsidiary of Oman Flour Mills, aims to set up a 500-tonnes-per-day-capacity mill at Sohar Port, alongside a major complex of grain silos, the construction of which will be funded by the Public Authority for Strategic Food Reserves (PASFR), added the report.
Milipol Qatar, a leading international exhibition dedicated to homeland security in the Middle East, has announced the launch of its newly designed website.
The new website is timely as Qatar prepares itself for Milipol Qatar 2016, which will take place from October 31 to November 2, at the new Doha Exhibition and Convention Center (DECC), Doha, Qatar.
The new website has been designed to provide the ultimate user-friendly experience with improved functionality and navigation right through, allowing viewers to access material easily with the option to share information across key social networking channels, said a statement.
Created with the user firmly in mind, the website has been designed using the latest technology so the site is compatible with today's browsers and devices including a mobile version tentatively scheduled for end April 2016, it said.
Considering the importance of social media visibility the new features contains integrated social media buttons for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook in order to nurture improved communication with the online community, it added.
Tremendous amount of work has also been done on the content in order to offer the most relevant, accurate and updated information, especially on Qatar. It will also have a new section dedicated to the events during the exhibition and the new version of the online catalogue which provides more detailed information on exhibitors, their brands, products and services, etc. A light Arabic version is available too for the benefit of a wider audience, said the statement.
As the website gains momentum content will be updated with the latest news and events, articles, booking information, visitor guides and more. And very soon, Milipol Qatar will launch its very own Scoop.it Newspaper. This is the first of its kind in Qatar designed to gather news from the web about Qatar, the security industry and Milipol Qatar. As it grows in popularity Scoop.it Newspaper will be plugged to the website with a view to monitoring the security industry, it said.
Muriel Kafantaris, exhibition director, Milipol events, said: The website's refreshed and attractive new look, combined with enhanced content and social media optimization allows viewers to better interact with Milipol Qatar online, said
The website provides the ideal opportunity to highlight events and vital information that enhance material online for visitors including step-by-step guidance on bookings. We are confident that this new website will act as the perfect showcase for Milipol Qatar in the coming years, she added. TradeArabia News Service
More than 5,000 visitors representing various segments of the Ethiopian business community attended the recently concluded Omani Products Exhibition (Opex 2016), held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The visitors were acquainted with the Omani products by more than 100 participating Omani firms representating different sectors in addition to government bodies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), said a statement.
Ayman Abdullah Al Hasani, vice chairman for economic and branches affairs at Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI), and chairman of Opex Organising Committee noted that initial data confirms the success of the event where Omani firms were able to sign agreements, agency contracts, and import and export contracts, it added.
Al Hasani said: Going beyond the borders of the GCC area serves in gaining a new experience for the companies and choosing Addis Ababa as a destination for the event was the right decision. The exhibition shall boost trade relations between the sultanate and Ethiopia in addition to the other African countries.
Through coordinating with related bodies, Opex Organising Committee will work to overcome any challenges in order to push the Omani products to the Ethiopian market in terms of tax, customs among other issues. This will eventually facilitate import and export process as well as stimulate partnerships between the two sides, he added.
Al Hasani further explained that the Ethiopian market is a promising one and has significant opportunities for the Omani products. "A delegation comprising Ethiopian businessmen will visit the sultanate in the coming period noting that they have expressed their admiration on the performance and quality of Omani products at the event. This will subsequently result in inking partnerships between the businessmen in the two countries taking into account that Oman enjoys a strategic geographical location that allows it to communicate effectively with the African countries.
Besides, the success of the event will act as an impetus for the coming exhibitions. Ethiopias neighbouring countries have expressed their keenness to welcome Opex exhibitions in their countries," Al Hasani added.
Solomon Afework, president of Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations (ECCSA) affirmed that there are great efforts being made in order to advance the trade relations between Oman and Ethiopia. "The great interest from both sides to have bilateral business contracts is based on the competitive quality of the Omani products," he added.
A field visit for the Omani firms was organised on the sidelines of the exhibition to a number of Ethiopian industrial estates to get acquainted with their experience in terms of the facilities offered by the government, challenges, and shipping, import and export mechanisms.
It should be noted that more than 100 companies participated at the event representing different industries including natural resources, minerals, wood products, manufacturing products, furniture, food, medical and pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, plastic and metal equipment, perfume, leather, and logistics, in addition to related government bodies and a number of SMEs, it added. TradeArabia News Service
The ongoing 4th edition of the Middle East Steel Conference (MESC) registered an increase of around 30 per cent in visitor turnout on its first day (April 17), compared to previous editions.
The event will conclude on April 19, and is being held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Festival City, Dubai, UAE.
The event brings regional and international experts face to face from across the region and world, facilitating the exchange of practical experiences in all aspects of steel production and protection engineering, said a statement.
Assisting industry experts by providing them access to global manufacturers and facilitating the adoption of latest innovations, MESC is a must-visit event for international and national industry leaders from across the steel, construction and oil and gas industry, it said.
The three-day show, which is showcasing major exhibitors from the industry representing brands like Saudi Steel Pipe Company, HIDADA, Global Pipe Company, Carboline, Conxtech, National Pipe Company, 3M from Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and Europe, it added.
Hosted by Neft Management in collaboration with a committee of regional and international oil company representatives including Sabic, Saudi Arabia Chapter, Saudi Council of Engineers, Gulf Engineering Union, ASTM International, The Society for Protective Coatings (SSPC), the exclusive conference witnessed government companies like SASO and Saudi Council of Engineers, and industry attendees and representatives of oil and gas sector from different countries on the first day, said the statement.
The regions premier conference also focuses on enhancing the communication between steel mills, pipe manufacturers, structure makers and end users to overcome the challenges through using the latest technologies. In addition, the technical program highlights three main areas of interest including pipeline and tubular products, structural steel and quality and standards, it added.
Rafeeq Kunhi, director, Neft Management, said: The low-oil prices seem to have no negative sentiments for the steel experts. MESC is a true reflection of the industrys growth. Turning out to be a magnet for the industry leaders, the 4th edition of the conference is indeed a milestone for us.
We are overwhelmed by the response we have received and hope that the conference will serve as an insightful forum for knowledge sharing and best-practices for all our visitors, he added. TradeArabia News Service
Japanese authorities have ordered nearly a quarter of a million people from their homes after a deadly earthquake struck a southern island and the search for survivors went on into the early hours of Sunday amid worsening weather conditions.
A 7.3 magnitude tremor struck early on Saturday morning, killing at least 32 people, injuring about a thousand more and causing widespread damage to houses, roads and bridges.
It was the second major quake to hit Kumamoto province on the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours. The first, late on Thursday, killed nine people.
Heavy rain and wind were forecast overnight, with temperatures expected to drop to 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit). Firefighters handed out tarpaulins to residents so they could cover damaged roofs.
"The wind is expected to pick up and rain will likely get heavier," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a government meeting. "Rescue operations at night will be extremely difficult ... It's a race against time."
Television footage throughout Saturday showed fires, power outages, collapsed bridges, a severed road hanging over a ravine and gaping holes in the earth. Residents near a dam were told to leave because of fears it might crumble, said broadcaster NHK.
"I felt strong shaking at first, then I was thrown about like I was in a washing machine," said a Tokai University student who remains isolated in the village of Minamiaso.
About 422,000 households were without water and 100,000 without electricity, the government said.
NHK said around 240,000 people had received evacuation orders across the affected region amid fears of landslides. Some shelters were too crowded to admit any more people, it said.
Troops set up tents for evacuees and water trucks were being sent to the area. Around 25,000 extra soldiers were due to arrive, as well as more police, firefighters and medics.
The National Police Agency said 32 people had been confirmed dead. The government said about 190 of those injured were in a serious condition.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said nearly 80 people were believed trapped or buried in rubble. Rescuers pulled 10 students out of a collapsed university apartment in the town of Minami on Saturday.
Japan is on the seismically active "ring of fire" around the Pacific Ocean and has building codes aimed at helping structures withstand earthquakes.
A magnitude 9 quake in March 2011 north of Tokyo touched off a massive tsunami and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, contaminating water, food and air for miles around. Nearly 20,000 people were killed in the tsunami.
The epicentre of Saturday's quake was near the city of Kumamoto and measured at a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. The shallower a quake, the more likely it is to cause damage.
However, no irregularities were reported at three nuclear power plants in the area, a senior government official said.
The city's 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle was badly damaged, with its walls breached after having withstood bombardment and fire in its four centuries of existence.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, speaking at a G20 event in Washington, said it was too early to assess the economic impact but bank operations in Kumamoto were normal.
The USGS, which is a government scientific body, estimated that there was a 72 per cent likelihood of economic damage exceeding $10 billion, adding that it was too early to be specific. Major insurers are yet to release estimates.
Electronics giant Sony Corp said a plant producing image sensors for smartphone makers would remain closed while it assessed the damage from the quakes. One of its major customers is Apple which uses the sensors in iPhones.
Operations at Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co Ltd were also disrupted.
The region's transport network suffered considerable damage with one tunnel caved in, a highway bridge damaged, roads cut or blocked by landslips and train services halted, media reported. Kumamoto airport was closed.
There have been 347 aftershocks of at least level 1 on the Japanese scale since Thursday's shock, NHK reported.-Reuters
Kuwait's oil exports have not been affected by a strike launched on Sunday by energy sector workers, oil sector spokesman Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said in a statement on state-news agency Kuna.
He was speaking after thousands of Kuwaiti oil and gas workers began a strike over a government plan to implement public sector pay reforms. State energy conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries have emergency plans for the oil sector, he said, and that the strike had not affected export to clients.
Meanwhile, Kuna said Kuwait's state-owned refiner is producing at 520,000 barrels per day (bpd), down from 930,000 bpd before the start of the strike.
Mohammed Ghazi Al Mutairi, chief executive of Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), was quoted by the agency as affirming the "success of the company in implementing the emergency plan and operating the company's three refineries."
The agency said he added that current production, according to the plan, was 520,000 barrels, as opposed to 930,000 before the stoppage. -Reuters
Money proved the most influential motivator for young GCC nationals, according to the latest GCC Employment Reports from Oxford Strategic Consulting, an Oxford and GCC based consultancy that specialises in building human capital across the GCC and Europe.
When asked about what motivates them the most in life, young Qataris, Omanis, Saudis and Emiratis consistently ranked money has the highest motivator, with as many as 76 per cent of Omanis ranking money as a top motivation in life. Yet beyond money issues, the report surveys revealed that young GCC nationals are motivated by a range of more complex factors.
Employers and governments in the region should consider these other important motivators as part of recruitment, retention and development programmes, according to Oxford Strategic Consulting.
The country and society serve as key motivators for young nationals. In fact, contributing to the country and/or helping society ranked as a top motivator for surveyed nationals. As many as 57 per cent of Qataris, 36 per cent of Saudis and 14 per cent of Omanis expressed a close link between country/society and their motivations.
Oxfords Maximising Emirati Talent report, sponsored by BP, even found that young Emiratis were slightly more motivated by helping their country than by money (41 per cent vs. 38 per cent). Mandatory national service requirements may play a role in nurturing this strong connection to the country and society.
The central role of the Gulf Arab family should not be underestimated. Making my family proud also featured as a prominent motivator in the lives of young GCC nationals, with 43 per cent of Qataris, 35 per cent of Saudis and 15 per cent of Omanis being driven by a desire to make their families proud. A further 15 per cent of Emiratis chose pride as a top motivator in their lives.
Many young nationals demand a strong work-life balance. Forty-four per cent of Qataris, 19 per cent of Omanis and 15 per cent of Saudis said that they are most motivated to achieve a work-life balance. Omanis working in government or semi-government roles were significantly more likely than their private-sector counterparts to choose work-life balance as a motivator (31 per cent vs. 13 per cent). At the same time, Saudi females were more likely than males to be motivated by a work-life balance (21 per cent vs. 10 per cent).
Youth are hungry for challenge, development and excitement. Challenge (37 per cent) and development (36 per cent) served as top motivators for young Emiratis. Similarly, Qatari youth were also strongly motivated by challenge (26 per cent) and development (21 per cent). In Oman, challenge (28 per cent), travel (28 per cent) and development (23 per cent) ranked as the top motivators behind money, whereas development (28 per cent), excitement (27 per cent) and challenge (23 per cent) strongly motivated young Saudis.
While the survey reports revealed that money is a key motivator for young GCC professionals as it is for jobseekers across the globe there are nevertheless other key factors influencing the decisions of young jobseekers across GCC countries. The country, society and family serve as three significant motivators. While finding a work-life balance, challenge, development and excitement also strongly motivate young nationals. TradeArabia News Service
Four Seasons Hotel Doha, a luxurious hotel in the Qatari capital, has appointed Todd Cilano as vice president and general manager of the property.
Cilano will be responsible for overseeing the hotel, along with regional responsibilities supervising Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts in Mauritius, Seychelles, Johannesburg, and the Serengeti Lodge in Tanzania.
He makes the move to Doha from Four Seasons Resort Mauritius, where he successfully served in a similar role as regional vice president and general manager. Under his leadership, Mauritius was continuously recognised as one of the top resorts in the world by well-respected travel authorities, including Forbes Travel Guide and TripAdvisor.
Having joined Four Seasons in 1995, Cilano brings a wealth of luxury hospitality and management experience to Doha, along with a strong understanding of the Middle East as he has spent his time at the Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria and Riyadh. Throughout his 21-year career, Cilano has worked in eight different countries, leaving his mark at 11 Four Seasons properties with previous positions at Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria (Egypt); Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai and Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Thailand; Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok; Four Seasons Hotel London; Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh (Saudi Arabia); Four Seasons Resort Nevis in the West Indies; Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore at Santa Barbara; and Four Seasons Hotel Washington, D C, and most recently Four Seasons Resort Mauritius.
"Four Seasons Hotel Doha has been an integral part of the company's success within the region and it's truly a privilege to have the opportunity to work alongside this incredible team, a talented and dedicated group that has successfully led Four Seasons to be the premiere hotel in Qatar," said Cilano. - TradeArabia News Service
Preparations are underway for WTM Connect Asia which is due to open its doors for the first time this May, marking World Travel Markets arrival in South East Asia.
The pod event will be taking place in Penang, known as the cultural melting pot of Malaysia.
From May 18 to 20, suppliers of international travel products will meet with Chinese, South East Asian and international Hosted Buyers for pre-scheduled business appointments, inspiring education content, networking functions and cultural evening events.
The Hosted Buyer Programme offers carefully selected leisure travel buyers from all over the world the chance to attend and make new business contacts. Chinas outbound leisure travel market is now the largest single travel market in the world and continues to grow. Taking this into consideration, WTM Connect Asia is hosting a number of key outbound Chinese leisure travel buyers providing more business opportunities for exhibitors.
Beijing Luxtrip Holding, Mudianjiang Youth International Travel Agency, Ctrip, Beijing Huantao Information and Technology, GZL International Travel Service, Chongqing Guangda International Travel, China Chongqing Holiday International Travel Service, and 6renyou Trip are some of the Chinese buyers confirmed to attend.
Iris Lu, senior operations manager, Ctrip said: WTM has a good reputation in China. I believe WTM Connect Asia will provide new opportunities for my company to develop in new markets and source new products. Im looking forward to the business appointments and education sessions.
Jojo Jin, Coo, Beijing Huantao Information & Technology, said: WTM Connect Asia will be a great opportunity for me to meet with international suppliers, let them understand our business model and build long term business relationships.
In addition to the Chinese Hosted Buyers at WTM Connect Asia there will also be buyers attending from South East Asia and the rest of the world, providing a strong offer for exhibiting companies. Some of these buyers are Interpark, Cathay Pacific Holidays, APT, Gate 1 Travel, Tidesquare/ Privia Travel, Pacific Leisure Group, and CBS Travel Asia.
WTM Connect Asia has an equally strong mix of exhibitors lined up including Missing Italia, INCOTOUR GROUP Oy, JTB Global Marketing & Travel, Cox & Kings, Helidubai, Olympia Europe, Travallanda, Let's Travel, C Hotels, Tourico and Kaimoo Travels & Hotel Services. - TradeArabia News Service
The government finds itself in a bind over its insistence on having the United Nations designate Jaish-e-Mohamed chief, Masood Azhar, as a terrorist. China has blocked the move at the UN Security Council but External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will renew the pitch to tar Azhar with the terrorist tag during meetings with the top Russian and Chinese leaders. The clue to Beijings obduracy and Moscows apathy both permanent members of the UNSC lies in a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement: China is opposed to all forms of terrorism and is willing to step up pragmatic cooperation with all countries.
The operative part is pragmatic cooperation. No amount of agonising by TV anchors and expressions of angst by Union ministers mask the truth that Azhar Masoods and Hafiz Saeeds are a tool of foreign policy in the rougher parts of the world. China and Pakistan will not give up on an ace up their sleeves without commensurate gain. Compared with the Manmohan Singh era, the Modi government has managed to pointlessly rile both countries. Pakistan has had reasons to feel apprehensive after ministers in the Narendra Modi government gave the impression that it would soon be the target of an across-the-border military raid on the line of the operation in Myanmar.
China has been in a sulk after the Modi-Obama joint statement on the South China Sea while Russia is apprehensive over the budding Indo-US defence ties. Since then, few high-level interactions have taken place to put at rest Chinese apprehensions about a new Maginot line. Is it any wonder that far more important issues such as the settlement of the border and India's entry into the NSG are in deep freeze? If the right notes are struck, the visit to Beijing by Doval and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar should serve as an ice-breaker. Even the US had to offer blandishments to Pakistan to extricate Raymond Davis and extradite Khalid Sheik Mohamed. India will have to learn new tricks other than bellicose statements. Talking loudly does not always yield diplomatic dividends.
Tribune News Service
Jammu, April 17
Sikh organisations in Jammu today condemned the attack on a gurdwara in Germany and expressed concern over the safety of the Indians living in the Europe.
Sikh organisations, in a joint statement, expressed shock over the attack on the Gurdwara Sahib Nanaksar Satsang Darbar, Essen, Germany, in which several persons were seriously injured.
President of the Gurdwara Baba Chanda Singh Management Committee Sukhbir Singh said: The community is distressed over the attack on the shrine and is concerned about the safety of the Sikhs living outside the country.
He said Government of India should take up the issue at highest level with its German counterpart.
Another Sikh leader Sukhdev Singh said a large number of community members were present in the shrine at the time of the attack and demanded a high-level probe into the incident to identify the culprits.
The attack on the gurdwara needs to be dealt with seriousness by the Germany security agencies and the government, Sukhdev Singh said while seeking security for the shrine to avoid any such incidents in the future.
New Delhi, April 17
The Netherlands has appealed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to spare the demolition of the Patna Collectorate, one of the last surviving signatures of Dutch history of Bihars capital, and list the centuries-old structures under the state archaeology department.
Netherlands Ambassador to India Alphonsus Stoelinga, in a letter to Nitish, suggested adaptive re-usage of these old buildings on the banks of the Ganga.
I came across reports about the possibility of this jointly built heritage of India and the Netherlands being demolished anytime. I sincerely believe that this built heritage depicting the Indo-Dutch history can be restored and alternative uses can be planned. I am writing this letter to appeal to you to list the complex of buildings as per the norms of the state archaeological department, said Stoelinga.
Civil societys plea
Highlighting the vulnerabilities of unprotected heritage buildings in the city, heritage body INTACH and members of civil society, including eminent historians, architects and former judges had on April 6 also urged the Bihar CM to spare its dismantling and restore it.
Patna Collectorate, alongside Patna Colleges main administration building, and the remains of the opium godown in Gulzarbagh, comprise the last remnants of Dutch history of Patna.
The governments move has upset experts and commoners alike and the civil society has also asked the government to restore the collectorate to its original glory and re-use the site as a tourist attraction.
The Ambassador cited the book Patna: A Monumental History brought out in 2008 by the state governments Department of Art, Culture and Youth, where the Patna Collectorate and Patna College are listed among the citys heritage buildings.
Major trading centres
A senior official at the Dutch Embassy here said, Bihar, especially, cities of Patna and Chhapra, have intrinsic links to the Dutch past, and the riverine trade and history of that era. Places like the Patna Collectorate could become focal points in storytelling of shared history between the two countries.
The buildings once restored could also serve as a backdrop for celebrating the local culture of Patna and Bihar on the banks of the Ganga.That way, it will attract both foreign tourists and engage the local people with their own history, the official said.
The Dutch came to India in early 17th century with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company which traded in various cities like Surat, Patna, Chinsurah (Bengal) and Pulicat (the Coromandel region of Tamil Nadu).
Patna was one of the major trading centres for opium and saltpetre and the Dutch built factories and godowns on the banks of Ganga as the river played a major role in trade operations until the advent of the railways in the 19th century.
Collaborative project
The Dutch Government, in the letter, also offered to NIT-Patna and the Bihar Government to work on a collaborative project on capacity-building programmes on adaptive reusage of heritage buildings.
May I also take this opportunity to invite the architecture department of the National Institute of Technology, Patna, for working out a collaborative effort with my Embassy and Dutch counterparts in making a capacity-building programme in conservation and adaptive reusage of heritage buildings in collaboration with the state Department of Culture using the Dutch (era) Patna College as a reference point, the letter said.
The Dutch Embassy official said such collaborative programmes could help widen avenues on both sides and enhance better understanding of our shared heritage.
The Dutch Government in 2014 had worked on a series of collaborative projects seeking to link shared history with tourism in partnership with Victoria Memorial Hall and Presidency University and West Bengal Tourism. PTI
Tehran, April 17
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today assured External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj that his country could be a reliable partner for Indias energy needs, as the two nations decided to significantly expand engagements in their overall ties, particularly in oil and gas sectors.
Swaraj also held talks with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, besides meeting Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khameneis Adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.
India has been eying deeper energy ties with Iran following lifting of nuclear sanctions and has already lined up $20 billion as investment in oil and gas as well as in petrochemical and fertiliser sectors there. India is also keen to increase oil imports from Iran from current 350,000 barrels a day.
Rouhani spoke of Chahbahar port as a defining partnership, MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup said. Rouhani, whose country shares the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, also hoped for closer consultations with India on regional issues and the challenge of terrorism.
Swaraj apprised him about Indias keenness in enhancing investment in various sectors, including oil and gas. Given our natural complementarities, we should move beyond a buyer-seller relationship to a win-win partnership, Swaraj told the President.
Swaraj later headed for Moscow to attend the annual Foreign Ministers' meeting of Russia, India and China. PTI
Washington, April 17
A US Air Force reconnaissance plane was barrel-rolled by a Russian SU-27 fighter jet in an unsafe and unprofessional manner during a routine flight in international airspace, American officials said today, exacerbating tensions between the rival powers.
The incident on Thursday occurred when a Russian jet performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers as it flew within 50 feet of the US aircrafts wing tip over the Baltic Sea, a spokesman for European Command said.
He said the US plane never entered Russian territory.
This encounter comes just days after the US Embassy in Moscow issued formal concerns over Russian fighter jets flying very close to the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea this week. Close encounters between Russian military aircraft and US warships have become increasing common in recent months. PTI
Tribune News Service
Haridwar, April 17
The Congress today termed the BJP-led Central government programmes on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar as a drama with an eye on Dalit vote bank ahead of the Assembly elections in various states.
Senior Congress leader Ambrish Kumar, while speaking at the Dalit Upeksha Akrosh rally said it was non-serious on the part of BJP national president Amit Shah not to participate in a Dalit programme organised at Kadach in Jwalapur. Amit Shah arrived at the venue for only five minutes only to garland the statue of Ambedkar and didnt give heed to organisers to attend the function.
The people present at the Kadach function saw the double standards of Amit Shah. Though the programme was held near the Ambedkars statue, Shah didnt bother to attend it for a few minutes. The BJP is just trying to lure Dalit voters on the pretext of celebrating the 125th birth anniversary of Baba Saheb, stated Ambrish.
He also questioned Amit Shahs motive of addressing devotees at BHEL on April 14 and calling it as a successful rally, as just 100-odd BJP workers were present at the venue.
The main purpose of Shahs visit was to attend BJP national executive member Satpal Maharajs convention. In fact the Sadhbhavna Sammella, which Maharaja organises every year was turned into the Samrasta Sammeela. Maharajs followers were forcefully made to listen to Amit Shah and other BJP leaders. There were only a few BJP activists in the crowd, and the majority of the crowd comprised of spiritual devotees, who had nothing to do with the political rally, said Ambrish.
Zila panchayat member Roshan Lal said the Kadach incident had revealed the hidden agenda of the BJP, which was just eyeing Dalits votes in the coming elections.
He said the crushing defeat of the BJP in the Delhi and Bihar Assembly elections had compelled its strategists to opt for such poll planks.
Veteran Congress leader YS Tejiyan said the BJP had no role models, as it didnt take part in the Indian freedom struggle. The BJP is trying to catch pro-Congress statesmen such as Pt Madan Mohan Malviya, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Subas Chandra Bose and now Bhim Rao Ambedkar who were associated with the Congress.
Berlin, April 17
A Sikh priest was among three persons injured when an explosion ripped through a gurdwara in Germanys western city of Essen yesterday. India today expressed distress at what is being deemed as a deliberate act.
Eyewitnesses spoke of a kind of a bomb that exploded at the entrance of Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurdwara at 7 pm (local time) yesterday while a wedding was on. About 200 people, including children, were present at the wedding, the Bild newspaper reported.
A 60-year-old suffered serious injuries and was hospitalised while two others suffered minor injuries, the report said, but did not specify if the victims were Sikhs. The German police are investigating various angles.
A masked man in dark clothes fled in an SUV after the blast, said several witnesses. A part of the wedding party was in the building and the other part in the adjacent ballroom when the explosion occurred, shattering windows of nearby buildings too. Three suspects were detained.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is in Iran, said she had asked the Ambassador of India to Germany, Gurjit Singh, to take up the matter at the highest level. I have asked @AmbGurjitSingh to take this up at highest level with the German authorities and convey our deep concern, she tweeted.
Consulate General of India in Frankfurt, on its Twitter handle, said a team from the consulate led by Raveesh Kumar, Consul General, was on way to Essen to meet with the injured and discuss the situation with the city police. PTI
MOSCOW, April 17
Russia's military rejected criticism by US European Command on Sunday that a Russian jet had made aggressive manoeuvres near a US reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea, a second incident in the region between the Cold War-era foes in the past week.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia's military has been beefed up by increased spending and ambitious rearmament, while Moscow, which accuses NATO of expanding towards Russia's borders, tries to pursue a more assertive foreign policy.
The latest incident occurred on Thursday as a Russian Su-27 fighter "performed erratic and aggressive manoeuvres", flying within 50 feet of a US RC-135 aircraft, US European Command spokesman Danny Hernandez said, replying to a question from CNN.
The United States had protested to Moscow, Hernandez said.
"The unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries," he said.
Russia dismissed the report as "running counter to reality", saying its air defences had had to scramble a fighter jet after detecting a high-speed unidentified target over the Baltic Sea heading for its borders.
After making "visual contact" with the Russian Su-27, the American reconnaissance plane changed its course away from Russia's borders, defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
The flight of the Russian warplane was in "strict conformity with international laws ... and there were no emergency situations," he said.
That incident occurred just two days after two Russian Su-24 bombers buzzed the Donald Cook, a US guided missile destroyer, in the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, simulating attack passes, with a US military official describing them as one of the most aggressive interactions in recent memory.
US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned as dangerous and provocative the military encounter in the Baltic Sea. Reuters
Vic Regalado donned a new uniform last week for the first time in two decades, standing before a crowded room of officials, supporters and cameras as his wife pinned on his Tulsa County sheriffs badge.
Regalado quipped to his audience in the Board of County Commissioners chamber that the pair practiced the ceremonial pinning once Monday morning, and Jennifer drew blood.
I think Im still bleeding a little bit from it, but fortunately it went pretty smoothly during the ceremony, he joked at a reception afterward, soon returning to the chamber for a Criminal Justice Authority meeting.
Now, the former Tulsa police sergeant has a week under his belt in his quest to stem the bleeding of an agency in tumult. The Sheriffs Offices blood loss has been more than that of a pin prick, and Regalado told the Tulsa World on Friday that its incumbent upon him to ensure theres no more leeway in violating policies or procedures.
Its not as systemic as the outward appearance, but its still a concern, Regalado said. We want to create a culture here of accountability.
During his first week, Regalado said, it became abundantly clear to him a lot of internal things need to be fixed.
Four people filed as candidates last week for the opportunity to limit the time Regalado has to implement his agenda. Republicans Russell Crow and Luke Sherman, and Democrats Rex Berry and Arthur Jackson, each hope to unseat Regalado in November and earn the publics nod to serve the next four-year term as sheriff.
Regalado likely has a leg up as the incumbent, serving the remainder of Stanley Glanzs unfinished seventh term through the end of 2016.
During those eight or so months, Regalado said, he doesnt want deputies or detention officers on the newspapers front page anymore for policy violations or criminal matters. So Regalado said he is stressing the importance of equal application of policies, procedures and discipline throughout the chain of command.
Another early focus, Regalado said, is looking at the property room because it can become such a liability civilly and criminally. He said hes analyzing how the Sheriffs Office documents and handles evidence.
A breach of the Sheriffs Office evidence overflow area in June by a Tulsa Jail inmate worker to steal the drug K2 thrust evidence access and storage issues into the spotlight.
Regalado said he has assigned command staff to evaluate the office as a whole, probing for inefficiencies that may be a drain on us that we simply dont need to streamline operations.
Regalado also highlighted progress on the community engagement front as the office copes with the public relations fallout of the Robert Bates controversy.
He said to the best of his knowledge this year for the first time the Sheriffs Office will have a booth at the Cinco de Mayo Festival. He said deputies and detention officers will be on hand to discuss employment opportunities and pass out pamphlets on such topics as the 287(g) program. The program is a local-federal partnership that entails deportation powers that became a volatile issue during the campaign.
Throughout his candidacy, Regalado stressed restoring stability to the Sheriffs Office. In one week, Regalado said, the word stability is what hes heard back most in talking with employees.
Ive gotten a lot of feedback; people are smiling again, Regalado said.
It sounds like an oxymoron, docile swarms, but it is an accurate description of honeybees on the move.
Beekeepers on social media have been posting photos of their swarms early this year and some have wondered if bees are on the increase.
A local expert said the bees did indeed start dispersing earlier than is typical this year but the increased buzz more likely is a reflection of markedly increased numbers of beekeepers who are involved in social media which happens to be a boon for the bees.
Greg Hannaford of Tulsa Urban Bee Company and Hannaford Honey made a career out of the hobby he began about 25 years ago and said that while honeybee numbers continue to suffer across the country due to colony collapse disorder, the number of beekeepers especially urban beekeepers is growing and that the time of swarming is a great public education opportunity.
Bees in the Tulsa area typically swarm mid-April to early June, he said. This year they got going in early April, possibly in late March, probably because of the weather, he said.
The annual highly visible phenomenon is a great educational opportunity, he said.
A lot of times people see a swarm and theyre scared, he said. There is absolutely no reason to be scared of them. They are very docile at this stage.
Rather than frightening, Hannaford and other beekeepers see it as fascinating. Its incredibly fun, Hannaford said.
Bees are most likely to sting when they are protecting their hive, but a swarm is the natural reproductive process of bees in search of a new home so they have nothing to protect, he said.
With a new queen in place in the hive, the old one leaves with a swarm of most of the workers in search of a new home. The queen and her workers will settle someplace, usually on a tree branch, but it can be just about anywhere, while a few dozen scouts fly off in search of a new home.
The swarm may hang out on a branch for as little as 20 minutes or up to several weeks, he said.
This is the stage when a beekeeper can pick up the swarm and introduce the entire mass to a perfect new home.
Ive picked up hundreds of them wearing just a T-shirt and a veil over my face and shook them off in a cardboard box, Hannaford said. More than anything, the veil is just to keep them off my face because theyre an annoyance and it makes it hard to focus on what youre doing.
Police have contacted Hannaford after 9-1-1 calls about swarms. He said he enjoys the resulting educational opportunity.
People are afraid, but then they see me show up in a T-shirt putting them in a cardboard box and 10 or 15 people from the neighborhood will come around to watch. Its a great time to talk to people about bees and talk about how important they are as pollinators.
Most beekeepers wear protective gear and Hannaford said when he teaches beekeeping classes his instruction to amateurs is to wear whatever level of protection you are comfortable with.
Two of his former students, David and Becky John of Skiatook, wear their protective gear when gathering swarms, but they take extra steps to fully enjoy the swarm-gathering experience as well.
Weve already had nine swarms in the past 13 days, David John said Thursday. Theyre going gangbusters right now but with the rain and cooler weather coming it might slow down some.
The Johns take the extra step of laying out white sheets when they collect their swarms so they can better watch the swarm process.
We place a new hive, which has some honey in it and some frames for them to work on, so the wind is blowing past the hive as we shake the bees down right in front of the entrance, he said. Within seconds the queen finds that dark entrance to the hive and they will all follow her in like a river of bees. Its amazing to watch.
Beekeepers want to be contacted about swarms, especially beekeepers just starting out, Hannaford said. It saves the cost of buying bees to start a hive.
Theres the financial aspect but mostly its the excitement and fun of it, he said.
The Northeast Oklahoma Beekeepers Association has a contact list of swarm collectors listed by ZIP code on its web site at neoba.org, but posting that you have a swarm on just about any social media probably will draw a quick response these days, he said.
It is best to call a beekeeper, he said.
We will give them a good, safe home, he said. If you just leave them alone thats when they find a shed or abandoned home and move in and make trouble.
Twenty years ago beekeepers were a rarity, but beekeeping particularly in urban settings has exploded, he said. Twenty years ago Hannaford offered beekeeping classes in Tulsa and struggled to find 20 to 25 students for a class held once a year.
The last time we did classes we did five in a year and we had 50 people per class and were turning people away, he said.
Post that you have a swarm in your yard on social media and you likely will get a quick response nowadays, he said.
You may know a beekeeper and not even realize it, he said. Post that you have a swarm on your Facebook page and it will get shared and I bet someone will contact you within an hour.
At the Capitol: Legislators may be in slight shock when they return to work this week after a record number of filings for their seats last Wednesday through Friday.
The April filing period, which went into effect several years ago to comply with federal election laws dealing with overseas voters, has been accused of interfering with legislative business. The argument is that lawmakers are hesitant to take controversial votes or positions because it might affect whether incumbents get re-election opponents.
Now that most of them do have opponents, it may affect how they proceed the rest of the session, with only those term-limited or leaving of their own accord free of such burdens.
Thursday is whats known as a Third Reading deadline, meaning in this case that House bills and joint resolutions must be passed by the Senate and Senate bills and joint resolutions must be passed by the House to continue through the legislative process.
Meetings and events: Kara-Joy McKee of the Oklahoma Policy Institute will be featured at the Creek County Democratic Party meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at Freddies, 1425 New Sapulpa Road, Sapulpa. Joshua Sylvester and Paige Pulliam, recipients of the partys $1,000 annual scholarships, will also speak.
Sen. James Lankfords Opinion column (Missiles of Tehran, April 10) is a classic red herring.
When Lankford charges that the nuclear deal does not resolve all the problems the West has with Iran, he neglects to point out that curbing bad behavior was never an achievable goal. The deal set up a verifiable program to channel Irans nuclear capabilities away from a weapon program for at least 15 years. Many threats emanate from Iran, but the worst was the looming nuclear arms race in the Middle East following an Iranian bomb.
The military option would only have set Irans weapons program back for a year or two and would risk a long war, alienating U.S. allies and the large part of the Iranian public now favorable to the U.S.
President George W. Bushs unilateral sanctions failed to budge Iran. If the U.S. walks away on day one of a new administration, it is very unlikely that the highly effective U.N.-imposed multilateral sanctions could be resurrected.
Tehran has adhered to the provisions of the nuclear deal. The U.S. and its U.N. partners have warned that sanctions will be re-imposed if Iran cheats.
Containing Irans bad behavior continues to be U.S. policy and a collapse of Irans repressive regime is the desired result. That result can best be accomplished by the people of Iran. History teaches that U.S. efforts to bring about regime changes by way of unilateral sanctions (see Cuba) or military action (see Iraq) are not smart policy options.
Editor's note: Donaldson is trustees professor of political science, emeritus, University of Tulsa, and director of the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.
Letters to the editor are encouraged. Send letters to letters@tulsaworld.com.
Correction: This column originally incorrectly attributed information concerning district court actions concerning the Abundant Life Building. It has been corrected.
Bad architecture is much like pornography: I know it when I see it.
That observation about porn was first made in 1964 by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in a case involving a possibly obscene movie, and is considered a triumph of free speech.
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description (hard-core pornography), and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
The Tulsa World published an editorial last week critical of the architecture and the upkeep of the Abundant Life Building, the former headquarters of Oral Roberts Ministry built in 1957, at 1720 S. Boulder Ave. (Old buildings, April 13). Preservation Oklahoma has placed it, along with one other Tulsa building and eight others statewide, on the list of Oklahomas most endangered buildings. The conclusion of the editorial was that sometimes an old, ugly building is simply an old, ugly building and needs to be torn down. The Abundant Life Building qualifies.
The Abundant Life issue certainly doesnt rise to the level of a Supreme Court decision or a challenge to free speech, but Stewarts sentiment in that one phrase pretty much sums up my feelings about bad architecture.
I am not an architect, never had a class in architecture. I am not a developer or contractor, and I concede that all have more knowledge concerning architectural history and/or how to go about saving historic buildings.
However, I always have admired older buildings. I have marveled at the Art Deco buildings for which Tulsa is famous worldwide. I have written columns praising the work of those who have gone the extra mile to preserve the citys historic buildings. But, I do not count the Abundant Life Building as one of this citys architectural treasures.
A local architect tells me that the Abundant Life Building is "involved in a quiet title lawsuit and mortgage foreclosure in district court, which prevents sale, demolition or any construction-related improvements until the court renders its judgment this summer. Depending on that decision, work might begin on transforming the building.
Or, (my thought, not the architects) tearing it down.
After the editorial was published, a letter was sent disputing its conclusion. Unfortunately, the 657-word letter far exceeded the Worlds 250-word limit rule for publication. So, I will try to relate the gist of the letter.
The author, says that from the 1950s through the 1980s, Art Deco was not viewed upon as beautiful, and it was considered one of the ugliest architectural forms.
Again, Im no architectural historian, but any disdain must have been earlier than my arrival in Tulsa in 1970. One of the first things I noticed about downtown was its architecture. And it certainly was no secret. In fact, Tulsa always has been known for its beautiful skyline.
As far as the 1980s, there was some preservation going on. For example, the 16-story Mid-Continent Building (once known as the Cosden Building) was then owned by Reading and Bates, an oilfield firm. The company needed more room. Instead of moving out of downtown or adding a totally mismatched building next to it, the company took on a very expensive project to build a twin tower next to and above the original building, bringing it to its current 36 stories.
The building already was on the National Register of Historic Places, which prevented its demolition, and is Tudor Gothic-revival architecture. To learn about the expensive and extraordinary transformation of the Mid-Continent Building go to dewberry.com/news/article/2012/01/17/mid-continent-tower-wins-25-year-award.
To think that any of Tulsas older, historic buildings (the author pointed to the Philcade Building, which was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986) would have been torn down is ludicrous. Yes, there were some old buildings, including a dilapidated Hotel Tulsa, that were removed in the 1970s to make way for the Williams Tower, the Performing Arts Center and other changes, most were beyond saving. I remember Third Street from Boulder to Elgin avenues. It was an eyesore.
I respect the author for his enthusiasm and dedication to saving our older, historic buildings. And if someone ever suggests tearing down the Philcade or one of our other real treasures, Ill stand arm-in-arm with him in the protest line.
But not for the Abundant Life Building. For that, I will paraphrase one more famous line: I have seen the Philcade Building and the Abundant Life Building is no Philcade.
He calls the Abundant Life Building the clean and striking new architectural forms during the mid-20th century ... (which are) a manifestation of a newfound fervor of the post-World War II era. Well, thats some fervor we could have lived without.
As for me, Ill take the craftsmanship and attention to detail of the Art Deco period or the work of the Works Progress Administration of the Great Depression.
Again, Im no expert on architecture, but I know bad architecture when I see it. And I see it far too often at 17th and Boulder.
With Oklahoma facing a budget shortfall in the current fiscal year and a projected deficit of $1.3 billion next year, we urge state policy leaders to make funding for our state system of higher education a top priority in the upcoming budget. As state agencies endeavor to manage the effects of reduced funding, it is important to outline the negative impacts on our colleges and universities.
In last years budget, public higher education received the largest dollar amount cut in state government: $24.1 million. Since July 1, mid-year reductions in state appropriated funds total more than $88 million, yielding a cumulative reduction in the current higher education budget of more than $112.2 million.
According to the Battelle Study, higher education institutions serving the Tulsa area generate economic outputs of nearly $1.5 billion, and for every $1 appropriated to those campuses, $4.41 is returned to Oklahomas economy. Since the last fiscal year, Tulsa-area campuses have been cut a total of nearly $11.7 million. The impact of these cuts on personnel, academic programs, degree completion initiatives, and student services is devastating. Institutions are eliminating positions, furloughing faculty and staff, and implementing early retirement options. Learning sites are closing. Degree programs are being deleted.
As our campuses work to address the current shortfall and prepare for additional budget reductions next year, the deadline to meet Oklahomas workforce needs through increased degree and certificate attainment is looming. We know that a more highly educated workforce is crucial for our states future economic prosperity. Data from the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce indicate that by 2020, 67 percent of all Oklahoma job vacancies will require a college degree or additional postsecondary education and training, and 37 percent will require either an associate or bachelors degree.
If we want to close Oklahomas workforce gap, we must invest in higher education. Public colleges and universities drive economic advancement, collaborating with business and industry partners to link academic programs directly to employment needs in high-demand areas, including critical STEM disciplines. More than 6,000 students received degrees and certificates in STEM fields during the last academic year, and the number of STEM degrees and certificates conferred has increased 28 percent over the last five years. Additionally, our public and private institutions and career technology centers have surpassed each benchmark in the first three years of our Complete College America degree completion initiative.
There continues to be no better investment our policy leaders can make than to invest in higher education the key to workforce and job development in our state. We ask the Governor and Legislature to make public higher education a top priority in the upcoming budget, and we would request that any cut to higher education be minimized to allow our campuses to produce the additional graduates needed to meet the workforce needs of Oklahomas economy.
Glen D. Johnson is chancellor for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
On Friday Earth Day leaders from around the world will be gathering at U.N. headquarters in New York City for a historic signing ceremony of the climate agreement that was reached in Paris in December.
Given all of the conflict and competing interests in the world, how is it possible that 195 nations could come together and agree upon dramatic reductions in carbon emissions? Do they not understand the costs involved in making such a huge transition in energy usage? Do they not understand the fragility of the global economy? Do they not understand the number of jobs that will be lost if fossil fuels are going to be phased out and replaced by wind and solar?
I can imagine that many people in Oklahoma are scratching their heads and wondering why such bold action would be necessary.
The world leaders at the Paris climate change summit recognized that the science of climate change is settled and that action is required immediately. This agreement on a plan of action might be a surprise to some. Many people have not looked at the data. For those who have, the message is clear.
Climate scientists agree that past changes in the Earths climate have taken place over thousands of years but never before has the climate changed so rapidly. There is every reason to believe that the massive release of carbon pollutants is the reason for rising temperatures.
Military leaders see that climate change already has been disruptive to established governments as food supplies have been affected by changes in the weather. Oceanographers have looked at melting sea ice and rapidly rising oceans. Biologists have examined species extinction that is happening as a result of rising temperatures. Weather experts have looked at the rapid increase in extreme weather events such as flash floods and hurricanes.
As information about climate change has come out gradually over the past three decades, there has been some disagreement regarding the exact nature of the threat and policy experts have disagreed regarding how quickly humanity must respond to avert disaster.
Some of us have taken this disagreement as a sign that we could wait; that we could ignore the problem for now. We imagined that the day would come sooner or later when all the information would be in, the dust would settle and then we could formulate a clear plan of action based upon more solid evidence.
Sometimes we dont like to look at difficult problems. We hope that we will be magically rescued from having to make difficult choices. Maybe a new discovery or technological breakthrough will make this transition unnecessary. This is called a state of denial. We are by no means alone in this denial but we must wake up and pay attention to this very real threat to our future.
I admit that scientists are sometimes wrong and a degree of skepticism is often justified when a new global threat is announced. Imagine that a doctor has told you that your child might have cancer and that it might be terminal if not treated immediately. You might seek a second opinion, but you wouldnt wait too long.
After 20 years of largely fruitless diplomacy, the governments of the world finally are starting to take the problem seriously. The deal reached in Paris commits every country in the world to take steps toward a significant reduction in carbon emissions.
The worlds leaders and experts have taken their time in deciding on a course of action. For more than 30 years, mountains of data have been gathered and thoroughly examined by climate scientists, economists and political leaders. The vast majority have concluded that now is the time for decisive action even if some questions remain unanswered. The time to wait for further research already has passed. There is too much at stake to do nothing or ignore the problem.
The transition that the scientists are telling us is needed will not be easy. Jobs and profits will be lost. Industries will become obsolete. Change will happen and it will not be easy for everyone. This beautiful city and state have been developed with profits from the oil and gas industry. Every resident of Oklahoma has benefited to some degree or another. Many leaders in the oil and gas industry have been civic minded and generous. The vast majority of those who have worked in the oil and gas industry have been honest, hard-working people who are good neighbors and who love their children. They also had no clue about the long-term consequences of releasing such massive quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.
A lack of clear and convincing evidence might have caused some of us to delay supporting meaningful action on climate change. The great American writer Upton Sinclair said, Its very hard to convince a man of something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Whatever has been the reason for our reluctance to act, the time is now for serious action.
James L. Stovall, M. Div., is director of the Mediation Institute and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He serves as chairman of the newly formed Environmental Committee of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches. He can be reached at j_stovall@site.net.
On March 10, a collective sigh of relief was heard across the state from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming Oklahomans.
That was the day that any bills not brought to the floor for a vote in the bills house of origin were considered dead. More than a dozen anti-LGBT bills had been introduced this session and about another 16 or 17 were held over from last year.
Several media sources had pointed out that Oklahoma led the nation in the meanest and messiest works of quasi-lawful discrimination. Just a few senators and representatives had crafted bills targeting gay and transgender folks. By March 10, all the bills were dead and not allowed to be debated on their virtues or their injustices. I was relieved and deeply grateful.
Three weeks later, we are getting phone calls from other LGBT communities in other states not so fortunate, asking how did we do it? Less than an hour and a half away, Kansas and Missouri have watched the same types of bigoted legislation make it all the way to their governors desk. North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama are this years Indiana model for discrimination.
Oklahoma is not the only state that gushed forth discriminatory legislation. It was not just southern states or less populated states, but almost nationwide. We witnessed bills in almost every statehouse. Some bills stigmatized transgender peoples access to restrooms. Several adoption and foster parent bills were introduced preventing LGBT couples from helping with the epidemic of children in state custody.
There were attacks on privacy rights regarding medical information, proposed marriage license regulations, dont-force-me-to-make-you-a-gay-wedding-cake bills, school-counselors-have-to-tell-your-parents-you-are-gay bills, and the list goes on and on. All of them were bona fide bills introduced in Oklahoma and other states.
For more than 40 years same-sex couples fought to have their relationships recognized by their state, and in June 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the remaining bans on gay marriage in all 50 states.
Some have suggested this is the push-back and retaliation from conservative religious people, and I can see evidence of some of that, but we have had anti-LGBT bills as a part of Oklahoma politics for a long time.
The gay community in Oklahoma is always on high alert, because we are always on the defense. This year was different only because there were more bills, a bushel load. Members of the LGBT community in Oklahoma did what they always do from December to May. They wrote their Oklahoma legislators, called them, visited them, pleaded with them, and got their parents and straight friends and the companies they work for, to write, call, visit and plead with their legislators as well.
In Oklahoma, LGBT people have long been the politics of distraction. Go after us and ramp up the conservative base by making us a bigger threat than terrorism as an Oklahoma legislator claimed in 2008. Tie around our necks just about every other far-fetched reason for the fall of civilization, and you will be able to get a rally and a petition and maybe a ballot measure introduced.
We get blamed for every natural disaster and the destruction of marriage and the family. We have only been able to marry in Oklahoma since October 2014. Oklahoma has led the nation in divorce for decades, so do not blame us for your failed marriages.
I think Oklahoma legislators finally said enough of this attacking our neighbors. They stopped legislation that would have punished our municipalities that have adopted housing and employment protections regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. I believe they heard our citizens say We need to treat people the way we want to be treated.
Thank you to those who contacted their legislators and thank you, elected officials, for stopping the mean-spirited legislation this time. I love Oklahoma, and I hope this is a sign we might be on the road to a more welcoming place.
Toby Jenkins is executive director of Oklahomans for Equality and a member of the Tulsa World Community Advisory Board. Opinion columns by board members run each week in this space.
Paid your taxes yet?
I got mine done several weeks ago and ended up writing a $13 check to the state of Oklahoma. I asked the feds to send me back a few dollars.
I paid my share, which is always a good feeling.
While the subject is topical, I thought Id look at two recent studies on Oklahoma taxes.
First, there was the latest version of the Sooner Survey, a scientific telephone poll of 500 registered voters taken by Cole Hargrave Snodgrass and Associates Feb. 2-5.
Sooner Survey President Pat McFerron said the results indicate that Oklahomans are more willing to consider higher state taxes than they have been in more than two decades.
Some 41 percent of those surveyed said taxes in Oklahoma were too high. In the 1990s and 2000s, McFerron said those numbers routinely were in the high 40s and low 50s. Nine percent said their taxes were too low. The poll never saw that number over 2 percent until the past 18 months, he said.
Now, obviously, a lot more people think their taxes are too high than think their taxes are too low, and the biggest portion (45 percent) think tax levels are just about right, but McFerron sees a connection between the shifting attitudes and the recent spate of overwhelming victories of taxation issues in the state.
Youd have to put Tulsas overwhelming passage of the Vision sales tax extension as Exhibit A in that case. It was suited to those who thought their taxes were just about right, because it kept tax rates at the same level they have been since the Vision taxes first passed in 2003.
When the Sooner Survey drilled into tax attitudes, it found significant support for raising the tobacco tax.
Some 74 percent of Oklahomans support a tobacco tax increase and 59 percent say they strongly support the idea. There was also strong support (55 percent) for capturing more use taxes on internet sales, but majority opposition (58 percent) to a gasoline tax increase.
(State legislators also should note that McFerron polled on support for a proposal to accept available federal funding to expand the health-care coverage of indigent people through the Insure Oklahoma program and found 57 percent support.)
If Oklahomans increasingly think their taxes arent that high, theres a good reason: They arent.
WalletHub analyzed the relative tax burdens in all 50 states, and found only five states (South Dakota, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Delaware and Alaska) were taking a smaller chunk of personal income through property, individual income and sales taxes.
Those three taxes the big hits to average taxpayers add up to 6.95 percent of personal income for Oklahomans. More than half of that was in the sales tax. The states individual income tax burden is only 1.8 percent of personal income.
Kansas, which has gotten a lot of publicity over the negative impact its state tax cuts have caused, came in 31 places higher than Oklahoma in relative tax burden.
If youre in the 41 percent who told McFerrons pollsters that your taxes are too high, you should be glad you dont live in New York, the state with the highest tax burden (13.2 percent of a substantially higher level of personal income), according to the study.
If you havent finished your taxes yet, you better get busy. Monday is the deadline to file either your returns or request an extension.
I always pay my taxes with a smile on my face. Its part of the price of democracy, and damned cheap when you think that other people paid for it with their lives. I went to public schools until the day I got my college diplomas, drive on the public streets and expect the military and the police to protect me from all manners of bad guys. A few dollars is a pittance to pay for all that.
I look forward to the day when more people will recognize that for a few dollars more, Oklahoma could be a much better place.
It's Divali time so at TV6 over the next few days, we bring you some of the interesting aspe
A planned $8 billion initial public offering of Foxtel will be postponed until 2017, according to reports today.
The Australian Financial Review suggests News Corp and Telstra will work to a less aggressive timetable for the deal including a pre-float merger of Foxtel with FOX Sports.
News Corp wants to give Foxtels new management time to make significant changes to the business before spruiking it to investors.
A key stumbling block is a discussion to strike a new wholesale broadband deal, with a better rate from Telstra and higher quality broadband.
Amended.
Tonight Australian time the 60 Minutes crew and Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner will be back in court before Judge Rami Adbullah, but if media reports are accurate the situation looks grim.
Several stories suggest talks between Faulkner and her estranged-husband Ali Elamine have halted, with the father no longer negotiating. Sydney Morning Herald says her lawyer will attempt bail at todays hearing.
The Herald Sun reports chief planner Adam Whittington will present documentary evidence that Channel Nine accounts department paid him in two internet transfers of funds: the first for 40 percent of the agreed fee of more than $115,000, and then a second for the remaining 60 percent several months ago.
News Corp also reports Nine executives have now started to question the level of authority senior producers have over budgets and are considering an overhaul of autonomy and risk management.
Last night Ross Coulthart told Nine viewers: 60 Minutes has been featured in the news a lot over the last week because four members of our team remain in police custody in Beirut, Lebanon.
They were detained while filming a news story on a child custody battle. We want you to know that every possible effort is being made to ensure our teams well-being as they go through the legal process.
We are working relentlessly to bring them home and we acknowledge the strong support of their families in helping us do that.
Before the next court appearance, scheduled tomorrow, my colleague Tara Brown tells us she is being well treated in a womens detention centre.
Stephen Rice, the producer on the story, is detained separately with cameraman Ben Williamson, and sound recordist David Ballment.
And theres Sally Faulkner, a mum from Brisbane who was trying to retrieve her two young children.
Theyve been held now for 11 days, but are said to be in good spirits and coping very well.
Its a nerve-wracking time for them all and of course for their families waiting for news at home. Weve been doing our very best to keep them informed of every development.
The Nine Network is very grateful to the authorities in Lebanon for the respect shown to our crew and we acknowledge the untiring efforts of diplomatic staff in Beirut and in Canberra.
Well keep you posted on how its going.
60 Minutes provided no comment on questions of financing the actions of a child recovery agency.
Statements by Nine presenters personalise the 4 Nine crew amid suggestions they are losing the PR battle.
Karl Stefanovic said in a statement, Tara is a friend. She is a colleague. She is a mother. She is a brilliant journalist. She has asked those questions over and over again. She has consistently broken stories, and forensically exposed wrong doing in society all around the world. She has religiously and without favour fought for the truth.
The Family Court has taken the extraordinary step in this case of releasing the fact that an order was made last December in relation to the children, in favour of the mother, he says, adding: Ill let you read between the lines on what detail might be contained within that order.
The courts will decide our dear colleagues fate. I hope the public can be patient.
Tracy Grimshaw writes a lengthy piece for The Australian, with colourful memories of the crews previous assignments, noting everything from their long hours to their favourite foods.
So youve no doubt figured out by now this is not going to be a reasoned, impartial analysis of what happened over there, and why, and how. Thats not my case to make. Its for a Lebanese court to decide and Ill be following the proceedings with my heart in my mouth and my fingers crossed, she wrote.
But I am volunteering to be a character witness for them, starting here. And frankly after some of the malicious, ill-considered, rabidly self serving and in some cases manufactured rubbish that has been written and said about our friends in the past week, I think its time you heard something different.
Peter Stefanovic and Tom Steinfort have also posted social media photos and memories with crew members Ben Williamson and David Tangles Ballment respectively.
Family members in Australia also released a statement denying they were not being kept informed by Nine.
People forget that Tara, Stephen, Ben and Tangles were there doing a job; covering a story. As it turns out, a very important story. Its what they do. Its what they have been doing brilliantly for years.
Obviously, this time, something went wrong. But if we have one message its that people who have been so quick to judge should at least wait until all the facts are known. We havent spoken to our partners since before they were arrested. Very few of the facts are clear at this stage. If we dont have all the facts, how can anyone else? The analysis can come later. Right now, the only priority is getting them all home, it said in part.
Meanwhile while observers wonder how Nine will respond to the saga, the Australian Financial Review even speculates the nwtwork could jettison 60 Minutes in its entirety, noting the whopping $15m budget that the show consumes.
Udaku Special
A jealous wife in a marital battle with her husband has set the man's house on fire after learning that he attended his girlfriend's funeral.The woman from Cowdray Park suburb in Bulawayo of Zimbabwe has appeared in court charged with assaulting her ex-husband and setting his property on fire for attending his alleged girlfriend's funeral.According to The Chronicle, Fortunate Ndlovu, 33, said Benjamin Mukumbira, 45, of the same suburb deserved what he got."I do admit that I tore his blankets and poured paraffin on his bed and set them on fire after I found out that he had attended his girlfriend's funeral after I had just recently lost my twins and he had refused to take responsibility for them," said Ndlovu. "I also assaulted him with fists and slammed him against the wall and burnt his clothes for leaving me while I was pregnant."Ndlovu appeared before Western Commonage magistrate Themba Chimiso facing physical abuse and malicious damage to property charges.She however pleaded guilty and was remanded in custody to April 27. Prosecuting, Mufaro Mageza told the court that on April 6 at around 10AM, the complainant left his house to attend a funeral at Luveve cemetery."At around 12 noon he received a call from his neighbours who said that the accused person was damaging his property. "He immediately left the burial grounds to his house. When he arrived he discovered that the accused person had broken down the door and burnt his bed, clothes and radio," said Mageza.The prosecutor said when Mukumbira confronted Ndlovu she pushed him against the wall and assaulted him with fists."The value of the damaged property is $400 and nothing was recovered," said Mageza.
Ukraines Vice Prime Minister for European Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze sees the willingness of representatives of the European Parliament and the European Council to find the right format that will allow to implement the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement despite the results of the Dutch referendum.
She said this in an interview with ZN.UA Ukrainian news portal.
"Speaking with our colleagues from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council, I have realized that there is willingness and a desire to find the right format that will allow to implement the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement despite the results of the Dutch referendum," Klympush-Tsyntsadze noted.
The Vice Prime Minister for European Integration noted that Ukraine together with the partners from the European Commission and the European Council should find an acceptable format for Ukraine and added she relied on deeper cooperation with the Foreign Ministry in this issue.
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A Congressional subcommittee has announced on Thursday that Apple Inc. and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) will return to congress nest week. Both the summoned will testify before lawmakers on their heated disagreement over law enforcement access to encrypted devices.
Bruce Swell, general counsel for Apple and Amy Hess, executive assistant director for science and technology at the FBI will testify before separate panels. They will represent respective parties to satisfy a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Tuesday. In addition to the concerned lawmakers, other law enforcement officials and technology experts will also observe their arguments, reports The Guardian.
James Comey, the FBI Director has appeared before another congressional committee last month to explain his agency's pursuit in compelling Apple to unlock an iPhone. The iPhone has allegedly been used by one of the shooters taking part in the mass killing of San Bernardino. Sewell has also testified on that hearing session, according to a report published in Reuters.
SHARE CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Dick Van Dyke (right) and Bryan Chadima sing together Friday at the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Maxine Frankel greets Dick Van Dyke during his appearance Friday at the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR The crowd applauds for Dick Van Dyke on Friday at the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Dick Van Dyke performs with his singing group Friday night at the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center.
By Robyn Flans, Special to The Star
What could be better than seeing 90-year-old Dick Van Dyke sing a spirited "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" with his barbershop-type quartet, the Vantastix, on a Friday night?
"Nothing. You can't beat it," said Francine Zak, a 92-year-old member of the capacity crowd that came to the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center to see Van Dyke. "He's superb. I loved all of it. I sang along."
Singing is one of the activities Van Dyke prescribes in his new book, "Keep Moving and Other Tips and Truths About Aging."
Most importantly, though, Van Dyke advises: "You cannot stop moving. There was an article in yesterday's New York Times by a doctor who said if you want to avoid dementia and Alzheimer's, move."
Van Dyke said he has every infirmity that goes along with his age.
"I have arthritis, peripheral neuropathy and I had a lung collapse a couple of years ago. The secret is I have kept moving," he said. "I think if I stopped, I'd seize up like the tin woodsman."
One of Van Dyke's tips is to walk downstairs forward, never sideways.
"I say that three times in the book. It feels better on the knees," he said, adding that if you walk sideways, "you start throwing the hips off and the back off and before you know it, you can't move at all."
His appearance was presented by Agoura Hills One Book One City, which selected Van Dyke's book for its relevance and wisdom, but Van Dyke said he was surprised at how much he had to say.
"My publisher asked me to write the book," he said. "I thought it would be a very thin book. It was amazing the things that came out of me when I wrote it. I said, 'I didn't know I thought that.' If you sit down and start writing, you will be amazed at what you will find out about yourself."
After his group performed several songs from productions such as "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Mary Poppins" and his wife, Arlene, joined in for a couple, the entertainer answered some questions.
An audience member asked if he owned the "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" car?
"I wish I did," he answered. "It was about $30,000 back then, which was a lot of money. It was a beautiful car."
What were his favorite episodes of the "Dick Van Dyke Show?"
"I liked the one where Laura was pregnant and I was a nervous wreck," Van Dyke said. "There was a lot of schtick that worked in that episode. I dropped the phone in my pants. I slept in my suit."
He also mentioned the show where he thought they brought the wrong baby home from the hospital and the African-American couple showed up at their door.
"The network didn't want to do it," Van Dyke said. "Everyone was hysterical, though. Even I got hysterical."
Van Dyke said he loved doing the show.
"I'd still be doing it if they'd let me," he said.
Zak, who lives in Calabasas now and traveled from her home in Chicago with her friend Shirley to see Van Dyke in "Bye Bye Birdie" on Broadway sometime around 1960, said he hasn't changed.
"He was such a wonderful actor and dancer," Zak remembered. "He had the same energy and the same humor tonight. It was amazing. He was exactly the same."
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Ventura County Sheriff's Office Department.
By Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star
Moorpark police are encouraging residents to start using a private social network to share information with each other about local crime activity.
Senior Deputy Becky Purnell said people in the community approached her in recent weeks about starting a neighborhood watch program after a series of burglaries and an attempted rape in the city.
"A lot of people have been concerned," Purnell said.
The social networking tool, Nextdoor.com, is created and managed by residents living in a neighborhood and serves as a "virtual neighborhood watch," Moorpark police said in a news release.
When logging onto the website, residents must confirm their home address so they are added to the proper neighborhood. If a Nextdoor network has already been established, they can sign up right away, but if not, they can create a neighborhood network and encourage others to join, police said.
The network is password-protected and cannot be accessed by anyone outside the neighborhood or found via search engines, authorities said. However, Purnell said officers will post in the network to keep residents aware of increases in local crime activity.
"I plan to post anytime there's something pertinent to a particular neighborhood," Purnell said.
A nonemergency phone number for Moorpark police also will be included in the neighborhood networks, Purnell said.
The senior deputy said there is a significant emphasis from her agency for neighbors to use the network to communicate and get to know each other. They can notify each other not only of suspicious activity and safety issues but also of garage sales, lost pets, and even plumber and baby sitter recommendations, authorities said.
"In today's society, it is vital for neighbors to come together and look out for one another," the police news release stated.
Anyone with questions about Nextdoor.com can contact Danielle Styskal, who works for the social network, at 415-399-7992 or danielle@nextdoor.com. Questions regarding neighborhood watch programs can be directed to Purnell at 299-1504 or rebecca.purnell@ventura.org.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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By Kathleen Wilson of the Ventura County Star
A mobile crisis team that aids suicidal children has stopped answering calls on several overnight weekend shifts amid a bumpy changeover to Ventura County's behavioral health agency.
Officials overseeing both the Casa Pacifica-sponsored team and the county agency had expressed hope in March for a seamless transition that would be completed by late summer. That followed Ventura County Behavioral Health Director Elaine Crandall's decision to have the county's adult crisis team take over responsibility for children as part of a redesigned system for youths.
Miscommunication and staffing shortages, though, have led to gaps in service.
Starting April 4 and continuing through the month, neither the Casa Pacifica team nor the county team has covered the overnight shifts running from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. Saturdays through Mondays. If no deal is reached for another arrangement, there will be 11 shifts by the end of April.
In the interim, families and emergency personnel who call a crisis hotline are told to dial 911. Police instead of mental health specialists are dispatched to the calls for distraught youths.
Police back up busy crisis teams for both children and adults in normal times, but in this case, the fill-in duty has been driven by problems with the transition.
Jody Kussin, a community services director at Casa Pacifica, says county officials were notified in late March that the team could not handle the weekend overnight shifts because so many staffers had resigned. They are leaving for new jobs because county officials have decided to stop contracting with Casa Pacifica for the service, so their jobs are going out of existence.
The county contracts with the Camarillo-based nonprofit agency to provide assistance via telephone or at the scene and detain suicidal children for psychiatric evaluation. The mobile team responds to an average of 332 calls monthly under the $1.36 million pact that's due to end in July.
Four of the 17 crisis team members providing direct service to youths and families have quit, and three more are due to leave by the end of April, Kussin said.
She says staff members for both teams agreed that starting April 4, the county team would handle the calls on the overnight weekend shifts if possible and if not, callers would be told to call 911.
"Our hope was there would be a way for their crisis team to respond," she said.
But during the day on April 4, that plan was overruled by higher-ups at the county, Kussin said.
Robert Mendoza, who directs the county team, said he knew of no prior arrangement for the county to cover the shifts. The adult team must be trained to intervene in children's crises, he said, and Casa Pacifica has the responsibility to fulfill its contract.
"We didn't want to move too quickly," he said. "We wanted to make sure the staff is trained. I wanted there to be an orderly transition."
County officials first got word that Casa Pacifica would not be able to cover a shift on the morning of April 4, when a Casa Pacifica manager reported that the overnight person was sick with the flu, Mendoza said.
Crandall contacted police to warn them that they may need to take the calls, and also asked law enforcement to cover four other shifts Casa Pacifica identified in April, according to an email she provided. None of the four additional shifts were for the weekend periods now at issue.
Mendoza and Kussin last met on the transition in March, but are due to meet Wednesday. He says there have been constant email communications.
Kussin said she had hoped a transition team would have been established to meet weekly to iron out the details.
"That didn't happen," she said.
The county is supposed to take over the overnight shifts by May, she said.
Mendoza has resigned his position and will not be working for Behavioral Health when the transition is completed. He has accepted a higher-paying job from Kaiser Permanente as manager of a mental health clinic in Thousand Oaks. His last day at work is scheduled May 12.
The clinical social worker directs the adult crisis team as well as a program that will send counselors into the homes of children to provide follow-up care. He said it was a difficult decision to leave because of the coming transition, but that others would oversee the transfer.
"There are very talented people that can move this forward," he said.
He said Friday that Ventura County Behavioral Health officials were discussing ways to improve the situation with the overnight shifts in April. Among the possibilities is accelerating the transition and having the adult team take over shifts earlier than planned.
The Department of Foreign Affairs of Da Nang City on Thursday issued an announcement on the retirement of the Da Nang-Vietnam team during the ongoing race.
The boat was knocked down by a large wave at 10:15 pm on Monday, causing damage to the port side binnacle and helming bars.
Skipper Wendy Tuck and some crew members suffered minor injuries while another member, Bridget Keevil, sustained a small cut to the eye and nose, according to the competitions website.
The team has decided to retire from the race and motorsail for the moment as they make the rest of the way to Seattle, it says.
The rest of the 12-yacht fleet is expected to arrive in Seatle between April 15 and 20.
The Vietnam-Da Nang boat will be fixed in Seattle and then continue the race.
Dang Viet Dung, deputy chairman of the Da Nang Peoples Committee, said on Wednesday that local authorities support the teams decision to retire.
This has been the ninth journey of the race, namely Seattle Pacific Challenge, according to the organizers.
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the biggest challenge of the natural world and an endurance test.
With no previous sailing experience necessary, it is a record breaking 40,000 nautical mile race around the world on a 70-foot ocean racing yacht in nearly one year.
This year, the race which kicked off in August last year and is expected to conclude in July, attracts 12 teams representing 12 countries.
Among the participating yachts is the Da Nang-Vietnam team with 58 crew members, aged 18 to 66, of 12 nationalities, including one from Da Nang.
Contenders reached the central Vietnamese city on February 17 and left ten days later as part of their race through 17 destinations around the globe.
Afghan officials and insurgent sources said intense fighting is raging near the northern city of Kunduz.
An Interior Ministry statement issued Sunday said Afghan forces killed at least 44 Taliban insurgents and wounded many more in overnight clashes around the provincial capital.
The fighting erupted Friday after the Taliban staged a major offensive on security outposts around Kunduz in its bid to capture the city.
Both sides have since claimed inflicting heavy casualties on the other, but it is difficult to ascertain official and insurgent claims because of the volatile situation in Kunduz and surrounding northern Afghan provinces.
A Taliban spokesman accused Afghan and U.S.-led foreign forces of conducting extensive aerial bombing in and around Kunduz.
He denied official claims of government forces killing dozens of insurgents in such an attack.
"These indiscriminate bombings have only targeted civilian areas," according to the Taliban spokesman.
The Taliban had briefly overrun the strategically important city in September.
Residents said insurgents have since established hideouts and influence in the surrounding districts, helping them stage the latest offensive against Kunduz.
At a gathering in Kabul Sunday, civil society groups expressed concerns Kunduz is likely to fall to the Taliban again unless the Afghan government clears joining areas of insurgents.
Brazilian lawmakers have voted to back the impeachment process for President Dilma Rousseff.
The lower house of Congress voted late Sunday to send the matter to the Senate, which will consider whether to put Rousseff on trial.
A two-thirds majority, or 342 of 513 members, was needed to send the matter to the Senate.
One by one, the chamber's 513 deputies rose to announce their vote at a microphone, greeted by cheers and sometimes jeers from the rest of the members. A two-thirds majority, or 342 of 513 members, was needed to send the matter to the senate, which will consider whether to put Rousseff on trial.
As the vote neared 342 in favor of impeachment, Workers' Party leader in the House Jose Guimaraes said, "The coup plotters have won." He called it a "temporary defeat" and said it does not mean the war is over.
"The fight will continue in the streets and in the senate," he said.
Opposition to Rousseff has increased in recent months, with accusations that she illegally covered up government budget shortfalls in 2014 to increase her chances for reelection. Rousseff denies the accusations.
Her critics blame her for the country's recession and a massive corruption scandal involving state oil company Petrobras.
The 68-year-old leader was first elected in 2010, then again in 2014, continuing 13 years of leadership by the leftist Workers' Party.
The first in line to carry out the remaining two years of her mandate would be Vice President Michael Temer of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, whom Rousseff has accused of being part of the movement to remove her from office.
Armed groups from South Sudan conducted a cross-border raid, killing more than 140 people and kidnapping many children, Ethiopia's government said Sunday.
Ethiopian officials blamed Friday's attack near Gambella on ethnic Murle gunmen. They said women and children were among those killed, and a number of children were abducted and taken back to South Sudan.
"The Ethiopian defense force is currently chasing after the perpetrators," Ethiopia communication minister Getachew Reda told The Associated Press Sunday.
Reda said there is no relation between the attackers and the South Sudanese government or the country's rebels.
Pursuing gunmen
He said Ethiopian forces had killed "60 members of the attackers" so far, and may cross into South Sudan to continue to pursue the gunmen.
Ethiopia is host to thousands of South Sudanese refugees -- about 272,000 in the Gambella region, which borders South Sudan -- who fled after war broke in their country in December 2013. Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 2 million people forced to flee their homes during the war.
The Murle is a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region.
On Monday, South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar is due to return to the country's capital, Juba, as part of a peace agreement reached last year.
Several hundred demonstrators gathered Sunday in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad in support of a Shi'ite cleric who has threatened the Iraqi government with mass protests if Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi doesn't name a new Cabinet by Tuesday.
Protesters began gathering Saturday and warned more would join their sit-in if Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's demands are not met.
Sadr had organized a two-week demonstration last month. He ended it when Abadi tendered a list of new Cabinet members in an effort to combat corruption.
The prime minister is trying to replace the cabinet of party-affiliated ministers with a government of technocrats. But Abadi has faced significant opposition to his cabinet reform efforts from those parties.
Tensions escalated in Iraq's parliament last week after lawmakers failed to approve Abadi's list. At one point, opposing lawmakers hurled water bottles at each other.
On Sunday, Iraqi security forces closed streets around Tahrir Square, causing major traffic jams in the area.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday that Israel would never relinquish the Golan Heights, in a signal to Russia and the United States that the strategic plateau should be excluded from any deal on Syria's future.
"The Golan Heights will remain in Israel's hands forever," Netanyahu told his cabinet, which met for the first time on the Golan since the area was captured from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed in 1981, in a move that has not won international recognition.
Netanyahu, who made a similar statement during an election campaign in 2009, said he had spoken by telephone with U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday and told him that Israel's security must not be compromised by any peace agreement to end Syria's five-year-old civil war.
That would mean, Netanyahu said, that "at the end of the day Iranian, Hezbollah and ISIS forces would be expelled from Syrian territory".
Iran, one of Israel's main foes, as well as Tehran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, have supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict against rebel forces and Islamic State militants.
Echoing a previous call from the Jewish Home party, a key ultranationalist partner in his governing coalition, Netanyahu urged the international community "to recognize finally that the Golan will remain permanently under Israeli sovereignty."
Officially, the Golan was chosen as the venue for the cabinet session as a way to mark the anniversary of Netanyahu's election victory a year ago.
But the timing was seen by some political commentators as linked to talks Netanyahu is due to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria, where Moscow's military and diplomatic interventions are crucial.
Though Russia is committed to keeping Syria intact under Assad, it has not publicly broached the future of the Golan. "Whatever happens beyond the border, the [Golan] line is not going to change," Netanyahu said, in his remarks on his conversation with Kerry.
Having sent in Russian forces last year to turn the tide against a rebellion raging since 2011, Putin, who meets Netanyahu in Moscow on Thursday, wants to preserve Assad's central rule as part of national reconciliation efforts. Other powers want him gone.
While formally neutral on the civil war next door, Israel has predicted Syria's sectarian partition is inevitable.
Past U.S.-backed Israeli-Syrian peace efforts were predicated on a return of the Golan, where some 23,000 Israelis now live alongside roughly the same number of Druse Arabs loyal to Damascus.
Heavy fighting between the Libyan army and militant forces continues in militant-controlled areas of Benghazi, the second biggest city in the oil-rich North African nation.
Thick black smoke rose from oil and chemical tanks at the city's cement factory in Hawary district on Saturday following intense fighting between Libyan soldiers and Islamic militants.
Libyan soldiers on the frontlines in Benghazi launched an artillery attack on militants in the area on Thursday.
Benghazi was the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed former leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Myanmar President Htin Kyaw has granted pardons for 83 prisoners believed to be jailed for political reasons.
Htin Kyaw's office announced the amnesty Sunday, saying he had signed the order with the goal of achieving "national reconciliation" as the Buddhist New Year begins.
Myanmar's new democratically elected government, dominated by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, has dropped charges against hundreds of political activists charged under the country's former military junta, which ruled for five decades until handing over power to a semi-civilian government in 2011.
In a nationally televised address Sunday, Htin Kyaw vowed to release "political prisoners, political activists, and students facing trials related to politics."
General elections
The NLD took power in Myanmar, also known as Burma, last month after sweeping last November's general elections.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent two decades under house arrest, is unable to serve as president due to a provision inserted in the junta-crafted constitution.
But she was named to Htin Kyaw's Cabinet as foreign minister, and is also serving in the legislative-created post of "state counselor," allowing her to follow through with her pledge to run the government through a figurehead president.
Oil prices dropped Monday after major oil producing nations failed to agree on a production freeze to help stabilize the market.
The global benchmark Brent crude was down five percent early Monday, as was U.S. crude oil.
Ministers from 18 OPEC and non-OPEC countries said Sunday after a meeting in Qatar they need "more time" to make a decision about capping production at January levels. They are seeking stability after oil prices plummeted from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to current prices around $40 a barrel.
The lower prices have cost oil exporters billions of dollars in revenue and damaged some already fragile economies that rely on the sector.
Iran, which opposes the freeze, was absent from the Qatar talks. The end of Western sanctions in exchange for signing a deal on its nuclear program opened up the world to Iranian oil exports and badly needed income for Iran.
"We can't cooperate with them to freeze our own output and in other words, impose sanctions on ourselves," Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh told Iranian television.
Saudi Arabian officials said they cannot support any oil production freeze if arch-rival Iran also opposes it.
A U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane flying over the Baltic Sea was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 jet in what the U.S. military said Saturday was "an unsafe and unprofessional manner."
The statement from the U.S. European Command said the incident occurred Thursday in international airspace and at no time did the American plane cross into Russian territory. A U.S. military spokesman told CNN that the jet "performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers" as it flew as close as 15 meters to the plane.
Days ago, Russian fighter jets flew very close to the USS Donald Cook in international waters in the Baltic Sea. The crew aboard the warship was dumbfounded to see the apparently unarmed SU-24 planes fly as close as 9 meters from the destroyer close enough to create a wake in the water.
Russia's Defense Ministry denied the action was provocative, saying the planes were conducting test flights and only observed the Donald Cook before turning away, "in observance of all safety measures."
A Pentagon official described the Russian flights as simulated attack passes. He said sailors on the Donald Cook attempted to reach the Russian planes by radio but got no response.
Some military analysts said they thought the Russian maneuver might have come out of the Kremlin's resentment of U.S. forces operating so close to Russian territory.
NATO has bolstered its military presence in Eastern Europe as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea in Ukraine in 2014.
Russia's military denied one of its jets made aggressive maneuvers during an incident with a U.S Air Force reconnaissance plane flying over the Baltic Sea.
The U.S. military said the Russian SU-27 jet had flown in "an unsafe and unprofessional manner," getting within 15 meters of the U.S. RC-135 aircraft Thursday.
Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russia had to scramble to dispatch an aircraft after detecting an unidentified aerial target flying at high speeds towards its border.
Visual contact
He said when the American aircraft made visual contact with the Russian jet, the reconnaissance plan changed course, flying away from the border.
A statement from the U.S. European Command on Saturday said the incident occurred in international airspace and at no time did the American plane cross into Russian territory.
Days ago, Russian fighter jets flew very close to the USS Donald Cook in international waters in the Baltic Sea.
The crew aboard the warship was dumbfounded to see the apparently unarmed SU-24 planes fly as close as nine meters from the destroyer, close enough to create a wake in the water.
Denies provocation
Russia's Defense Ministry denied the action was provocative, saying the planes were conducting test flights and only observed the Donald Cook before turning away, "in observance of all safety measures."
A Pentagon official described the Russian flights as simulated attack passes. He said sailors on the Donald Cook attempted to reach the Russian planes by radio, but got no response.
Some military analysts say they believe the Russian maneuver may have come out of the Kremlin's resentment of U.S. forces operating so close to Russian territory.
NATO has bolstered its military presence in Eastern Europe as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea in Ukraine in 2014.
About 7,000 demonstrators marched against extremism Sunday thorough central Brussels, a city still in shock over last month's terrorist attacks that killed 32.
One of the organizers called the march "a moment of reflection, a message of compassion for the victims and a moment when citizens come together."
The demonstrators included followers of many faiths, including a group of Muslims who carried a sign reading: "Love is my religion and my faith."
The march came though Brussels' Molenbeek neighborhood, home to many Muslims and where investigators suspect extremist plots are hatched.
Suicide bombers last month killed 32 people at the Brussels airport and in a subway station.
Police have arrested six suspects so far, and they say the extremist cell that attacked Brussels was linked to the November night of terror in Paris that killed 130 people.
The United Nations said the Afghan conflict has caused nearly 2,000 casualties in the first three months of this year, showing an increase of 2 percent compared to the same period last year.
The number includes an increase of 11 percent in civilians wounded 1,343 but a decrease of 13 percent in those killed 600.
The fighting has intensified in Afghanistan since the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive last Tuesday, raising fears of increased bloodshed in 2016.
U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) chief Nicholas Haysom called on all parties to the Afghan conflict to take precautions to protect civilians during operations.
Even if a conflict intensifies, it does not have to be matched by corresponding civilian suffering provided parties take their international humanitarian law and human rights obligations seriously, Haysom said.
UNAMA recorded more than 11,000 civilian casualties, including 3,500 deaths in 2015, the highest numbers since it began documenting the data seven years ago.
Taliban blamed
While releasing the latest civilian casualty figures on Sunday, UNAMA blamed the Taliban-led anti-government forces for causing at least 60 percent of the casualties.
The figures, however, show a 15 percent decrease compared to the same period last year.
UNAMA attributed 19 percent of the casualties to actions by Afghan government forces and their allies, noting with concern a 70 percent increase compared to the first three months of 2015.
It documented a 5 percent increase in women casualties and a 29 percent increase in child casualties compared to the same period last year.
In the first quarter of 2016, almost one-third of civilian casualties were children, said Danielle Bell, UNAMAs Human Rights Director.
Ground engagements caused the highest number of civilian casualties, followed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), complex and suicide attacks, as well as targeted killings, according to UNAMA.
The U.N. Mission welcomed the decrease in civilian casualties so far this year from insurgent tactics such as targeted killings of Afghans and IED attacks. But it noted with concern a 26 percent increase in civilian casualties from complex and suicide attacks, calling on the insurgents to cease such activities.
Aerial operations
UNAMA said it is particularly worried over a rise in civilian casualties this year from aerial operations by both the Afghan Air Force and international-led military forces, mostly Americans.
Their actions have killed six people and wounded 21 compared to 16 civilian casualties during the same period in 2015.
The Mission said 16 percent of civilian casualties could not be attributed to a specific party, and blamed unattributed unexploded ordinance for 6 percent of casualties.
UNAMA called on the Afghan government to restrict the use of explosive weapons such as mortars, rockets and grenades during ground engagement with insurgents, saying they killed 96 civilians and wounded 192.
The UNAMA figures showed an 85 percent increase by such weapons compared to the first quarter of 2015.
Envoys from Yemen's warring parties are in Kuwait for a third try Monday at United Nations mediated talks aimed at ending an 18-month conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people and created a devastating humanitarian crisis in the region's poorest country.
"We are ready for a political transition which excludes no one... and we will give everything we can to alleviate the suffering," Yemen Foreign Minister Abdel Malek told the state news agency, Saba, ahead of Monday's talks.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels also hinted at reconciliation, with spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam using Kuwaiti media to call for "a consensus authority during a definite transitional phase to decide every political dispute."
U.N.-sponsored peace talks in 2015 twice failed to end the combat, with December talks crumbling under the weight of some of the fiercest battles in months.
The conflict has pitted the Sunni government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels, who seized the capital, Sana'a, in September 2014, driving a former president into exile.
A Saudi-led Sunni military coalition entered the fray one year ago, bombing Houthi targets and obliterating entire Yemen communities.
Last week, U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the U.N. Security Council that success at the peace talks will require "difficult compromises from all sides, as well as determination to reach an agreement."
For his part, Yemen's U.N. envoy Khaled Alyemany told reporters the talks could yield concrete results. "If they fail," he warned, "it will be a repetition of the cycle of violence."
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea is preparing to defy international sanctions and conduct a fifth nuclear test.
Yonhap said Sunday it has learned from various government sources that activity at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site has "increased two- to threefold recently."
The unidentified officials believe trucks seen moving in and out of the site may be carrying nuclear technicians.
Concerns that Pyongyang is about to conduct another nuclear test comes as the regime prepares to hold a rare meeting of its ruling Workers Party in early May.
Leader Kim Jong Un is expected to use the congress to repeat recent claims of advancements in the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, including development of a miniaturized nuclear warhead to fit on long-range ballistic missiles.
None of these claims have been verified, and many observers have accused North Korea of exaggerating its advanced military capabilities.
Experts also believe last week's failure of a medium-range ballistic missile to mark the birthday of founding president Kim Il Sung may also prompt the North to carry out another nuclear test.
The United Nations imposed a set of new and stronger sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January, and a ballistic missile test the following month.
Zimbabwe's ruling party dismissed calls for 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe to resign, a few days after the first major opposition protest in years.
ZANU-PF party spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo told the state-run Herald newspaper that President Mugabe won his post democratically and said opposition supporters should vote him out of office rather than call for his resignation.
Moyo said if the people "still need him, they will vote for him again," in 2018, when Mugabe is expected to stand for re-election.
More than 2,000 supporters of the MDC-T party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, marched in the streets of Harare Thursday, many of them wearing red in support of the opposition.
Police are often called to break up opposition rallies in Zimbabwe, and Thursday's march had originally been banned - but a court overturned the police order on Wednesday.
Mugabe is one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, having been in power since 1980. Despite his age, he is still a compelling speaker and recently announced he will stand for election again in 2018.
Zimbabwe's past elections have been criticized by the United States and other powers as flawed, marred by violence and voter intimidation.
Opposition leader Tsvangirai and his movement say Mugabe's policies are responsible for Zimbabwe's long-running economic problems and food shortages. Tsvangirai has lost the last three elections to Mugabe, and has been charged in the past with plotting to topple the president.
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Under international law, everyone has the right to protection from a state. However, there are around 10 million stateless persons in the world. These include 4.5 million Palestinians, 1 million Burmese Muslims, 700 000 Burkinabe refugees in Ivory Coast, 500 000 Thai and 270 000 Russians in Lithuania. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, Statelessness can mean a life without education, without health care or a formal job, a life without freedom of movement, without any hope or prospects for the future .
However, by espousing a supremacist ideology, Recep Tayyip Erdogan opens the door to extinguishing the nationality of any Turkish national who is not ethnically Turkish and for Turks that support them. Last July, he has deliberately relaunched the civil war, challenging his promise of equality for everyone. He has launched military operations, ordered the cease-fire in different Kurdish localities, seized Christian churches, and finally neutralised 5 000 terrorists (sic).
Need we recall that while a number of Kurds are well-integrated in big towns in the West of the country, the majority are relegated to poor regions and their culture is again being trampled on? Must we recall that while several Christian patriarchs are living in Turkey, the law forbids them building churches there?
Westerners who, blinded by their hatred of Syria, support the Turkish expansion and finance the war against the Syrian people, hardly reacted when on 5 April, he evoked the possibility of stripping those voting for HDP of their nationality. According to them, Mr. Erdogan, who made his case before the Bar Council, is prepared to threaten jurists that challenge his policy. Furthermore, his Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, on his trip to Europe, has assured that it only an avenue.
However on 7 April, on receiving officers of the National Police, M. Erdogan was threatening this time the followers of his former ally, Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of being terrorists because they refuse to condemn the Kurdish resistance.
Questioned by journalists on leaving Friday Prayer on 8 April, he clarified his thinking:
I meant that all those that are involved in terrorist acts or who support terrorism must be sanctioned () they are not fit to be Turkish citizens. They are already in search of another citizenship or of the status of statelessness. It is unacceptable for a citizen of the Turkish Republic to betray Turkey, the Turkish homeland, or the Republic of Turkey. I do not think it right for those who betray the Turkish Republic to retain their citizenship, he responded.
Thus President Erdogan envisages stripping of their nationality the 5 million voting for HDP, most of whom are from minority descent, and 1 million who are Sunnis of Hizmet, the movement of Mr. Gulen. If such a disaster had to happen, it would have an effect comparable to the Nakba and would necessarily set off a long armed conflict in the region.
The 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people in the War of Resistance against Japanese aggression is celebrated on 3 September in Peking. Not only Tokyo but also Washington and almost all EU governments are going to boycott it. They are sending only second rank representatives to Peking. A ridiculous attempt to erase History, paralleled to those in relation to the victory over Nazism, celebrated in Moscow on 9 May [1].
The historical basis: in the thirties, China was reduced to a colonial state and a quasi colony notably by Japan, Great Britain, the United States, Germany and France. In 1931, Japan transforms the North-East of the country into a puppet- State (Manchukuo). While in 1932 the Japanese army attacks first Shanghai and then other cities, Guomindang di Chiang Kai-shek - who had taken power in 1927 through a bloody coup detat and is supported both by the Anglo-Americans and by Hitler and Mussolini, allies of Tokyo continues to concentrate his attacks against the rural bases of the Red Army, directed by the Communist Party. In 1934, this was forced to a disastrous withdrawal that Mao Tse-tung, after he re-seized power, transforms in one of the biggest political-military undertakings: the Long March.
In 1937 Japan unleashed a war of aggression against the whole of China. In July, Japan occupies Peking and Tianjin, Shanghai in November and in December, Nanchinp. Here, Japanese troops carry out a huge massacre, killing more than 300 thousand civilians in the most gruesome manner. [2] The Japanese attack another ten Chinese cities with biological weapons (Bacillus anthracis and Salmonella paratyphi). At this point, through a Communist Party initiative, the Anti-Japanese United Front is born with Kuomintang. In the next eight years of war, the Kuomintang army, armed by the United States, fights from one side against the Japanese invaders, albeit sporadically; from the other side, it submits the areas freed by the Red Army to economic and military blockades, by attacking in several cases, the popular forces, and taking action so that it focuses against this Japanese offensive. Chiang Kai-shek plays on several tables, by ordering a part of its generals to collaborate with the Japanese.
From 1937 1945 the membership of the Communist Party expanded from 40,000 to 1.2 million. It guides the popular forces into a war that increasingly exhausts the Japanese army, by extending the liberated areas from 1.5 to around 100 million inhabitants.
With its Resistance, that costs more than 35 million deaths, China makes a critical contribution to Japans defeat that, beaten in the Pacific by the USA and in Manciuria by the URSS, surrenders in 1945 after the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Immediately after, according to a plan determined by Washington, Chiang Kai-shek tries to repeat what he had done in 1927. But his forces armed and supported by the USA, are now faced with the Peoples Liberation Army of about a million men and a militia of 2.5 million, emboldened by huge popular support.
Around 8 million soldiers of Kuomintang are going to be killed or captured and Chiang Kai-shek escapes Taiwan under US protection. On 1 October 1949 Mao Tse-tung declares the birth of the Peoples Republic of China from Tien An Men Port. In front of which, on 3 September, will march the armed forces of a China that had been fundamentally changed but that, as Russia, the other Brics and tens of countries present in Peking with the highest representatives, indicate its desire to defend its own national sovereignty against the new designs of the imperial domination.
Article published 7 April 2015
Tomorrow, on 8 April, Tsipras will meet Putin in Moscow. At the same time, the EU, the ECB and the IMF will hold another summit on Greece, which the following day has to pay a 45 million euro tranche of the loan granted by the International Monetary Fund.
Officially, the issues in the Moscow summit relate to trade and energy. One of these is the possibility that Greece becomes a European hub for the new gas pipeline, replacing the South Stream, blocked by Bulgaria under US pressure, that crosses Turkey and will carry Russian gas to the EU border. They will also discuss a possible relaxation of Russian retaliatory measures against the sanctions - permitting the import of Greek agricultural products.
According to his statement to Tass (31 March), Prime Minister Tsipras has communicated to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and to the EU Representative on Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini, that we do not agree with the sanctions against Russia [1]. And, at the first EU Summit in which he participated on 19-20 March, he officially supported the view that the new European security architecture must include Russia.
Confirming such a position, Tsipras will once again be in Moscow on 9 May for the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, a celebration boycotted by most Western leaders (Obama, Merkel and Cameron leading the flock). On the other hand, it will be the Chinese President, Xi, with a contingency of Chinese armed forces that will parade in Red Square with the Russian forces to symbolize the ever-closer alliance between the two countries. President Putin, in his turn, will be in Peking in September to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over the Japanese military.
By getting closer to Russia, Tsiprass Greece is therefore actually becoming closer to China and to the new Euro-Asian Economic Area, that is in its gestation period on the basis of the Investment Bank for Asian Infrastructure established by Peking to which Russia together with around 40 other countries belong. From financial institutions in this area and also from those in the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that aim to supplant the World Bank and the IMF, dominated by the US and the major Western powers Greece could receive the means to free itself from the stranglehold of the EU, the ECB and the IMF. Also, because China wants to make Piraeus, a hub of primary importance in its trade network. According to the The Independent, the Greek Government is ready to nationalize the countrys banks and to create a new currency; in other words, it is ready to leave the Euro and, if compelled, also the EU [2].
But at this juncture, another factor enters the equation: Greece is not only a member of the EU but also NATO. Greece, a friend to Moscow, could paralyze NATOs capacity to react to Russian aggression . So warns Zbigniew Brzezinski [3]. Stern words not to be taken lightly: Brzezinski was, for a long time, the White Houses strategic adviser and he is still in close contact with it. Even if the defense minister Kammenos guarantees that the new Greek government maintains its NATO commitments despite its political relations with Russia, Washington and Brussels are surely conspiring to prevent Greece becoming the weakest link in the new confrontation with Russia and, in fact, with China. The 1967 coup, which brought the military to power in Greece was implemented on the basis of NATOs plan Prometheus [4].
While the times have changed, the political and strategic interests on which NATO is established have not. In the meanwhile, it has become more of an expert in domestic destabilization methods.
First published July 7, 2015
The head to head in the Greek referendum, the propaganda of mass media, disclosed a resounding head bashing against the wall for domestic and international supporters of the Yes campaign. The Greek people have said No not only to the austerity measures imposed by the EU, the ECB and the IMF, but, essentially to a certain system: the capitalist system that suffocates genuine democracy.
The implications of the referendum transcend the economic sphere, implicating political and strategic interests not only of Brussels, but (something noone talks about) those of Washington. President Obama has declared that he is deeply implicated in the Greek crisis, that we are taking serious consideration of it, working with European partners so as to be prepared for any eventuality. Why so much attention on Greece? Because not only is it a member of the EU but also NATO. A solid ally, as the Secretary-General Stoltenberg defines it, that plays an important role in the troops of rapid deployment and sets a good example in military spending. Greece allocates more than 2% of its GDP to this, a target reached in Europe only by Great Britain and Estonia.
Although Stoltenberg reassures the continual commitment of the Greek Government in the Alliance, in Washington they fear that, by sidling up to Russia and in fact to China, Tsipras Greece, jeopardizes its membership of NATO. Prime Minister Tsipras has declared that we do not agree with the sanctions against Russia and, at the EU Summit, he took the position that the new architecture for European Security must include Russia. In a Tsipras-Putin meeting, that took place in April in Moscow, there was talk about the possibility of Greece becoming the European hub of the new pipeline, replacing the South Stream blocked by Bulgaria under US pressure, that, crossing Turkey, will carry Russian gas to the EUs doorstep [1].
There is also the possibility of Greece receiving financing from the Development Bank established by Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and by the Investment Bank for Asian Infrastructure established by China, that wants to make Piraeus, an important hub for its trade network.
Greece, a friend to Moscow, could paralyze the NATOs ability to respond to Russian aggression [2], Zbigniew Brzezinski (a former strategic adviser of the White House) has warned, articulating the conservatives position. The progressive position is expressed by James Galbraith, a Professor of Government and Business Relations at the University of Texas. He has worked for several years with Yanis Varoufakis, who became the Greek Finance Minister (and who has now resigned), to whom he has provided informal support in recent days [3].
Galbraith sustains that, despite the role the CIA played in the 1967 coup, that brought colonels to power in Greece on the basis of NATOs plan Prometheus, the Greek Left has changed and this government is pro-American and a committed member of NATO. Therefore he proposes that, if Europe fails, states together can be moved to help Greece, which, being a small country, can be saved by minor measures, which include a guarantee on loans. [4].
Both positions are dangerous for Greece. If Washington chooses the conservative position, it advances Natos new plan Prometheus at Syntagma Square along the lines of Maidan Square in Ukraine. If the progressives triumph, an operation bearing a neo-colonial stamp that would make Greece fall into the frying pan in the embers. The only way left is a fierce popular battle for the defense of national sovereignty and democracy.
Kerry Washington as Anita Hill. Photo: HBO
Its been nearly 25 years since a nation watched, considered, and cringed through hours of live testimony delivered by then-University of Oklahoma professor Anita Hill and Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thomas, just days away from a vote to determine whether hed be sworn in as Justice, stood accused by Hill of sexually harassing her over a period of several years during which he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. The details in Hills statementsranging from Thomas alleged romantic overtures to his outright predilection toward graphic pornographywere as stunning to those in the room and viewing at home as Thomas fierce rebuttals, which likened the proceedings to a high-tech lynching. Just as infamously, the hearings were aborted without a clear sense of the truth. Less than a week later, Thomas, flanked by President George H.W. Bush, was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
HBOs Confirmation, which aired Saturday night, offers a dramatized accounting of those three extraordinary days. With Kerry Washington portraying Hill and Wendell Pierce as Thomas, in addition to an ensemble of recognizable faces making up the vast Senate staff (headed by Joe Biden, who was head of the Judiciary Committee at the time) that instigated and presided over the shambolic hearings. We reached out to a handful of individuals who were closeor reported onthe hearings as a way to gauge how closely Confirmation comes to accurately characterizing the major players and depicting the events therein. While declining to be formally interviewed, Hills close friend and former University of Oklahoma colleague Shirley Wiegand (played in the movie by Erika Christensen) told Vulture via e-mail that Confirmation accurately portrayed the flawed Senate Judiciary Committee process, Bidens discomfort, [and] Thomas anger. She added that, while minor details distracted me (who was in which room, who said what) I believe it is honest and fair.
Ruth Marcus, a syndicated Washington Post columnist who was the papers Supreme Court correspondent during the Hill/Thomas hearings, talked to us for a more in-depth conversation on the film. Below are her insights (barring behind-the-scenes meetings and private conversations she wasnt privy to) into where Confirmation got the circumstances and personalities involved spot-on, and where they took dramatic license.
What They Got Right
Bidens Refusal to Ruffle Feathers
I think Biden doesnt like to be the bad guy, says Marcus unequivocally. He doesnt like conflict and being seen to be unfair. When Thomas came into the hearing room, nobody knew what he was going to say. This absolute denial and these conflicting stories were difficult to handle, and particularly difficult for senators, especially when youre talking about issues involving sex. Biden was torn between all sorts of conflicting impulses, and the movie does a pretty good job of illustrating that. If anything, I think it could have been harder on him.
The Slimy Erotomania Assertions
It was so slimy, Marcus recalls. It was one of the slimiest moments in Washington political history. The story breaks, and were all trying to scramble and figure out what to make of it, and its moving super fast. I distinctly remember getting a call from someone in the administration peddling this argument that she was suffering from erotomania, and this was a serious diagnosis. I have to say, it just seemed to me to be laughable on its face. Wed seen her affidavit, and it was not the affidavit of a crazy person suffering from some disease none of us had ever heard of. It was the affidavit of someone who seemed very measured and in control of her faculties and not foaming at the mouth to come forward.
A Desperate Judiciary Committee
One of the things the movie does really well is to evoke and remind those of us who lived through it about the absolute desperation and, therefore, the absolute scumminess of the behavior of people who in good faith believed Justice Thomas was telling the truth. But they were sure willing to go to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate that The White House wanted to get their nominee confirmed, and so even granting that there was some understandable [lack] of an educational framework for understanding sexual harassment in 1991, there was then this rabid attack on her at the hearings and in the background of the hearings that was pretty astonishing. That series of questions with The Excorcist and the pubic hair and the Coke canyou couldnt believe you were sitting in the Senate office building hearing this stuff.
The Thomas Anguish
One of the things I like about the movie is it does an accurate job of portraying the anger and anguish that Justice Thomas and his wife were feeling at the time, concedes Marcus. I dont purport to get inside their heads, but if you watched him, if you watched them, if you read what he wrote afterwardswhatever you think happened, there was some real feeling on their part that they were wronged and mistreated and unfairly dealt with. Even if you tend, as I do, to believe Anita Hill, there was this incredibly visceral feeling on their side, and portraying that was both accurate and dramatic.
Thomas Tuning Out Of Hills Testimony
Thats what he said, yeah, confirms Marcus. Its accurate that he said that, and it was stunning. It seemed bizarrely disrespectful of the process, but I guess his point was the process was disrespectful of him. It made it difficult to have a useful conversation about, Well, what do you have to say about what she said? We were having these serious hearings about serious allegations that needed to be dealt with, but he says, Well, I couldnt be bothered to watch this.
The Stunning Omission of Angela Wright
It was a big surprise when she didnt testify, remembers Marcus. It just cant have been in Anita Hills best interest to not call Angela Wright.
[Editors Note: Rose Jourdain, a potential witness for Hill who corroborated Wrights story to investigators but was not called to testify, was not portrayed in the film.]
What They May Have Taken Liberties With
The Number of Initial Investigators
The film excludes a number of Senators, staffers, and attorneys who were relevant at various points between Hills initial phone conversations with aides and her being called to testify. Among them, Ohio Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum, his lawyer James Brudney, and Chief of Nominations of Judiciary Harriet Grant. In addition, the character of Biden staffer Carolyn Hart is fictitious, and a likely amalgam of then-Chief Counsel of the Judiciary Committee Ron Klain and the Committees Staff Director Cynthia Hogan.
It left all of that out and concentrated on the Ricki Seidman figure, says Marcus, who discloses that she and Seidman remained close friends after the hearings. The Senate Judiciary Committee has a lot of different members, all of whom have numerous staffs who are all involved. It would be impossible to do a movie that would reflect that reality. Confirmation made it look like there were two staffersthe Rickie Seidman character and the combined Ron Klain and Cynthia Hogan character. Drama is easier to follow when youre dealing with a smaller cast, and watching the movie dramatically, it juxtaposed these two women staffers not quite against each other but with different attitudes. It probably was more dramatic than having a bunch of different people, and also a man against a woman. In reality, major decision-making was being made by Ron Klain. But I did not think conflating staffers misrepresented the complicated reality of the forces making it difficult to handle this episode.
Not Much Ado About Who Leaked Hills Affidavit
It was an interesting choice that we did not get involved in the whodunit of how it leaked, observes Marcus. As I remember, watching the movie, nobodys fingered or suspected or freaked out by the exposure of all this. [In reality], there was a lot of freaking out among staff about how this happened and who did it, and there was a very serious investigation to identify the leaker that ended up unresolved. I thought there was enough dramatic tension in who was telling the truth in the story between Thomas and Hill. Im not sure what you lose in terms of understanding the richness of the story.
Senator John Danforth As a Cold-Hearted Villain
John Danforth was, and is, a generally decent guy, good senator [who] found himself in a position where somebody hed known a long time was being accused of terrible things that seemed inconceivable to him, Marcus offers. He was willing in the course of this political warfare [it wasnt] really in keeping with the kind of person he generally was.
Pat Schroeders Storming of the Senate
I dont think that really had a big impact, Marcus says of the congresswoman and her colleagues confronting male senators in an effort to delay the vote for Thomas nomination. The women all came and marched in and told the guys to do their job, and its a scene thats unimaginable today because there are more women in the senate and on the Judiciary Committee. But that scene to me felt like it made that moment seem like a bigger deal in terms of affecting outcome than it was.
Senator Alan Simpson as Primary Antagonistic Inquisitor
There were so many bad actors, says Marcus of the Committee. There was so much blame to go around. [The filmmakers] dont seem to do a lot with Arlen Specter. Im sorry to speak ill of the dead, but he was sitting there, as I recall, essentially telling her she was guilty of perjury. He was, in the hearing, the most prosecutorial of them all. There were so many people who behaved so badly in the heat of the moment in order to achieve their ends. Im not saying they knew Anita Hill was telling the truth or knew Anita Hill wasnt. Its just really easy to suppress your doubts and demonize the opposition when the stakes are so high, and thats what happened here. A whole bunch of people looked bad [in the movie], and they deserved to.
Senator Ted Kennedys Heroic Moment
I mostly recall his presence by his absence, states Marcus. But that might be affected by the Saturday Night Live-ization of the whole thing. I dont remember a redemptive moment. I mostly remember Kennedy being sidelined. Maybe there was a point at which he stood up for her, but she was lacking cover from the Democratic senators.
[Editors Note: As depicted in Confirmation, Senator Kennedy did, at one juncture late in the hearings, admonish the Committee for attempting to psychoanalyze Professor Hill.]
BELTON A man has been arrested in Waco on charges of injury to a child as Bell County authorities continue to investigate the December death of a 9-month-old boy.
A justice of the peace recommended Friday holding John David Clark on $650,000 bond.
Clark was identified as the boyfriend of the mother of Weston Lyle Marthers, of Little River-Academy. Clark brought the infant to a Temple hospital Nov. 30. The child died days later and Sheriff Eddy Lange said an autopsy determined the death a homicide caused by blunt head trauma.
The Temple Daily Telegram reported (http://bit.ly/1S1n5OP ) Lange in December said the boy's mother was at work when Clark took her son to the hospital.
Medical examiners described the injury as worse than if he fell from a two-story building.
___
Information from: Temple (Texas) Daily Telegram, http://www.tdtnews.com
A discussion on the relationship between faith in God and views on guns can go in a variety of directions, and a wide range appears in The Armor of Light, which is set for a free screening Monday night at the Waco Hippodrome.
For New York-based director Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt Disney, the films depiction of an honest, considerate discussion on a polarizing topic is its biggest takeaway.
Her Fork Films documentary The Armor of Light follows the emotional and theological journey of evangelical pastor the Rev. Rob Schenck.
Schenck, president of Faith and Action in the Nations Capital and chairman of Evangelical Church Alliance, has a national reputation as an ardent and vocal anti-abortion activist, but a question from Disney a few years ago about reconciling a anti-abortion stance with a pro-gun stance ended up reshaping his faith.
For Disney, who often starts her talks by identifying herself as a pro-choice feminist all my life, the question came from examining the story of Lucy McBath, a black Christian mother whose 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed by a middle-aged white man in November 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida.
The gunman argued self-defense under Floridas stand your ground law, which permits a person to shoot someone who they believe is a bodily threat, without being required to first retreat or take other action to avoid violence.
Disney, raised in a conservative Catholic family from whose faith she departed as an adult, found the premise of stand your ground departed from traditional self-defense statutes that most Christians might support.
By not requiring someone who feels physically in danger to retreat first or make an effort to avoid violence, the stand your ground law, to Disneys view, made it permissible to kill someone simply over a perceived threat.
No longer did people consider a dead body to be the worst possible outcome. . . . With that shift in ethical consideration, I felt there should at least be a conversation about that, she said. We need to do some moral homework that we havent done as a country.
Disneys question set Schenck on a faith journey that intersected with McBaths and set him at odds with supporters and friends, many of whom severed ties with him. The Armor of Light takes its title from the Apostle Pauls letter to the Romans in which he urges believers to put aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
The film doesnt seek to deliver a yes-or-no answer as much as it seeks to model ways to navigate thorny issues that respect and unify both sides, Disney said.
For Disney, Schenck started as someone who represented the far side of many issues she believes in, but over time she grew to respect him and become his friend.
I lucked into a person who is genuine, Disney said.
Her time with the evangelical pastor changed her, too. Alienated to an extent from conservative parents she still loved, Disney was able to rebuild relationships with them. The former Catholic eventually started to look for a church with like-minded followers and found one.
I go to church every Sunday now. Its an incredible bonus gift, she said, a touch of surprise and pride in her voice. Rob, incredibly, was such a mentor to me.
The Armor of Light, which gets a national showing May 10 on PBS, came out last year and was selected for the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. To Disneys surprise, the reaction at public screenings over the last year hasnt been angry or confrontational.
We had battened down the hatches, awaiting a horrible bloodbath over the film . . . but the blowback never happened, she said.
Schenck lost about half of his 80,000 donors in the process, but even that wasnt as much as had been feared.
Disney and Schenck have traveled extensively in support of the film both will be present at Mondays screening and the dialogues that have followed have proven one of the best byproducts of the film, she said. The ground is really, really ready to move, Disney said. People feel troubled but havent felt able to talk about it.
In many ways, The Armor of Light does what the Baylor Student Associations Movie Mondays partnership with the Hippodrome aimed to provide: offer independent and documentary films on socially compelling topics to stimulate a Baylor and Waco audience. The free series began in the fall with movies addressing food insecurity, the refugee crisis and clean water, with attendance ranging from about 100 to 150 viewers, said Director of Student Activities Matt Burchett, one of the series founders.
The question of the relationship of faith in God and guns is a pertinent one. On Friday, Mississippi governor Phil Bryant signed a law that permits churches to allow designated members to carry guns in church. Last year, the Texas Legislature discussed and approved a campus carry law that allows gun owners to bring their weapons on state college campuses and private colleges that approve it. The question whether Baylor, a private Christian university, would allow campus carry sparked debate from students and faculty, and President Ken Starr announced earlier this year that Baylor would opt out of campus carry and remain gun-free.
That campus discussion, though sometimes heated, didnt delve into an exploration of any theological dimensions.
While there were some faculty members that were motivated by Christian convictions to oppose campus carry, almost all of the opposition to campus carry from faculty and staff were from a pragmatic security concern, said Blake Burleson, associate dean for undergraduate studies, a senior lecturer in religion and an opponent of campus carry. Since Christians are divided on justifiable uses of violence such as war and the death penalty, it is not surprising that Christians differ on whether or not to use deadly force to defend oneself. In the case of campus carry, the overwhelming opposition from Christians on the campus suggests that the law, as described by many college presidents, was ill-conceived.
While talking with residents of West in the wake of the deadly ammonium nitrate blast that three years ago today reduced part of that town of some 2,800 to smithereens, one fellow remarked glumly to me that he hoped the politicians wouldnt use the explosion as an excuse to pass a bunch of regulations.
Ive had several occasions to ponder this remark. Such as when the president of the United States led state and local leaders and our community in paying tribute to the dead, including 12 first responders killed in the explosion. Such as when millions in taxpayer dollars were allocated to rebuild much of West.
Such as when our state lawmakers bowing to the concerns of agri-business lobbyists that sprinkler systems were too onerous an expense to demand of businesses storing ammonium nitrate passed weakened reforms in 2015, secure in the knowledge of how many of their constituents happen to be wired politically.
While that comment in spring 2013 bothered me (and Ive heard others repeat it), it didnt exactly surprise me. Texans DNA causes them to just naturally resist government putting conditions and restrictions on them, especially in the pursuit of a living. However chemically volatile, fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate is seen in our stretches as spurring the vitality of crops. Yes, FGAN (as the chemists call it) brought death and destruction on the evening of April 17, 2013. But it also brings life in many different ways, ranging from produce in the fields to sustenance of the family circle.
Yet in another way, such an attitude signals that certain risks are entirely acceptable, including the perils of storing unpredictable fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate in wooden bins near other combustible materials in a building without so much as a sprinkler system. And if lives are lost well, in Texas thats just part of life. Or is it?
While a handful of folks in the town of West, including Mayor Tommy Muska, courageously urged regulatory reforms to prevent other families in other Texas towns from suffering such horrifying losses of life and property, some in West focus instead on loss and rebirth. They understandably carry blazing torches for the brave first responders lost that day. And, to their credit, they have redoubled their efforts to build a new and even better West. And theyre clearly succeeding.
If they have a message for the rest of us, its that its time to move on.
Listening to a long presentation about the blast by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board in January, I couldnt help but wonder at the litany of regulatory recommendations for everything from often overburdened volunteer fire departments to state and federal oversight agencies choking on their own bureaucracy. The report is as impressive as it is bewildering.
In our political environment, one party now sees regulation as disdainful. Even among those who believe in regulation of chemical storage there exists a skepticism about whether state and federal agencies can do the job competently, let alone sufficiently.
In the end, the real burden must fall on the individual companies storing these dangerous chemicals, whether ammonium nitrate or something else. Do the owners and business managers there have a true appreciation of the communities in which they seek to thrive? Is the safety of company employees and their neighbors down the street or across town worth the added expense of incorporating safety measures, even if almighty government doesnt demand it?
One of the most damning facts about all this: A few years before the 2013 explosion, the West Fertilizer Company was dropped by an insurer for failing to address safety concerns identified in loss-control surveys. And the company that insured West Fertilizer Company at the time of the deadly blast did not appear to have conducted its own safety inspections of the facility, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. While the blast did an estimated $230 million in damage, flattening homes, schools and a nursing home, the West Fertilizer Company was insured for $1 million. By now, federal taxpayers have paid more than $16 million in disaster assistance.
Evidence suggests the West Fertilizer Company didnt weigh undeniable risks to the surrounding community as folks moved in around it and counted it as a neighbor that would risk no harm to them. A lesson exists in all this that goes beyond government regulations and relies heavily on the wisdom, integrity and vigilance of those who count on our daily business. In return, they should be good corporate neighbors as part of the bargain.
Just as justices on the Supreme Court of the United States occasionally (but not always) disagree, so, too, do constitutional scholars. While some insist Senate Republicans now violate the U.S. Constitution by refusing to conduct confirmation hearings for President Obamas high court nominee, others disagree but only to a point.
On Wednesday an impressive panel assembled at Baylor Law School through the American Constitution Societys local chapter including Baylor University President Ken Starr, a former judge of the powerful U.S. District of Columbia Circuit and solicitor general, and much-celebrated law school godfather and constitutional expert David Guinn said Senate Republicans have every right to block Obamas pick.
But, they just as quickly added, this doesnt make it right.
In fact, both Starr and Guinn made their contempt known (respectfully for Starr, a bit more angrily for Guinn) for the Republican blockade, especially given that the Senates politically motivated action (or inaction) leaves the nations highest court disposed to splits in its major decisions, meaning lower courts with conflicting rulings arent resolved.
I think good government calls for us to have a hearing and vote up or down, Starr said with Guinn offering his stately yet gruff Amen.
In a private interview with Professor Guinn afterward, he insisted that Senate Republicans were on constitutional ground but that their actions deserve severe political consequences that certain family standards preclude us from quoting here.
We have heard from other constitutional scholars who believe Republicans assault the Constitution by declining to advise and consent, as the Constitution would seem to demand upon the presidents nomination of a Supreme Court nominee. Theyre convincing, too.
But while Guinn, Starr and others on last weeks panel might disagree, their view is no less instructive. By declining to hold Senate hearings for much-respected U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Chief Justice Merrick Garland to answer questions, Senate Republicans further politicize the nations highest court a colossally regrettable move. They also marginalize the one branch of government that arguably operates most efficiently.
Its a mess, Starr said. Four-four (rulings) is just a horrible state. And let me back up. The Supreme Court of the United States functions beautifully. Its efficient. Its principled. It gets its work done and the justices are all people of complete integrity. (But) the court needs to have an odd number (of justices) to get its work done.
Incidentally, this panel was composed of those who revel in the wit, restraint and adherence to originalism of arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, whose Feb. 13 death created this vacancy. Guinn for one discussed his supreme admiration for Scalias carefully researched and written Heller opinion, which expanded Second Amendment rights. And Starr, who argued before Scalia and the highest court 36 times, called Scalia a judicial Socrates of our era. And Brian Serr, a professor of law whose lectures on the Constitution and Declaration of Independence can quicken any heart, pulled out cherished Scalia passages to read to the 200 or so in the hall.
If Senate Republicans are indeed entitled to block Obamas quite reasonable pick for the court one who ironically some liberals dismiss as too moderate then the Republican Party should indeed pay the political price for inaction, given politics is the standard they have chosen to employ in governing. If they lose the White House and the Senate this fall, it will be deservedly so for playing petty politics with such things as justice, law and the U.S. Constitution.
In January, the Tribune-Herald published the U.S. Chemical Safety Boards findings and recommendations regarding storage of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate after a 2-year study of the fire at and explosion of the West Fertilizer Company. The blast left 15 people dead (12 of them first responders) and more than 260 injured; it destroyed or seriously damaged homes, schools and a nursing home more than 150 buildings in all in West, population 2,800. Before the boards formal report to the public (but after privately reporting to family members of the dead), Trib opinion editor Bill Whitaker and veteran staff writer J.B. Smith sat down to discuss the findings with Chemical Safety Board Chairwoman Vanessa Sutherland and lead investigator Johnnie Banks. They discussed the importance of construction materials in facilities housing ammonium nitrate; how the tragedy of West influenced Texas firefighters in a potentially deadly ammonium nitrate fire a year later; and whether the fertilizer industry is doing enough to stress safety.
Q In 2013, we saw and heard state, federal and local officials pay homage to the dead of West. In the view of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board in its strictly advisory capacity, do the actions of state and federal lawmakers and agencies since then fully acknowledge these losses in terms of reforming safety standards?
Johnnie Banks As weve teased out particulars of this case, weve looked at various contributing causes. One was the regulatory regime. We think the way weve fleshed out the issues of oversight by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and [its Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals standard] or blast standard that they should have a hand in common-sense remedies, such as buildings being constructed of noncombustible materials and buildings being subject to regular inspections. Weve fleshed out issues of insurance and training [to detect potentially hazardous problems]. As the chairwoman has said, this all involves shared responsibility.
Q One night I was with State Fire Marshal Chris Connealy and the volunteer firefighters of Bosque County. He was giving a lecture months after the West explosion. At one point he told firefighters, You know, if we had just had a sprinkler system in there, it almost certainly would have prevented the explosion, loss of life and widespread property damage. Is that a credible assessment?
Banks You can make a case for sprinklers in the facility, but theres a concern that if theres leaks in the system it could cause some problems for the ammonium nitrate.
Q I dont understand.
Banks If theres leakage, it could cause spoilage of the ammonium nitrate.
Q And make it more volatile as a chemical?
Vanessa Sutherland Not make it more volatile but make it more unusable to sell and use in the fields.
Q I guess I dont understand. We have a sprinkler system here at the newspaper and havent had a problem with leaks. Is that a real concern?
Banks Im not discounting the role a sprinkler system would have. I hope Im not advocating that such a thing wouldnt have been effective. The fire marshal there is viewing that as a means that would have prevented the fire from getting beyond the incipient stage that it got. Speaking to the families [of the West dead] last night, there was some concern about sprinkler systems in or around ammonium nitrate storage facilities. It doesnt mean that sprinklers couldnt have minimized the advance of the fire. You had ordinary combustible materials there which water would have tended to keep from getting beyond a certain stage. You can make a case for the utility of sprinklers absolutely but there are other means of mitigating
Q OK, so what is the most important preventative safeguard in Johnnie Banks view? I always thought it was sprinklers, but maybe thats because of the time Ive spent around firefighters. You were out there in West for weeks and saw the consequences. What is one thing that could prevent this next time?
Banks The Bryan, Texas, facility, after it burned down [in 2009], they rebuilt it and used noncombustible materials. They used concrete and brick. [The El Dorado Chemical Company incurred some $1 million in damage after a welders spark ignited the ammonium nitrate stored in the warehouse. Though there was no explosion, the Bryan incident saw more than 50 people seek out medical treatment and thousands evacuated. The warehouse facility was subsequently rebuilt as a concrete dome.] And that wont burn. And while that doesnt give you absolute assurance that something wont happen, it minimizes the likelihood of a West-type event.
Q By the way, how did the families respond when you met privately with them to go over the report?
Banks They were appreciative of our making time for them in advance. Were sensitive to the fact that a lot of these families are still in the process of mourning and healing and that realization theres a void there forever. And that was conveyed to us.
Q Was there one question that kept bubbling up during this meeting?
Sutherland One question that seemed to resonate was whether we, as the CSB, were proposing a ban on FGAN [fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate] or saying fertilizer was just inherently horrible. And so I think we got an opportunity to explain that we were really just trying to share (ideas about how) storage and handling of it could be more useful. We did get a couple of comment/questions in succession: Well, what do we do now as a community? What do we do about the types of companies we still have here? What do we know about product stewardship? Where do we go to get information?
Q You mean companies in West that arent even necessarily connected with ammonium nitrate?
Sutherland Just in general.
Q Id say thats a healthy skepticism.
Banks There was also some sense that we had maligned some of the firefighters for contributing to their demise and we were able to provide them a foundation of how our cases are brought to closure and how, over the course of this investigation, we didnt stop with the actions of the firefighters and why they took the actions they did. There was just a lack of awareness, a lack of training, but nothing they did was off the scale (in terms of irresponsibility) so the families generally took some comfort in that. [The 264-page CSB report, dedicated to the 15 blast victims who died, acknowledges that the West firefighters were in the process of debating pulling back when the explosion occurred.]
Q The Chemical Safety Board report indicated West firefighters didnt conduct pre-incident preparation or response training involving this facility. If theres one thing that might aid volunteer fire departments and we have a lot of them in our area what would it be?
Sutherland With ammonium nitrate? Unpredictability. It could explode, it could just do nothing. The characteristics of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate are unpredictable. You cant assume that just because youve treated one fire involving fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate that it will perform in the very same way in another incident in yet another facility.
Q So, again, whats the best course a fire department can take in that case to douse the fire with water or just clear the area and let it burn out, given that the fire might end in explosion?
Banks The case in Athens, Texas, about a year afterward is a classic case of what to do. The chief [Athens Fire Chief John McQueary] had gone to that facility [Texas Ag Supply] beforehand, after the West incident, surveyed it, saw that there was some material inside the building that wasnt good to have in proximity to the ammonium nitrate, so he had them move that outside. The structure of the building, if there was a fire, lent itself to such a situation that it wouldnt collapse in one fell swoop (possibly causing an explosion) but would just kind of slowly cave in. And when he got wind that there was actually a fire at the facility [on May 29, 2014], he ordered his guys to stand down, pull back and evacuate to a perimeter. That is the prudent approach involving ammonium nitrate fires just pull back and allow the building to burn to the ground and come back to live another day.
Q Youre saying West was a learning experience for Athens firefighters?
Banks The chief said, Yeah, we paid attention to what happened in West. When he had the chance, he made a point to take his guys through there so they could do some pre-planning and see where things were [at the Athens facility]. There were some trouble areas that they made go away and there were some electrical issues that they had them correct, so both pro-actively he went in and did some things and then during the actual incident, as it was happening, he had the presence of mind to not only work with his guys but the police department to clear the perimeter and alert others. Sure, some folks were displaced from their homes for a while but there was no damage, no explosion. Time is important. We saw in the West case that from the first time the fire was noticed and phoned in well, 20 minutes later it wasnt on the planet anymore and 15 lives were gone. We looked at a wide range of events from almost a century ago moving forward and if theres one constant in all of those events, its that theres no predictable response with ammonium nitrate.
Q Your report gets into land use. Weve heard how the West Fertilizer Company set up in the early 1960s outside the town of West. When the April 17, 2013, explosion occurred, it was surrounded by homes and schools. Did zoning just fall apart as the town grew over time? You note there are 19 other Texas facilities storing more than 10,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate within a half-mile of a school or a hospital or a nursing home.
Banks And I would guess in those 19 instances there was once upon a time an ammonium nitrate facility that was there by itself and that the land around it was affordable and residences and hospitals and schools just came into proximity. Thats certainly the tale of the tape in West. You see the evolution from a time when there was nothing out there and then a smattering of houses and then, pardon the pun, an explosion of housing, schools, nursing homes and apartments. And they coexisted peacefully for years and years. A lady approached us this morning with pictures of her house after the event. It was repairable but pretty devastating. And she said, You know, we just never knew how bad this stuff could be.
Q You said that in 2002 the Chemical Safety Board recommended the Environmental Protection Agency start regulating ammonium nitrate as an extremely hazardous substance and the EPA never acted. If the EPA had done that, the West Fertilizer Company would have had to do remediation plans involving ammonium nitrate similar to what theyve done for anhydrous ammonia. Someone presumably with the EPA a federal employee would have had to sign off on that plan to say the West Fertilizer Company was storing this chemical in an appropriate way for a business that is next to a lot of schools and houses. Right?
Banks Theres a reasonable presumption there would be a risk management plan that would develop.
Q Your report notes the fertilizer company and its insurer kind of left themselves open in terms of liability. The fertilizer company lost an earlier insurer because the insurer concluded the company wasnt willing to implement certain safety measures. And the next insurance company reportedly didnt perform any safety inspections. You can have all the agencies in the world working in terms of industry oversight, but isnt this really an industry problem? How serious is the agriculture industry about fixing all this? How satisfied are you that the Fertilizer Institute is taking this very seriously, as they claim?
Banks The impetus for it was a tragic event and, to their credit, they did implement some new practices, but the proof is in the pudding.
Sutherland Theyve said they are supportive of many of the general recommendations that they knew were coming out of our report, things that would help people identify the risks and understand possible root causes. Johnnie is right. The proof will be in the pudding. The ResponsibleAg program is up and running, they can move a lot faster than regulatory agencies, and nobody wants to have their company subject to bankruptcy, civil and criminal litigation and a potentially devastated town. [ResponsibleAg, a nonprofit, says its mission is assisting agri-businesses as they seek to comply with federal environmental, health, safety and security rules regarding the safe handling and storage of fertilizer products.]
Q Well, I watched testimony in Austin involving two Texas House bills to establish reforms in oversight and storage of ammonium nitrate in the wake of the West blast. One fellow representing the agri-business industry told legislators he was worried about sprinklers being required for businesses with stockpiles of ammonium nitrate. He said that was too much of an expense to incur. Is that a legitimate concern? I mean, he sure got his way in the legislation passed in 2015.
Sutherland I dont know how expensive sprinklers are, but I would think that the loss of 15 lives and hundreds of millions of dollars, ongoing injuries and trauma to more than 260 people, the reputation of the industry and the reputation of the specific company that has had a catastrophic incident theres a cost to that too. I have to imagine the sprinkler system is cheaper.
Q So what is your opinion of the reform bill by state Rep. Kyle Kacal and state Sen. Brian Birdwell that prevailed in the Texas Legislature? Is it a good law in terms of real reform?
Banks Id be loathe to say it was just lip service. I believe that, in the hearts and minds of the folks who crafted that bill, they believe they were doing all the right things for all the right reasons. Its all in the receptors of the people who are on the business end of it to say, Well, we want the Texas Environmental Quality Commission to be more attentive to monitoring Tier II reporting [disclosing where hazardous chemicals are stored]. All the various actors who have a role to play thats who were speaking to. Its all about shared responsibility. Everybody has a role in this and it has to be genuine.
Interview condensed and edited by Bill Whitaker.
Two-way street
My bicycle odometer just turned 10,000 miles so I have a little experience riding my bike on the street. I have some concerns about the new ordinance being considered in Waco dealing with bicyclers and joggers.
Streets were engineered and built for cars, not bicyclers or joggers, even though lifestyles have changed to bring both of these out on to the streets. The primary function of the street/roadway is automotive transport. Riding a bicycle on city streets is very dangerous because of the increased number of vehicles and their speed and no amount of legislation or passage of city ordinances will make that any different.
Before you make motorists liable for being too close to bicycles, make it a fineable misdemeanor for riding or jogging in any manner other than single file unless in a organized event. The only time I have seen a motorist throw something at a bicyclist is when a group of two or more are riding side by side and blocking an entire car lane.
Arrogance of bicyclists and joggers can contribute significantly to the very problems you are trying to address.
Clement Milam, Waco
Christian nation?
Recently Ive been thinking about our being a self-styled Christian nation. I wonder what Jesus would think about evicting families who couldnt afford to pay rent this month because of a childs illness? How would he feel about for-profit prisons? What do you suppose Jesus opinion is on the death penalty?
I consider Donald Trumps denigration of almost everyone and how un-Christlike that seems. I can only think of Ted Cruz in an Old Testament milieu, calling down thunderbolts upon errant sinners. Hillary Clinton seems to have more Christian impulses, yet her nearness to the money changers concerns me. Bernie Sanders appears to have the closest relationship to Jesus principles but, ironically, hes Jewish.
What a quandary. . . .
John Nobis, Waco
Lots of laughs
I read the esteemed ramblings of David Schleicher regarding the impending doom to beset America should Donald Trump be elected president of the United States. Funny thing is, I read almost a word-for-word copy of Schleichers propaganda, spewed by the New York Times and later discussed by the right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Glad to see Democrats have formed up for the coming battle.
Dan Dayton, West
EDITORS NOTE: The day Mr. Schleichers column aping Trumps inauguration speech appeared in the Trib, a joyfully reimagined Boston Globe Page One made the rounds, purporting to show headlines in a Trump presidency: President Trump calls for tripling of ICE force; riots continue, Markets sink as trade war looms, New libel law targets absolute scum in press and US soldiers refuse orders to kill ISIS families.
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BEIRUT: A lawyer for the mother-of-three held in a Lebanese jail over the alleged kidnapping of her own children intends to seek her release from jail as early as Monday, despite custody negotiations breaking down with her ex-husband.
Sally Faulkner remains detained in a Beirut prison along with four members of Channel Nine's 60 Minutes program, including reporter Tara Brown, after a botched attempt to snatch her children from their father's family on a Lebanese street.
A judge last week ordered Ms Faulkner to negotiate with her estranged husband, Ali Elamine, in the hope the pair could come to an agreement over the custody of Lahala, 6, and Noah, 4. Ms Faulkner claims Mr Elamine failed to return the children to Australia after a three-week holiday.
One of Canadas big five banks is aiming to offer vital support following the Bay de Verde fish plant fire.
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has announced it will assist its clients in the area in a host of ways. Among its efforts will be: deferring loans, credit card bills and mortgages; crediting client accounts for any fees caused by overdrafts and insufficient funds; and re-amortizing mortgage payments to lower monthly costs.
According to Mark McGuire, the district vice president of CIBC in Newfoundland and Labrador, the bank hopes that its efforts can go some way to easing the financial burden during this difficult time.
Our thoughts are with everyone in the region affected by this devastating and tragic fire, he said. We are here for our clients to offer our assistance and support through this period of uncertainty.
Clients are encouraged to contact their CIBC Advisor or call 1-800-465-2422 to discuss their financial situation and get personalized advice.
A new coalition, calling themselves The United Healthcare Reform Alliance (UHRA) comprising the Medical Association of the Bahamas; the Consultant Physicians Staff Association; the Bahamas Association of Physiotherapists; the Bahamas Doctors Union; the Bahamas Association of Medical Technologists; the Bahamas Association of Primary Care Physicians; the Bahamas Psychological Association; the Bahamas Insurance Association; and the Bahamas Insurance Brokers Association, has declared the governments proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) is flawed and unsustainable.
As expected the government's NHI secretariat finds the private sectors position curious.
Of course the general public and healthcare professionals involved are not supposed to see anything curious about the governments proposal. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken; the government knows what the people deserve and will give it to them good and hard, whether they want it or not.
As stated on other occasions, if the government was sincere and discussing how to provide help to the poor and indigent, thats a completely different proposition than the proposed price controls and other mechanisms of force that will be utilised to get their way and eventually take the entire private healthcare sector over.
If you are able to take the time to review the draft NHI Bill of 2016 you will quickly realise that the taxpayer and private healthcare providers should be curious. The all caring rhetoric from the government spokespeople is a far cry from the written text of the draft bill.
Yes, its all very curious, and it's becoming "curiouser and curiouser".
By Joe Jackson Apr. 17, 2016 | 07:03 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY, KY
A two-vehicle collision Saturday night in McCracken County claimed one person's life and injured five others.
According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, the accident happened around 9:05 pm on Said Road, near the 1600 block. Deputies said a car was southbound on Said Road when it crossed into the northbound lane in a curve and struck an SUV head on. The car then caught fire.
Deputies said the SUV was driven by 43-year-old Bradley Vose of Paducah. He and his four passengers, 43-year-old Cynthia Vose, 7-year-old Jackson Vose, 14-year-old Caedmon Vose and 9-year-old Clayton Vose, were transported by anbulance to Lourdes Hospital for treatment of their injuries.
Deputies did not identify the driver of the car pending full notification of the deceaseds family.
By Ro Morse, WestKyStar Staff Apr. 09, 2016 | 01:16 PM | PADUCAH, KY
Today looks fabulous for the annual leisurely BikeWorld ride along Paducah's Dogwood Trail.
The Dogwood Trail Bicycle Ride starts at BikeWorld, 809 Joe Clifton Dr. at 2:30 pm. It's a ride at your own pace cruise followed by a cook-out and community potluck, perfect time for making friends and meeting potential riding buddies. Grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and drinks are provided by BikeWorld. Guests are invited to bring side dishes to pass.
Paducah's annual Dogwood Trail is the confirmation that spring has arrived. The blossoms last anywhere from one to three weeks - all depending on the weather. Drive, walk or bike the almost 11-mile trail anytime day or night. But if you want to bicycle the trail with friends from BikeWorld, today's the day.
Martha Emmons, BikeWorld co-owner says, "Regardless of experience, everyone is welcome to join in and ride at his/her own pace along the scenic Dogwood Trail. BikeWorld will have a follow vehicle on hand in case anyone encounters difficulty or simply poops out. The pace is deliberately slow to enjoy the beauty of Paducah in spring."
There's no charge for participating, but organizers request all riders register before the start, and wear a bike helmet while riding. For more information, call 270-442-0751 or visit http://www.bikeworldky.com.
More field and grass fires flare in Graves, Calloway, McCracken counties
By Tim Brockwell Apr. 17, 2016 | 03:10 PM | PADUCAH, KY
The City of Paducah is still waiting for an ordinance to be crafted to allow food trucks to operate in town.
Mayor Gayle Kaler said that pretty much everyone she has spoken to about food trucks in Paducah is in favor of them, but it will be necessary to draft an ordinance before moving forward.
Kaler said city leaders are busy working on the ordinance right now. "Steve Ervin in the planning committee is working on that ordinance. They have to be finely crafted. It's not something that we can just throw together, so we are being really diligent about that. We will have something brought before us soon." Kaler said.
Kaler said she has been a strong proponent of food trucks for quite a while now. "I really do believe, and I've talked to all the commissioners, that everybody is in favor of it," kaler said. "I'm certainly pushing for it because it's something that I have wanted to see in Paducah for some time."
At their February 16 meeting, the Paducah City Commission heard a presentation by Ervin about the possibility of expanding the area in which food trucks are allowed to operate. Right now food trucks are permitted to operate in Paducah only along a section of Hinkleville Road and part of Lone Oak Road. Ervin told commissioners that some individuals have expressed interest in expanding these areas. Ervin said the food truck industry is expected to grow into a $2.7 billion per year business by next year.
"It is moving forward, and I think it's really exciting for Paducah. It's something we haven't really had before." Kaler said.
If you would like to know more about the food truck industry in Kentucky, check out the Bluegrass Food Truck Association's Facebook page at the link below.
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This article was published 17/04/2016 (2380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA With almost 150 countries, including Canada, poised to sign the Paris climate agreement at the end of this week in New York, some of the worlds biggest oil companies arent convinced theres any end in sight for fossil fuel use.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be among signatories from some 147 countries convening Friday at the United Nations headquarters on Earth Day, the first opportunity to formally sign the global climate agreement completed in December.
The Paris accord envisions measures to hold the average global temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and closer to 1.5 degrees. As of 2015, the world had already warmed one degree, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A service rig, left, and a pumpjack in an oilfield outside of Weyburn, Sask., on June 8, 2009. With almost 150 countries, including Canada, poised to sign the Paris climate agreement at the end of this week in New York, some of the world's biggest oil companies aren't convinced there's any end in sight for fossil fuel use. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Troy Fleece
Many advocates heralded the Paris agreement as signalling the end of fossil fuels the beginning of a swift transition to a decarbonized world by mid-century.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, speaking at a World Bank event last week in Washington, said the clean energy transition is a $3 trillion opportunity.
As I say to business, Youre crazy if youre not thinking about this,' said McKenna. If youre in oil and gas you should be thinking about renewables. Thats a huge opportunity for you, for your shareholders.
But amid the hoopla and enthusiasm that will surround this weeks UN signing ceremonies for the Paris agreement, some global energy giants are suggesting to investors that the most aggressive carbon-cutting scenarios simply wont come to pass.
Calgary-based Imperial Oils 2016 shareholder circular, sent in advance of the companys April 29 annual general meeting, states that the companys assessment is that its operations will exhibit strong performance over the long-term.
It cautions that international accords and the accompanying government regulations are evolving with uncertain timing and outcome but states that Imperials estimates of potential costs related to possible public policies covering energy-related greenhouse gas emissions are consistent with those outlined in Exxon Mobil Corporations long-term Outlook for Energy.
And Exxon, which owns 70 per cent of Imperial Oil, isnt buying the talk of stranded assets that flared before and since the Paris agreement.
We expect that oil, natural gas and coal the three fuels that together built the modern economy will continue to meet almost 80 per cent of the worlds energy needs through 2040, says Exxons 2016 energy outlook, which predicts oil demand will rise 30 per cent over the next 24 years.
We expect oil to continue to be the worlds leading fuel, driven by demand for transportation fuels and by the chemical industry, where oil provides the feedstock to make plastics and other advanced materials, says the outlook.
Both Exxon and Chevron had been seeking to block shareholder proposals at next months annual general meetings that dealt with transparency over the business impact of global carbon emissions policies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ruled this month that the companies must include the shareholder proposals at their AGMs.
Not all former oil executives are as bullish.
Jeroen van der Veer, the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell who retired in 2009, wrote last week that uncertainty about whether oil demand will continue to grow is already impacting the strategies of oil and gas firms.
In an article for the World Economic Forum, van der Veer asserted that producers are coming to realize that oil under the ground might soon be less valuable than oil produced and sold in the coming years. This dramatic shift in expectations is changing the operating environment for the future of oil and gas.
Mark Carney, the Canadian-born governor of the Bank of England, has been warning about the financial dangers of stranded assets since 2014.
Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada energy researcher, said in an interview that bankruptcies among major coal producing companies should be a cautionary example for the oil giants as the world meets to sign on to the Paris accord.
They can adapt to this new reality and become energy companies rather than oil companies, or they can join the dinosaurs, said Stewart, adding this is no longer just the Greenpeace crazies saying so.
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This article was published 17/04/2016 (2380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WINNIPEG One of Canadas two remaining NDP governments finds itself on the ropes as it heads into an election Tuesday with polls suggesting Manitoba voters are ready to turn to the Progressive Conservatives.
Premier Greg Selingers New Democrats have been in power for 16 years, but have faced voter anger since they raised the provincial sales tax in 2013. That broke a previous campaign promise and sidestepped a requirement under the provinces balanced budget law to hold a referendum on tax increases.
Surveys in recent months continue to suggest the NDP are 20 points or more back of the Tories and have lost almost half of their popular support from the last election.
NDP Leader Greg Selinger, left to right, Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari, Green Party Leader James Beddome and Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister take part in the provincial leaders' debate in Winnipeg on Tuesday, April 12, 2016. One of Canada's two remaining NDP governments finds itself on the ropes as it heads into an election Tuesday with polls suggesting Manitoba voters are ready to turn to the Progressive Conservatives. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Trevor Hagan
But some voters are not exactly enamoured with the alternatives Tory Leader Brian Pallister or Liberal boss Rana Bokhari.
I in no way want to see the NDP get another term I think theyve done terrible things for this province, said Lindsey Anderson, a 33-year-old downtown Winnipeg resident who leans conservative. But the Conservative party does not speak to me. Brian Pallister its like what planet are you from?'
Equally ambivalent is Jason Coward, who lives in south Winnipeg.
Im not seeing any new ideas. Im not seeing a lot of innovation and theres not a lot of substance.
The race to Tuesdays vote has lacked inspiration, said Royce Koop, who teaches political science at the University of Manitoba.
We have three leaders that arent really inspiring enormous amounts of confidence, that arent stars bringing enormous amounts of charisma to the race.
The NDP won 37 seats to 19 for the Tories and one for the Liberals in 2011. But for the first time since taking power in 1999, New Democrats have had to play defence.
Selinger, who barely survived a caucus coup last year, has made the majority of his campaign announcements in seats the NDP is trying to hold.
Pallister, backed by the strongest campaign machine since the Tories were last in power under Gary Filmon, has spent much of his time in NDP constituencies.
His personal popularity has lagged behind that of the party. The former MP has a few gaffes on his political resume, including once saying that Halloween is bad for the integrity of children. He also issued a Christmas greeting that included a reference to infidel atheists. He was questioned during the campaign about the extensive time he has spent vacationing in Costa Rica.
The Liberals have a rookie leader in former lawyer Rana Bokhari. The party had several setbacks on the campaign trail, including having Elections Manitoba reject some candidates for improper paperwork.
Bokhari has also appeared to struggle at times to explain details of her platform. At one point she said she wanted to get elected first before working out details on a promise of full-day kindergarten.
Koop predicts that public anger against Selinger is likely to outweigh antipathy toward Pallister or Bokhari, which means Albertas Rachel Notley will be the countrys only NDP premier.
I think the unpopularity of Mr. Selinger is much more important to understanding the outcome than Mr. Pallisters popularity.
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Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister says he has complied with Manitoba public disclosure rules after a Costa Rican newspaper reported he owns several properties in the central American country through a holding company.
The Costa Rica Star, in a report Saturday, said a public records search showed Pallister owns three parcels of land, through a holding company, in a highly sought-after coastal area of Costa Rica. The three parcels, totalling 13.26 acres, have a taxable value of US$134,000, although the newspaper notes that is likely a fraction of its commercial value.
The paper also reported Pallister also controls a second holding company that owns two vehicles. It said it is common practice for foreign nationals to place real estate and vehicles in holding companies.
JASON HALSTEAD / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister claps for a performance at the Vaisakhi Mela celebration at the Punjab Cultural Centre on April 16, 2016.
The NDP were quick to jump on the information, noting Pallister did not disclose the property in conflict of interest forms submitted to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.
An NDP political operative handed out details to reporters Saturday on their way into a news conference at the PC party headquarters, at which Tory spokeswoman MLA Heather Stefanson responded to a charge by NDP Leader Greg Selinger that a Tory government might force some cancer patients to pay for their own drugs. Stefanson called the accusation baseless and said she was disgusted Selinger was playing politics with cancer patients.
Stefanson did not respond to the Costa Rican newspaper report, but the PCs issued a statement late Saturday that said Pallister had always fully complied with disclosure obligations as an MLA and had acted on the advice from the provinces Conflict of Interest Commissioner in doing so.
The statement said Pallisters property in Costa Rica actually consists of four parcels of land. One contains his vacation home, while the others are pasture and grassland.
Mr. Pallister conducts no business activity in Costa Rica and owns no revenue-generating property, the statement said, adding by publicizing the newspaper report, the NDP were resorting to every possible smear tactic.
Pallister has faced criticism for the amount of time he has spent in Costa Rica since he was elected MLA for Fort Whyte in a 2012 byelection. He also admitted he was there during the height of the 2014 Assiniboine River flood after CBC obtained documents placing him in the country at that time.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 17/04/2016 (2380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Barbs were flying Sunday as the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats exchanged attacks on the second-last day of the campaign.
First on the offensive was NDP candidate Dave Chomiak, demanding Tory Leader Brian Pallister tell the whole truth about his holdings in Costa Rica before voters head to the polls Tuesday. The Tories dismissed Chomiaks demand as trying to save his own seat.
Then, Conservative candidate Cameron Friesen accused the New Democrats of having no plan to pay for their promises, warning the provincial sales tax could rise to as high as 10 per cent under NDP rule.
A fiery Chomiak spoke to reporters from NDP headquarters in downtown Winnipeg Sunday, reiterating the partys demand for complete honesty from Pallister.
What has happened over the past week, in regards to Brian Pallister, is nothing short of a question that requires answering. Something smells here, Chomiak said. Brian Pallister has promised what he is going to do in the first 100 days if he should take office, but he has been inaccurate, some would say lied, about what has happened the last seven days.
Chomiaks demands come after a Costa Rican newspaper reported a public records search showing Pallister owning three parcels of land through a holding company in a highly sought-after coastal area of Costa Rica, which is in Central America.
The three parcels, totalling 13.26 acres, have a taxable value of US$134,000. The paper reported Pallister also controls a second holding company that owns two vehicles. The paper said it is common practice for foreign nationals to place real estate and vehicles in holding companies.
This is Dave Chomiak trying to save his own seat, read a statement from the PCs sent out Sunday afternoon.
Brian Pallister has already responded at length to this Costa Rican newspaper story, going so far as to actually correct information by confirming an additional parcel of land as part of the same property.
The PCs released a statement on Saturday saying Pallister owns a fourth piece of land as well.
The NDP said Pallister did not disclose the property in conflict of interest forms submitted to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.
Brian Pallister has to come forward before the election he has to tell us today, Chomiak said. If he wants to be premier, he has to be honest.
Chomiak said he wasnt taking issue with the properties themselves, but the inconsistencies hes seeing. Chomiak referred to a selection of papers posted on the wall behind him, each suggesting an inconsistency from as far back as two years ago.
Im more concerned about why hes contradicted himself several times, why hes hiding these holdings, he said. People can have vacation land, they can have properties but you dont lie about it, you dont say one thing and then say another thing, thats the issue.
Pallister has faced criticism for the amount of time he has spent in Costa Rica since he was elected MLA for Fort Whyte in a 2012 byelection. He also admitted he was there during the height of the 2014 Assiniboine River flood after CBC obtained documents placing him in the country at that time.
Meanwhile, the PCs were on the offensive themselves Sunday, accusing the NDP of not coming clean.
BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dave Chomiak
PC candidate Cameron Friesen told reporters the NDPs platform confirms the partys intentions to raise and potentially broaden the PST to help compensate for $600 million in campaign promises.
Theres no indication on how they will pay for them, Friesen said. Theres no disclosure of the fact that Manitobans will be stuck paying for the tab on NDP overspending.
Friesen said the PST could go as high as 10 per cent from the current eight.
The NDP said Friesens claims are unfounded.
These are last-minute, desperate attempts to divert attention from Brian Pallisters web of coverups on the same day that he has been caught misleading Manitobans once again, read a statement from the NDP.
Only Conservatives would call investments in child care, universities and more doctors and nurses vote-buying.'
scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca
The assumption that a college education should take four years is baked into American culture. Colleges in the colonial days were founded on the premise of a four-year degree, a concept imported from Europe. Harvard University experimented with a three-year degree when it was founded in 1636, but the test was short-lived, and the four-year degree has been the standard ever since. We expect students to enter college at 18 and leave when they turn 22, and we worry about those who take a more circuitous route to graduation.
But we need to reconsider that long-established, one-size-fits all model. For many students, attending college for four consecutive years is no longer the right path. The dynamic economy requires more flexibility, especially in fields outside the traditional liberal arts.
Take data science. In the last five years, there has been a sevenfold increase in demand for data scientists, according to Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads. But in the same time span, the requirements for the job have changed, requiring greater training in data visualization and less familiarity with deep quantitative reasoning. In this and other areas, the relevant skills are evolving so rapidly that no traditional undergraduate curriculum can keep up.
Instead of maintaining the four-year norm, we should reimagine a college education as a platform for lifelong learning, one that would provide students with multiple opportunities to develop soft skills as well as critical technical skills not just between the ages of 18 and 22 but whenever necessary.
Stanford University has provided a model for how a college for life might work. In 2014, its design school developed a proposal for what it called an open loop university, which would admit students for six years of study that could be undertaken at any time.
Under this new system, students could start college when they were ready at 16, 18 or 26 years old and distribute the six years as they saw fit. They could loop out after two years to work for a Silicon Valley startup and then loop in a few years later if the startup failed or they wanted to try something else.
Students who returned after looping out could use the time that remained on their six-year clock to move toward new careers in their 30s or 50s.
Granted, students are rushed through college in part because of ever spiraling tuition prices. But new advances in the delivery of education can assist in lowering the cost of a degree, so that more time wont necessarily equal higher prices. Online and hybrid classes, which mix virtual and face-to-face learning, are both less expensive to offer and more flexible than a traditional lecture- or seminar-based course. At the University of Central Florida, 60 percent of the universitys 53,000 students take online or hybrid classes, and can mix and match them with traditional classes in the same semester.
Students at many colleges already acquire knowledge in a variety of settings through internships, co-curricular activities and independent research projects yet most of the credits they earn and pay for in college are based only on the time they spend sitting in a classroom. By giving students credit for experiential learning as well, colleges could help integrate in-class education with the hands-on experiences valued by employers. This change would also help students learn how to take control of directing their professional development.
Courses in this new model for education wouldnt need to be offered solely by traditional universities. College and universities could curate trusted sources outside their campus walls to supplement their offerings, including free open online courses; boot camps that offer short-term skill classes; and online training programs, such as Lynda.com.
With an expansion of the ways higher education is provided, students wouldnt be locked into studying at a particular place and in one set period of time. Instead, a student could move in and out of college, going back when new skills and information are needed, and higher education would become what it needs to be a lifelong and adjustable acquisition of knowledge.
USDA announces $1 billion debt relief for 36,000 farmers
The USDA announced a program to provide $1.3B in debt relief for about 36,000 farmers who have fallen behind on loan payments or face foreclosure.
Rodrigo Alves
By: Mahesh Sarin
(Scroll down for video) A man of the United Kingdom, who spent nearly $250,000 to look like the Ken doll, nearly died after his body rejected his fourth nose.
28-year-old Rodrigo Alves of London, who works as a flight attendant, spent $190,000 on nose jobs, fillers, Botox, six-pack implants and liposuction in order to look like Ken.
Earlier this year, Alves spent an additional $75,000 for his fourth nose job, an eye operation, toe straightening, liposuction and an incision to cut his mouth to have a broader smile.
After having the procedure, a hole appeared in his nose due to deadly necrosis. Necrosis is the death of most or all of the cells in an organ or tissue due to illness, injury, or failure of the blood supply.
Doctors said that it seems that the new nose has been rejected by his body. Alves is currently in Spain, and is looking forward to get back to London to expert care.
He complained that his breathing has gotten worse in the last three days, and his nose is completely blocked. An infection is eating up his nose, and doctors warned him that if the infection is not stopped, it could eat up his face.
Alves revealed that he is very upset and worried, but he is not blaming his doctors because he understands that surgeries are risky.
Alves said that he hopes to get a new nose job when his infection goes away.
Kelsey McMurtry and Summer Taylor
By: Tanya Malhotra
(Scroll down for video) Two women were arrested on a charge of child neglect after allegedly leaving a baby alone in a hot car while they went to a strip club, police in Tennessee said.
Nashville police said that they have arrested 24-year-old Kelsey McMurtry and 19-year-old Summer Taylor, after they left the 14-month-old child in a hot car outside the Deja Vu strip club.
McMurtry has been charged with child neglect and criminal impersonation as she gave police a false name when she was taken into custody.
Taylor was charged with child neglect. They were booked into jail, and McMurtryas bail was set at $40,000 while Tayloras bail was set at $10,000.
According to the police investigation, McMurtry asked her friend Taylor, to watch her daughter while she danced naked at the club.
Instead of watching the baby, Taylor left the child in the car to watch her friend dance. Taylor left the windows closed. It was 72 degrees outside, but the temperature in the car rose 106 degrees.
Police found the baby dressed in heavy winter clothes and soaked with sweat. It was determined by police that the baby was in the car for 30 minutes.
The baby was taken to a hospital, and was then handed over to the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children.
Teen Awaiting Heart Transplant Raises Thousands For Medical Equipment For Wrexham Maelor
This article is old - Published: Sunday, Apr 17th, 2016
Family and friends of a teenager waiting for a heart transplant have raised thousands to fund specialist medical equipment for the Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
The fund-raising campaign, which has now topped 10,000, was launched after 14-year-old Amy Willis was struck down by a sudden virus infection, leaving her seriously ill in hospital.
The teenager who lives in Penymynydd in Flintshire, previously had no health problems but now relies on a mechanical heart to keep her alive while she waits for a donor heart to become available.
However Amy, a pupil at St Davids High School in Saltney, became ill in November 2014, suffering from a cough, cold and sickness.
She underwent open heart surgery to have the Heart Ware device implanted into her chest becoming only the fourth teenager in the UK to undergo such a procedure.
Amy now needs to have somebody with her constantly, 24 hours a day to monitor her HeartWare device.
The money raised has enabled staff at Wrexham Maelor Hospitals children unit, where Amy received treatment, to purchase a new hand-held monitor. It can provide an instant reading of a childs breathing and heart rate and even works on new born sick and premature babies.
Her mum Andrea, a finance officer, said: After three weeks Amy still wasnt picking up and couldnt eat. She was getting weaker and weaker and gastroenteritis was diagnosed before a doctor at Wrexham Maelor suspected something more serious was happening. She was transferred to Alder Hey Childrens Hospital and she went into heart failure.
Amy received medication to stabilise her condition but after returning home, she again began to deteriorate and was rushed back to Alder Hey. She was airlifted to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where she was assessed for a heart transplant and is now on the waiting list.
While there Amy underwent surgery to have the mechanical heart fitted, and her mum Andrea and 12-year-old brother Jack along with the rest of her family are now waiting anxiously for the call that a donor organ has been found.
Andrea added: Amy has a device that pumps her heart to keep it working properly.
She is able to continue going to school as along as she has someone with her who knows how her HeartWare device works. She needs someone with her 24 hours a day.
While staying at Great Ormond Street Hospital Amy was invited to the premiere of ITV Christmas drama Peter and Wendy, which was filmed at the hospital. During the premiere, at the British Film Institute, she met Hunger Games star Stanley Tucci.
When the local community heard about the familys plight they organised a series of money-spinning events including a black tie dinner and a sponsored walk by Saltney Scouts.
In total they have raised 10,000, which will be spilt between Wrexham Maelor, Alder Childrens Hospital in Merseyside and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.
The support we have received has been overwhelming and it is brilliant to be able to buy this equipment for the childrens unit that did so much to help us, added Andrea.
She is now keen to raise awareness of serious viruses like the one Amy suffered from. We dont know what strain of virus it was but it has turned our lives upside down. I would urge parents to be aware of such viruses and the effects they can have.
Rebecca Morris, Senior Sister on the childrens ward at Wrexham Maelor Hospital said: We are extremely grateful to the Willis family and their friends for raising the funds to help us to purchase this device.
It is a great piece of kit as it enables us to do a spot check or continual monitoring on a childs breathing and heart rate. Because it is portable it can be used in hospital and at home and is also of benefit to babies in a special care baby unit.
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This is the story of a soldier who killed in cold blood a terrorist who was lying on the ground wounded and helpless. This did not happen in Israel of 2016, but rather in Afghanistan in 2011, in the notorious Helmand Province. The soldier was Alexander Wayne Blackman, a sergeant in the British Royal Marines. His unit got into a firefight which also involved an Apache helicopter, hitting a Taliban militant whose name remains unknown.
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Some soldiers kicked the wounded terrorist. Blackman ordered two soldiers from his unit to not give him first aid. Suddenly, Blackman drew his weapon and shot the terrorist in the chest, sending the wounded terrorist to the next world with a quote from Shakespeare: "There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***." It wasn't just another murder, this murder was poetic. He also added, "I just broke the Geneva Convention."
None of the members in his unit report this. There were no British "B'Tselem" cameras in the area. The whole event was supposed to remain unknown, but fate decreed otherwise. The helmet camera of one of the team members documented every detail of the incident. The video fell into the hands of the civilian police by accident. An indictment for murder was filed against Blackman and some of his comrades in arms. In December 2013, he was convicted, as the judge criticized the public pressure and determined that it was "murder in cold blood."
Alexander Wayne Blackman (Photo: GettyImages)
Blackman was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of ten years. An appeal was filed, and while the conviction remained, in May 2014 his sentence was reduced to a minimum of eight years.
There was no argument over the facts. The video revealed the full picture, including that Blackman was aware that he was violating the provisions of the Geneva Convention. In fact, he was the first British soldier convicted for murder on the battlefield since World War II. There were other war crimes indictments, but the British legal system somehow always knew how to find extenuating circumstances. Blackman's story ended differently.
The conviction intensified the protests. British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, ordered soldiers not to attend demonstrations in solidarity with Blackman, because these were "political" demonstrations. Fallon's order was ignored as thousands rallied, including 700 members of the Marines, both on active duty and in the reserves. Many of the demonstrators were in uniform. 804,000 GBP were collected in a short time by readers of the Daily Mail, to help pay the convicted soldier's legal fees.
There was a heated argument in military circles. Senior commanders have made it clear that the soldier's actions were a "serious violation." Others protested the very decision to put him to trial. Colonel Oliver Lee, commander of a commando unit, harshly criticized the judicial process, and the fact no chance was given to present the difficult circumstances that led to the incident. He resigned from the military in protest. Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, claimed Blackman was "thrown to the wolves by cowards."
A 2013 poll showed that 39 percent opposed the harsh punishment given to Blackman, while 37 percent supported it. Another survey pointed to the fact that 90 percent favored limiting the amount of time that former soldiers can be put to trial. A survey among readers of the Guardian (an avowed leftist newspaper), found that 50 percent opposed the punishment given to Blackman.
Even Prince Harry expressed dissatisfaction with the conviction. The Daily Telegraph, not exactly a right-wing newspaper, published an editorial supporting the request for clemency. The BBC aired a lengthy program that introduced the dilemmas, the difficulties, and a wide range of opinions on the incident. Most of the media sided with Blackman, accompanied by the familiar arguments: Pressure, the heat of battle, handling months of impossible conditions while facing suicide bombers and snipers.
Protests in solidarity with Blackman (Photo: EPA)
A formal petition has garnered over 100,000 signatures in support of Blackman. Even elected officials stepped into action. On September 16, 2015, the British Parliament held a discussion on the case. MPs expressed resentment over the legal proceedings and the sentencing. Members of different political parties repeatedly claimed that there wasn't enough consideration given to the circumstances, presenting Blackman as a victim of these circumstances. The MPs protested that the report describing the background behind the incident has not been made public. There were no recriminations; rather there was mostly empathy for the convicted.
Last December, an additional appeal was filed. Again hundreds of reserve commando soldiers marched in support of the appeal, many of them in uniform. The Daily Mail published another editorial that claimed that this "battle for justice continues to stand out as one of the most striking legal campaigns of recent times." Even the Guardian, another British newspaper, empathized with Blackman's supporters and called him a hero, although it justified the conviction.
The story is not over. Even the Prime Minister, David Cameron, made it clear that further discussion was necessary. As time passes, public pressure to cancel the conviction only grows.
All of this happened in Britain. What a world of difference between us and them. The leading newspapers didn't cry out "fascism." Prince Harry, as well as the politicians and soldiers who expressed their solidarity with Blackman, weren't deemed "fascists," and the word "murderer" wasn't spoke in Parliament.
The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan gave rise to some serious phenomena, and clearly there were some unusual incidents. But the British elite dubbed these soldiers as "heroes." The show of solidarity with the soldier, from all walks of British society and from all political parties, hasn't signaled the "end of democracy."
In Israel, videos from B'Tselem are shown over and over again, to enhance the effect of propaganda. In Britain, it is a different story. The video got to the police by accident, and was the decisive evidence that led to the conviction. The video didn't get public exposure, although every word spoken in it is known. How did this come to be? Because the Judge Advocate General, Jeff Blackett, determined that the video may a powerful propaganda tool to the Taliban and other extremists. We know what the enlightened Falangists would say if someone were to make a similar argument in Israel.
The British case is not presented here to justify the unusual incident. Israel should be proud of the ethical norms that its commanders enforce. The response of Chief of Staff Gabi Eisenkot should be saluted. It is similar to the reaction of Nick Houghton, Chief of the Defense Staff of the British Armed Forces. He received scathing criticism by some of his predecessors and from the lords who served as judges. This incident is described here because we sometimes have to observe others to understand that we are a lot more normal than the way our media often depicts us. The incident is shown here in the context of these people, and there are too many of them, that stigmatize Israel. That's enough, guys. We're fed up with the exploitation of every unusual incident to make incredibly vile generalizations. We're tired of the endless celebration of self-made demonization.
Self-loathing in Israel has reached an alarming level. Hooligans from the right have Ya'alon in their sights, while the hooligans on the left, who hold a lot of sway in the media and in academia, have the head of the State of Israel in their sights. This is not criticism. This is not freedom of expression. This is not democracy. Make no mistake. The British story proves that Israel is sane, but its discourse is dominated by hooligans on the left and right. And that is indeed troubling.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night slammed the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) unilateral condemnation of "Israeli aggression on the Temple Mount," saying UNESCO was completely disregarding the fact that it's also a holy site for Jews.
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The resolution was passed on Friday with 33 votes in favor, six against, and 17 abstained. France, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Slovenia were among the non-Arab nations who supported the resolution, while Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States objected.
The resolution doesn't refer to the "Temple Mount," and instead calls it by its Arab name "al-Haram al-Sharif" or the "al-Aqsa Mosque," while repeatedly referring to Israel as "the occupying power."
It "deeply deplores the failure of Israel, the Occupying Power, to cease the persistent excavations and works in East Jerusalem particularly in and around the Old City, and reiterates its request to Israel, the Occupying Power, to prohibit all such works in conformity with its obligations under the provisions of the relevant UNESCO conventions, resolutions and decisions."
Western Wall and Temple Mount, Jerusalem (Photo: Gettyimages)
The resolution also calls on Israel to "allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000" and condemns "Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims access to their Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif."
Furthermore, the resolution accuses Israel of "banning Muslims from burying their dead in some spaces" and of "planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries."
"This is yet another absurd UN decision. UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years," Netanyahu said.
"The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop," the prime minister continued.
Meanwhile, Yesh Atid party chairman Yair Lapid called the UNESCO decision a "stain on the UN," and called on the organization to rescind the condemnation.
Lapid said "this decision is a worrying opportunity to rewrite history and reality as part of a continuing political attack on the State of Israel and on Judaism."
He then added that "Palestinian incitement regarding the Temple Mount which is proven time and time again to be lies has already led to the deaths of dozens of Israelis in this current wave of terrorism. (UNESCO's) decision feeds and prolongs this wave of terror, and will cause the deaths of dozens of more innocents. (UNESCO) cannot shirk away from this responsibility."
Dozens of Palestinians and Druze from the Golan Heights held a pro-Hezbollah rally in the West Bank town of Kafr Ni'me west of Ramallah on Saturday.
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The rally, which was organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was an unusual public display of support for the fighters of the terror organization. It featured Hezbollah and Palestinian flags alongside placards of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
"We stand behind and support the strategic decisions of the resistance (Hezbollah - ed.), and we don't believe that the resistance is a terror group," said Omar Shahadah, a PFLP member who participated in the rally.
Pro-Hezbollah rally in the West Bank
He added that the Palestinian fighters will continue to fight against the "expulsion of the occupation" generation after generation, and fight to establish a state on all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as their capital.
Praise for Hezbollah's involvement in Syrian civil war was also made. "We come here to say 'yes' to resistance and 'yes' to Hezbollah, which is the conscience of the resistance. We send our blessings from here to the Hezbollah resistance, and to its martyrs," said Mohammed Tah, another participant in the rally.
Protesters also condemned Arab countries who define Hezbollah as a terror organization.
However, it seems that there was a dual purpose for the rally. Over the past few days, there has been a public battle between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the PFLP. The PFLP publicly criticized Abbas for saying that he does not want another intifada to erupt, with the PFLP even calling for Abbas's resignation.
In response, Abbas decided to completely stop all Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) monetary transfers to the PFLP (both Fatah and the PFLP are a part of the PLO).
This angered the PFLP, and it seems that this rally was held with the secondary goal of expressing defiance and opposition to Abbas and the PA.
Shatila Abu Iyadh, 22, who carried out a stabbing attack in Rosh HaAyin earlier this month was indicted for attempted murder at the Central District Court in Lod on Sunday.
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According to the indictment, a dream, in which the prophet searched for her, inspired Iydah to become more religious and kill Jews as part of her new religious obligations to Allah.
The decision to carry out a stabbing attack was only taken after Idyah failed in implementing a far more deadly attack. Indeed, she set about purchasing the necessary materials to produce a bomb, which she learned to assemble from the internet, and intended to plant in two restaurants in Afek industrial park in Rosh HaAyin. Furthermore, she purchased nuts and bolts intended to maximize the damage.
Shatila Abu Iydah indicted for stabbing attack in Rosh HaAyin (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Iydah also visited the restaurants a number of times beforehand, according to the indictment, and made contact with an individual in order to acquire an automatic weapon. She rejected the weapon suppliers suggestion of purchasing a handgun, believing that an automatic weapon would cause significantly more death and destruction.
However, having failed to purchase a gun or produce a bomb, Iydah resorted to a stabbing attack.
According to the indictment, Iydah left her house on April 3 armed with two knives and headed in the direction of the industrial park, where she prayed for the attacks success, destroyed her phone and searched for a Jewish victim.
She saw a Jewish woman and decided to kill her," the indictment read. "She charged at her (victim) and stabbed her in her left hand. The shocked victim screamed for help and struggled with (Iydah) until (the victim) fell to the ground. While still on the ground, the victim continued to wrestle with her and kicked her as Iydah continued to attempt to repeatedly stab her. During the skirmish, Iydah managed to stab her again in the chest.
After I left a work meeting, she suddenly appeared opposite me. She approached me and suddenly I felt a pain as if I had been punched in the hand. I saw that she was holding a massive knife, not a Stanley office knife, but a thick knife, the victim recounted.
She did not seem to me suspicious at all. I was speaking on the phone. She didnt shout anything. She simply started waving her hand at me and began stabbing me again and again, she added.
I threw my bag at her and screamed but she continued to stab me until civilians tried to stop her, the victim recounted. They began to chase her but I didnt see the rest. It was scary. It could have ended much worse. I never thought such a thing could happen in Rosh HaAyin.
Responding to the victims call for help, bystanders helped subdue the terrorist. After investigating the scene, a number of items were found linking Iyadh to the attack including a letter in which she expressed her desire to die a martyr.
In addition to the attack carried out in Rosh HaAyain, Iydah was also charged for her intention to commit a shooting attack in Jerusalem. However, she re-assessed her chances of success after visiting the city and noticing the large security presence.
The Golan Heights will forever remain part of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday, in a signal to Russia and the United States that the strategic plateau should be excluded from any deal on Syria's future.
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Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War and officially annexed it in 1981, in a move that has not won international recognition.
"In the 19 years the Golan was under Syrian occupation, it was used for bunkers, barbed wire fences, landmines, and aggression. It was used for war. In the 49 years it has been under Israeli rule, it has been used for agriculture, tourism, economic initiatives, construction. It is being used for peace," Netanyahu said during a special government meeting in the Golan Heights.
"I chose to hold this special government meeting in the Golan Hights to send a clear message. The Golan Heights will forever remain in Israel's hands," the prime minister stated.
Government meeting in the Golan Heights (Photo: Ahiya Raved)
The Golan's population, he said, was growing every year, with some 50,000 people currently residing there and "thousands of families that are supposed to join them in the coming years."
Netanyahu vowed to keep supporting and strengthening the residents of the Golan, its towns and cities, industry, agriculture, and more. "Including decisions we'll make in this government meeting," he added.
The prime minister urged the international community "to recognize finally that the Golan will remain permanently under Israeli sovereignty."
He noted that the Golan was an integral part of the Land of Israel in ancient times, "as evidenced by the dozens of ancient synagogues around us," and that the Golan is also an integral part of Israel in current times.
He spoke of the war and destruction on the Syrian Golan, saying he told US Secretary of State John Kerry that he "doubted Syria will ever return to what it once was."
The prime minister said he told Kerry that Israel would not pose objections to any diplomatic agreement in Syria so long as it does not compromise the State of Israel's security. "Meaning, at the end of the day, Iran, Hezbollah and ISIS forces must be expelled from Syrian territory."
Iran, one of Israel's main foes, as well as Tehran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, have supported Syrian President Bashar Assad in the conflict against rebel forces and Islamic State militants.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked reiterated the prime minister's statements, saying "one of the goals of this meeting is really to publicly declare that we expect the world's nations to also recognize Israel's northern border as an international border, including the Golan Heights of course."
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad rejected Netanyahu's remarks, saying "The occupied Golan is Arab land according UN Security Council resolutions."
"We are prepared (to do) everything to restore the Golan employing all necessary means including military means," he added.
Meanwhile, pro-regime press published a message on behalf of the "Syrian residents of the occupied Golan", which said, "The visit of the racist and facist Netanyahu government will not change the position of the perserverant Golan residents."
The Syrian Foreign Ministry also sent two letters to the UN Secretary General condemning the Israeli cabinet meeting. The letter said, "Syria condemns in the strongest terms the holding of a provocative meeting of the occupation government in the occupied Syrian Golan. Syria emphasizes that the meeting is null and void. Syria calls on the UN and the UN Security Council to intervene immediately and to condemn the irresponsible meeting, and demand that the meeting that took place on Syrian soil not happen again."
Officially, the Golan was chosen as the venue for the cabinet session as a way to mark the anniversary of Netanyahu's election victory a year ago.
But the timing was seen by some political commentators as linked to talks Netanyahu is due to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria, where Moscow's military and diplomatic interventions are crucial.
Though Russia is committed to keeping Syria intact under Assad, it has not publicly broached the future of the Golan.
"Whatever happens beyond the border, the (Golan) line is not going to change," Netanyahu said, in his remarks on his conversation with Kerry.
Having sent in Russian forces last year to turn the tide against a rebellion raging since 2011, Putin, who meets Netanyahu in Moscow on Thursday, wants to preserve Assad's central rule as part of national reconciliation efforts. Other powers want him gone.
While formally neutral on the civil war next door, Israel has predicted Syria's sectarian partition is inevitable.
Past US-backed Israeli-Syrian peace efforts were predicated on a return of the Golan, where some 23,000 Israelis now live alongside roughly the same number of Druze Arabs loyal to Damascus.
Investigators from the police's Lahav 433 unit questioned Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) under caution on Sunday on suspicion of receiving illicit contribution, failing to report donations he received, and giving a false statement.
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A preliminary investigation was launched against Herzog in late March on suspicion he used funds from his private company which specializes in bringing foreign caregivers into Israel to fund his campaign during the Labor party primaries in 2013.
Allegations have been made that Herzog used a team of lawyers to hide the money, and make the financial transfer from his private company to his campaign appear legal.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Photo: AFP)
Sources close to Herzog said the Zionist Union party leader, who was questioned for almost six hours, fully cooperated with investigators and provided answers to all questions.
A statement from Herzog said he request to provide his version to police as quickly as possible, "so I could put the matter behind me - and so I did."
"I have complete trust in law enforcement authorities, and am thankful for their fair and respectable conduct," he went on to say. "After leaving (the investigations room), I am entirely convinced that there is no blot on my character and that soon, this affair will be behind me."
After leaving the investigations room, the Zionist Union leader called members of his faction to assuage their concerns, and politicians who spoke to him said he sounded "calm and at ease." Many of his faction members also commented on the party's WhatsApp group, wishing him luck and expressing their support.
When news of the preliminary investigation leaked to the press, Herzog welcomed it, but stressed that "This is political slander that the Likud party and disgruntled activists tried to spread before the elections, and it was denied at the time. I'm certain the investigation will disprove these absurd claims once and for all. I will fully cooperate with whatever I'm asked to do, so the issue can be promptly clarified."
This isn't the first time Herzog has faced such suspicions. He served as the cabinet secretary in Ehud Barak's government following the 1999 elections. Allegations arose against Baraks campaign of violating the Parties Financing Law, and Herzog was suspected of fundraising for the One Israel (Labor) party with the help of NGOs. At the time, he was questioned under warning and police recommended to indict him. But Herzog maintained silence, and the attorney general eventually decided to close the case, citing insufficient evidence.
MK Shelly Yachimovich (Zionist Union) stated, "I am convinced that Herzog has the party and the opposition's best interests in mind, and I will work in cooperation with him and party members to decide what steps to take. There is no doubt that the opposition leader being questioned under caution woesens the situation. I completely trust the police and legal authorities."
After Renana Meir witnessed a Palestinian terrorist murder her mother , Dafna, she will stand, along with her father, Natan, before the United Nations in New York on Monday to speak about the realities of terrorism for Israeli victims.
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The UN building in New York was built to symbolize the unity of the worlds' nations and their shared struggle for the improvement of their lives. In recent years, it has become a symbol for pro-Palestinian sentiment and an arena in which decision are consistently taken condemning Israel while ignoring the reality on the ground, for Israel in general and for the victims of Palestinian terrorism in particular.
Currently, in one family that experienced Palestinian terrorism in the hardest possible way is coming to that very same building to tell the world clearly and unequivocally: "Hear our pain; stop supporting terror."
Natan and Renana Meir in New York
On January 17, Dafna Meir, 38, stood at the entrance of her home in Otniel together with her 17-year-old daughter, Renana. Suddenly, she was attacked by a 16-year-old terrorist armed with a knife. With the strength that she could muster in her final moments, Dafna fought off the terrorist to prevent him from entering her home and harming her five other children, who were sleeping inside. Finally, the terrorist fled, and Dafna died. Two days later, he was caught in his home in a village near Hebron and was indicted for murder.
Even the shocking murder of Dafna Meirwhich was only one of the dozens of terror attacks and attempted attacks carried out in the latest wave of terrorismwas not enough to receive a condemnation of terrorism from the UN. On the contrary, a little more than a week after Meir's murder, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appeared before the Security Council and revealed his understanding of the attacks against Israel. "It is human nature to react to occupation," he said. "Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process. Some have taken me to task for pointing out this indisputable truth."
This is the reality that Renana Meir and her father will seek to change. They arrived in New York at the end of the week at the invitation of Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon and One Family Together, an organization which is dedicated to assisting terror victims and their families. The two are expected to take part in the discussion in the UN tomorrow and discuss the issue of terror.
The late Dafna Meir and her husband, Natan
After the two Meirs arrived in the United States, they met with Danon before their visit to the UN. They shared their visit's goal and their intention to make the voices of victims of terrorism heard before the world's representatives.
"With a pained and bleeding heart, we have come to ask for the international community's understanding for the victims of Palestinian terrorism," they said. They further hinted at the secretary general's controversial past remarks: "We hear those who say that it comes out of frustrationbut we ask, haven't we great frustration of our own?"
Israel has officially protested numerous times to the fact that terror attacks against Israelis do not merit condemnation by the UN, while other terror attacks around the world (such as those in Paris last November or in Brussels three weeks ago) receive harsh and detailed condemnation.
According to Danon, after the Paris and Brussels attacks, the Security Council published no less than 12 messages of condemnation, but its treatment of the victims of terrorism in Israel is completely different. "The council refuses to condemn Palestinian terrorism, which has taken 34 Israeli victims since the beginning of the current wave of attacks," he said over the weekend to Yedioth Ahronoth. The ambassador repeated the Israeli claim that the UN was employing a "double standard."
Danon now hopes that Natan and Renana will succeed in significantly changing the UN's attitude towards Palestinian terrorism, or at least expose the organization's hypocrisy. "We'll show the world the truth of Palestinian terrorism," he said.
"The UN must condemn Palestinian incitement and give a sharp and clear message that there is no difference between terrorism in France or Belgium and terrorism in Israel. The blood of Israeli citizens is not inferior to that of the rest of the world's citizens. The time has come to put an end to incitement authored by the Palestinian Authority."
Construction of a new home for the National Library of Israel began last week in a cornerstone laying ceremony in the presence of the President of Israel Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The cornerstone laying ceremony was a milestone in a long process of giving a proper home for the books of the people of the book, Oren Weinberg, CEO of National Library of Israel told Tazpit Press Service (TPS).
The National Library of Israel was founded in Jerusalem in 1892 by the oldest international Jewish and Zionist services organization, Bnai Brith. Since 1925 it has been housed inside the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, however with time the size of the collection and contemporary needs outgrew the Librarys old building and its dated infrastructure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin at National Library's cornerstone-laying ceremony (Photo: Eli Mandlebaum)
The new building will be built adjacent to the Knesset in Jerusalems National Quarter, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an expression of our peoples creative spirit at its finest. It is set to open to the public by 2020.
The planned complex will enable the National Library to provide state-of-the-art services to researchers, readers, visitors and online users, making accessible the millions of intellectual and cultural assets it has collected for more than 120 years.
Among the more valuable and unique collections of the National Library are the complete manuscripts and works by writer Franz Kafkawhich Kafka had ordered burned before his death, only to have his wishes disobeyed and the papers housed for decades in a Tel Aviv apartment. The National Library is also home to the complete archives of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein, as well as several manuscripts by Sir Isaac Newton dealing with theology and the Bible.
The project partners are listed as the Government of Israel, the Rothschild family, and the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman family of New York. Mr. David Gottesman and Baron Jacob Rothschild also attended and spoke at the cornerstone laying ceremony along with Israels President and Prime Minister.
Here, in our national quarter, a hill which houses our executive authority, legislative authority and judicial authority, we lay the cornerstone of our cultural-national authority, the National Library of Israel, stated President Reuven Rivlin in his speech.
The great support we received from the government of Israel, including the president and prime minister as well as other supporters of the library, is testament to the importance of this national project to Israel, Weinberg told TPS.
Arab residents of East Jerusalem threw Molotov cocktails Saturday at police and Border Policeman in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Ras al-Amud, adjacent to the Jewish neighborhood of Ma'ale ha-Zeitim. The forces arrested one of the assailants. Residents of the Ma'ale ha-Zeitim neighborhood say such incidents occur almost daily.
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A member of the Ma'ale ha-Zeitim Security Committee, Joshua Wander, said that Arabs practically hurl Molotov cocktails at Jewish homes and police forces nightly. He added that he heard explosions last night: "I ran outside and I saw the fire and that they (the police) had arrested a number of young persons. It seems that the police had been waiting for them and we would like to thank the police for (its) work."
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A video that has spread on Palestinian social networks shows Molotov cocktails being thrown in addition to one of throwers being injured by a Molotov cocktail thrown by another Arab. According to a resident of Ma'ale ha-Zeitim, the documentation of these incidents by Palestinians demonstrates that they are organized. He said. "Throwing Molotov cocktails lasts five seconds. They succeeded in capturing those moments on a camera, which means photographer is one of them."
Maor Tzemah from "Go, Jerusalem," an organization advocating for the full application of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, said, "Unfortunately throwing Molotov cocktails in Jerusalem has become a routine affair. I call on the minister of internal security to use his authority and order the end to this dangerous phenomenon."
Hamas is in operational distress, and we, for some reason, are starting to panic about war. Sure, the Palestinian media has indeed been reporting for the past few days on heavy armament operations by the IDF in the southern Gaza strip (inside Palestinian territory) but not a single bullet has been fired in that zone. It isn't Hamas that's going to warit's Hamas that's at a loss. But the drums of panic are beating incessantly, as though we had nothing else that we needed to worry about.
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This isn't the first time that headlines may lead to a confrontation following what the defense establishment has termed "Hamas's miscalculation." Or, in other words: an incorrect reading of Israeli steps and especially pronouncements. Recently, a few events have taken place here and some comments have been made that are not necessarily connected. This sequence created false connections that led to a feeling of preparedness and alertness ahead of a conflict in the south.
It's not surprising that Israel and Hamas have been exchanging mutually calming messages over the past few days. It goes without saying that the Palestinian side did not see any sign indicating an offensive.
Hamas fighters in Gaza (Photo: AFP)
Hamas's arms race has not changed in recent days, just as Israel's arms race against Gaza hasn't changed. If there is any change, it should worry more than just Hamas. In this race, the winning side will have more means, more technology and more manpower. Hamas has not succeeded in smuggling in standard rockets (which are deadlier), and their local production, resumed following Operation Protective Edge, is not of a high enough quality.
In contrast, Hamas is attempting to strengthen its entire offensive network, which is intended to wreak havoc in the Gaza border region. The goal here is to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire quickly and under Hamas's conditions: They don't have a great success rate in this field, either.
When we compare the factors pushing for a confrontation in Gaza to the factors encouraging restraint, the result isn't balanced. The factors pushing for a conflict are the military wing of Hamas (which is not likely to accept the political wing's authority) and the fact that the Hamas leadership is failing both to rehabilitate Hamas's standing in its area and also to physically rehabilitate Gaza. All this could cause Mohammed Deif (the head of Hamas's military wing) to lead an independent military operation.
On the other hand, at the top of the list of the restraining factors is Hamas's political standing. Hamas doesn't currently have a patron in the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood is weak in the region: Jordan recently shut down their branches; they're being chased out of Egypt; Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have outlawed them.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at IOC summit (Photo: Reuters)
On Saturday, at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Turkey, Iran (terrorism's patron in the Gaza Strip) was "deplored (for its) interference in the internal affairs of the States of the regionand its continued support for terrorism." Iranian President Hassan Rouhani left the summit in disgrace before its conclusion.
Egypt has strengthened its grip on Gaza and won't tolerate any violence on Hamas's part in the near future. Simultaneously, Hamas has been careful not to join from Gaza any of the confrontations in the West Bank. This is part of Protective Edge's deterrent.
The IDF's Southern Command has completed its defense plans vis-a-vis Gaza and has increased its strength.
Hamas's military rehabilitation is partial. If it decides to break the rules tomorrow morning, it would be a crazy decision for them. But Hamas is a very calculating organization; it doesn't intend to lose the assets that it has accumulated in one frenzied moment. The lessons of the last round of panicking should taken to heart. Such rounds, which aren't backed up by facts and are fed mostly by anxiety, can lead to a real outbreak.
Last week saw the city set a sale record, with a Potts Point terrace house selling for $13m, setting a new Australian price record for the sale of terrace house.
According to a report in Fairfax media outlets, the four-bedroom, five bathroom terrace achieved the record price thanks to an extensive renovation and the changes the Potts Point and Kings Cross area have undergone due to the New South Wales governments controversial lockout laws.
Since the lockout laws, the value of terraces have probably gone up 20% because it really is becoming Sydneys Soho, Selling agent Jason Booth from Richardson and Welch told Fairfax.
And with this house, its achieved the Australian record price for a terrace because theres simply nothing like it in the area its simply a beautifully renovated terrace theres not many in Potts Point that are this good, Booth told Fairfax.
The $13m sale price for the property price represents an $8m windfall for the vendors, who purchased the property in 2014.
The previous Australian record price for a terrace house was set in 2014, when a terrace in Melbournes Albert Park sold for $12m.
The previous record Sydney terrace price was $7.3m, when Designer Collette Dinnigan sold a Paddington terrace in 2011.
New Delhi: Hitting back at Nitish Kumar who has called for a 'Sangh-mukt' (Sangh-free) country "to save democracy", BJP on Sunday said critics of RSS should at least attend its 'shakha' for a day to clear their "misconceptions".
The party made it clear that it was unfazed by efforts to form a united front to counter it and said such attempts to stop the Modi government "from working for the development of the country and for the poor will not succeed".
BJP spokesperson Shrikant Sharma launched a scathing attack on the Nitish government in Bihar, saying the state is back to "jungle raj" days.
He said that everyone was aware of JD(U) leader's national ambitions. Taking a dig at the Congress, Sharma asked party President Sonia Gandhi to make it clear if Rahul Gandhi will lead such a front or will he be just part of it.
"Nitish Kumar has called for an RSS-free India. You have stayed with people from Sangh for long. You have had a long coalition with BJP. You have been participating in BJP programme also. But you have called for a Sangh-free India. It is better you learn and understand the Sangh a little bit.
"And for that visiting the Shakha of the Sangh is the best. Those who oppose the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the country should first at least visit its 'shakha' (meeting).
"Only then will they have a better understanding and their misconceptions cleared. Only then the technical glitches in their software will be fixed," Sharma said, stressing that the RSS has always worked in the interest of the country.
Kumar's JD(U) had snapped its 17-year-old alliance with BJP in 2013 as it was opposed to naming Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general election.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, Sharma cautioned the Bihar Chief Minister saying that from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, and from Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, all had opposed the RSS but the organisation has only grown.
He also questioned Nitish's call to all non-BJP, non-RSS organisations to come under one banner "to save democracy and to maintain the country's unity by putting a brake on increasing activities of communal forces".
"The attempt is only to stop the Modi government to take steps for development of the country, to stop job opportunities for the youth and to stop the government from helping the poor," Sharma said.
His party colleague and Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Nitish Kumar used to once chant anti-Congress statements, but was now standing with the Congress.
"You (Nitish) are unable to digest the fact that we are working for poor, weaker sections of the society. And therefore, you are not opposing BJP but the efforts to uplift the weaker sections and to empower the poor. We have no objections to what he says. He won't succeed in his motive," Naqvi said.
New Delhi: A four-month-old girl, who was allegedly kidnapped by her uncle from her residence in northeast Delhi's Nehru Vihar locality and sold off to an occultist for ritual human sacrifice, has been rescued, police said today.
The maternal uncle of the infant Asif (22), the occultist (tantrik) Mohammed Illyas (35) and Dilshad (32), have been arrested in connection with the incident, DCP (Northeast) A K Singla said.
According to police, the four-month-old daughter of Imrana and Shan Mohammed went missing from their residence in Nehru Vihar locality on Friday evening, following which they informed the police.
A thorough search was conducted and when the girl could not be traced, the police registered a case of abduction at Khajuri Khas Police Station.
With the help of local intelligence, the police zeroed in on Asif. It later emerged that he had sold the girl to Illyas, who was about to conduct ritual human sacrifice at a cremation ground in Ghaziabad's Loni.
A team was rushed to Ghaziabad and the girl was rescued within 6 hours.
Around Rs 10,000 in cash, part of the token money paid by the occultist to Asif, were recovered along with "sacrificial instruments" from the possession of the accused men, police said.
Illyas, who claims himself to be a follower of 'Sufism', is married and has three children. During interrogation, he told the police that the ritual was for enhancing his powers of witchcraft. He allegedly roped in others to execute the plan, police added.
Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Sunday appealed to people to maintain peace and harmony in the state.
She tweeted: "I urge my fellow citizens of Gujarat to maintain peace and harmony across state. Violence has never and will not be the solution of any matter."
"As we all know it, Gujarat government has formed committee of 7 Ministers which is making persistent efforts to resolve the issue amicably. My sincere appeal to everyone is to cooperate with the state government and help maintain peace of our beloved Gujarat," she wrote in another post.
I urge my fellow citizens of Gujarat to maintain peace & harmony across state. Violence has never & will not be the solution of any matter. Anandiben Patel (@anandibenpatel) April 17, 2016
As we all know it, Gujarat Government has formed committee of 7 Ministers which is making persistent efforts to resolve the issue amicably. Anandiben Patel (@anandibenpatel) April 17, 2016
My sincere appeal to everyone is to cooperate with the State Government & help maintain peace of our beloved Gujarat. Anandiben Patel (@anandibenpatel) April 17, 2016
Curfew was today clamped in Mehsana town in Gujarat and mobile internet service banned as a massive rally of the Patel community demanding reservation and immediate release of their jailed leaders turned violent with two buildings being set ablaze and some police vehicles damaged.
"We have imposed a curfew in Mehsana town till tomorrow morning. Mobile internet service has been suspended during this period. The violent mob set ablaze two government properties. A sub-divisional magistrate and a mamlatdar (revenue officer) were injured in the stone-pelting," said Lochan Sehra, Collector of Mehsana, 73 km from Ahmedabad.
A godown of Food Corporation of India and a district office were set on fire, police said, adding 15 persons have been detained in this connection. Five policemen and two officials sustained injuries in the incidents, police said while agitators claimed that 25 of their supporters were injured in police action.
In Surat, police detained 435 Patel agitators who hit the streets after learning about incidents in Mehsana. Surat police commissioner Ashish Bhatia said the situation was under control. Mobile internet services were banned also in Surat and Rajkot as a precautionary measure, district authorities said.
In Mehsana, police used lathicharge and fired teargas shells on the agitators who allegedly engaged in stone- pelting. Patel protesters had gathered at Modhera crossroad as part of the `Jail Bharo' agitation announced by the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), one of the prominent groups seeking OBC quota for the Patel community. SPG chief Lalji Patel received head injury during the face-off with the police.
A blame game erupted with police claiming they resorted to lathicharge only after some started hurling stones at them while Patel alleged that agitators were targeted without any provocation.
"Our protest was peaceful as announced earlier. However, police suddenly hit me and some of our members when we were walking ahead of the procession. I was hit on head. You can see the blood on my face. We were beaten up without any provocation," said Patel, who along with some other agitators were detained by the police, as per PTI.
In-charge DGP of Gujarat PP Pandey claimed the situation deteriorated only after some people resorted to violence. "Police always work to establish peace. The gathering was peaceful initially. However, the situation deteriorated only after some persons resorted to violence and damaged property," Pandey said.
Meanwhile, SPG as well as Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) have given a call for `Gujarat Bandh' tomorrow.
(With PTI inputs)
Mehsana: A massive rally of the Patel community at Mehsana town in Gujarat demanding reservation and release of their jailed leaders on Sunday turned violent as police used lathicharge and fired teargas shells on the agitators who allegedly engaged in stone-pelting.
Patel protesters had gathered at Modhera crossroad as part of the `Jail Bharo' agitation announced by the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), one of the prominent groups seeking OBC quota for the Patel community.
In view of the violence, all bus routes in Botad district was suspended as precautionary measures.
Also, curfew has been imposed in Mehsana and internet services has been suspended till 12 midnight tomorrow.
Mobile internet services has also been suspended in Rajkot and Surat.
"We have imposed a curfew in Mehsana town till tomorrow morning. Mobile internet service has been suspended during this period. The violent mob set ablaze two government properties. A sub-divisional magistrate and a mamlatdar (revenue officer) were injured in the stone-pelting," said Lochan Sehra, Collector of Mehsana, 73 km from Ahmedabad.
"Section 144 imposed, mobile internet services suspended till April 19th," Surat police commissioner Ashish Bhatia said.
At the same time, SPG as well as Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) have given a call for `Gujarat Bandh' tomorrow.
"District administration did not grant permission, rejection letter was also sent on time. Protesters pelted stones, set SDM's vehicle on fire. Police then used tear gas shells," Sehra added, as per ANI.
"Protesters also attempted to set two government properties on fire. Situation is now under control," he further said.
On the other hand, Ashish Bhatia, Surat Police Commissioner said, "Strict action will b taken against people who will try to disrupt peace in state."
Earlier, SPG chief Lalji Patel reportedly received head injury during the face-off with the police.
While the police claimed they resorted to lathicharge only after some persons started throwing stones at the police vehicles, Lalji Patel alleged that Patel agitators were targeted without any provocation.
"Our protest was peaceful as announced earlier. However, police suddenly hit me and some of our members when we were walking ahead of the procession. I was hit on head. You can see the blood on my face. We were beaten up without any provocation," said Patel, who along with some other agitators were detained by the police subsequently, as per PTI.
In-charge DGP of Gujarat PP Pandey claimed the situation deteriorated only after some people resorted to violence.
"Police always work to establish peace. The gathering was peaceful initially. However, the situation deteriorated only after some persons resorted to violence and damaged property. I have already sent additional force to handle the situation," Pandey said.
In Surat, police detained as many as 435 Patel agitators who came out on streets after learning about incidents in Mehsana.
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh talked to Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel in view of the situation in the state.
HM spoke to Gujarat CM Smt. @anandibenpatel who apprised him of the situation in the state post the reports of clashes in Mehsana district HMO India (@HMOIndia) April 17, 2016
On her part, Gujarat CM tweeted: "I urge my fellow citizens of Gujarat to maintain peace and harmony across state. Violence has never and will not be the solution of any matter."
I urge my fellow citizens of Gujarat to maintain peace & harmony across state. Violence has never & will not be the solution of any matter. April 17, 2016
As we all know it, Gujarat Government has formed committee of 7 Ministers which is making persistent efforts to resolve the issue amicably. Anandiben Patel (@anandibenpatel) April 17, 2016
(With Agency inputs)
Surat: The Patidar community on Sunday held demonstrations in various parts of the state demanding release of their leader Hardik Patel from the jail.
The Patidars launched 'Jail Bharo Andolan' in the state and shouted slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of the state.
According to reports, thousands of protesters came out on the streets in Patel-dominated regions of Ahmedabad and Mehsana and demanded that the Gujarat Police put them behind the bars till the time their leader Hardik Patel is not released from the jail.
As per the reports, the protest soon led to clash between police and Patidar community with cops finally using tear gas shells to control the mob at Varachha Road in Surat. Several agitators have been taken into detention.
22-year-old Hardik, the Patidar quota agitation leader, was arrested on sedition and waging war against the state charges, in October last year and has been behind bars since then.
The Patels have demanded a reservation of 10 per cent in education institutions and governmental jobs. However, the state government has cited the 49 per cent reservation cap imposed by Supreme Court, as the reason behind declining their demand.
Beijing: Recurring incidents of incursions, implementation of an agreement to reduce tensions between border patrols and Sino-India strategic concerns were among the issues expected to figure in Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's talks with top Chinese military officials on Monday.
Parrikar, who arrived here from Shanghai by a special aircraft, will hold talks with Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) General Fan Changlong and others.
CMC which is the supreme commanding body of the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) is headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Parrikar will call on Premier Li Keqiang. Later, he would visit China's recently integrated western command military headquarters which has jurisdiction over border with India.
The minister is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry.
While Indian officials said the talks were expected to review the whole gamut of bilateral ties which showed considerable improvements in the recent times, India's concerns over aggressive patrolling by Chinese troops especially in the Ladakh sector remained high.
China denies any incursions, asserting that its troops patrolled areas of its territory in the 3,488-km long disputed border.
The two countries may discuss further modalities of the 2013 Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) which has outlined various measures to address tensions arising out of the aggressive patrolling by both sides.
India and China also conduct an annual dialogue of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination to deal with aggressive patrolling by troops.
It helped to bring down tensions over Chinese incursions during the key visits of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2013 followed by President Xi Jinping a year later.
Both sides opened several border points for troops and officers on the ground to interact with each other to build good relations.
Recent reports from India spoke of the presence of Chinese troops in the forward positions of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) which People's Liberation Army (PLA) dismissed as "groundless".
The two militaries also have strategic concerns over each other's military tie-ups with other countries and development of their militaries.
Ahead of Parrikar's visit, China hinted that it may take up the recent decision by India to open up military bases to US for logistics and efforts to conclude a pact to share aircraft sharing technologies. China which is grappling with heavy US expansion under the Asia Pivot to counter Chinese military especially in the South China Sea is sensitive to any close military cooperation between New Delhi and Washington.
Beijing is also concerned over the inclusion of Japan in the Malabar naval exercises along with US.
On its part, India has its concerns over Chinese expansion in the Indian Ocean, regarded as India's backyard with billions dollar deals to build ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan under the Silk Road initiative.
Both sides are also expected to discuss increasing military exchanges at senior levels and allow their officers into their top defence institutions in an effort to consolidate improvement in defence ties.
Last year, China said it had taken positive note of Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha's comment that India do not look at China as an adversary anymore.
Parrikar's five-day visit will be immediately followed by a visit by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who is scheduled to hold 19th Boundary Dialogue with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi later next week.
Doval and Yang, who are designated Special Representatives for boundary talks, also have a mandate to discuss entire gamut of bilateral issues.
The contentious issue of China blocking India's attempts in the UN to ban Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad's (JeM) chief Masood Azhar is expected to figure in their talks.
Before leaving for Beijing, Parrikar, who arrived in Shanghai last night, visited Urban Planning Exhibition Centre where he was briefed by the Chinese officials on the urban planning achievements in China's biggest metropolis which has population of over 22 million.
The briefing focussed on use of innovative technologies and smart city transportations, Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a statement.
He also addressed members of the Indian community at a meeting held at the Shanghai Consulate where he spoke of his government's "steadfast commitment" at securing interests of Indians living abroad.
The defence minister said there was a significant momentum in India's economy, which had been successful in attracting large investments under the 'Make in India' initiative.
He also answered questions from the audience focussing on issues ranging from India?s self reliance in defence production, education to high end technologies and retaining skilled talented students, the press release said.
Tehran: India and oil-rich Iran today decided to significantly expand engagement in their overall ties, particularly in boosting Indian investment in joint ventures in oil and gas sectors in the Persian Gulf nation where foreign investors from major economic powers are rushing in to get early footholds after lifting of nuclear sanctions.
In talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, the two sides agreed that pending agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty should be concluded on a priority basis to spur trade and investment.
Enhancing energy cooperation and development of the Chabahar port were the centerpiece of talks which was mostly dominated by economic issues.
"The talks were very successful and would give new energy to our centuries old ties with Iran. In particular, the economic partnership will get considerable fillip as a result of today?s forward looking talks," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup told PTI.
Sources said the issue of Kulbhushan Jadhav was not at all raised by the Iranian side.
Jadhav was reportedly arrested in Balochistan after he entered from Iran and was accused by Pakistan of planning "subversive activities" in the country.
Both sides discussed the progress on the Chabahar project and agreed that the commercial contract on Chabahar as well as the modalities for extending USD 150 million credit for Chabahar Port should be signed in the "very near future".
Decisions on this line of credit, as well as USD 400 million credit line for supply of steel rails from India have already been taken by India.
Swarup said both sides discussed the energy partnership and Iran invited greater Indian participation in its oil and gas sector. "Iran said it would be happy to participate in the refinery sector in India."
On Farzad ? B oil field project, both sides took note of the constructive discussions held during the recent visit to Iran of Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
"The Indian side welcomed the Iranian decision to keep the Farzad ? B field outside the auction basket.?The concerned companies have been directed to complete their contractual negotiations in a time bound manner.?Iranian side had earlier communicated their gas pricing formula and expressed their desire for Indian investment in the Chabahar SEZ," he said.
"In terms of connectivity, Iran said it supported India?s desire to join the Ashgabat Agreement. The two ministers reviewed the progress made in the International North South Transport Corridor.?IRCON from India would be visiting Iran for discussions on the Chabahar?Zahedan Railway link," said the spokesperson.
On Trade and Investment, the two sides agreed that with the lifting of sanctions, the potential for expanding these ties was immense.
"They agreed that pending agreements such as Preferential Trade Agreement, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty should be concluded on a priority basis," said Swarup.
New Delhi: In an opinion piece in Dawn on Sunday, former Pakistani envoy to the United Nations Munir Akram raised concerns over the collaborations between India and the United States and said that the Indo-American alliance has obvious and significant negative implications for Pakistans security.
To drive home his point he referred to a recent remark by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter who reportedly said in a meeting with senior Pakistani military officials that he is a Friend of India.
The former diplomat termed the statement as superfluous and said that the US defence secretary's closeness to the Indians is all too evident.
In the article, he appears to be perturbed over the vast scope and depth of the planned Indo-US military relationship.
India and the US have recently agreed on co-production of advanced defence instruments, including collaboration on advanced jet engines and aircraft carrier technologies.
He attributed this fresh thaw in the Indo-US relation to India's endorsment of the US stand on the South China Sea islands dispute with China -- freedom of navigation and over-flight throughout the South China Sea region.
The article claimed that the US has opened all military and technology doors to India, and encouraged Israel and other allies to do so as well.
It further noted that India has been the worlds largest arms importer For the past eight years.
The former diplomat alleged that the US's military and political support to India has encouraged New Delhi in its bellicose behaviour towards Pakistan.
He warned that Pakistan faces national security risk due to the US' support to India, and maintained that Washington has imposed severe discriminatory restraints on Pakistans acquisition of advanced technologies.
The US policy opposes Pakistans defensive responses to Indias military build-up and Pressure has also even been exerted on China not to transfer advanced weaponry to Pakistan.
As a recourse to the current Pakistani quagmire situation, the opinion piece suggested that Unless this dynamic is changed, Pakistans capabilities for conventional defence and nuclear deterrence against India could be significantly eroded.
New Delhi: Entry fee to World Heritage Monument Taj Mahal is likely to go up again as the Agra Development Authority (ADA) has proposed an increase in its share, weeks after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) effected a steep hike in ticket cost.
Entry ticket to Taj Mahal consists of two components - ASI fee and ADA charge, called 'toll tax'. Agra is the only place in the country where such 'toll tax' is collected from visitors to historical monuments.
From April 1, ASI had effected a three-fold increase in its share in the entry ticket for the 32 World Heritage Monuments, including Taj Mahal, to Rs 30 from Rs 10 for domestic visitor, while it was raised by 100 percent to Rs 500 from Rs 250 for a foreign national.
At present, a foreigner pays Rs 1,000 as entry fee for Taj Mahal with ASI and ADA bagging Rs 500 each, while domestic visitors shell out Rs 40 -- Rs 30 as ASI fee and Rs 10 ADA charge.
"There is a proposal for increasing the toll tax. It is pending with the state government for its approval," ADA Chairman Pradip Bhatnagar told PTI over phone.
However, he declined to give a time frame for the implementation of the proposal, saying the government has to give green signal to the long-pending proposal.
Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) President Subhash Goyal said if such a proposal is implemented, it would further reduce the number of Taj visitors, which is already witnessing a decline.
"ADA has demanded increasing its fee by 100 per cent to Rs 1,000 from the current Rs 500. If ASI's fee of Rs 500 is added to it, then a foreign national would be paying Rs 1,500 for visiting Taj. Similarly, there would also be hike in fee for domestic visitors. This is going to badly affect the number of Taj visitors," he said.
He said tour operators are against any move to increase the ticket price and would protest if the demand of ADA for fee hike is accepted.
Jalna: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday justified the move to impose a 20 per cent cut in water supply for breweries and distilleries in Aurangabad area, saying his government's "first priority" is to provide water for drinking.
"The government's first priority is to give water for drinking purpose not to wine factories. I have directed the divisional commissioner and collector to cut water to breweries and distilleries," Fadnavis said.
He was speaking at a multi-religious mass marriage ceremony organised by the BJP and Shivaji Maharaj Smarak Samiti at New Monda here.
Faced with acute water shortage, Aurangabad authorities in parched Marathwada region yesterday announced 10 per cent cut in water supply for the industrial units and 20 per cent for breweries and distilleries in the industrial area.
The CM conceded that the situation in Marathwada region is grim.
Appealing to opposition parties to help government tackle drought, the CM said, "though State has debt of Rs 3.5 lakh crore, the government would not hesitate to take loan to help farmers. The government has already released a package of Rs 10,000 crore for farmers this year".
On the move to supplying water through trains to parched Latur in Marathwada region, Fadnavis said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed Railway Minister to provide water through train to Latur".
He said under Food Security Scheme, 68 lakh families have benefited.
On the occasion, he announced a scheme under which Rs 25,000 will be given to a newly-wed couple belonging to SC and ST communities towards financial assistance and Rs 15,000 to those couples from Economically Backward Class (EBC) from general category.
Fadnavis was accompanied by Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse, Education Minister Vinod Tawde, Co-operatives Minister Chandrakant Patil, Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde, MoS (Social Justice) Dilip Kamble and party MLAs.
In his speech, Khadse, who came under flak recently after authorities in Latur district reportedly wasted 10,000 litre water for preparing a makeshift helipad for his tour, blamed media for raising "hue and cry" over a "non-issue".
"The collector there used polluted water for building the helipad but the media blew the issue out of proportion and published news," he said.
Today's mass wedding included couples of different religions, with maximum being Hindu (406). There were 94 Buddhist couples, followed by Muslim and Christian, 14 each. They hailed from Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani, Aurangabad and Jalna districts in Marathwada.
Krishnanagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, who has accepted defeat in the assembly elections, is fighting the battle with the Election Commission and not with other political parties.
Addressing a rally in Krishnanagar located in Nadia district, Prime Minister Modi said, "Mamata Banerjee ji is not fighting the elections with other political parties but with the Election Commission. She and her party have accepted the defeat and that is why they are not fighting with any political party but with the Election Commission."
"Standing on the verge of defeat, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has lost its mental balance. The Election Commission is an independent authority, which is praised all over the world," he added.
Prime Minister Modi also pulled up the TMC chief for making baseless statements instead of replying to the Election Commission`s notice on time."The Election Commission issued a notice to Mamata ji for her language and her behaviour. That was their job. I have heard that Chief Secretary of West Bengal replied to Election Commission`s notice issued to Mamata," Prime Minister Modi said.
"Your job was to reply to the Election Commission. But you replied saying that you will see the Election Commission after May 19. If this has happened, it`s wrong because the Election Commission had issued notice to Mamata Banerjee, the TMC leader not Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister," he added.
Reaching out to the voters, the Prime Minister further said Banerjee who has ignored the plight of the people, is focusing more on the syndicate culture."If Mamata ji would have addressed the sufferings of the people then there would have been no need of her to threaten the Election Commission. Mamata didi is also a part of syndicate culture. Vivekananda flyover case is a result of this culture," he added.
"Do you know, former prime minister Indira Gandhi lost her membership for six years because she misused her power. Whether it`s the Congress or the TMC, both have similar lineage. Both have destroyed West Bengal," he further said.
Unfazed by a showcause notice issued by the Election Commission for violating the Model Code of Conduct during her election rally in Asansol, Banerjee had on Thursday said she did not regret whatever she had said and would say that thousand times.
"The Election Commission has issued a show-cause notice over what I had said, but I don`t regret and will say it thousand times," Banerjee said while addressing an election rally in Birbhum.
"If somebody accuses me of theft, I will seek answer from him, because this is my democratic right," she added.In an apparent reference to the EC, the TMC chief said, "They want to transfer my police officers as well as me. But if I am buried here, you will see me in Delhi. I am not scared and I stand by what I say. These people are dancing to the tunes of the BJP. It won`t work. I`ll fight back."
Asansol went to polls on April 11 and the TMC chief is accused of violating the poll code in an election rally in Asansol where she announced the creation of a new district.Meanwhile, the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly polls witnessed a voter turnout of 70.33 percent till 3 pm on Sunday.
New Delhi: Even if Narendra Modi hasn't lived up to the expectations which he aroused two years ago, he is still the best person for turning India into a modern and economically advanced country.
The claim about modernity may seem odd considering that the medievalists of the saffron brotherhood constitute an influential section of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and their affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - not to mention the abusive Internet Hindus.
Moreover, the hope that Modi will restrain them hasn't been fulfilled. There are still elements who call for beheading those who do not chant a slogan which is used by the saffronites to check a person's patriotism.
Besides, the Sangh Parivar's familiar aversion to beef is still in place, although the unavoidable modernistic trends have compelled some of the BJP-run state governments like Goa to allow the consumption of the forbidden meat.
If, notwithstanding these negative points, Modi is ahead of other leaders in the popularity stakes, as seen in an Economic Times-TNSA survey, the reason is his outlook, which is in sync with the 21st century.
Fortunately for the BJP, this evidence of belonging to the present times cannot be found in some of the others.
Consider, for instance, the credentials of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who wants to lead an anti-BJP combine at the national level to replicate the success of the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) in his state.
Yet, the retrogressive nature of his ideas shows that he cannot look beyond the familiar obsession of the Hindi-belt politicians with caste. Not only does he want his caste brethren to find employment in the private sector through quotas, thereby reducing this sole successful segment of the economy to another version of the loss-making public sector, Nitish Kumar is also in favour of expanding the ambit of reservations beyond the 50 percent limit set by the Supreme Court.
Inextricably related to this desire to boost the quota system is the Janata Dal-United chief's conviction that catering for the backward castes on the plea of social justice is a surefire way to enable his party to win elections and for him to gain popularity.
He is not bothered about job creation via industrial expansion, but wants only to enable the backward castes, the main support base of the mahagathbandhan, to secure government employment via the reservation system which looks at birth and not educational certificates.
If Nitish Kumar's ideas are implemented, India can say farewell to economic or educational progress. While the quota-based entries into official service will squeeze out the meritorious, the educational system will see a preponderance of those for whom caste is the route to a degree and not a devotion to studies.
If Nitish Kumar had endorsed the elimination of the wealthy "creamy layer" from the beneficiaries of quotas, it would have at least shown that he is not wholly focussed on electoral success and has some interest in taking everyone along, including the upper castes, in the task of ensuring the country's progress. But he apparently thinks that such a demonstration of reasonableness will be detrimental to his position as a backward caste leader because it will make him vulnerable to the machinations of Lau Prasad and other votaries of caste-based affirmative action.
There is not a word, therefore, from him on industries, infrastructure, educational advancement, health facilities and so on. It is only about caste.
This is where Modi is different. Though he belongs to a backward caste himself - he is a ghanchi or teli - Modi almost never talks in terms of caste.
Nor of Hindus like others in the Hindutva brigade who want to give the community a status above all others in the country. Indeed, Modi has distanced himself from the saffronites to such an extent that he is the only one among them to have described Islam as a religion of peace, a concept which is anathema to the Sangh parivar.
There is little doubt that Modi has shown greater interest than any other politician in recent years in India's industrial development. Hence his emphasis on projects like Make in India and entrepreneurial endeavours like Start Up India, Stand Up India, Skill India, Digital India and so on.
His predecessor, Manmohan Singh, also favoured market-oriented economic reforms and succeeded in effecting the fastest ever reduction in overall poverty between 2005-06 and 2011-12, according to the Modi government's chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian.
But Manmohan Singh was stopped in his tracks by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who feared that the "accidental" prime minister's economic success will make him a hero and put her son Rahul Gandhi in the shade.
Modi has picked up from where the gentle sardar had left off and, ironically, facing resistance from none other than Sonia Gandhi, who has threatened to stall the goods and services tax, one of the key components of the economic reforms.
But the middle class, one of Modi's major bases of support, is aware that only he can make the growth rate cross eight per cent, as Subramanian expects, and ensure a significant erosion in the levels of poverty.
Bengaluru: Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa has reportedly returned the Rs.1crore SUV that he had borrowed for party works to its owner following a widespread public and media criticism, alleging him of being extravagant.
According to ANI, Yeddyurappa has returned the luxury vehicle to its rightful owner former industries minister Murugesh Nirani after the row.
The BJP leader on Saturday claimed that the Land Cruiser was given to him by a party colleague and he would return it after use.
This is the second such incident involving allegations of politicians' extravagant lifestyle in the state after Karnataka Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah who came under attack from the Opposition for his expensive wristwatch.
Siddaramaiah's diamond studded Hublot watch made headlines after JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy first revealed the watch's value.
Siddaramaiah said that the watch was given to him by a person named Dr Girish Chandra Verma, adding that the watch was 'second hand'.
"Murugesh Nirani gave me this car for party work. After that, he will take back the car. I am going around in the state, so a good car is required, that's what he told me," NDTV quoted Yeddyurappa as saying.
Yeddyurappa had returned to the BJP fold ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.He has set a target of winning at least 150 seats out of 225 seats in the state Assembly.
Doha: The world`s top oil producers failed to reach agreement on capping output in Doha Sunday amid a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran and raising fears about how markets will react.
Qatari Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said oil producers concluded after six hours of negotiations that they needed "more time".
"The general conclusion was that we need more time to consult among ourselves in OPEC and non-OPEC producers," Sada said.
Rivalry between OPEC and regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran appear to have prevented a deal despite the six-hour formal meeting between 18 producers.
Iran boycotted the meeting after refusing to abide by any production freeze agreement saying it wants to raise its output to pre-sanctions levels.
Asked if Iran was at the centre of discussions which included non-OPEC Russia, the world`s top producer, Sada said that Tehran`s participation would have made any freeze more effective.
"We respect their (Iran`s) position... certainly a freeze will be more effective if major producers including Iran are included," said Sada.
"That would help rebalance the market."
Saudi deputy crown prince Mohamed bin Salman had insisted that Riyadh will not accept a freeze in production without Iran`s participation.
Sada said that no date was fixed for any meeting in the future among oil producers, adding they needed to have more consultations.
The impact of the failure of the much-anticipated meeting on prices could be catastrophic.
The Qatari minister however tried to play down the full impact on crude prices, saying that the oil market fundamentals have improved since February when Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar struck an initial agreement on the freeze.
Sada said he expected the prices to be more responsive to fundamentals rather than to sentiment.
The meeting aimed at capping output to reduce a production glut in the market that sent prices crashing.
Talks were delayed by several hours after some countries demanded changes to a draft agreement that calls for freezing production until October, a delegate told AFP.
The delegate said a "small team of experts" was assigned to make the changes before the ministers went into the official meeting in the afternoon.
Nations inside and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are anxious to stem a market nosedive that has cost exporters billions in lost revenue.
From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40.Saudi Arabia has insisted all major producers must be on board for the freeze to work, including fellow OPEC member and regional rival Iran.
But Tehran, which has boosted production following the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal with world powers, has rejected any talk of a freeze.
Iran had initially said its OPEC representative would participate in the talks but on Sunday Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh announced Tehran would send no delegation at all.
"The Doha meeting is for people who want to participate in the production freeze plan... but since Iran isn`t expected to sign up to the plan the presence of an Iranian representative isn`t necessary," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Shana news agency.
"Iran will in no way give up its historic production quota," Zanganeh said.
OPEC said on Wednesday that Iranian oil production in March was 3.3 million bpd, up from 2.9 million in January, but still short of its pre-embargo level of around 4.0 million.
OPEC said its members pumped 32.25 million bpd in March -- with Saudi Arabia accounting for nearly a third -- up from an average of 31.85 million bpd in 2015.
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut production despite the price fall, as it seeks to drive less-competitive players, especially US shale producers, out of the market.
But pressure has been building as falling oil revenues hit state coffers, with Riyadh posting a record budget deficit last year.
Oil prices had tumbled on Friday as traders bet that the meeting in Doha will yield no effective measures to curb the global oversupply.
On Thursday the International Energy Agency had warned against expecting too much from the Doha talks, saying that the meeting would have only a "limited" impact on supplies.
Islamabad: Pakistan`s Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Sardar Muhammad Yousaf on Sunday said the Haj applications will be accepted from April 18 to April 26.
Yousaf said that under the Government Haj Scheme, designated branches of scheduled banks will begin receiving applications on Monday and balloting will be held on April 29, reports dawn.Announcing that over 1, 43,000 Pakistanis were expected to make the pilgrimage this year, he said that 60 percent of these will perform Haj under the government scheme while the rest would opt for private Haj organizers.
Asserting that Haj package will cost Rs. 2, 61,941 for pilgrims from the `south region` and Rs. 2,70,941 for pilgrims from the `north region`, Yousaf said that no one would be allowed to perform Haj on the government expenditure.Last year`s pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia witnessed two fatal incidents: a crane accidents and a stampede in which 2,000 people were killed.
Islamabad: It seems that the huge political storm which has erupted in Pakistan over 'Panama Paper' leaks issue will not douse without taking a toll over the Nawaz Sharif government.
According to a Zee Media report, the first observation which puts a certainty regarding the above situation is Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's sudden change in his travel plans.
On Wednesday, instead of arriving in Turkey to attend the OIC summit, Sharif left for London. According to media reports, he made this change in his travel plans due to a "personal and medical checkup".
Notably, before departing, Sharif held a meeting with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali and Punjab Chief Minister -- and his brother -- Shahbaz Sharif as well as other senior aides at Lahore's Allama Iqbal Airport.
President Mamnoon Hussain has also left for Istanbul on a three-day visit to attend an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation conference.
Sharif had however earlier formed a high-level judicial commission to probe any financial wrongdoing, a day after three of his children were named in the 'Panama Papers' for owning offshore companies prompting demands for an enquiry by the opposition.
Meanwhile, launching a scathing attack on Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan had yesterday said that the Prime Minister never thought to clear the air on the issue.
On the contrary, he added, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who was also facing the charges under the Panama Papers revelations, made his tax payments record for the past five-six years public.
Notably, he also demanded a fresh elections in Pakistan and probes by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Federal Board of Revenue, and the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Thus, it seems that some serious tensions are looming over the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan.
Islamabad: Days after The State Department issued a travel advisory for US citizens, the US government on Sunday specifically warned its people staying here, asking them to strictly avoid Pakistan's Marriott hotel for the next few days.
According to India Today, as per the travel advisory issued by the US State Department the embassy is categorically aware of a general but uncorroborated threat against the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. "US citizens are advised to avoid the area for the next several days to allow time to assess the situation," the advisory read.
The advisory further urged US citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan and reminded them of the ongoing security concerns in the country.
However, according to a statement issued by the US State Department earlier on Friday, the American Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate General in Karachi will continue to provide consular services for all US citizens in Pakistan.
On April 16, 2015, an American educator was shot by two gunmen on motorbikes. Evidence suggests she was targeted, in part, because she was a US citizen.
Asserting that the Government of Pakistan maintains heightened security measures, particularly in major cities, following attacks or in response to threats, the State Department had earlier said that sectarian violence remains a serious threat countrywide and the Government of Pakistan continues to enforce blasphemy laws.
Kolkata: West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Sunday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and affirmed the legality of the state government replying to the Election Commission's notice to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over violation of the model code of conduct.
Addressing a poll rally on Sunday in Krishnanagar in Nadia district, Modi slammed Banerjee for "misusing the state machinery" by getting the chief secretary to reply to the show-cause notice that was issued by the Election Commission to Banerjee as the Trinamool chairperson and not as the chief minister.
Within minutes of Modi's address, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien asserted that the chief secretary had the right to reply as the notice was addressed to the chief minister.
"The letter from the EC is a public document. The tech-savvy Modi could have read it even online. It is addressed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and not the Trinamool Congress or the candidate from Bhowanipore assembly constituency.
"So, the chief secretary replying to a letter addressed to the chief minister is in order," said Derek O'Brien, posting an image of the notice on his official Facebook page as well the party website.
"Did the prime minister get his facts wrong? Or was he lying," asked the Trinamool spokesperson.
The poll panel on Thursday issued notice to Banerjee over her announcement of making Asansol a district and other utterances made at a party rally during the ongoing assembly polls.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday address two rallies in Krishnanagar and Kolkata in poll-bound West Bengal.
The Prime Minister's first address will be at Nadia district's Krishnanagar, which is likely to begin at around 3.30 p.m., while the second one will be in West Bengal's capital city.
Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to convey this information.
"Leaving for WB. Will campaign in Krishnanagar, Kolkata. Do join in large numbers. You can also watch on your mobiles http://nm4.in/dnldapp," he tweeted.
The Prime Minister had during a rally on April 7 in West Bengal's Madarihat launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on several issues, including the collapse of an under construction flyover in North Kolkata's Girish Park area.
He also took a jibe at Banerjee for failing to attend meetings called by the Centre, saying the TMC supremo does not attend important meetings, but definitely visits Congress president Sonia Gandhi on her visit to Delhi.
Meanwhile, the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections began today amid tight security arrangements. 383 candidates, including 33 women, are in the fray for the 56 seats spread in seven districts.
Polling for the third phase is scheduled for April 21, fourth on April 25 and the fifth and six phases on April 30 and May 5 respectively. The counting of votes will take place on May 19.
Washington: Finance ministers and governors from central banks of top countries have showed a rare anxiety on the implication of slowdown of the Chinese economy, the world's second largest, which may pose serious challenges to the global economy.
China after nearly three decades of rapid growth has been showing signs of slowness and India has now replaced China as the fastest growing major economies of the world.
As a result of the economic slowdown, the Chinese economic model, traditionally based on manufacturing, investments and exports, is currently transitioning towards a model focused on domestic consumption, services and innovation.
"This rebalancing, which is being implemented in a resolute manner, inevitably affects China's economic partners, even if it is still too early to determine its precise impact. Yet, in any event, we will have to be ready to accompany these development," the French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said in his address to the IMF yesterday.
Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister attributed global economic slowdown to the Chinese slowdown.
"This slowdown is related to the necessary ongoing transition of the Chinese economy, to lower commodity prices, to earlier exaggerations and domestic shortcomings in some countries, like insufficient structural reforms," he said.
The British Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne underscored the shared interest of the international community in supporting China as it grapples to enhance the resilience of banks and corporates and ensure the sustainability of local government finances and credit.
"Structural measures such as state-owned enterprise and financial sector reforms and steps to reduce excess capacity will support China's economic transition," said the US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew.
Signs of weaker-than-expected Chinese growth, volatility of the Chinese renminbi and persistent capital outflows has led to growing anxiety in the financial markets?despite plenty and strong buffers that emerging market and developing countries (EMDC) have accumulated in recent years, said Alexandre Tombini, Governor, Central Bank of Brazil.
The Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek noted that the spillovers and uncertainties emanating from the historic transition in the Chinese economy and the normalisation of the unconventional monetary policies in some advanced economies along with tumbling commodity prices pose important challenges for the global economy.
However, the Chinese leaders attending the annual Spring meeting of International Monetary Fund and the World Bank tried to assure the world leaders in almost every meetings they have had in the past few days and over the weekend that their economy continues to be strong and there is no cause of worry for them.
Damascus: Syria's ruling Baath party and its allies won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections last week across government-held parts of the country, the national electoral commission has announced.
In a widely expected victory in polls labelled a "farce" by Syria's opposition, President Bashar al-Assad's Baath movement and its allies ran under the "National Unity" coalition and won 200 of the parliament's 250 seats.
Syria's national electoral commission late yesterday published the names of all candidates who had won seats in the April 13 vote, according to Syria's state news agency SANA.
Every candidate on the 200-strong "National Unity" list had won.
"Out of 8,834,994 eligible voters, more than five million cast their votes," commission head Hisham al-Shaar was quote as saying.
A record 11,341 candidates initially sought to run in the elections.
But about 3,500 candidates remained after the rest withdrew "saying they had no chance of winning," al-Shaar said.
The ruling Baath party has governed Syria with an iron first for the past half-century.
The vote is the second parliamentary ballot since the beginning of the war in 2011 -- but the UN says it will not recognise the election.
More than 270,000 people have died since Syria's conflict broke out, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes.
The country's economy has all but collapsed and swathes of territory remain out of government control.
Syria's government and opposition are in Geneva this week for UN-backed peace talks to put an end to the violence.
The talks are aiming to lead to a political transition, a new constitution, and fresh presidential and parliamentary elections by September 2017.
Tehran: The first Air France flight between Paris and Tehran for eight years landed in the Islamic republic's capital on Sunday, bearing a government minister and a business delegation.
The airline's route had been suspended since 2008 because of international sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
However, sanctions have been lifted under an accord with world powers that has now been in force for three months.
Flight AF738 from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle touched down at Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport at 1530 GMT, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, an AFP journalist said.
French Transport Minister Alain Vidalies was on board, along with members of a delegation some 15-strong who will spend two days in the Iranian capital.
At a welcoming ceremony Vidalies said he was "proud of the resumption of these direct flights" and said being "able to move between Paris and Tehran was crucial... For entering into partnerships".
Iran's deputy transport minister, Ali Abedzadeh, said he was happy to see the Air France service resume.
Frederic Gagey, the airline's chief executive, spoke of its "great pride in returning to Iran".
However, resumption of the service caused controversy in France after unions said the airline sent an internal memo saying female cabin crew would have to wear trousers on board with a loose fitting jacket and must cover their hair with a scarf when they leave the plane.
The headscarf rule is already in place when flying to certain destinations such as Saudi Arabia.
But on Monday, a company official said female staff would be allowed to opt out of the route and the airline will appoint a "special unit" to replace those who do not want to fly to Tehran.
Italy's Alitalia, Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa of Germany already fly to Tehran, and British Airways is planning to resume its London-Tehran service in July.
Chicago: A hijab-clad Muslim woman in the US was reportedly removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after she asked for switching seats with a flight attendant saying she "did not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Hakima Abdulle, a Muslim woman from Maryland, said she was removed from the flight from Chicago to Seattle "without any credible explanation". Abdulle said she wanted to switch seats but instead, she ended up being removed from the flight.
This was the second such incident involving the carrier this month after an Iraqi man claimed that he was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after a fellow passenger heard him speaking in Arabic.
Zainab Chaudry, an official with the Council on American- Islamic Relations, said in a news conference that Abdulle had boarded the Seattle-bound aircraft on Wednesday when a flight attendant told her she would not be permitted to remain on board.
Airport police then escorted Abdulle, who is of Somalian descent and was wearing a hijab, to the ticket counter, where she waited several hours for a later flight, Chaudry was quoted as saying by The Baltimore Sun.
The flight attendant and Southwest employees inside the terminal were unable to provide "any reasonable explanation" for their action, Chaudry said, adding that Abdulle, who speaks little English, was reduced to tears and "suffered extreme distress and anxiety as a result of this experience."
When police asked the flight attendant at the gate if there was any reason why Abdulle had been taken off the plane, the flight attendant reportedly replied, "No" and that she did "not feel comfortable" with the passenger.
Brandy King, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, was quoted as saying that the "information available, collected at the time of the event, indicates that our employees followed proper procedures in response to this customer's actions while on board the aircraft".
"We are not in the business of removing passengers from flights without reason," King said.
Abdulle's husband Abukar Fidaw said, "She was humiliated because of her religion and the way she dressed."
In a similar incident on April 6, UC Berkeley senior Khairuldeen Makhzoomi was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland. Instead, Makhzoomi was removed from Southwest Airlines flight after speaking Arabic before his flight took off, the Daily Californian reported.
Cairo: French President Francois Hollande sealed several economic deals with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo today during a visit dogged by allegations of rights abuses in the North African country.
Hollande had touched down in Cairo to a lavish welcome, pulling up at the historic Al-Qubbah palace flanked by a cavalry guard and to a 21-gun salute.
He and Sisi later oversaw the signing of several memorandums of understanding, including a 1.2 billion euro deal to expand the metro line in Cairo.
Later at a news conference, both leaders veered into the question of rights abuses under Sisi, who activists accuse of crushing dissent.
Turning to Hollande, Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting.
"The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi.
He added that "European criteria" of human rights should not be applied to struggling countries such as Egypt, and should include rights to "better education and better housing".
Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have conducted large scale attacks in both France and Egypt.
"Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said.
On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt.
When a reporter brought up the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found bearing torture marks in Cairo in February, Sisi said there was a plot by an "evil force".
"Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said.
Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo to protest the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death.
Egypt denies he was killed by the police.
Tehran: Iran used its annual Army Day parade Sunday to showcase parts of a long-awaited air defence system ordered from Russia, a move likely to irk critics of the arms deal.
The S-300 system has been on order since 2007 but Russia postponed the sale three years later after the UN Security Council passed a resolution relating to Iran`s nuclear programme.
A deal between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear activities which lifted sanctions in January removed the barriers to delivery but the fully operational system is still awaited.
According to pictures published by the semi-official ISNA news agency, S-300 missile tubes and the radar equipment were shown during the military parade held in southern Tehran.
Iran insists the system is necessary to defend itself from threats of attack, including possible bombing of its nuclear facilities, and the S-300 would allow early detection of approaching aircraft.
Israel and the United States have hit out at the sale, which is seen as a means for Russia to maintain influence in the Middle East.
Iran and Russia are also in talks on a sale of the Sukhoi SU-30 fighter, another proposal criticised by the US. Iran`s current air force fleet dates from the pre-revolutionary era of the Shah.
Speaking at Sunday`s parade, President Hassan Rouhani insisted Iran`s plans to upgrade its military capabilities were defensive in nature, referring to the worst conflicts in the Middle East.
"Our military, political and economic power is not directed against neighbouring countries and the countries of the Islamic world.
"When Baghdad was threatened by terrorists, the Islamic Republic of Iran responded to the call of the people, the army and the Iraqi government to defend Baghdad and the holy places," he said, referring to the surge of the jihadist Islamic State group in June 2014.
The same action was taken in Syria, where Iran has supported President Bashar al-Assad`s regime with military and financial aid, he added.
The upgrading of Iran`s military following the nuclear deal has also alarmed Saudi Arabia, Tehran`s regional rival.
Riyadh routinely accuses Iran of interfering in Arab countries.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in January after a row broke out over the execution of Shiite cleric and activist Nimr al-Nimr by the Sunni kingdom.
Angry Iranian mobs stormed and set fire to Saudi Arabia`s embassy in Tehran and its mission in Mashhad, Iran`s second city.
The attacks were immediately condemned by Rouhani and, a few weeks later, by the Islamic republic`s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Quito: At least 41 people were killed when a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador, destroying buildings and sending terrified residents dashing from their homes, authorities said late Saturday.
"Oh, my God, it was the biggest and strongest earthquake I have felt in my whole life. It lasted a long time, and I was feeling dizzy," said Maria Torres, 60, in the capital Quito, where people fled their homes during Saturday evening`s quake.
"I couldn`t walk... I wanted to run out into the street, but I couldn`t."
Vice President Jorge Glas said the death toll will likely rise further in what he called the "worst seismic movement we have faced in decades."
"Sadly the information we currently have is that 41 citizens have lost their lives in this emergency... This death toll will unfortunately rise in the coming hours," Glas said in televised comments.
He said that a state of emergency was declared in the six worst-hit provinces.
Police, the military and emergency services "are in a state of maximum alert to protect the lives of citizens."
In the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, home to more than two million people, a bridge had collapsed, crushing a car beneath it, and residents were picking through the wreckage of houses left in heaps of rubble and timber, an AFP photographer reported.
Ecuador`s Geophysical Office reported "considerable" structural damage "in the area near the epicenter as well as points as far away as Guayaquil."The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow quake struck off the northwest shore of Ecuador with a magnitude of 7.8. Glas gave a slightly lower measurement of magnitude 7.6.
Ecuador lies near a shifting boundary between tectonic plates and has suffered seven earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher in the region of Tuesday`s quake since 1900, the USGS said. One in March 1987 killed about 1,000 people, it said.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially issued a warning for the nearby Pacific coastline but later said that the threat had largely passed.
President Rafael Correa, on a visit to the Vatican, sent a message of support on Twitter.
"Authorities are already out evaluating damage and taking action" as needed," he said.The quake struck at 2358 GMT about 170 km from Quito and just 27 kilometers from the town of Muisne, according to the US Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes worldwide.
Various smaller quakes jolted the same area.
The strong movement was felt in Quito, knocking out electricity in places. Authorities did not immediately report injuries there though media showed pictures of damaged shops.
Cristina Duran, 45, grabbed her three pets and stood under a large doorway to avoid shards of glass falling from shattered windows.
"I was frightened. And I just kept asking for it to be over," she told AFP.
Authorities closed the airport in the western city of Manta, saying the control tower suffered "severe damage."At the Guayaquil airport passengers awaiting flights dashed out of terminals when they felt the shaking.
"Lights fell down from the ceiling. People were running around in shock," said Luis Quimis, 30, who was waiting to catch a flight to Quito.
In northern Quito, people ran out of their homes frightened, as power lines swayed back and forth and cables danced.
Quakes also rattled northern Peru and southern Colombia, according to authorities in those countries, although no casualties were reported. Peruvian officials however urged coastal residents to stay away from the beach.
The quake came as rescuers in Japan were racing against the weather and the threat of more landslides to reach people still trapped by two big earthquakes that hit that country`s south.
At least 41 people are known to have died in that double disaster, with at least six still missing -- feared buried in shattered houses or under torrents of mud.
New York: The Barack Obama-led government has been warned by Saudi Arabia that it would sell off American assets worth $750 billion if the US Congress passes a bill declaring the latter responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill`s passage. The Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon," the New York Times quoted administration officials and congressional aides as saying.
The officials have also warned the senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation if the bill was adopted.
The allegation about Saudi`s involvement was doing the rounds after CBS News aired a report last Sunday in which former senator Bob Graham, the chairman of the commission set up to investigate the 9/11 attacks, called on President Obama to take the issue with the Saudi Government during his upcoming visit to the country this month.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had issued the warning to the U.S. lawmakers during his visit to Washington last month.
" Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom`s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts, " the NYT report said.
Quito: At least 28 people died in Ecuador when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the country`s northwest Pacific coast late on Saturday, causing "considerable damage" near the epicenter as well as in the largest city of Guayaquil.
The Andean nation`s government recommended residents leave coastal areas over concern for rising tides following the quake.
Alarmed residents streamed into the streets of the capital Quito, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, and other towns across the nation.
"Based on preliminary information, there are 16 people dead in the city of Portoviejo, 10 in Manta and two in the province of Guayas," said Vice President Jorge Glas in a televised address. "We continue to receive information."
The country`s Geophysics Institute in a bulletin described "considerable damage" in the area of the epicenter and in Guayaquil, without providing further details.
It said the quake struck at around 8:00 p.m. (0100 GMT) at a depth of 20 km (12.4 miles).
Social media pictures showed a collapsed bridge in Guayaquil and a collapsed tower at an airport in the city of Manta.
"I was in my house watching a movie and everything started to shake. I ran out into the street and now I don`t know what`s going to happen," said Lorena Cazares, 36, a telecommunications worker in Quito.
Parts of the capital were without power or telephone service, with many communicating only via Whatsapp. Photos on social media showed cracks in the walls of shopping centers.
The capital`s municipal government later said power had been restored and there were no reports of casualties in the city.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meter (one to three feet) above tide level were possible for some coastal areas of Ecuador.
Neighboring Peru issued a tsunami alert for the north of the country following the quake.
Across the Pacific in Japan, a 7.3 magnitude tremor struck Kumamoto province early Saturday, killing at least 32 people, injuring about a thousand and causing widespread damage, in
the second major quake to hit the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours. The first, late on Thursday, killed nine.
(Additional reporting by Cristina Munoz in Quito and Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Aden: Four Yemeni soldiers were killed Sunday in a suicide attack on a checkpoint near the international airport in second city Aden, home to a growing jihadist presence, a security official said.
"A suicide bomber driving a bomb-laden vehicle blew himself up on Sunday upon arrival at a checkpoint near Aden airport," the official told AFP.
"Four soldiers were killed and two others were wounded," he added, without blaming any group for the attack.
Yemen has been rocked by more than a year of fighting between Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces, supported by a Saudi-led coalition.
Jihadists have exploited the unrest, with al Qaeda and the Islamic State group strengthening their presence in the south, including in Aden which is serving as the government`s temporary capital.
Both groups have claimed several attacks against army and government installations in the port city.
On Friday, a car bomb exploded in the port city near a building housing the foreign ministry, without causing casualties, security sources said.
IS claimed responsibility for that attack and also for a suicide bombing on Tuesday in Aden targeting army recruits that killed five.
Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi have launched operations against jihadists in recent weeks, backed by the firepower of the Arab coalition.
Late Saturday, five Al-Qaeda suspects were killed in coalition air strikes on two vehicles carrying jihadists in Jaar, a town in the southern province of Abyan, security officials said.
Other strikes hit suspected militants in Abyan`s provincial capital Zinjibar, the sources said, without giving a casualty toll.
Pro-government forces on Friday expelled al Qaeda fighters from Huta, another provincial capital close to Aden, and arrested 49 people suspected of being militants, security officials said.
The United Nations has raised the alarm over the growing influence of al Qaeda in Yemen and the mounting civilian toll from coalition air strikes as it pushed all sides to come to the negotiating table for talks to be held in Kuwait on Monday.
A nearly week-long ceasefire, between the rebels on one side and the government and Arab coalition on the other, does not apply to jihadist groups.
The truce has been repeatedly violated since it began at midnight last Sunday, with fighting continuing non-stop in Nahm in the north between rebels and loyalists.
Fresh clashes on Sunday northeast of the rebel-held capital Sanaa killed nine pro-government soldiers, military sources said.
More than 6,400 people have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition began its air campaign in March last year against the rebels, who still retain control of Sanaa.
Geneva: The Syrian opposition`s chief negotiator on Sunday called for renewed attacks on regime forces, despite the shaky truce deal between government troops and rebel fighters.
Mohammed Alloush, a leading political figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group, is in Geneva as the senior negotiator of the High Negotiations Committee.
A fellow opposition figure said Alloush`s hawkish statement did not represent the HNC`s position.
"Don`t trust the regime and don`t wait for their pity," Alloush wrote on Twitter.
"Strike them at their necks (kill them). Strike them everywhere," he said, reciting a passage from the Koran dealing with war.
Alloush`s Jaish al-Islam is party to the fragile ceasefire deal between Syria`s government and non-jihadist rebel groups.
Brokered by the US and Russia, the truce had seen violence drop across parts of Syria since it came into force on February 27.
But a recent surge of fighting in the northern province of Aleppo has threatened to collapse the deal and derail the peace talks in Switzerland.
Jaish al-Islam is the most powerful rebel group in the Eastern Ghouta opposition bastion outside Damascus.
Alloush himself was relatively unknown before joining the HNC because he had spent much of his life in Saudi Arabia pursuing Islamic religious studies.
"Alloush`s position is personal. We as the HNC cannot adopt this position," said Yahya al-Aridi, a member of the broader consultative delegation in Geneva, when asked about Alloush`s statement.
More than 270,000 people have been killed and millions more have been displaced since Syria`s conflict erupted in 2011.
lar-mjg/srm
Vatican City: Pope Francis spoke emotionally today of his meeting a day earlier with migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, which culminated with him taking three Syrian families back to the Vatican.
Addressing worshippers at his weekly Angelus prayer in St Peter's Square, the 79-year-old pontiff, who is himself the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, related his visit to a migrant processing centre, where around 3,000 people are being held.
"We greeted around 300 of them, one by one," said Francis, who was accompanied on his visit by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens.
"There were so many children. Some of these children witnessed their parents and friends dying, drowned at sea.
"I saw such suffering," he said, visibly moved.
The Roman Catholic leader then went on to tell of one particular case, "that of a young man, who was not even 40."
"I met him yesterday with his two sons. He was Muslim and told me he had married a Christian, (and that) they loved and respected each other."
But the woman fell victim to Islamist radicals, he said.
"She had her throat slit by terrorists because she would not renounce Christ and abandon her faith," said Francis, calling her a "martyr".
As for her grieving spouse, he said sorrowfully, "this man was crying so much".
The pope's visit to Lesbos, one of the main ports of arrival for people fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East and Asia, was seen as a lesson in solidarity for Europe, where the doors to migrants are progressively being slammed shut.
Declaring "we are all migrants", Francis used his trip to emphasise that the arrivals were not mere numbers, but people with "faces, names and individual stories."
District of Columbia: A US Air Force reconnaissance plane was intercepted by a Russian SU-27 jet in an "unsafe and unprofessional" manner while in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, the Pentagon said Saturday.
"The US aircraft was operating in international airspace and at no time crossed into Russian territory," Laura Seal, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said of Thursday`s incident.
It came shortly after Russian aircraft repeatedly buzzed the USS Donald Cook this past week, including an incident Tuesday in which a Russian Su-24 flew 30 feet (nine meters) above the war ship in a "simulated attack profile," according to the US military`s European Command.
Russia has denied the actions were reckless or provocative but they have been seen as exacerbating tensions between the rival powers.
"This unsafe and unprofessional air intercept has the potential to cause serious harm and injury to all aircrews involved," Seal said of the latest incident in a statement.
"More importantly, the unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries."
The US aircraft in question was an RC-135 and the Pentagon said it had been flying a routine route.
"There have been repeated incidents over the last year where Russian military aircraft have come close enough to other air and sea traffic to raise serious safety concerns, and we are very concerned with any such behavior," the Pentagon said.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry had strong words about the recent warship flyby.
"We condemn this kind of behavior. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down," Kerry told CNN Espanol in Miami.
Kerry added: "People need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated on the high seas."
"We are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is and our hope is that this will never be repeated," he said.
The Russian maneuvers began Monday while the destroyer was located about 70 nautical miles from the Russian base in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea.
One US defense official called the actions of the Russian planes "more aggressive than anything we`ve seen in some time."
The destroyer`s commanding officer Charles Hampton told journalists in Lithuania that "very low, very fast" flybys were "inconsistent with the professional norms of militaries in international waters or international airspace."
But Russia countered the criticism, insisting it had observed all safety regulations.
The US military`s European Command (EUCOM) released video showing warplanes zooming so close past the Cook that one sailor can be heard saying: "He is below the bridge wing," meaning the plane was flying lower than the highest point of the ship.
Ties between Russia and the West have plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War over Moscow`s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Kiev and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
vlk/mtp
Cheyenne: Ted Cruz on Sunday won all 14 delegates in the Wyoming State Republican convention, a morale-boosting victory for the Texas senator against the controversial presidential front-runner Donald Trump ahead of Tuesday's crucial New York primary.
Trump picked only up a single delegate in Wyoming county conventions on April 9 while rival Ted Cruz got nine. In the weekend's state convention, Cruz won all the 14 Republican National Convention delegates up for grabs. Florida Senator Marco Rubio has one delegate and the other four are uncommitted.
"If you don't want to see Donald Trump as the nominee, if you don't want to hand the general (election) to Hillary Clinton, which is what a Trump nomination does, then I ask you to please support the men and women on this slate," Cruz said in his victory speech, holding up a piece of paper of 14 recommended delegates.
Twelve members of that slate won. They are bound to the senator on the first ballot and have also made a non-binding pledge to stick with him as long as things go in Cleveland.
For 45-year-old Cruz, the win in Wyoming is another signal that demonstrates how his campaign has organised party insiders and activists to make it difficult for Trump to capture the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the Republican Party nomination at the July convention in Cleveland.
Cruz has gaining ground on Trump, the real estate billionaire, who has failed to shift his focus to the local- level campaigning necessary to win delegates.
With Saturday's sweep, Cruz can count on at least 24 of the 29 delegates from Wyoming, a rural state. The delegates were chosen by party members rather than ordinary voters.
69-year-old Trump - who did not actively campaign in the state - remains the Republican front-runner overall.
However, the real estate billionaire could fall short of the number of delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination for the November 8 presidential election.
That would mean a contested convention where voting for candidates starts again from scratch.
Trump is concentrating on New York, which holds a key primary on April 19.
New York will award 95 Republican delegates while the two Democratic candidates are fighting over 247 delegates in the city.
A number of senior Republican leaders have backed Cruz, a Conservative Texas senator, fearing that Trump's controversial comments make him a weak candidate in the November election.
The result from the Wyoming contest brings Cruz's tally from 545 to 559 delegates compared to Trump's 743.
In the Democratic race, Clinton with 1,758 delegates is still ahead of her only remaining rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has 1,076 delegates.
New York: US presidential frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept through New York on a campaign blitz Sunday as Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders battled to keep his White House dream alive.
The overwhelmingly Democrat state votes Tuesday in its most decisive presidential primary in decades with Trump determined to fend off the prospect of a contested nomination for the Republican party and Sanders pinning Clinton into a tighter race than few ever imagined.
Trump, the Manhattan billionaire, needs to win the majority of the 95 Republican delegates up for grabs in the primary to increase his chances of clinching the party nomination before the July convention.
The 247 Democrat delegates in New York, plus 44 super-delegates, are likely to be won mostly by Clinton, giving the former secretary of state and New York senator an unassailable lead over Sanders.
Although nationwide polls give Clinton a lead of just 47-46 percent over her self-described democratic socialist rival, in New York she leads a whopping 53.5-41 percent, according to a RealClearPolitics poll average.
"I need you to come out and everybody you know to come out on Tuesday," Clinton told a cheering block party in Brooklyn`s historically African-American neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
She referenced her eight years as New York senator from 2001 to 2009 and gave a short version of her stump speech, highlighting calls for gun control and building on the legacy of Barack Obama.
"Vote in this primary, stay with me. Whoever they (the Republicans) nominate, I look forward to taking whoever it is on," she said to cheers and applause from several hundred people.
Back in New York from Los Angeles, where she attended a lavish fundraiser hosted by Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney, the former first lady embarked on a campaign whirlwind.
The 68-year-old Clinton whizzed through America`s largest city to appear in upper Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and set to finish with an LGBT event in Manhattan`s West Village.
Trump, 69, made appearances on Staten Island, New York`s most isolated borough, before heading off to tour his former boarding school and to lead a rally in Poughkeepsie in the Hudson Valley.
"The polls are so good," said the businessman, when asked why he had not campaigned more in New York City, where his name has been synonymous with money-making and real estate for decades.
The anti-establishment populist is expected to perform particularly well in rural areas and fallen manufacturing cities upstate.
"I really want to focus on areas where they know me but they don`t know me as well," said Trump.
He leads the national Republican polls with 40 percent. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is on 30 percent and Ohio Governor John Kasich has 21 percent, according to a RealClearPolitics averages.
In New York, Trump commands a thumping home state lead at 52 percent, with Kasich and Cruz languishing at 22 and 17.8 percent respectively, alarming the Republican establishment opposed to his divisive, controversial campaign that has insulted women, Muslims and Mexicans.
On Saturday, Cruz picked up more delegates in his determination to chip away at Trump`s lead, winning all 14 up for grabs at the Republican state convention in Wyoming.
The right-wing evangelical now has 553 delegates against 758 for Trump, according to CNN. A candidate needs 1,237 delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump blasts the delegate nominating process as rigged.
Sanders, fresh from a visit to the Vatican, where he briefly met Pope Francis, is to address a giant rally in Brooklyn`s Prospect Park.
Thousands, many of them young, gathered under the sun on a hot afternoon, hoping that the 74-year-old Brooklyn-born Vermont senator can pull a surprise win out of the bag on Tuesday.
"Some people think his dreams are impossible, but it just the beginning," said Kevin Clay, a 64-year-old retired electrician.
"Hillary is for Hillary; Bernie is for me, you, her and everybody."
Sanders has ripped into Clinton`s ties to Wall Street and his call for campaign finance reform is a cornerstone of his campaign, which has galvanized millions of supporters across the country.
But he has been unable to pinpoint any decision that Clinton made that shows she favored banks because of donations she received.
"She voted for a bad bankruptcy legislation," Sanders told CNN. "But -- and whether that is a result of contributions from Wall Street or elsewhere -- you know, no one can say that," he admitted.
When the premiers of the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands (British Overseas Territories that are notorious tax-havens) visited the UK last year, Tory government ministers sent formal letters asking for meetings with them to discuss tax evasion. The premiers never answered the letters.
There were no meetings.
These facts came to light when the Independent used the Freedom of Information Act to get hold of a letter from David Gauke, a Treasury minister, and James Dudderidge, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Overseas Territories and the Caribbean, to the government, admitting failure in managing to secure a meeting with the BVI and Caymans leaders.
"As discussed on the telephone on 24 March, we were due to meet in London yesterday with the other Overseas Territories to continue our dialogue about international standards on tackling all forms of illicit finance, and to focus on how we can work together to ensure companies cannot hide their beneficial ownership from law enforcement and tax authorities," both the letters say. They continue: "It is therefore deeply disappointing, despite numerous attempts, that we have not been able to meet collectively to discuss a way forward on effective implementation of the G20 Principles on beneficial ownership, despite our shared public commitment to do so. "Meanwhile, the global debate on the importance of raising international standards to tackle money laundering, tax evasion, illicit finance and corruption has intensified." The ministers go on to say that draft proposals by the two governments on the issue of beneficial ownership "do not go far enough", though they both praise other measures taken on tax evasion since the 2013 Loch Erne summit.
UK ministers humiliated after Cayman and BVI leaders repeatedly ignore requests for meetings
[Jon Stone/The Independent]
(Image: Robbie paparazzi V sign crop, Henry Bond, CC-BY)
By Allegresse Sasse COTONOU (Reuters) - Benin wrapped up voting on Sunday in a run-off election that pitted outgoing President Thomas Boni Yayi's hand-picked successor against his former ally turned political rival in a highly competitive race. By relinquishing power after serving two terms in office, Boni Yayi stands in contrast to leaders in other African nations, including Burundi, Rwanda and Congo Republic, who have altered their constitutions in order to extend their rule. Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou, a former economist and investment banker backed by both Boni Yayi and the main opposition Democratic Renewal Party, won a March 6 first round of voting. However, he has had to overcome the perception that having spent the bulk of his career abroad he is an outsider in his own country. "Elections are really something that bring us all together. It's a day of peace and hope," he said after casting his ballot. Zinsou faces Patrice Talon, a businessman and once a powerful figure in the West African nation's cornerstone cotton sector, who finished just over 3 percentage points behind the prime minister in the first round. Talon was a staunch supporter of Boni Yayi before falling out of favour with the president, who later accused him of involvement in a plot to poison him. Mediation efforts led to a presidential pardon however, and Talon returned from exile in France in October. "I have the impression that our country's renaissance is already under way. The renaissance will come, and I am going to win," Talon said after voting on Sunday. Early turnout for the polls was light as many voters were in church for Palm Sunday services. And while more cast their ballots later in the day, observers said they believed overall participation levels were lower than in the first round when turnout was around 64 percent. Poll worker immediately began counting ballots after voting ended in the late afternoon. Provisional results were expected to be announced by the elections commission as early as Monday. "I am happy that everything is calm in Benin. I'm confident everything will be fine. Democracy is working," said Paul Abjibi, shortly after voting in Abomey-Calavi, a town just outside the commercial capital Cotonou. There was no clear front-runner in the poll, and campaigning centred largely on how to best revive the economy, which is flagging in part due to falling oil prices that have hit its neighbour and largest trading partner Nigeria. Civil society groups denounced both candidates' campaigns on Friday for allegedly distributing cash in an attempt to buy votes. On Sunday, the principal donor-funded civil society observation platform claimed that ballot box stuffing had been reported in the Collines administrative district in the centre of Benin as well as in Atacora in the north. The election is nonetheless expected to reinforce the democratic credentials of tiny Benin, which became the first nation in West Africa to move from dictatorship and single-party rule to multi-party democracy when it held elections in 1991. (Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Raissa Kasolowsky)
By Anthony Boadle and Maria Carolina Marcello BRASILIA (Reuters) - Supporters of the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff took a commanding lead in a ballot in the lower house of Congress on Sunday that could hasten the end of 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in Latin America's biggest economy. With 272 votes cast, 210 members of Congress had voted in favor of Rousseff's impeachment and 62 voted against or abstained. The Datafolha polling group projected Rousseff's defeat. Rousseff's opponents needs votes from 342 of the 513 members of the chamber to send her for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budgetary accounts to support her 2014 re-election. If Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, loses Sunday's vote, the Senate must decide by a simple majority whether there are legal grounds to hear the case against her, a decision expected in early May. Should it agree to do so, Rousseff, 68, would be suspended from office and Vice President Michel Temer would take over. The political crisis in Brazil, which comes during the country's worst recession since the 1930s, has deeply divided the country of 200 million people and sparked a battle between Rousseff and Temer. Both sides said they had enough votes to win the motion in the session where lawmakers yelled slogans and scuffles broke out in front of the speaker's podium as pro-impeachment legislators waved flags reading: "Goodbye Dear." Hundreds of thousands of protesters from both sides took to the streets of dozens of towns and cities across the country. As congressional members voted, tens of thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment demonstrators packed the grassy esplanade in front of the legislature in the capital, Brasilia. A 6.5-foot-high (2-metre) wall had been erected there stretching for more than half a mile (1 km) to separate both sides, a symbol of the stark political divide in one of the world's most unequal societies. Opinion polls suggested more than 60 percent of Brazilians supported impeaching Rousseff, whose inner circle has been tainted by a vast corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras . Despite anger at rising unemployment, Rousseff's ruling Workers Party still musters strong support among millions of working-class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programs with pulling their families out of poverty during the past decade. "The majority of Brazilians are in favor of democracy and are against this coup," said Maira Jane, one of the thousands of pro-Rousseff demonstrators outside Congress. "Whether you are in favor or against the government. It's a question of democracy." PARALYSED GOVERNMENT The impeachment crisis has paralyzed activity in Brasilia, just four months before the country is due to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and as it seeks to battle an epidemic of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in newborns. Critics of the impeachment process say it has become a referendum on Rousseff's popularity - currently languishing in single digits - which sets a worrying precedent for ousting unpopular leaders in the future. They note that Rousseff is accused of a budgetary slight of hand commonly employed by many elected officials in Brazil. Leaders in Temer's centrist PMDB party were confident they could muster two dozen votes more than the 342 needed. Government officials acknowledged Rousseff's situation was "very difficult" as they kept seeking votes or abstentions that would favor her, despite newspaper polls showing they lacked the necessary support. Business lobbies have thrown their weight behind the ouster of Rousseff, blamed by them for high inflation and an economy forecast to contract nearly 4 percent this year, as they look to Temer to restore business confidence and growth. Brazil's stocks and currency have been among the world's best-performing assets in recent weeks on growing bets that Rousseff would be removed from office, allowing Temer to adopt more market-friendly policies. Whoever governs the country in coming months will inherit a toxic political environment, a divided Congress, rising unemployment and an expected contraction of 4 percent this year in the world's ninth-largest economy. PROTESTERS GATHER While Rousseff herself has not been personally charged with corruption, many of the lawmakers who will decide her fate on Sunday have been. Congresso em Foco, a prominent watchdog group in Brasilia, said more than 300 of the legislators who will vote - well over half the chamber - were under investigation for corruption, fraud or electoral crimes. As they cast their vote, some lawmakers said the next politician to be impeached should be the man leading the proceedings, Speaker Eduardo Cunha, charged with corruption and money laundering in the kickback scandal involving state-run oil producer Petrobras and facing an ethics inquiry over undeclared Swiss bank accounts. Thousands of pro-impeachment demonstrators packed Sao Paulo's central Paulista Avenida, draped in Brazilian flags and waving banners reading: "Dilma out" and in support of the judge leading the Petrobras investigation. "We need to make this country viable again," said Paulo Tosi Marques, 66, a retired business administrator at the pro-impeachment demonstration in Sao Paulo. "Look at what we have - corruption, inflation and an unprecedented crisis." (Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Guillermo Parra-Bernal in Sao Paulo; Writing by Daniel Flynn, Stephen Eisenhammer and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Alan Crosby and Peter Cooney)
Global Affairs Canada has ordered the closing of the Syrian consulate in Montreal and terminated the post of its honorary consul, a letter obtained by Radio-Canada shows.
The letter dated Feb. 26, 2016 does not outline the reasons for the termination. It only states that Nelly Kanou, an outspoken supporter of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, can no longer carry out her duties as honorary consul and that the premises at 235 Cote-Vertu Boulevard cannot be identified as consulate. It also says its archives must be relocated.
A spokeswoman for Global Affairs did not provide further details.
"The exercise of foreign diplomatic missions and consular posts in Canada are matters of foreign relations conducted confidentially between states," Amy Mills wrote in an email.
The consulate was the only service point for Syrians in eastern Canada and the eastern United States. The Syrian embassy in Ottawa was closed in 2012 when Canada cut diplomatic ties with Syria and expelled Syrian diplomats.
Honorary consuls were allowed to stay because their mandate is purely administrative and not diplomatic.
Vancouver consulate only left in North America
Several Syrians were seen last week, papers in hand, at the consular office. They had not been informed of the closure. Inside, an employee was responsible for returning documents to clients.
"How am I going to renew my passport or certify my diploma," a Syrian asked at the premises.
"Send the papers by mail to Vancouver," answered the employee. The consulate located 4,000 kilometres away is now the only Syrian consular office in North America.
Nelly Kanou became honorary consul in 2008. In an interview, she regretted that the service centre is closing at "a critical and difficult time for Syrians" who are settling by the thousands in Canada and are living through "an extremely urgent humanitarian situation."
Censured for unauthorized medicine sales
Kanou, a Canadian-Syrian Christian who immigrated in 1985, avowed her support for the Assad regime, but said she serves all her compatriots, whatever their position.
Story continues
"For us, a Syrian is a Syrian All I wanted was to help the Syrian people," she said.
"Mr. Assad appointed me because of my loyalty to the Syrian community here in Montreal."
On September 2015, Kanou, who is also a pharmacy owner, was temporarily suspended by the disciplinary board of the Quebec Order of Pharmacists.
She pleaded guilty to selling without authorization $1.5 million in drugs to be sent to Syria between 2008 and 2011. The drugs came from one of its pharmacies near the consulate.
Good news for the Syrian opposition
Nedal Alnajjar of the Canadian Alliance for Syrian Aid, was "very happy" with Canada's decision.
"She was doing everything to promote the dictator Assad," he said.
Like many Syrians living here, Alnajjar said he was told to pay in cash and in U.S. dollars at the consulate in Montreal.
"We did not know what she did with that money. Was it declared to the government of Canada? Was it sent to Syria?"
Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers has insisted border arrangements between Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) and the UK would not change if the public votes to leave the EU.
She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) dismissed claims that Brexit would prove negative for trade between the countries - and even harm the peace process - as "scaremongering".
Mrs Villiers told Sky News' Murnaghan show that leaving the EU would not alter the free flow of "goods and people" over the only land border with the UK.
She offered reassure after Ireland's former prime minister, Bertie Ahern, voiced strong concerns over the consequences of an Out vote.
He said it would be "regressive" and "negative in every way".
Mr Ahern said: "We'd be the only place that has a land border with Britain - of course others would exploit and expose it. They'd have to check people."
Mr Ahern went on: "From a trade point of view it would be a customs border - it's regressive, negative."
But Mrs Villiers, a Brexit campaigner, told Sky News that no changes to border arrangements would be needed.
"I believe that the land border with Ireland can remain as free-flowing after a Brexit vote as it is today," she said.
"There is no reason why we have to change the border arrangements in the event of a Brexit because they have been broadly consistent in the 100 years since the creation of Ireland as a separate state.
"It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) 's in the interest of both countries to keep an open border and there's no reason for that to change if the people of this country were to exercise their freedom to vote to leave the EU."
The border concerns came as Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb warned that families would face "disastrous" consequences if the UK left the EU.
Mr Crabb, who replaced Out campaigner Iain Duncan Smith in the Cabinet in March, predicts there would be factory closures, an exodus of businesses and job losses.
He said Brexit would cause "economic rupture".
Story continues
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Crabb warned: "Lost jobs and livelihoods take an enormous, indelible toll on families and communities.
"No one should be complacent about the potential consequences for working people and their families if Britain votes to exit the EU. This is not a theoretical debate."
It is the first official weekend of campaigning ahead of the referendum on 23 June.
By Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As U.S.-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among U.S. and U.N. officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network. One major worry: not enough money is being committed to rebuild the devastated provincial capital of Ramadi and other towns, let alone Islamic State-held Mosul, the ultimate target in Iraq of the U.S.-led campaign. Lise Grande, the No. 2 U.N. official in Iraq, told Reuters that the United Nations is urgently seeking $400 million from Washington and its allies for a new fund to bolster reconstruction in cities like Ramadi, which suffered vast damage when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces recaptured it in December. "We worry that if we don't move in this direction, and move quickly, the progress being made against ISIL may be undermined or lost," Grande said, using an acronym for Islamic State. Adding to the difficulty of stabilizing freed areas are Iraq's unrelenting political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal crisis and the Shiite Muslim-led government's fitful efforts to reconcile with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of Islamic State support. Some senior U.S. military officers share the concern that post-conflict reconstruction plans are lagging behind their battlefield efforts, officials said. "We're not going to bomb our way out of this problem," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. (Graphic showing Islamic State's territorial control: http://tmsnrt.rs/23aQU31) Islamic State is far from defeated. The group still controls much of its border-spanning "caliphate," inspires eight global affiliates and is able to orchestrate deadly external attacks like those that killed 32 people in Brussels on March 22. But at its core in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State appears to be in slow retreat. Defense analysis firm IHS Janes estimates the group lost 22 percent of its territory over the last 15 months. Washington has spent vastly more on the war than on reconstruction. The military campaign cost $6.5 billion from 2014 through Feb. 29, according to the Pentagon. The United States has contributed $15 million to stabilization efforts, donated $5 million to help clear explosives in Ramadi and provided "substantial direct budget support" to Iraq's government, said Emily Horne, a National Security Council spokeswoman. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the need for more reconstruction aid while in Baghdad last week. "As more territory is liberated from Daesh, the international community has to step up its support for the safe and voluntary return of civilians to their homes," Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Kerry, who announced $155 million in additional U.S. aid for displaced Iraqis, said U.S. President Barack Obama planned to raise the issue at a summit of Gulf Arab leaders on April 21. "PILE OF RUBBLE" Ramadi's main hospital, train station, nearly 2,000 homes, 64 bridges and much of the electricity grid were destroyed in fighting, a preliminary U.N. survey found last month. Thousands of other buildings were damaged. Some 3,000 families recently returned to parts of the city cleared of mines, according to the governor, Hameed Dulaymi, but conditions are tough. Power comes from generators. Water is pumped from the Euphrates River. A few shops are open, but only for a couple of hours a day. Ahmed Saleh, a 56-year-old father of three children, said he returned to find his home a "pile of rubble," which cannot be rebuilt until the government provides the money. With no indication of when that might happen, authorities have resettled his family in another house whose owner is believed unlikely to return before this summer. Saleh earns less than $15 a day cleaning and repairing other people's homes. There are no schools open for his children, and he lacks funds to return to a camp for internally displaced outside Baghdad where he says life was better. Obama administration officials say they have been working to help stabilize Iraq politically and economically since the military campaign against Islamic State began in 2014. "The success of the campaign against ISIL in Iraq does depend upon political and economic progress as well," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. "Economically it's important that the destruction that's occurred be repaired and we're looking to help the Iraqis with that." Asked about the upcoming $400 million U.N. request, Horne said the United States welcomed the new fund's establishment and "will continue to lead international efforts to fund stabilization operations." The United States hasn't yet announced what it will contribute. U.S. officials said Washington is also pushing for an International Monetary Fund arrangement that the head of the fund's Iraq mission has said could unlock up to $15 billion in international financing. Baghdad has a $20 billion budget deficit caused by depressed oil prices. Washington has helped train 15,000 Sunni fighters who are now part of the Iraqi government's security forces. But there has been little movement on political reforms to reconcile minority Sunnis, whose repression under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government led thousands to join Islamic State. Unless that happens, and Sunnis see that Baghdad is trying to help them return home to rebuild, support for the militants will persist, experts said. "If you don't get reconciliation, the Sunnis will turn back to ISIS," said former CIA and White House official Kenneth Pollack, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank and conducted a fact-finding mission in Iraq last month. "It's just inevitable." The United States has prevailed militarily in Iraq before, only to see the fruits of the effort evaporate. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and disbanded his army without a comprehensive plan for post-war stability. Civil war ensued. REBUILDING GETS HARDER International funding to rebuild towns and cities ravaged by Islamic State has always been tight, said Grande, deputy special representative of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq. "This meant we had to come up with a model that could be implemented quickly and at extremely low cost," she said. International donors contributed $100 million to an initial fund to jump-start local economies, restoring power and water and reopening shops and schools. The model worked in Tikrit, the first major city reclaimed from Islamic State in March 2015, Grande said. After initial delays, most residents returned, utilities are on and the university is open. Total spending was $8.3 million. But Ramadi, a city of some 500,000 people before the recent fighting, poses a much greater challenge. "Much of the destruction that's happening in areas that are being liberated ... far outstrips our original assumptions," Grande said. Restoring normality to Mosul, home to about 2 million people before it fell to Islamic State, could prove even more difficult. It remains to be seen whether Islamic State digs in, forcing a ruinous battle, or faces an internal uprising that forces the militants to flee, sparing the city massive devastation. If Islamic State is defeated militarily, it likely will revert to the guerrilla tactics of its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), current and former officials said. AQI and its leaders, including Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, "survived inside Iraq underground for years and theres no reason they couldnt do it again," a U.S. defense official said. (Additional reporting by David Rohde, Lou Charbonneau and John Walcott. Editing by Stuart Grudgings.)
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Police in Jordan sealed the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Amman on Wednesday, a senior figure in the Islamist movement said, as the authorities clamp down further on the kingdom's most vocal opposition group. The Brotherhood, which is close in ideology to its Egyptian namesake and has strong ties with the Palestinian movement Hamas, wants sweeping political reforms but stops short of calling for the overthrow of the monarchy. Jordan's authorities suppressed Arab Spring pro-democracy protests in which the mainstream Islamists played a prominent role, and human rights groups say that since then the kingdom has strongly curbed dissent. Police acting on orders of the Amman governor evacuated staff and closed off the building, giving no reason for their actions, said senior Brotherhood member Jamil Abu Bakr. Brotherhood spokesperson Badi Rafai later said the police closed another of its offices in the northern city of Jerash. The movement, which has operated legally in Jordan for decades and has widespread grass-roots support in major urban centers, has scores of offices across the country. Its political arm, the Islamic Action Front, is the kingdom's largest opposition party and represents many disenfranchised Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who are in the majority in the population of seven million. Grossly underrepresented in parliament and government posts that are dominated by native Jordanians, many of the Brotherhood's poor Palestinian supporters in the major cities see them as defending their interests. "We are not a group that is rebellious or operating outside the law. This is not an appropriate means to deal with us ... deploying heavy-handed security measures against us rather than reaching understandings," Abu Bakr told Reuters. In keeping with a regional crackdown on political Islam and public freedoms, Jordan has been tightening restrictions on the Brotherhood in the last two years, forbidding their public rallies and arresting vocal government dissenters. The authorities have also encouraged a splinter group to legally challenge the main movement's license to operate, which goes back to 1946 when Jordan's monarchy saw the Muslim Brotherhood leaders as strong political allies. Government spokespeople refrained from comment, but one official said privately that the move related to legal claims by the faction, backed by the authorities, aimed at seizing its rival's assets after it won a judicial order pronouncing it as the legitimate group. Senior Brotherhood members, who say these moves are politically motivated and illegal, say the latest crackdown comes after they were warned not to hold their Shura council elections - which they nevertheless went ahead with this month. But Brotherhood figures say the elections for the four-year terms on the council, its highest leadership body, were not held to challenge the authorities. Diplomats say the latest move could pave the way for outlawing the main group and handing over its assets to the pro-government faction to ensure that it participates in parliamentary elections expected by the end of this year or in early 2017. Politicians warn that outlawing a party which has long shunned political violence could widen support among alienated youths for extremists in a country were radical influences, including support for Islamic State militants, was on the rise. Earlier this year, the movement's deputy leader Zaki Bani Rusheid was released after serving an 18-month jail sentence for criticizing on social media the United Arab Emirates for its crackdown on Islamists. His detention was the first of a major political opposition figure in Jordan in recent years. In contrast, Gulf Arab countries have banned Islamist groups and jailed its members, and in Egypt thousands of Islamists have been jailed and sentenced to death in mass trials decried by human rights groups. (Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Hugh Lawson)
A 7.8 magnitude quake has struck the central coast of Ecuador, killing hundreds of people and trapping many others.
At least 246 people have been confirmed dead so far, with more than 2,500 more injured, the country's vice president said.
A state of emergency has been declared in six provinces and the government says the death toll is expected to rise.
Five helicopters and 80 buses are taking 4,000 police to the affected areas, according to the country's home ministry.
Authorities say the quake is the most powerful to hit the country in decades.
It has caused "considerable damage" near the epicentre, as well as in the country's biggest city of Guayaquil.
Parts of the capital, Quito, were also without power or phone services for several hours.
A tsunami alert was issued but later lifted.
Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines in the OPEC-member nation have been shut down as a precautionary measure.
In Pedernales, a town of 40,000 people near the epicentre, looting broke out after dozens of buildings were flattened.
Mayor Gabriel Alcivar, who has pleaded for help, said: "This wasn't just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town."
Passengers at Guayaquil airport ran out of terminals when they felt the tremor.
"Lights fell down from the ceiling. People were running around in shock," said Luis Quimis, 30, who was waiting to catch a flight to Quito.
Maria Torres, 60, in northern Quito, said: "Oh, my God, it was the biggest and strongest earthquake I have felt in my whole life.
"It lasted a long time, and I was feeling dizzy. I couldn't walk ... I wanted to run out into the street, but I couldn't."
Among those killed was the driver of a car crushed by an overpass in Guayaquil.
President Correa has cut short a visit to the Vatican, and called on Ecuadoreans to show strength while authorities monitor events.
The quake struck at around 8pm local time on Saturday, about 173km west-northwest of Quito and just 28km south-southeast of Muisne, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake also rattled northern Peru, according to authorities.
Across the Pacific in Japan, a 7.3 magnitude tremor struck Kumamoto province on Saturday, killing at least 33 people and causing widespread damage, in the second major quake to hit the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours.
By Frank Jack Daniel and Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) - President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Saturday that the United States was determined to end Cuba's socialist revolution despite restoring relations and a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, saying one-party Communism was essential to defend the system. "We must be alert, today more than ever," Castro said, speaking in front of a giant portrait of his brother Fidel Castro at the inauguration of the Communist Party's first congress in five years. Speaking for over two hours, Castro used a defiant tone that belied the breakthrough between the Cold War enemies. He said Obama's desire to end U.S. sanctions was welcome but just a change of "method", in reference to efforts by Washington to bring political change to Cuba ever since the Castro brothers toppled a pro-American government in 1959. Obama and Castro announced in December 2014 they would end decades of hostility and normalize relations. But on a historic trip to the island last month, Obama angered the government with a speech broadcast directly into Cubans' homes calling for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state. Castro and his lieutenants, many of them in their 70s and 80s, faced some discontent ahead of the congress among younger members who are critical of their slow delivery on promised economic reforms in the past five years and a lack of transparency on discussions. "The key function of the congress is a message that the Obama visit has not changed anything. To reduce expectations," said Bert Hoffman, a Latin American expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Castro reiterated the party's commitment to the reforms which he said should be implemented faster. But he said Cuba was not moving towards capitalism, citing China and Vietnam as models, while emphasizing that social ownership and cooperatives were mostly preferable to private property. He celebrated Cuba's growing number of self-employed people but cautioned that the United States was seeking to turn them into a opposition force. Obama spent hours talking to small business people and entrepreneurs during his Havana visit. 'POWERFUL EXTERNAL FORCES' "We are not naive, and we are aware of powerful external forces that aspire to, as they say, 'empower' non-state actors to generate agents of change and finish off the revolution by other means," he said. Castro did not detail which reforms would be implemented next, although he singled out Cuba's complex dual currency system as a major economic distortion that needed to be rectified and emphasized the need for foreign investment. He said he remained convinced of the benefits of improved relations with the United States and said Cuba was committed to the diplomatic thaw. But he did not believe Obama's promise that the United States would not impose political or economic change on Cuba. "The goals are the same, only the methods have changed," Castro said, adding that U.S. migration policies that encourage Cubans to defect were "a weapon against the revolution." "These practices do not correspond to the declared change in policy towards Cuba, and cause difficulties in third countries," he said. Migration has surged since the 2014 detente as Cubans take advantage of a U.S. policy that grants them citizenship as soon as they arrive. Bottlenecks of migrants in transit have formed in Central America. Cuba's top leaders started their careers as young guerrilla fighters who overthrew a U.S. backed government in 1959, and a few years later repelled the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion - which the party congress is timed to commemorate. Castro said the one-party system was the greatest defense against Washington's past attempts to dominate Cuba. "If one day they manage to fragment us, that would be the beginning of the end of the revolution, of socialism and independence in our homeland," he told 1,000 delegates gathered for the congress. Recalling a conversations with one U.S. official, he said he told "el Americano" that the Democrats and Republicans were so similar that they were like one party. "It's the same as if in Cuba we had two parties, Fidel leads one and I lead the other," he joked to laughter and applause. Castro is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is 85. In a nod to the next generation of leaders, Castro said no one should be more than 60 years old when they join the party's main decision-making body. Castro is due to retire as president in 2018 and by the end of the four-day congress it will be clear whether he remains as party leader until 2021, or whether somebody younger takes over the leadership. Founded in 1965, the Communist Party is seen as more powerful in Cuba than the government. It was formally led by Fidel Castro until 2011, although his younger brother had effectively taken command several years earlier. (Additional reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Mary Milliken)
By Tiisetso Motsoeneng JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling ANC Women's League and main trade union federation (Cosatu) have accused banks of pulling a "political stunt" by cutting ties with a company whose owners are under scrutiny for having undue influence with President Jacob Zuma. Oakbay Investments, which holds the Gupta family businesses, is scrambling to restore banking relationships after all four major South African banks severed links following allegations that its owners have undue political influence with Zuma. The president and the Guptas reject the claims. "A political stunt is being pulled by banks here," the ruling African National Congress (ANC) Women's League's general secretary Meokgo Matuba said on Friday. "We raise these pertinent issues based on our interests on the livelihood of dependents of the workers of the company." The ANC has not yet publicly commented on the issue, and officials at the party were not available to comment. Cosatu also said the decision to stop doing business with the Guptas would lead to job losses. Nazeem Howa, Oakbay's CEO, has said the firm's 7,500 employees could lose their jobs as it will be unable to pay their salaries if he fails to restore ties with the banks. Oakbay, which runs several businesses ranging from technology to mining and media, had been turned down for a meeting to review its ties with at least one of the banks, its chief executive told Reuters on Thursday. Barclays Africa's Absa, First National Bank (FNB), part of FirstRand, Standard Bank, Nedbank, investment bank Sasfin and the local unit of global auditors KPMG cut their business ties earlier this month. The banks have declined to give reasons for their action, citing client confidentiality agreements. Standard Bank and FirstRand declined to comment on the allegations by the League and Cosatu. Nedbank and Barclays Africa denied that their decisions to cut links with firms associated with the Gupta family were politically motivated. Cas Coovadia, Managing Director the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA), has dismissed speculation that banks acted in concert when cutting ties with the Guptas, saying they took the decision independently and separately. Although the Guptas' relationship with Zuma has been a source of controversy for years, it burst into the open last month when a government minister alleged that the family had exerted undue influence, including offering cabinet positions, claims which both Zuma and the Gupta family reject. ($1 = 14.5940 rand) (Editing by James Macharia and Ed Osmond)
By Gulsen Solaker ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's main opposition party will support a government bid to lift the immunity from prosecution currently enjoyed by all members of parliament, a draft law that Kurdish lawmakers say is targeted against them. President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called for members of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) to face prosecution, accusing them of being an extension of the outlawed militant group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The bill proposed on Tuesday has the support of all ruling AK Party lawmakers - 316, excluding the speaker who is not eligible to vote. With the main opposition party CHP - which has 133 seats - declaring its support on Wednesday night, the bill could easily win the required 367 votes in the 550-seat assembly. CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told broadcaster CNN Turk his party would support the proposal despite it being, in his opinion, anti-constitutional. He did not explain why he thought it breached the constitution. CHP lawmaker Ozgur Ozel said the party wanted to completely abolish immunity from prosecution for members of parliament, whereas the government proposal only applies to deputies who are under court investigation. "When the subject is immunity, no matter the shortcomings, inadequacies or inconsistencies, the CHP cannot be expected to give a 'no' vote on lifting immunities," Ozel told Reuters. He said the CHP would try to strengthen the bill as it passes through parliament. The CHP says lawmakers should only have immunity from prosecution for what they say at the parliamentary podium, not a general amnesty. Although lawmakers are completely immune from prosecution, the police can file 'dossiers' against them which can only lead to a legal process once the politician ceases to be a member of parliament. The government's proposal would lift the immunity of all deputies but only to be prosecuted for the dossiers against them. There are some 550 such dossiers pending, half of which are aimed at pro-Kurdish HDP party members. The HDP criticized the CHP's decision to side with the government. "Kilicdaroglu taking this decision means throwing a lifebelt to the AKP and (Prime Minister Ahmet) Davutoglu," said HDP spokesman Ayhan Bilgen. The HDP has criticized Turkey's large-scale security operations in its mainly Kurdish southeast, where violence has surged since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire with the PKK militants last summer. The HDP criticism has fueled Turkish nationalist calls to prosecute politicians seen as close to the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Eleven CHP deputies, including Kilicdaroglu, face requests to lift their immunity over insults to the president. (Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have taken on one of Bhutan's toughest challenges to climb to the 1,500ft high Tiger's Nest monastery.
The trip to the top took William and Kate three hours as they walked hand-in-hand along a winding path that led through a pine forest.
The Duke admitted at one stage as he wiped the sweat from his brow that it was "quite tough on the way up" while the Duchess joked: "It's a great way to burn off the curry."
En route, the couple met three Americans who were coming back from the monastery.
Lauren McKennan, 29, Chris Steele, 27, and Alex Willmore, 28, stopped to chat with the royals.
Ms McKennan said: "They were pretty altogether. There wasn't a single trail of sweat. They stopped to talk to us for three to five minutes and were absolutely charming."
Mr Willmore added: "They asked us how long we had been here and talked about how lovely the weather was. They said how rainy it had been when they were doing the archery and how glad they were doing the trek today.
"We asked for a photograph. They just laughed and wouldn't do it. But they were absolutely charming, very cool, very nice. They kept on saying how beautiful it was."
The royal couple poised for pictures at the half-way point for the limited number of media permitted to accompany them on this part of the tour.
Husband and wife then headed off on the last leg of the trek with their arms around one another.
At the top, the pair stopped to admire the views from the 17th century Paro Taktsang, perched on a sheer cliff face.
On their return back down to the valley, the Prince said: "It was amazing ... beautiful scenery it was stunning to walk up there".
William also joked he would remind his father, Prince Charles, that he made it to the top.
The Prince of Wales completed half the trek on a visit in 1998 but decided against going any further because of the height.
Kate and William also admitted on Friday that they were missing their children "massively" during the trip but added they are in "good hands".
George and Charlotte have remained at home during the week-long tour of India and Bhutan.
Kate and William fly back to India on Saturday and will visit the Taj Mahal.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak (C) arrives for the organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, on April 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Karim Jaafar)
Doha (AFP) - Major oil producers began talks in Qatar on Sunday to try to reach a deal on capping production to boost prices, despite Iran's absence.
Talks were delayed by several hours after some countries demanded changes to a draft agreement that calls for freezing production until October, a delegate told AFP.
The delegate said a "small team of experts" was assigned to make the changes before the ministers went into the official meeting in the afternoon.
Top energy officials from some 15 countries, including the world's top crude producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, were at the Doha talks.
Nations inside and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are anxious to stem a market nosedive that has cost exporters billions in lost revenue.
From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40.
Ecuadoran Hydrocarbons Minister Carlos Pareja told reporters that his country would support a plan to freeze output until at least October.
He said proposals under discussion also call for "setting up a committee to monitor the freeze," but provided no further details.
Pareja warned that if no action were taken "there will be huge damage to the oil industry".
Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev as saying the draft included the output freeze at January levels until October.
The meeting in Doha is a follow-up to talks in February between OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela plus Russia in which they first mooted the output freeze.
- Iran won't 'give up' production -
Saudi Arabia has insisted that all major producers must be on board for the freeze to work, including fellow OPEC member and regional rival Iran.
But Tehran, which has boosted production following the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal with world powers, has rejected any talk of a freeze.
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Iran had initially said its OPEC representative would participate in the talks but on Sunday Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh announced Tehran would send no delegation at all.
"The Doha meeting is for people who want to participate in the production freeze plan... but since Iran isn't expected to sign up to the plan the presence of an Iranian representative isn't necessary," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Shana news agency.
"Iran will in no way give up its historic production quota," Zanganeh said.
Influential Saudi deputy crown prince Mohamed bin Salman reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg published on Saturday that the kingdom would not accept a freeze without Tehran's cooperation.
But Kuwaiti oil expert Kamel al-Harami said a freeze agreement was still possible even without Iran.
"Iran is unable to add more than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to its production by the end of the year," Harami told AFP in Doha.
"I believe this will not greatly impact the meeting," he said.
- 'Atmosphere of optimism' -
OPEC said on Wednesday that Iranian oil production in March was 3.3 million bpd, up from 2.9 million in January, but still short of its pre-embargo level of around 4.0 million.
OPEC said its members pumped 32.25 million bpd in March -- with Saudi Arabia accounting for nearly a third -- up from an average of 31.85 million bpd in 2015.
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut production despite the price fall, as it seeks to drive less-competitive players, especially US shale producers, out of the market.
But pressure has been building as falling oil revenues hit state coffers, with Riyadh posting a record budget deficit last year.
Host country Qatar said "an atmosphere of optimism" spread on the eve of the meeting.
Kuwait's acting oil minister Anas al-Saleh told reporters on arrival in Doha that "he was optimistic" about the success of the conference, which took place as thousands of oil workers in his country began an open-ended strike Sunday to protest against a government proposal to cut their wages.
Oil prices had tumbled on Friday as traders bet that the meeting in Doha will yield no effective measures to curb the global oversupply.
On Thursday the International Energy Agency had warned against expecting too much from the Doha talks, saying that the meeting would have only a "limited" impact on supplies.
What's Driving the Crude Tanker Industry in 2016?
(Continued from Prior Part)
Crude export ban
After four decades, the US crude oil export ban from 1975 was lifted in December 2015. In this article, well take a look at how crude exports have changed after the end of the ban and what it means for the crude tanker industry.
Cargo going out of the US
In January 2016, the first crude export cargo was loaded in Houston and discharged in France. After that, more cargo headed towards Europe, and a Japanese oil company bought 300,000 barrels of crude oil, which was transported on a Suezmax. Plus, in the last week of March, the first US crude oil cargo passed through the Panama Canal heading towards Nicaraguas West Coast.
US crude exports
Since the end of the ban, US crude oil exports have fallen, but this is mainly due to decreased exports to Canada. As US oil (USO) became available to the world, the WTI discount disappeared, which made foreign crude oil more competitive for Canadian refineries. The US exports oil to Canada through pipelines or rails and this decline doesnt negatively weigh on crude tankers. Plus, US exports to other countries are increasing.
Infrastructure issues
Most of US ports are not equipped to handle large vessels. Due to this, only smaller vessels like Aframax and Suezmax can enter US ports. Thus, its likely that only smaller tankers will benefit from the lifting of the US export ban in the short term.
Teekay Tankers (TNK) and Tsakos Energy Navigation (TNP) operate Aframax vessels. Nordic American Tanker (NAT) operates only Suezmax vessels while Euronav (EURN) and DHT Holdings (DHT) mostly have VLCCs (very large crude carriers) in their fleet.
Irans ban on exporting oil was also lifted recently. In the next article, well see how Irans exports have changed and what difficulties the country is facing with its exports.
Continue to Next Part
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French President Francois Hollande said Sunday human rights should be respected in the fight against "terrorism" after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was overshadowed by claims of rights abuses. Hollande had arrived in Cairo earlier for a two-day visit to oversee the signing of several economic agreements, but a press conference with Sisi was dominated by the Egyptian leader's human rights record. Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting. "The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi, turning to the visiting French leader. When it was his turn to speak, Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have carried out large scale attacks in both France and Egypt. "Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said. Hollande said he had raised the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found covered in torture marks in February in Cairo, more than a week after his disappearance. He said he also brought up the case of Eric Lang, a French teacher who was murdered in an Egyptian jail in 2013. On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt. When a reporter brought up the case of Regeni, Sisi said there was a plot against the country by an "evil force". "Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said. Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo in protest at the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death. Egypt denies he was killed by the police. - Deals signed - "I want to say what is happening in Egypt is an attempt to destroy state institutions. Today accusations are made against the police to bring down the police, then against judges to bring down the judiciary," Sisi said. On the economic front, the two leaders oversaw the signing of 18 memorandums of understanding between Egypt and France, and a 1.2 billion euro agreement to expand the metro line in Cairo. The deals included financing for a wind farm and a solar power plant. Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters. The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi. Meanwhile, jihadists have mounted an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen. The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against IS, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria. The jihadist group has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime. For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has become the main concern rather than pushing democracy. For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware. Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships. After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed.
Southeast Asia presents good opportunities for businesses seeking new markets to tap into, but it can be also tricky to navigate
This week, I attended a tech event in Taiwan. The topic was focussed on business, including cross-border e-commerce, in Southeast Asia. The attendees could be roughly categorised into logistics providers, platform owners and product in charge. Most of them have more than five-years of experience in running business there.
They were well versed in regulations, rules, operational know-how and even secrets they shared these information freely, to remind others of the potential crisis ahead.
From my perspective, these discussions were relatively interesting and helpful. While, they do not present official statistics or solid knowledge they are, in a way, more useful and easily understandable. I believe that those ideas are worth sharing, so here they are:
1. Choose smaller cities to avoid potentially fierce competition
Based on the fact that new entrants often choose the largest cities to start their business or places entrenched with international companies, it could be harmful to businesses development in the preliminary stages if they are not backed up by huge sums of funding or powerful connections.
Also Read: Beyond the Bazaar: A brief overview of Southeast Asias online marketplaces
2. Online-shopping marketplaces are the stages for youths and young adults
As far as the young demographics in Southeast Asia is concerned, its a good idea to target young ladies and gentlemen by presenting apparels or electronics goods because those kind of products attract them.
Also Read: Infographic: 50% of Southeast Asian kids aged 6 to 14 own smartphones
3. A viable business model in developed countries could be applied in Southeast Asia
The business development and infrastructures in Southeast Asia significantly lag behind Taiwan. However, the SEA seems to follow the same path Taiwan once walked through. The infrastructure and policy of SEA reflect the exact situation in Taiwan ten years ago. Hence, for those who lack in understanding about e-commerces future, Taiwan could be a good case study before entering SEA.
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4. Local connections are the top priority
For businesses seeking to expand into new markets, backup from the locals with strong connections could help with simplifying the costly registration procedures, and also, accelerate their ascend to the top position in the market. In other words, connections plays a crucial role and should never be neglected.
Image Credit : Siemens PLM Software, flickr
5. The best and efficient way to understand Southeast Asia is to do product analyses
Businesses should conduct their research on SEA market research well in advance. Although Southeast Asia has formed an economic union, there still exists cultural differences and fragmented geographies. Both are hot potatoes and hard to deal with. Comprehensive research of the whole market in six countries could be overwhelming. So, instead, start with a simple product survey it can help you rapidly understand each market, yielding more productive results.
Also Read: Emergence of venture debt in Southeast Asia
6. Take Singapore as the first stop to enter SEA
According to the lectures shared by experienced SEA merchants, one should start his or her business in Singapore in order to cater to more people in SEA region.
Based on their experiences, brands that do not come from Western countries perform poorly because Southeast Asian people still believe that domestic products are inferior and thus, show more preference for Western products.
With Singapore having close and favourable connections to the West, setting up your office there would help facilitate the brand image in the eyes of customers.
7. Only creative business model can draw the attention of venture capitalist
Right now, the imitated business models (Tencent and Alibaba for instance) are already outdated. Venture capitalists arent excited about the business models which are too similar in appearance and essence to Tencent and Alibaba ones. It is the innovative ideas that are able to bring you to the meeting with venture capitalists.
8. Cross-border e-commerce players should focus on B2B
One of the senior merchants indicated, unexaggeratedly, that the risk in B2C e-commerce is beyond our imagination. You should only venture into B2C if you are extremely sure about the demands of the customers and have the right marketing strategies. Otherwise, you could burn through your money in a blink of an eye.
Also Read: Southeast Asias community leaders discuss money and challenges
9. Cross-border e-commerce is not a means to make a fortune but a tool instead
Although cross-border e-commerce could become the mainstream in several years, one should look before you leap. Needless to say, the core of retailing is the product. A right and good product would help you attract countless customers to come in but a fake or wrong product could wreck your business dream. After all, it is the quality of the products that counts in the end.
Also Read: Southeast Asia is very buddy-buddy: E-services Group CEO Alan Lim
10. The biggest challenge is infrastructure
Take Indonesia for example, it is consists of a spread of thousands of islands, some far apart from the mainland, making some of the residents unreachable via traditional vehicles. Also the transportation is not convenient. Some even joked that only the adoption of drones can solve the problems. Aside from that, the payment is a serious problem as well. The cash transaction alone accounts for 89 per cent of total transaction across Southeast Asia because of the lack of reliable payment tool. The room for improvement is still huge.
Image Credit : Travis Wise, flickr
The post 10 facts you should know before starting a business in SEA appeared first on e27.
AFP News
Ukraine on Sunday denounced as dangerous lies suggestions from Russia that it was preparing to use a "dirty bomb". Its western allies also dismissed the allegations from Moscow, just hours after Russia went public with the claims. In conversations with his British, French and Turkish counterparts, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu conveyed "concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a 'dirty bomb'", Moscow said. Russia did not mention the alleged "dirty bomb" allegation in its statement following Shoigu's call with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. "If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on social media. "I believe that now the world should react as harshly as possible." Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denounced Moscow's claims as "absurd" and "dangerous". "Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves," he added. A British defence ministry statement said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had "refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation". And in Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson dismissed Moscow's "transparently false" claim. "The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation," she added. - 'Vile strikes' - Russia also announced Sunday that it had destroyed a depot in central Ukraine storing over 100,000 tonnes of aviation fuel. Kyiv's energy operator meanwhile said scheduled power cuts had been introduced in the Ukrainian capital due to Russia's repeated strikes on the nation's power network. The blackouts started from 11:13 am (0813 GMT) with consumers in Kyiv divided into three groups "disconnected for a certain period of time", energy company DTEK said. DTEK reiterated calls for residents to use electricity "sparingly" and for businesses to limit their use of external lighting. More than one million Ukrainian households have lost electricity following recent Russian strikes, according to the Ukrainian presidency, at least a third of the country's power stations having been destroyed ahead of winter. Zelensky condemned the "vile strikes" in comments late Saturday, after Russian attacks caused power cuts across the country. - 'Save your strength' - In the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig, deputy mayor Sergiy Miliutin was dealing with emergencies and power outages from his underground bunker, used as a venue for a children's martial arts competition. "I've reached a point where I just survive on my drive. You have to stay level-headed and save your strength. No one knows how long this will all last," he told AFP. The intensification of Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly energy facilities, came after the bridge linking the annexed Crimea peninsula to mainland Russia was partially destroyed by an explosion earlier this month. It was another major setback for Moscow's forces, battling to contain a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south and east of the country. French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that it was for Ukrainians to decide when "peace is possible", in comments made in Rome at the start of a peace summit. Ukraine reported three deaths in an overnight Russian artillery strike in the Toretsk area, a governor of the eastern Donetsk region said. Inside Russia, two lines of defence have been built in the border region of Kursk to deal with any possible attack, a local governor said on Sunday. On Saturday Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor in the neighbouring Russian border region of Belgorod, said the construction of defence structures had begun. Gladkov said two civilians had been killed in strikes there Saturday, and that 15,000 people had been left without electricity. - Kherson evacuations - Meanwhile Ukraine's SBU intelligence service said it had detained two officials of Ukrainian aircraft engine maker Motor Sich on suspicion of working with Russia. The SBU said management at the company's plant in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region -- partly controlled by Russian forces -- had colluded with Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec. The suspects had supplied Russia with Ukrainian aircraft engines that were used to make and repair attack helicopters, the SBU said. In the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, which Russia claims to have annexed, pro-Moscow officials on Saturday urged residents to leave "immediately" amid a "tense situation" at the front. Kherson, the region's main city, was the first to fall to Moscow's troops and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine's counter-offensive. A Moscow-installed official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday that around 25,000 people had left Kherson city to the left bank of the Dnipro River. Ukraine has denounced the removal of residents from Kherson, describing them as "deportations". bur-imm/raz/jj/lcm
By Syful Islam DHAKA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The government of Bangladesh has indicated it is unlikely to abandon its push to build more coal-fired power plants despite growing opposition among local people and environmentalists. At least four people died and many were injured at Banshkhali in Chittagong earlier this month, when police opened fire at violent protests against the construction of a 1,320-megawatt (MW) coal plant in the southeastern coastal area. In response, the government unofficially said on April 9 that work at the $2.4 billion power plant would be suspended for 15 days, while it carries out an assessment of the plants environmental impact, led by Bangladeshi and foreign scientists. Dhaka plans to set up 25 coal-fired power plants by 2022, to generate 23,692 MW, in order to meet rising electricity demand. Of the total, 16 will be built by the public sector and nine by the private sector. Environmentalists say the risks those fossil fuel plants could pose to nature and the livelihoods of local people are not being properly investigated. Anu Muhammad, member secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, said the Banshkhali plant does not have an approved environmental impact assessment (EIA), yet private company SS Power Ltd - a joint venture between Bangladeshi and Chinese firms - has already started work at the site. The site selected is located in a coastal area where climate change risk is high," he said. "Establishing such plants in coastal areas will be dangerous." POWER-HUNGRY Monowar Islam, secretary of the governments power division, said Bangladesh is a power-hungry country that needs huge amounts of electricity to develop. It is highly dependent on natural gas reserves that are dwindling, he said. We have no other options but to go for coal - the long-term solution is coal-based power plants, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Currently only 2 percent of Bangladeshs power is generated using coal. Islam said the advanced technology now used in coal-fired plants would curb the environmental risks cited by opponents. The Banshkhali plant has yet to get its EIA report vetted by the department of environment, but the plant already has site clearance, he noted. The plant cannot be relocated, as the process to select the site took five years, he added. SUNDARBANS THREAT There is fierce opposition to another planned coal plant in Rampal, near the protected Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. The plant is a joint project between the state-run power companies of Bangladesh and India. India has previously tried to set up coal-fired power plants in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, which would have used the same technology, but was forced to cancel those projects amid environmental protests. The government of Bangladesh is overlooking peoples concerns, said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies. Even the department of environment has raised questions over the EIA for the Rampal plant, conducted by the ministry of energy, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. There was no public and experts participation in the EIA. Laws have not been followed properly in this case, Rahman said. The government did not explore alternative sites for the Rampal plant even though environmentalists and local people have waged a long-running campaign against the possible damage it could cause to the low-lying Sundarbans, a world heritage site. There is administrative arrogance, Rahman said. UNESCO officials recently visited the Sundarbans to assess the possible impact of the power plant on the flora and fauna of the mangrove forests. In the past, when oil tankers and boats carrying fertilizer sank in the Shela River near the Sundarbans, the U.N. body expressed concern over possible harm to biodiversity. Ainun Nishat, a respected environmentalist and professor emeritus at Brac University in Dhaka, said the department of environment had approved the EIA report for Rampal - but with many conditions attached. Everything should be as per the laws concerned. The government should fulfill all these conditions before setting up the plant, he said. IMPORTANT ECOSYSTEMS Md Khalequzzaman, professor of geology at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, said Rampal was not the best place for a coal-fired power plant. There are valid concerns about the proposed plant being so close to the Sundarbans, he said by e-mail. No country with a commitment to preserve ecologically sensitive areas, including India, will allow such a plant on their ground, and Bangladesh should not allow it either. Bangladeshs past record points to a risk of spills, thermal pollution and air pollution associated with power plant operations, he added. The Sundarbans is too important an ecosystem to fiddle or experiment with, he said. Bangladesh needs electricity, but it should be produced in less environmentally valuable areas, and at least 25 kilometers away from forests, he added. Khalequzzaman urged the government to look at alternative energy scenarios, and to come up with a long-term energy policy that fits with the global shift towards sustainable development. Abu Naser Khan, chairman of the Save Environment Movement, said the Rampal plant would one day turn into cancer for the Sundarbans. The government should give importance to environmental concerns and local people's anxiety before setting up any coal-fired power plant, he added. (Reporting by Syful Islam; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
(Reuters) - British police arrested an 18-year-old man at Manchester airport on Saturday on suspicion of terrorism offences related to Syria's civil war. The teenager from the central English city of Birmingham had posed no risk to the public, West Midlands Police said in a statement, without giving further details about why he was held. The detention was not connected to Friday's arrests of five other people from Birmingham, police said. Those were linked to last month's suicide bombings in Brussels, which killed 32 people, and November's attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead, a security source said. Earlier, police in Spain arrested a couple believed to be part of a group that supported and recruited Islamic State fighters, including individuals that had carried out suicide bomb attacks in Syria. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel warned earlier this week that further threats to Europe were still a possibility, and that security forces had to stay alert. (Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary; Editing by Helen Popper)
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - European training for Libyan forces could more realistically be started outside the country in the initial stages as part of efforts to rebuild the North African state, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Saturday. Steinmeier and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault visited Tripoli for talks with the new Libyan unity government in a show of support to end fighting among rival factions, and combat militants and migrant trafficking. "I think it is realistic enough to say we have to start training measures from my point of view outside of Libya," Steinmeier told reporters, when asked about European training plans. He said training could be in Libya later. Diplomats say there has yet to be detailed discussion with the new U.N.-brokered Libyan government in defining what kind of assistance it wants from the European Union. (Reporting by Aidan Lewis; Writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Alkem Laboratories has been accused by Germany's health regulator of fudging data on clinical trials of an antibiotic and brain disorder drug, becoming the third Indian firm to be scrutinised since 2014 for suspected manipulation of trial data. The medicines are now being reviewed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on the recommendation of the German regulator, which inspected Alkem's Taloja plant in western India last March. Alkem was found to have engaged in "intentional misrepresentation" of data and duplicated results of electrocardiogram (ECG) readings of patients in trials, the German regulator said in a notice sent to the EMA on March 24, 2016. The notice and other information on the review dated April 1 was seen by Reuters on the EMA website on Friday. (http://bit.ly/1Vp9VgP) In recent years, India's GVK Biosciences and Quest Lifesciences were found to have duplicated ECG data, resulting in the withdrawal of approvals for hundreds of drugs last year. (http://reut.rs/1SFyorM). The EMA said it was assessing the "benefit-risk" of certain medicines that had received marketing approval based on trials conducted by Alkem between March 2013 and March 2015. The drugs include the antibiotic cefuroxime and rulizole, used to treat the neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sold both by Alkem and Slovenia's Krka, the EMA said. Alkem was conducting trials on the drugs for Krka. The German regulator made Alkem aware of its findings on Sept. 8, 2015, according to the notice. Mumbai-based Alkem said no-one was available to comment on the matter on Friday. It said last month that UK regulator MHRA had inspected the Taloja plant and made eight observations. Krka public relations officer Simona Gorjup said in an emailed statement that the company is "collaborating with Alkem on one product, which might be affected". She did not name the product, but the EMA's website lists it as cefuroxime. Gorjup added that Krka was "carefully following the development of the situation," and would comply with any regulatory decisions that are taken. EMA press officer Rebecca Harding in London said the agency would not comment on the case while the review was ongoing. The German regulator said Alkem's quality management system "neither avoided nor detected" the data manipulation. The regulator has urged the EMA, the medicines regulator for the European Union, to take necessary action and consider if impacted drugs need to be suspended or recalled. Alkem, one of the fastest-growing drugmakers in India, debuted on Indian stock exchanges in December, raising more than $200 million in an offering that received an overwhelming response from investors. Since the listing, its shares have dipped 3 percent. Apart from conducting clinical trials for drug companies, it sells generic versions of medicines ranging from anti-infectives, anti-diabetics and anti-malaria drugs to 55 countries, including United States and Europe. The EMA's opinion will be considered by the European Commission, which will take a final decision on the medicines, the EMA said. (Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's main goal in its nuclear talks with world powers was to secure access to the global financial system, and the United States must now do more to remove obstacles to the banking sector, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday. In January, world powers led by the United States and the European Union lifted most sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. But some U.S. sanctions remain, and U.S. banks remain prohibited from doing business with Iran directly or indirectly because Washington still accuses Tehran of "supporting terrorism". That has deterred European institutions, which fear they could face U.S. legal problems if they re-establish banking links. Zarif used the visit of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the first by a high-level EU delegation since the deal came into force in January, to make his point. "Iran and the EU will put pressure on the United States to facilitate the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran," Zarif said at a news conference in Tehran with Mogherini who said in a tweet that she was leading a team of seven EU commissioners. "It's essential that the other side, especially the United States, fulfil its commitments not on paper but in practice and removes the obstacles especially in banking sector," he said. Zarif and Mogherini said in a joint statement after the news conference that the EU and Iran were agreed on the expansion of economic relations, and "encouraging banking cooperation." The White House said on Friday that an agreement with Iran does not include giving it access to the global financial system. Iranian central bank Governor Valiollah Seif met U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Thursday in Washington and said they discussed Iran's expectations under the nuclear deal. Lew told Seif that the United States would keep meeting "its sanctions-related commitments in good faith" as long as Iran continues to uphold its end of the bargain. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Rami Amichay GAMLA, Golan Heights (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday that Israel would never relinquish the Golan Heights, in a signal to Russia and the United States that the strategic plateau should be excluded from any deal on Syria's future. "The Golan Heights will remain in Israel's hands forever," Netanyahu told his cabinet, which met for the first time on the Golan since the area was captured from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed in 1981, in a move that has not won international recognition. Netanyahu, who made a similar statement during an election campaign in 2009, said he had spoken by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday and told him that Israel's security must not be compromised by any peace agreement to end Syria's five-year-old civil war. That would mean, Netanyahu said, that "at the end of the day Iranian, Hezbollah and ISIS forces would be expelled from Syrian territory". Iran, one of Israel's main foes, as well as Tehran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, have supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict against rebel forces and Islamic State militants. Echoing a previous call from the Jewish Home party, a key ultranationalist partner in his governing coalition, Netanyahu urged the international community "to recognise finally that the Golan will remain permanently under Israeli sovereignty". Officially, the Golan was chosen as the venue for the cabinet session as a way to mark the anniversary of Netanyahu's election victory a year ago. But the timing was seen by some political commentators as linked to talks Netanyahu is due to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria, where Moscow's military and diplomatic interventions are crucial. Though Russia is committed to keeping Syria intact under Assad, it has not publicly broached the future of the Golan. "Whatever happens beyond the border, the (Golan) line is not going to change," Netanyahu said, in his remarks on his conversation with Kerry. Having sent in Russian forces last year to turn the tide against a rebellion raging since 2011, Putin, who meets Netanyahu in Moscow on Thursday, wants to preserve Assad's central rule as part of national reconciliation efforts. Other powers want him gone. While formally neutral on the civil war next door, Israel has predicted Syria's sectarian partition is inevitable. Past U.S.-backed Israeli-Syrian peace efforts were predicated on a return of the Golan, where some 23,000 Israelis now live alongside roughly the same number of Druse Arabs loyal to Damascus. (Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Andrew Bolton)
By Yesim Dikmen and Melih Aslan ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations accused Iran on Friday of supporting terrorism and interfering in the affairs of regional states, including Syria and Yemen, a condemnation that may widen the divide between Iran and its main rival, Saudi Arabia. The leaders, including Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, have been attending a summit in Istanbul this week of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss a such issues as the humanitarian fall-out from Syria's civil war. "The conference deplored Iran's interference in the internal affairs of the States of the region and other member states including Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia, and its continued support for terrorism," the OIC said in its final summit communique. It also stressed the need for "cooperative relations" between Iran and other Muslim countries, including refraining from the use or threat of force. Both Turkey, which has assumed the three-year rotating presidency of the OIC, and Saudi Arabia are part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants in Syria. They are also opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a stance that has put them at odds with Iran, an ally of Assad. Shi'ite Iran is also allied with the Houthi movement in Yemen, which has been battling forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed president in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people since March 2015. While Turkey and Iran have stark differences over Syria, they have managed to keep their diplomatic and trade relations. Still, majority-Sunni Turkey is close to Saudi Arabia, which has cut diplomatic ties with Iran, and it is concerned about Tehran's growing clout in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. 'WE ARE MUSLIMS' A day before the communique, Iran's Rouhani urged summit delegates to avoid sending out divisive messages. "No message which would fuel division in the Islamic community should come out of the conference," said Rouhani, according to Iranian state television. In a speech at the summit's closing news conference, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addressed the need to reconcile the divisions. "We are Muslims, we will not allow Islam to be divided," he said. The leaders also condemned what they called the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan and called for the unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. On Thursday, Erdogan said the countries had agreed to work more closely to fight terrorism and would establish an Istanbul-based center for greater police cooperation. (Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones, Larry King)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday dismissed as preposterous reports that its intelligence agency helped fund a 2009 suicide bombing on a CIA outpost in Afghanistan that was one of the deadliest attacks in the U.S. spy agency's history. A heavily redacted U.S. government document, released under the Freedom of Information Act, said that an unidentified officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate paid $200,000 to the Haqqani network to facilitate the bombing. The attack, at a site known as Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, killed seven and wounded six. "Allegations in the media on Pakistans involvement with HQN are preposterous," a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement, using an acronym for the Haqqani network, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. "In fact, we were shocked and deeply saddened when precious American lives were lost at the Chapman facility in 2009 in an unfortunate attack that was later claimed by TTP in a publicly available video, featuring the suicide bomber with the leader of the TTP," the statement said. The TTP, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is the main Pakistani Taliban faction. "Pakistan is determined to eradicate the scourge of terrorism and has taken action against all terrorist elements, without discrimination," the statement said. The declassified U.S. government document, obtained by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute at George Washington University, can be found here at https://nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/hqn9.pdf. (Reporting by Warren Strobel and David Alexander; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
By Jarni Blakkarly MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The head of Papua New Guinea's police anti-corruption unit has been sacked after arresting several high-profile figures close to the government, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The head of the police National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate, Matthew Damaru, was served a suspension notice at his house on Saturday morning, the ABC reported. Officers from his unit last week arrested the attorney general and a Supreme Court judge on charges of corruption. A lawyer working for Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was also arrested on charges of perverting the course of justice. "It has been a very notable week of arrests. There has been an upping of the ante and ... a very timely response," Associate Professor Sinclair Dinnen of the Australian National University said. "This unit has sought to carry out investigations involving these very prominent people and suspending the head of that unit, that will severely affect the ability to do it's work." Papua New Guinea ranks 139 of 167 countries in Transparency International's global corruption perception index. (Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly; Editing by Stephen Coates)
By Maria Carolina Marcello and Silvio Cascione BRASILIA (Reuters) - Pro-impeachment lawmakers chanted "Dilma Out" in the lower house of Brazil's Congress on Friday, as it opened a raucous three-day debate on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff on charges of breaking budget laws. Pro-government demonstrators took to the streets in several states amid fears of violence as the debate began. Major trade unions and landless peasant movements planned bigger, nationwide protests on Sunday, when the debate is set to culminate with a vote that Rousseff is widely expected to lose. The government lost a last-ditch appeal on Thursday before the Supreme Court to halt the impeachment process, which could bring further instability or even chaos to Latin America's largest economy after 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers' Party. Rousseff is accused of manipulating budget accounts in 2014 to secure her re-election. She has strongly rejected the accusation and planned to appeal to Brazilians in a televised speech on Friday night. But the increasingly isolated leader canceled the broadcast after an opposition party sought a court injunction to block it, arguing that she was unfairly using resources of the Brazilian state to defend herself. Rousseff is fighting to survive a political storm fueled by Brazil's worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s and a spiraling corruption scandal that has reached her inner circle. In a further blow for the president, Minister for Cities Gilberto Kassab resigned his post late on Friday, according to two sources familiar with matter. His Brazil Social Democratic Party (PSD) split from the government on Wednesday and said it would vote for Rousseff's impeachment. Police stepped up security in the Brazilian capital where a half-mile-long (1 km) metal fence has been erected on the grass esplanade opposite Congress to avoid clashes between rival demonstrators expected to turn out by the tens of thousands over the weekend. In Rio de Janeiro, police said they plan to form a cordon on the Copacabana beachfront avenue to separate the pro-impeachment crowd from Rousseff supporters. "I am very worried that there will be violence, depending on the result of the vote and the number of people who gather in Brasilia," said Congressman Rogerio Rosso, who chaired the lower house committee that backed Rousseff's impeachment. The country's top network TV Globo plans to broadcast Sunday's critical roll-call vote from beginning to end, starting at 2 p.m. (1700 GMT), which analysts said will add pressure on lawmakers to vote for impeachment. Polls show that roughly two-thirds of Brazilians support impeachment. "VIOLENT ACT" As opposition congressmen called for Rousseff's ouster, Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo addressed Congress in her defense, calling the impeachment process a "violent act with no parallel against democracy." "History will never forgive those who broke with democracy," Cardozo said, as ruling lawmakers shouted: "There won't be a coup." While the budget violations alleged against Rousseff are serious, she has not been directly implicated in the kickback scandal engulfing state-run oil company Petrobras, though her opponents say that bribe money was used to fund her election campaigns. The move to impeach her, after months of political deadlock, is widely seen as a vote of no-confidence in a leader blamed for turning once-booming Brazil into the worst performer among the world's major economies. Support for unseating Rousseff has gained momentum in recent weeks, with the defection of parties from her ruling coalition. Nineteen of the 25 parties with seats in the lower house now back impeachment, the Brasilia-based consultancy Arko Advice said on Friday. They will deliver at least 350 votes and maybe 370, exceeding the two-thirds majority in the 513-seat house needed to send impeachment to the Senate, it said. Former Justice Minister Miguel Reale Jr., a leading supporter of impeachment, opened Friday's debate by saying the process to oust Rousseff reflected the will of the people. "She was extremely irresponsible and knocked out the country," he said. If her impeachment is approved by the lower house, the Senate must then vote on whether to go ahead with putting Rousseff on trial for disobeying budget laws. If the Senate approved a trial, in a vote that would likely take place on May 11, Rousseff would automatically be suspended and replaced by Vice President Michel Temer. Temer, who would serve out Rousseff's term until 2018 if she is ousted by the Senate, has little popular support. He would face a daunting task restoring confidence in a country where dozens of political leaders, including his close associates, are under investigation for corruption. Temer is considering the chairman of Goldman Sachs in Brazil, Paulo Leme, and the founder of asset manager Maua Capital, Luiz Fernando Figueiredo, as candidates to join his economic team should he take over the presidency in coming weeks, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. (Writing by Daniel Flynn and Anthony Boadle; Editing by W Simon and Tom Brown)
By Thomas Wilson and Minami Funakoshi TOKYO (Reuters) - Survivors from a series of deadly earthquakes in southern Japan spent a cold night in cramped shelters or camped out in fields as 30,000 rescue service personnel rushed to provide food and to search for those still missing on Monday. A 7.3 magnitude tremor struck early on Saturday, killing at least 33 people, a little more than 24 hours after nine people died in another quake in the same area. More than a thousand people were injured, with widespread damage to houses, roads and bridges, including at least one mountain highway severed in two, concrete tumbling into the valley below. Factories for major manufacturers including Toyota, Sony and Honda were closed, causing supply chain disruptions around Japan. Food was in short supply as roads remained cut off by landslides. "Yesterday, I ate just one piece of tofu and a rice ball. That's all," said the mayor of one of the areas affected. "What we're most worried about now is food. There's no electricity or water, either." Of more than 500 quakes hitting Kyushu since Thursday, more than 70 have been at least a four on Japan's intensity scale, strong enough to shake buildings. Quakes are common in Japan, part of the seismically active "Ring of Fire" which sweeps from the South Pacific islands, up through Indonesia, Japan, across to Alaska and down the west coast of the United States and Central and South America. At the other end of the ring this weekend, Ecuador's biggest earthquake in decades killed at least 235 people, caused devastation in coastal towns and left an unknown number trapped in ruins. A 6.1 magnitude quake also struck southeast of the Pacific island nation of Tonga, with no immediate reports of damage. Three nuclear plants in the southern Japanese region were unaffected by the quakes, but the Nuclear Regulation Authority said it will hold an extraordinary meeting on Monday to discuss the disaster. A massive 9 magnitude quake and tsunami in northern Japan in March 2011 caused the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, shutting down the nuclear industry for safety checks and sending radiation spewing across the countryside. Nearly 20,000 people were killed in the 2011 tsunami. MANUFACTURING HIT Public broadcaster NHK showed footage of forests and rice fields torn apart by the force of the quake, saying one 50 km strip shifted almost 2m sideways. In the village of Minamiaso, 10 people were "out of contact", said public broadcaster NHK. Rescuers pulled 10 students out of a collapsed university apartment in the same settlement on Saturday. The Kumamoto region is an important manufacturing hub. Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> said it would suspend production at plants across Japan after the quakes disrupted its supply chain. Electronics giant Sony Corp <6758.T> said its Kumamoto image sensors plant would remain suspended. One of the company's major customers for the sensors is Apple . Meanwhile, Honda Motor Co. <7267.T> said production at its motorcycle plant in southern Japan would remain suspended through Friday. Suga said the government may seek a supplementary budget to cover the cost of the quakes. All commercial flights to the damaged Kumamoto airport were cancelled and Japan's bullet train to the region suspended. Over the weekend, rescuers digging with their bare hands dragged some elderly survivors, still in their pyjamas, out of the rubble and onto makeshift stretchers made of tatami mats. "It's full in there. There's not a inch to sleep or even walk about in there. It's impossible in there," a resident of Mashiki town said outside an evacuation centre on Sunday. Hundreds of people queued, some for more than an hour, to get food as power and water supplies to tens of thousands of homes remained cut off. Police said 33 people had been confirmed dead in Saturday's quake. The government said about 190 of the injured were in a serious condition. Some 110,000 people had been displaced. The epicentre of Saturday's quake was near the city of Kumamoto and measured at a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. The shallower a quake, the more likely it is to cause damage. The city's 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle was badly damaged, with its walls breached after having withstood bombardment and fire in its four centuries of existence. The USGS, a science organisation that provides information on ecosystems and the environment, estimated there was a 72 percent likelihood of economic damage exceeding $10 billion, adding that it was too early to be specific. Major insurers are yet to release estimates. (Additional reporting by Linda Sieg, Elaine Lies, William Mallard, Shinichi Soashiro, Chris Gallagher, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Tim Kelly; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Senior Syrian opposition negotiators on Sunday urged rebels to strike back against the Syrian army, accusing it of using a cessation of hostilities to gain ground, and cast doubt over whether they would continue Geneva peace talks indefinitely. A senior opposition figure who asked not to be quoted by name said pressure was growing for a speedy decision to leave talks. In a internet message to fighters on the ground, chief negotiator Asaad al-Zoubi said there was a limit to how long he would negotiate if government advances continued and there was no progress on a key opposition demand for political transition without President Bashar al Assad. He gave no deadline. "We will not stay for long negotiating.. .In the event a missile targets them (rebels), they have to retaliate with ten missiles," said Zoubi whose mainstream opposition group has been accused by fighters of being divorced from realities on the ground. In heightened rhetoric as the Syrian army and its allies expand operations against rebel-held territory, Zoubi, who is in Geneva, said rebels "must gain control of as many areas as possible, they must take advantage of the ceasefire as the regime has done". The mainstream opposition includes both political and armed opposition to Assad. It includes rebel groups such as Jaysh al-Islam and a number of Free Syrian Army rebel factions deemed moderate by the West, some of which have received military support from Assad's foreign enemies. Senior Syrian opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush, representing Jaysh al Islam, which operates in the suburbs of Damascus, also said rebels should retaliate against what he called Syrian army attacks on civilians. "I say this response should be retaliation so that the regime does not think of attacking civilians as it escalates its attacks," Alloush told Arabic TV al Hadath. "I don't think this is a call to escalate violence, it is a call for self-defence no more," he said. CRITICISM OF UN Both comments by Geneva negotiators point to the possibility of the mainstream opposition leaving peace talks. They have also been infuriated by an idea they say United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura had suggested to them in Geneva that Assad could stay on in power in a symbolic role. "The regime is intransigent and de Mistura is clearly now tilting towards a much more ambiguous stance on a political transition without Assad," he said. More than 250,000 people have been killed in the five-year-old conflict. A rival rebel group Ahrar al Sham launched a scathing attack on the opposition negotiators and the peace process saying the outcome "so far was negative and it had provided free political gains for the regime". Fighting near Aleppo has been escalating for two weeks, mostly to the south of the city where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah and other militias have been waging fierce battles with rebels including the Nusra Front. Zoubi said in the internet recording he had told de Mistura they would not be ready discuss to any other proposal other than the transfer of power from Assad to a transitional body. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Ralph Boulton)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Government air strikes hit rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Saturday as rockets fired by insurgents pounded neighbourhoods under state control, part of escalating violence in northern Syria that has undermined a truce agreement. Fatalities were reported on both sides of the city, the focus of a military escalation that has underscored the bleak outlook for U.N.-led peace talks being convened in Geneva. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the five-year-long war, said air strikes had targeted at least four parts of Aleppo. Opposition sources said there had been deaths, but the number was not immediately clear. The Observatory said three people had been killed in the rebel bombardment of government-held areas of the city. Syrian state news agency SANA put the death toll at seven, saying they had been killed by missile bombardments and sniper fire. Fighting has intensified this month to the north and south of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and industrial centre until the country's conflict erupted in 2011. The fighting has stretched to breaking point a "cessation of hostilities" deal brokered by the United States and Russia with the aim of allowing peace talks to start. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Helen Popper)
A tiger has fatally mauled a woman keeper inside an enclosure at Palm Beach Zoo in Florida.
Stacey Konwiser, 38, suffered a "severe bite" wound while inside the big cat's habitat on Friday afternoon, say zoo officials.
She was preparing to give a talk to visitors with the male Malayan tiger at the time, said zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter.
"This is the first death at the hands of an animal in the history of the Palm Beach Zoo," she told the Palm Beach Post.
The 300lb (136kg) tiger was not on exhibit at the time of the attack and guests were never in danger, Ms Carter added.
Ms Konwiser, who was the zoo's lead keeper, was taken to St Mary's Medical Center, where she died.
She had recently accepted a job with the US Food and Drug Administration, said zoo officials.
West Palm Beach police said the Malayan tiger, a critically endangered species, was tranquillized.
Ms Carter said Ms Konwiser, who had worked at the zoo for three years, was known as "the tiger whisperer" because of how well she handled the attraction's four Malayan tigers.
It is not known which big cat carried out the attack, but the victim earlier this year uploaded a photo of a tiger to Facebook.
Ms Konwiser, who was married to another keeper at the zoo, commented on the picture: "The newest man in my life."
The zoo will remain closed until further notice.
(Reuters) - UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expressed serious concerns about the proposed merger between Hutchison 3G UK and Telefonica UK and called for the European Commission to prevent "long-term damage" to the UK mobile telecoms market. The proposed merger is likely to lead to increased prices and/or a reduction in the quality offered to UK consumers, CMA Chief Executive Alex Chisholm told the European Commission's Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. (http://bit.ly/1SYPxji) European Union antitrust regulators launched a full in-depth investigation in October into Hutchison Whampoa's 10.3 billion-pound bid for British mobile operator O2 on Friday, concerned that the deal may push up prices. The potential deal would make Li Ka-shing's Hutchison, which operates the Three UK mobile network, the top mobile operator in Britain. "It is clear that the remedies offered fall well short of what would be required to meet the relevant legal standard, as detailed in our case submissions," the CMA said, adding that the only available option for the EU was a prohibition if the suggested remedies are not enacted. On Monday the CMA suggested that the companies divest either the Three Mobile or O2 mobile network business completely or allow for carve-outs from the divested business. Hutchison said it was "very disappointed" the CMA had intervened, adding that it could have "no legitimate" status in the process. "It is of no surprise that the CMA opposes the merger," it said in a statement. "It always has, and so has (British regulator) Ofcom. But it is for the Commission to assess any competition concerns, on the basis of the facts and proposed remedies." Hutchison said the remedies it had proposed -- including striking deals for other operators to rent more than 40 percent of the combined network capacity -- went far beyond remedies accepted in previous deals in the sector in Europe. It said the CMA's suggestion that either the Three Mobile or the O2 network should be divested was a "red herring" that would undermine the whole rationale behind the merger. "There is no taker for such a remedy," it said. Spain's Telefonica said in March 2015 that it had finalised a deal to sell its British mobile business O2 to Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa. (Reporting by Vidya L Nathan in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Ed Osmond)
On December, 15, the Spanish state passed the "ley de mordaza", a gag law that makes it a crime to insult a cop, film a cop, or assemble in large groups. On December 16, the Spanish state raided several houses and apartments in Barcelona. After seizing electronics, documents, and clothing, the state imprisoned seven anarchists on vague charges relating to terrorism.On December, 22, a group of anarchists stormed the Spanish consulate in San Francisco. After throwing leaflets into the consulate, tipping over the Spanish flag, and yelling curses, the group left without incident.
(April 13, 2016) A survey of approximately 2,000 teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that the presidential campaign is having a profoundly negative impact on schoolchildren across the country, according to a report released today.
The report The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nations Schools found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom (see PDF). Many students worry about being deported.Teachers also reported an increase in the bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates.Were deeply concerned about the level of fear among minority children who feel threatened by both the incendiary campaign rhetoric and the bullying theyre encountering in school, said SPLC President Richard Cohen. Weve seen Donald Trump behave like a 12-year-old, and now were seeing 12-year-olds behave like Donald Trump.The online survey, conducted by the SPLCs Teaching Tolerance project from March 23 to April 2, is not scientific. But it provides a rich source of information about the impact of this years election on the countrys classrooms. The data, including 5,000 comments from educators, shows a disturbing nationwide problem, one that is particularly acute in schools with high concentrations of minority children.* More than two-thirds of the teachers reported that students mainly immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims have expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election.* More than half have seen an increase in uncivil political discourse.* More than third have observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.* More than 40 percent are hesitant to teach about the election.While the survey did not identify candidates, more than 1,000 comments mentioned Donald Trump by name. In contrast, a total of fewer than 200 contained the names Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. More than 500 comments contained the words fear, scared, afraid, anxious, or terrified to describe the campaigns impact on minority students.My students are terrified of Donald Trump, wrote a teacher from a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims. They think that if hes elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa.In state after state, teachers reported similar fears.A K-3 teacher in Oregon said her black students are concerned for their safety because of what they see on TV at Trump rallies. In Tennessee, a kindergarten teacher said a Latino child told by classmates that he will be deported and blocked from returning home by a wall asks every day, Is the wall here yet?A number of teachers reported that students are using the word Trump as a taunt or chant as they gang up on others. Muslim children are being called terrorist, or ISIS, or bomber. One teacher wrote that a fifth-grader told a Muslim student that he was supporting Donald Trump because he was going to kill all of the Muslims if he became president!Educators, meanwhile, are perplexed and conflicted about what to do. They report being stymied by the need to remain nonpartisan but disturbed by the anxiety in their classrooms and the lessons that children may be absorbing from this campaign.Schools are finding that their anti-bullying work is being tested and, in many places, falling apart, said Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello, author of the report. Most teachers seem to feel they need to make a choice between teaching about the election or protecting their kids. In elementary school, half have decided to avoid it. In middle and high schools, were seeing more who have decided, for the first time, not to be neutral.The long-term impact on childrens wellbeing, their behavior or their civic education is impossible to gauge. Some teachers report that their students are highly engaged and interested in the political process this year. Others worry that the election is making them less trusting of government or hostile to opposing points of view, or that children are losing respect for the political process.The SPLC urged educators to not abandon their teaching about the election, to use instances of incivility as teaching moments, and to support children who are hurt, confused or frightened by what theyre hearing from the candidates.Southern Poverty Law Center
Igbo brides are said to be the most 'expensive' when it comes to carrying out the traditional marriage rites
An igbo bride with her maidens
The Igbo tribe in Nigeria pride themselves as a people whose cultural standards are very high. A typical Igbo person is said to be very industrious and hard-working.
The average person is assumed to be sophisticated and hates to do things in half measures.
Igbo ladies are said to be one of the most beautiful ladies in Nigeria, so a lot is expected of any man opting to take one as a bride.
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The Igbo lady being well-trained, industrious, beautiful as well as accommodating, are said to be the contributing factors to why their bride price is one of if not the highest in Nigeria.
The bride price practice of giving out a 'long and rich' list, has been in existence for a very long time. This practice is perhaps a direct message to a potential suitor, about the importance attached to a female child in Igbo land.
Things that can be required from an Igbo bride's list
The contents of this kind of list has been said to discourage a couple of men from marrying their Igbo brides. Below is a picture of a typical list for a bride from Abia state:
What do you think?
PHOTO CREDIT: Instablog9ja
Source: Legit.ng
The 2015 Kia Cerato is one of the best value compact cars around. It is largely similar to the 2014 models, but offers some significant upgrades.
The Cerato is a vehicle that is produced by the South Korean car manufacturer Kia. Classified as a compact vehicle, the Cerato was introduced in the year 2003 as one of the more high end vehicles in Kias lineup.
After undergoing a major facelift about three years after it was first introduced, the Kia Cerato saw a boost in its popularity and became widely known as a competitive entry into the compact vehicle market.
Kia seems to be looking to take their competitors head on with the 2015 Kia Cerato, having included several upgrades to the overall design of the vehicle. Note that the Kia Cerato is known as Kia Forte in some countries, though the Cerato name is retained in Nigeria and the rest of Africa and a few other countries.
The Exterior
The 2015 Kia Cerato is available in three different styles, though all styles may not be available in all markets. The first of these styles is the standard sedan for which there are two trim levels of any of the combination: LX, EX or SX (may be known by different names in some markets).
The other two styles are the two door Coup (a.k.a Cerato Koup) and the four door hatchback, both of which are available in two different trims: EX or SX.
The exterior of the vehicle is not exactly stylish, but then again this was never meant to be a stylish car. Simplicity and solidity is what the 2015 Kia Cerato is all about and it shows in the way the exterior of this vehicle has been designed.
The wheels of the vehicle depend on what trim level you choose to purchase. In the LX trim level (not in all markets), the wheels are made of steel and measure at about 15 inches. You get a slight size boost as well as a material upgrade in the 2015 Kia Cerato EX, with the wheels at this trim level being about sixteen inches and are made of alloy.
Getting the SX trim will get you an upgrade in the size department from the EX, with 18 inchers, but the material is the same alloy.
The Interior
Despite the fact that the Cerato is widely considered to be the stodgy, practical economy car with cluttered cabins in order to facilitate easy access to all of the controls, the interior cabin of the 2015 Kia Cerato is actually quite good looking, with the materials used being of a surprisingly high quality.
In fact, the materials used in the interior cabin of the higher end trim levels are bordering on premium, and would give most vehicles made by high end car manufacturers a run for their money for sure.
The touchscreen interface of the 2015 Kia Cerato is well positioned and easy to use, something that cant be said for a lot of the vehicles that are coming out these days that are unable to successfully incorporate technology into the interior design of their vehicles without making the cabin seem clunky.
The interior cabin also has plenty of room, with enough room in the back for even larger adults which no one expected from a vehicle in this size subtype. The sedan offers about 15 cubic feet of storage capacity whereas the hatchback offers around 23 cubic feet.
Safety
The 2015 model of the Kia Cerato comes with all of the safety bells and whistles that one would expect from a vehicle produced by a manufacturer with the reputation that Kia has.
These safety features include antilock disc brakes along with traction and stability control, as well as a full set of airbags. A rearview camera is also available as an optional safety feature.
Additional optional premium safety features in the 2015 Kia Cerato include roadside assistance and emergency crash notifications as well as secondary driver monitoring that you can use to make sure that your children dont stay out past their curfew among other things.
In brake tests performed on the vehicle, the 2015 Kia Cerato came to a complete stop from sixty miles per hour after 121 feet which is better than average for vehicles in its class.
The vehicle also did extremely well in crash tests conducted by the government, scoring five out of a possible five stars indicating a perfect score.
In tests conducted by the United States based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the 2015 Kia Cerato (Forte) also did very well, being given the highest possible rating of Good in all of the tests that were conducted except for the small overlap frontal offset test in which it scored the second lowest rating of Marginal.
Note all tests quoted were taken on the 2015 Kia Forte, which is the United States equivalent of the 2015 Kia Cerato
Performance
Kia certainly didnt skimp out on engine quality in the 2015 Kia Cerato. The 2.0 litre, four cylinder 118 kilowatt engine of this vehicle is one of the most powerful engines available in this class.
However, the acceleration is surprisingly sluggish for its capacity, even though to be fair the vehicle is quicker in general than other vehicles in its class. A downside of an engine this powerful is that it is quite noisy.
The 2015 Kia Cerato also offers a 1.6 litre 95.3 kilowatt engine or a 1.8 liter 108 kilowatt engine (in some markets), which is limited to the EX trims.
The gear changes are smooth, the vehicle downshifts almost intuitively as the situation demands it and the six speed manual variant of this vehicle is also a lot of fun to drive if you are so inclined.
However, for all of these great features regarding the performance of the vehicle, the 2015 Kia Cerato lags behind its competitors wherever rough surfaces come into play.
Conclusion
The 2015 Kia Cerato is a vehicle that is both solid and simple. With easy to use controls as well as a spacious interior everything about this vehicle seems to emanate a sense of practicality and pragmatism except, however, the fuel economy.
The below average fuel efficiency and a ride that is sometimes less than refined may be an issue, but the 2015 Kia Cerato does make a good impression and can potentially serve you well and should at least make your list of potential cars.
Pricing and availability
The 2015 Kia Cerato is available in Nigeria. You can buy Kia Cerato at Kia Dealer outlets near you as well as on Konga.com. 2015 Kia Rio price in Nigeria is expected to range from N4,100,000 to 9,000,000 NGN.
2015 Kia Cerato Specs Here are a few specs of the 2015 Kia Cerato Compact Sedan: Exterior Beam Headlights: Yes, HID Xenon Headlamps with Front Fog lights
Yes, HID Xenon Headlamps with Front Fog lights Power Mirrors: Yes, with Turn Signal Indicator
Yes, with Turn Signal Indicator Power Moonroof: No, Optional in 2.0 Litre models
No, Optional in 2.0 Litre models Power Liftgates: Not Necessary
Not Necessary Steel Wheels: Yes, 15-inches Wheels (LX trims only)
Yes, 15-inches Wheels (LX trims only) Alloy Wheels: Yes, 16-inch Wheels (EX trims), 17-inch Wheels (SX trims), 16-inch Wheels (optional for LX trims)
Yes, 16-inch Wheels (EX trims), 17-inch Wheels (SX trims), 16-inch Wheels (optional for LX trims) HSEA Glass: Yes
Yes Rear spoiler: Yes (SX trims)
Yes (SX trims) Chrome-tipped exhaust: Yes (EX and SX trims)
Yes (EX and SX trims) Grille: Yes Interior Air Conditioning: Yes, SX trims add Automatic
Yes, SX trims add Automatic Media Player: Yes, AM/FM CD player, MP3/WMA playback
Yes, AM/FM CD player, MP3/WMA playback Speakers: 4 Speaker System or 6 Speaker System (dependent on trim level or market)
4 Speaker System or 6 Speaker System (dependent on trim level or market) Audio Jack: Yes
Yes USB Port: Yes, with iPod connectivity
Yes, with iPod connectivity Voice Recognition: No, optional on SX trims
No, optional on SX trims Bluetooth: Yes
Yes Wireless Charging: No
No Display: Yes, Infotainment System
Yes, Infotainment System Backup Camera: Yes
Yes Satelite Radio:
Run Apps: No
No Remote Keyless Entry System: Yes
Yes Fabric Seats: Yes (LX and EX)
Yes (LX and EX) Leather Seats: Yes (SX trims and models with 2.0 Litre Engines)
Yes (SX trims and models with 2.0 Litre Engines) 60/40 split fold-down: Yes (Hatchback only)
Yes (Hatchback only) Cruise Control: Yes (EX and SX)
Yes (EX and SX) Steering Wheel: Yes, Power Steering (Tilt/Telescopic)
Yes, Power Steering (Tilt/Telescopic) Power Doors: Yes
Yes Modes:
Power Windows: Yes Safety Electronic Stability Control (ESC): Yes (with Vehicle Stability Management (VSM))
Yes (with Vehicle Stability Management (VSM)) Traction Control (TRAC): Yes
Yes Anti-lock Brake System (ABS): Yes
Yes Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD): Yes
Yes Brake Assist (BA): Yes
Yes Hill Start Assist Control (HAC): Yes
Yes Lane Departure Warning (LDW):
Airbags: Yes
Yes Seatbelts: Yes, 3-point seatbelt for all seats and LATCH for kids
Yes, 3-point seatbelt for all seats and LATCH for kids Side-impact door beams: Yes (with Front and Rear Crumple zones)
Yes (with Front and Rear Crumple zones) Tire Pressure Monitor System (TPMS): Yes
Yes Engine Immobilizer: Yes (with central lock)
Yes (with central lock) Anti-theft System with alarm: Yes Engine System Engine Type: 2.0-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual-CVVT Engine, 1.8-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual-CVVT Engine, or 1.6-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual CVVT Engine
2.0-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual-CVVT Engine, 1.8-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual-CVVT Engine, or 1.6-Litre In-line 4-Cylinder, 16-Valve DOHC Dual CVVT Engine Engine Power: 118 KW @ 6200 rpm (for 2.0 Litre engine), 108 KW @ 6,500 rpm (for 1.8 Litre engine), 95.3 KW @ 6,300 rpm (for 1.6 Litre Engine)
118 KW @ 6200 rpm (for 2.0 Litre engine), 108 KW @ 6,500 rpm (for 1.8 Litre engine), 95.3 KW @ 6,300 rpm (for 1.6 Litre Engine) Engine Torque: 194.2 Nm @ 4,300 rpm (for 1.4 Litre engine), 176 Nm @ 4,700 rpm (for 1.8 Litre engine), 157 Nm @ 4,850 rpm (for 1.6 Litre engine)
194.2 Nm @ 4,300 rpm (for 1.4 Litre engine), 176 Nm @ 4,700 rpm (for 1.8 Litre engine), 157 Nm @ 4,850 rpm (for 1.6 Litre engine) Ignition System: Direct Ignition System (GDI) (Multi-Point Injection (MPI) in some trims in some markets)
Direct Ignition System (GDI) (Multi-Point Injection (MPI) in some trims in some markets) Transmission: 6-Speed Manual or 6-speed Automatic
6-Speed Manual or 6-speed Automatic Drivetrain: Front Wheel Drive
Front Wheel Drive Brakes: All Disc Brakes
All Disc Brakes Mileage estimates (mpg city/highway/combined): 25/37/30 mpg (6-speed Manual) or 26/39/31 mpg (6-Speed Automatic)
25/37/30 mpg (6-speed Manual) or 26/39/31 mpg (6-Speed Automatic) Emmission Rating: Exterior Measurement Width: 1,780 mm
1,780 mm Length: 4 560 mm
4 560 mm Height: 1,455 mm
1,455 mm Wheelbase: 2700 mm
2700 mm Ground Clearance: 150 mm (minimum) Interior Measurement Shoulder Room (Front/Rear): 1424 / 1394 mm
1424 / 1394 mm Hip Room (Front/Rear): 1366 / 1348 mm
1366 / 1348 mm Leg Room (Front/Rear): 1071 / 911 mm
1071 / 911 mm Head Room (Front/Rear): 993 / 947 mm Weight & Capacity Curb Weight: 1221 to 1319 (depends on trim levels)
1221 to 1319 (depends on trim levels) Cargo Room (rear seat up/down): 0.482 cubic-metre (Sedan)
0.482 cubic-metre (Sedan) Fuel Tank: 50 Litres
50 Litres Seating Capacity: 5
5 Towing Capacity: 610 to 2100 kg
610 to 2100 kg Warranty: 5 Year / 100000 km
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Vernee Apollo is an upper midrange smartphone loaded with flagship features, albeit coming at a more affordable price. The device appears designed to slug it out with the Vivo XPlay 5 Elite on the basis of its abundant 6 GB of RAM.
Where to Buy Mobile Phones Jumia.com.ngfrom 14,995.00 Buy Now
Konga.comfrom 13,700.00 Buy Now
Vernee Apollo comes equipped with a Quad HD display, 10-core processor and Android Marshmallow, amongst other awesome specs.
Design and Display
The Vernee Apollo flaunts a premium, unibody design. The chassis is made entirely of metal hinting at a device that will not have you overly bothered about durability. A huge 5.5-inch display can be seen on the front of this behemoth.
This touchscreen boasts a jaw-dropping Quad HD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels putting the visual experience to be expected well in the flagship segment.
Vernee Apollo is said to support Force Touch technology which lets you perform certain functions by applying different levels of pressure on the display.
Camera and Storage
This awesome phablet is robustly equipped on the camera front. Vernee Apollo rocks an amazing 21-megapixel Sony camera with dual-tone LED flash on the rear.
Selfie takers should also expect to be well served with a high-resolution 8-megapixel camera fitted on the front.
Another awe-inspiring thing about the Vernee Apollo is that it comes with a whopping 128 GB of inbuilt storage! It is not entirely clear if this will be expandable, but many users are certainly going to care less about that.
Performance and OS
Powered by a heavy-duty MediaTek MT6797 Helio X20 SoC, the Vernee Apollo looks like one to go all out with guns blazing, in terms of performance.
The new deca-core chipset built for flagship devices is said to be worlds first mobile processor based on tri-cluster CPU architecture.
And of course, it is supported by the eye-catching RAM of 6GB capacity for superb output. The handset boots latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system out of the box.
In keeping with its flagship appeal, the Vernee Apollo comes with a fingerprint scanner for added security. It is expected to offer a reversible USB Type-C port.
Pricing & Availability
Vernee Apollo is not yet available in Nigeria. We have no information on pricing and availability for this smartphone in Nigeria. Vernee Apollo Price in Nigeria is expected to range from 80,000 to 135,000 at launch.
Vernee Apollo Specs Here are a few specs of the Vernee Apollo: General Features Platform: Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) Processor: 10-core Processor, 2.5GHz dual-core, 2.0GHz quad-core, & 1.4GHz quad-core (MediaTek Helio X20)
10-core Processor, 2.5GHz dual-core, 2.0GHz quad-core, & 1.4GHz quad-core (MediaTek Helio X20) GPU: ARM Mali-T880 MP4
ARM Mali-T880 MP4 Memory: 6GB RAM
6GB RAM Colours: Silver
Silver Dimension:
Weight:
SIM Type: Nano-SIM
Nano-SIM SIM Count: Dual SIM Display Display: 5.5-inch Touch Display, 1440 x 2560 pixels (541 ppi)
5.5-inch Touch Display, 1440 x 2560 pixels (541 ppi) Display Protection: Camera Rear Camera: 21MP Camera, HD Video 2160p @30fps
21MP Camera, HD Video 2160p @30fps Rear Camera Features: Autofocus,Dual-LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR
Autofocus,Dual-LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR Front Camera: 8MP Camera Storage Built-in Storage: 128GB
128GB Memory Card Support: MicroSD
MicroSD Bundled Cloud Storage: Network Support 2G GSM: Yes
Yes 2G CDMA 1X: No
No 3G WCDMA: Yes
Yes 3G CDMA EVDO: No
No 4G LTE: Yes Internet & Connectivity GPRS: Yes
Yes EDGE: Yes
Yes 3G/WCDMA/HSPA: Yes
Yes HSPA+: Yes, up to 42.2 Mbps
Yes, up to 42.2 Mbps CDMA EVDO: No
No 4G LTE: Yes, up to 150 Mbps
Yes, up to 150 Mbps WLAN: Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct
Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct Wi-Fi Hotspot: Yes
Yes Bluetooth: Yes Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP
Yes Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP NFC: No
No Infrared Blaster: No
No USB Port: Yes USB 2.0 Messaging SMS/MMS: Yes
Yes Instant Messaging: Yes
Yes Push Emails: Yes
Yes Email Protocol: Entertainment Music Player: MP3/WAV/eAAC+/Flac player
MP3/WAV/eAAC+/Flac player Video Player: Xvid/MP4/H.264 player
Xvid/MP4/H.264 player FM Radio: Yes
Yes Loudspeaker: Yes
Yes 3.5mm Jack: Yes Navigation Navigation: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS
Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS Maps: Google Maps Sensors & Control Digital Compass: Yes
Yes Accelerometer: Yes
Yes Proximity Sensor: Yes
Yes Light Sensor: Yes
Yes Barometer: No
No SpO2: No
No Pedometer: No
No Heart Rate Monitor: No
No Gyroscope: No
No Fingerprint Scanner: Yes
Yes Iris Scanner: No
No Intelligent Digital Assistant: Yes
Yes Motion Sensing / Gesture Control: Yes
Yes Voice Control: Yes Other Features Video Streaming: Yes
Yes Active Noise Cancellation: Yes
Yes Wireless Charging: No
No Built-in Mobile Payment: No
No Water Resistant: No
No Dust Resistant: No
No Image Editor: Yes
Yes Video Editor: Yes
Yes Document Viewer: Yes
Yes Document Editor: No Battery Battery: Li-Ion battery
Li-Ion battery Talktime:
Standby Time:
More on Vernee and So on
Water scarcity is a serious issue and a concern among the dairy industry, as declines in the availability of water could decrease food supply and increase food price. Water is necessary for many applications, including equipment cleaning, which can use 1 to 60 liters of water per kilogram of processed milk. Given the amount of water needed and concerns regarding resource scarcity, researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sought to find a method to recycle and reuse water from whey for clean-in-place systems. Their findings provide scientific evidence of the safety of reuse of reconditioned water in food processing plants, contributing to building a culture of water conservation and sustainable production throughout the food supply chain.
Current regulations indicate that only potable water may be used to clean food contact surfaces and equipment surfaces, but reconditioning and reuse of water is a promising alternative currently acceptable for initial cleaning of fruits and vegetables as well as scalding of meat and poultry. In their study, University of Nebraska researchers Yulie Meneses and Rolando Flores tested wastewater from whey of Cheddar cheese by subjecting it to reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration, as well as an additional step of spray drying. The resulting reconditioned water was used to clean stainless steel surfaces that had a biofilm, with promising results from both bacterial counts and scanning electron microscopy analysis.
"Using the combined ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis system, 47% of water can be recovered from whey," lead author Yulie Meneses said. "This demonstrates the viability of our method for wastewater, as the cleaning efficiency was comparable to potable water in clean-in-place systems," added project leader Rolando Flores.
Further, by incorporating spray-drying and condensation into the process, recovery of additional water can be achieved; after suitable treatment, that water could also be used in cleaning applications or other activities with high water demand.
"Sustainable production and manufacturing is a priority for the dairy industry. This new research demonstrates that an unwanted by-product of dairy manufacturing (whey) can be processed to generate clean water, saleable food, and additional revenue for dairy manufacturers," said Journal of Dairy Science Editor-in-Chief Matt Lucy.
Because of its potential in terms of revenue and conserving natural resources, these wastewater reclamation techniques are highly interesting. More research is required, however, to further elucidate risks and broader environmental issues as they relate to the techniques in this study.
"It's possible to finance the drinking water supply in the majority of countries worldwide by the year 2030," says Dr. Michael Jacob, lead author of the study from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin. In India alone, a carbon tax would generate around 115 billion US dollars a year, "and only a fraction of that would be needed for clean water, meaning that enough money would remain for sanitation and electricity," said the researcher. In fact, the needed infrastructure for this second largest country of the world would consume only about four percent of the revenue from the tax.
That said, there are a few countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where carbon pricing would not suffice, namely because carbon emissions there are so low that they would yield little revenue. "However, this funding gap could be closed when considering that developing countries have not yet exhausted their right to use the atmosphere," says Jakob. "Avoidance of emissions would then entitle them to compensation payments from industrialized countries."
The MCC study, which examined the development potential for not only water, sanitation and electricity but also ICT and roads, was published under the title "Carbon pricing revenues could close infrastructure gaps" in the journal World Development. In their calculations, the researchers assume that every country in the world is now introducing a steadily increasing carbon tax. In 2020 the tax would have to be 40 US dollars per tonne of CO? emissions and increase up to 175 US dollars by 2030.
"In addition to generating revenue for infrastructure, the tax would thus contribute to the international goal of limiting global warming to two degrees," explains Dr. Sabine Fuss, co-author of the study who is also a guest researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). "This is because the tax penalizes the use of fossil fuels and creates incentives for zero-carbon technologies." Money not needed for the infrastructure could be used to mitigate climate change impacts such as rising sea levels, which affect in particular the developing countries.
As is well known, raising the price of coal, oil and gas as part of climate protection measures brings its share of problems. "Nobody wants to pay more. But that's exactly why the idea to fund vital infrastructure directly from carbon revenue has clout," says Jakob. Linking the revenue to a specific use increases acceptance among the population and decreases the risk of misappropriation. In addition, carbon pricing could be used to reduce the burdens facing in particular the poorer segments of the population, such as the value added tax. "One thing is clear: For climate protection to be effective it must be embedded in a broader sustainable development scheme, and vice versa," says Jakob. "Simply infusing more money won't solve the problem. Instead, decisive factors such as a functioning state, democratic decision-making and the relevant institutions must be taken into consideration."
The University of Exeter Medical School has led an analysis of more than 3,000 people in Scotland who each had blood pressure measurements taken from both arms, published in the British Journal of General Practice. Researchers say the findings show the importance of routinely measuring blood pressure in both arms.
Up to now, such research has mainly focussed on people who have already encountered heart disease or hypertension. Now, the new research, funded by RCGP, The South West GP Trust, NIHR and the NIHR CLAHRC South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC), analysed a cohort of people who had been identified as having a greater risk of heart disease or hypertension, but who had not yet had any episode of either. They were healthy, but identified as being at higher risk of cardiovascular disease when recruited to the study.
The team found that a difference in systolic blood pressure measurements between the two arms (of 5mm Hg) was associated with almost double the risk of death from heart-related disease, when the cohort was followed up over a period of eight years. In the analysis, which was based on one pair of blood pressure readings, 60 per cent of the cohort had this difference. The researchers wanted to examine this single check of blood pressure in both arms to reflect currently available measurement methods in general practice. It is known, however, that the proportion of people confirmed to have a blood pressure difference will fall substantially on repeated testing.
Dr Chris Clark, a GP andNIHR Clinical Lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School, said: "Current guidelines state that blood pressure should be measured in both arms when assessing patients for hypertension, but often this advice is not followed due to time constraints or lack of awareness amongst clinicians. For accuracy, to overcome natural blood pressure fluctuations, it is important to test both arms simultaneously to confirm any difference. However, our previous research has found that if one arm is tested before the other, with just a single pair of measures, it is still possible to identify nearly all those who will prove to have an inter-arm difference on further testing. This new study confirms that people identified with only a single pair of measurements are still at higher risk of heart disease than those without an inter-arm difference. Repeated assessments to confirm the existence of an inter-arm difference, and suitable lifestyle advice, can then be targeted at individuals identified in this way, and could make a difference to their future health. The next stage of our research is to quantify the extra risk that an inter-arm difference indicates, and after that, to discover the extent to which this can be protected against."
The cohort was from the Aspirin for Asymptomatic Atherosclerosis (AAA) trial, a randomised controlled trial conducted from April 1998 to October 2008. That study, led by the University of Edinburgh and funded by the British Heart Foundation, recruited 3350 males and females aged 50-75 years living in central Scotland and free of pre-existing clinical cardiovascular disease. The study involved taking blood pressure from both arms, and the Exeter team worked with the authors of the AAA trial to analyse their data.
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation which funded the initial clinical trial, said: "Differences in blood pressure between arms has previously been linked with an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease in those that already have the condition or are at very high risk. But this study found that healthy people without pre-existing heart disease may also have an increased risk. The findings support current guidance that blood pressure should be measured in both arms when assessing someone for hypertension."
A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has found no evidence of infections related to administration of allergy immunotherapy, the common practice of injecting minimal quantities of allergens beneath the skin to reduce the allergic response. Although there has never been a concern about the sterility of the preparations used in these "allergy shots," the organization that sets standards for the quality and safety of medications and other products has proposed revised guidelines that place allergen immunotherapy (AIT) in the same category as more risky preparations intended for intravenous or spinal administration.
"Our analysis of 10 years of data from large allergy practices at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital -- covering approximately 135,000 individual injections administered to about 3,250 patients -- finds no incidence of infection related to those injections," says Aidan Long, MD, clinical director of the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Unit in the MGH Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology and senior author of the report published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. "This confirms that the sterile practices used in the preparation of allergy shots at our hospitals and at most clinical allergy practices do not pose an infectious risk for patients."
The report notes that the safety record of AIT goes back more than 100 years and that the practices used are different from those of pharmacy compounding, which has recently come under scrutiny because of a meningitis outbreak tied to contaminated spinal injections prepared by a particular compounding center. That and other incidents may be behind the guideline changes proposed by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), which would place allergen extracts in the same category as compounds prepared for injection into the circulatory system or the cerebrospinal fluid. The current study was prepared to provide data supporting the response to the proposed changes from several allergy and immunology specialty organizations.
In on-site pharmacies at MGH, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and other major hospitals, the allergen extracts used in AIT are individually prepared for each patient. Independent allergy practices may prepare them in their offices using the same sterile techniques used in hospitals, and existing USP standards placed allergen extracts in a separate category because their infectious risk was perceived to be extremely low.
"AIT is truly a disease-modifying treatment that diminishes the intensity, frequency and severity of symptoms, as well as reducing the need for medications. There are no equivalent therapies for allergic diseases -- including seasonal allergies, asthma, and potentially life-threatening hypersensitivity to insect stings," says Long, who is an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "While there was no evidence in the literature to suggest that a problem existed, but we wanted to look at a larger data set to confirm the widely held belief in the lack of infectious problems related to AIT,"
The MGH-led study analyzed data from the Research Patient Data Registry of Partners Healthcare -- a Boston-based system that includes MGH, BWH, several community hospitals and a network of more than 6,000 physicians -- covering all AIT injections administered at two major allergy practices at the hospitals from 2005 through 2015. Using the electronic medical record, they were able to identify any patients receiving AIT during those years who also were treated for an infection at any Partners-affiliated practice during the week after their injection. While there were 86 episodes of patients being treated for infection during that time -- out of 3,242 patients -- no soft-tissue infections were at the site of the injection, and no systemic infections could be attributed to AIT.
Long explains, "While it would be technically possible for hospital pharmacies to meet the proposed USP guidelines, doing so would require significantly more manpower, space and work. It is unlikely that any individual allergy practice not allied to a pharmacy would ever be able to meet the specifications, and given the current reimbursement rates, the additional costs would not be feasible for any active allergist inside or outside a hospital. The net effect would be the disappearance of subcutaneous allergen immuotherapy."
While the official commentary period for the proposed changes to USP guidelines -- which are typically adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- have ended, Long has been informed that the agency is still holding discussions with the allergy community and accepting additional information. He and his colleagues plan to continue those discussions, including presentation of the data in this report.
The lead author of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology article is Diana Balekian, MD, MPH, of the MGH Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology. Additional co-authors are Aleena Banerji, MD, Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, and Carlos Camargo, Jr., MD, DrPH, also of MGH Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology. The study was supported by National Institutes of Health grant T32 HL116275.
Standardizing hospital care policies across institutions for infants diagnosed with drug withdrawal symptoms at birth reduces their length of treatment and hospitalization, according to new collaborative research led by Vermont Oxford Network, Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan Health System.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a drug withdrawal syndrome experienced by infants exposed to opioids, or narcotic drugs like oxycodone, while in utero. NAS has been linked to both illicit drug use as well as prescription opioids -- narcotic pain relievers such as hydrocodone -- by pregnant women. Infants born with NAS are more likely to have respiratory complications, feeding difficulty, low birthweights, and extended hospital stays.
Over the last decade, the number of prescriptions written for opioids grew substantially. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2012, an estimated 259 million prescriptions were written in the United States, enough for every American adult to have one bottle of pills. As more Americans used opioids, complications such as adult overdose deaths and NAS increased. Vanderbilt and University of Michigan research previously found that the number of infants diagnosed with NAS grew nearly fivefold from 2000 to 2012.
Vermont Oxford Network, Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan published their most recent findings April 15 in the journal Pediatrics, looking at the impact of standardizing care for infants born with NAS.
"The rapid rise in the numbers of infants with NAS nationwide caught many hospitals off guard. Initially, we found that less than half of participating hospitals had policies to standardize care for affected infants," said lead author Stephen Patrick, M.D., MPH, M.S., assistant professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in the Division of Neonatology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. "Teams from 199 hospitals worked for more than two years to apply evidence-based and family-centered potentially better practices in their hospitals. Their hard work resulted in improvements in outcomes for this vulnerable population."
The data from the 199 participating centers, located in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, revealed that following a standardized protocol led to an overall reduction of one day in median length of treatment--from 17 to 16 days--and length of hospitalization was reduced by two days--from 21 to 19 days.
"For many conditions, including NAS, there may be recommended 'best practices' that clinicians are advised to follow. However, every hospital presents a unique clinical practice environment that can and does influence the ability to execute 'best practice.' This study demonstrates how neonatal care centers can work together as a virtual community of practice, sharing clinical environment challenges and solutions to positively affect shared outcomes," said Robert Schumacher, M.D., co-author and professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan.
Prompted by the alarming epidemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement in 2012, calling for standardizing care for infants with NAS. That same year, Vermont Oxford Network, a non-profit dedicated to improving the quality and safety of medical care for infants and their families, launched the multi-center quality improvement collaborative focused on rapid-cycle adoption of these important practice guidelines.
An NAS toolkit, written by Schumacher and Patrick, served as a blueprint to guide centers through the process, which included developing and implementing a standard process for identification, evaluation, treatment and discharge of infants with NAS, as well as measuring and reporting rates of NAS and drug exposure. Data was collected from each center from 2012 to 2014. During that period 199 centers audited 3,458 infants with NAS.
Along with implementing evidence-based potentially better practices at the 199 participating institutions, the collaborative supported participants with interactive webinars, real-time feedback of outcomes and sharing of improvement practices through electronic forums.
"Many of the hospitals implemented simple and inexpensive strategies, such as swaddling, soothing, skin-to-skin contact with mothers and breastfeeding to prevent escalation of withdrawal symptoms in the first few days after birth. This translated into decreased use of additional narcotics and sedatives to control withdrawal symptoms, and avoided the need for costly admission to a newborn intensive care unit," said Madge Buus-Frank, DNP, executive vice president and director of Quality Improvement and Education at Vermont Oxford Network.
The evidence of better outcomes, the study authors conclude, reinforces the need to continue to standardize the care provided to infants with NAS and to explore ways to make care more efficient and family centered.
The Plamondon brothers Jim, left, and Pete Jr. purchased the rights to the Roy Rogers brand and oversee a brand that encompasses 50 restaurants across six Mid-Atlantic states. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Jim Plamondon seemed a good bet to become a member of the legal professions elite back in 1995.
A Notre Dame grad and George Washington University law school alum, he was a federal prosecutor when he chucked it all to sell roast beef sandwiches and fried chicken.
Quite a pivot. Or maybe not.
Jim, 52, and his brother, Pete Jr., 56, are the third generation of their family that has been in the hospitality business. Their father ran the Roy Rogers chain for what is now Marriott International and eventually owned 15 of the restaurants.
The sons grew up, joined their dads company and would eventually buy the restaurants from him. Later, they purchased the rights to the Roy Rogers brand and are in the midst of a slow resurrection of the chain.
Jim and Peter Plamondon at one of their Roy Rogers restaurants near their Plamondon Cos. headquarters in Frederick, Md. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Plamondon Cos., as they call themselves, oversees a brand that encompasses 50 restaurants across six Mid-Atlantic states. Not bad, but well off the chains peak of 648 in its heyday.
Of the 50 existing Roy Rogers, 23 are owned directly by the brothers and 27 are owned by franchisees. Six more are opening this year.
Dad was successful with these restaurants and did very well, Jim said. We had that bug.
I am fascinated by the science of selling fast-food. As a junkie growing up in Upstate New York, I loved 55 cent Club Burgers and Big-R roast beef sandwiches at Carrols, which was the Syracuse-area version of McDonalds.
Jim said his business is all about what he calls the holy trio of roast beef, fried chicken and burgers.
People ask what sells the most. . . . Its about a third, a third and a third for the main entrees, he said.
Roy Rogerss customer sweet spot is between the ages of 25 to 54, with a slightly above-average income that fits nicely in this market. There are no $1 coupons or kiddie playgrounds at RR. The average check in 2014 was $9.22, and about half the business is drive-through.
Jim is certainly mindful of the demons stalking the fast-food industry: sugar, obesity and cholesterol. He said a salad, roast beef sandwich and bottle of water keeps the calorie count under 500. My feeling: Whats the point of going to Roy Rogers without indulging?
He said the brands differentiator is real roast beef and a personal touch that includes a roving hostess (who keeps the trademark Fixins Bar fresh).
We are somewhere between typical fast-food and fast-casual, like Panera, Chipotle and Bobby Flays Burger Palace, Jim said. We have a very loyal customer base.
Plamondon Cos. Frederick, Md.-based hospitality empire also extends to hotels. The company and its investors own six of them, with three more on the way, stretching from Pennsylvania to Georgia.
The combined restaurant and hotel businesses employ 1,000 people and gross more than $100 million a year, with about $85 million of that coming out of the restaurant end. The brothers share of that gross from their nonfranchised, corporate-owned restaurants is about $39 million.
I estimate that the brothers net a profit of more than $1 million off the restaurant trade alone, based on industry standards. Much of that goes back into the business. The brothers pay themselves a salary. The hotels are lucrative, as well, although they share those profits with numerous partners.
You can set your own hours, Jim said, but he added: You are always working. We are visiting our businesses. We are hands-on owners, not absentee owners. We are in our restaurants and hotels every day.
They learned that from their dad.
The Plamondon familys love affair with the hospitality industry extends back to the 1940s, when their grandfather owned the Windswept Hotel in Vero Beach, Fla.
Their father, Pete Sr., now 84, worked summers at the Florida hotel and eventually worked for Marriott, the eponymous hospitality empire founded by a Washington-area family. Pete Sr. became the head of its restaurant division and was on the team when the company created the Roy Rogers chain in the 1960s.
I wanted to know how the Roy Rogers name came to stand for fried chicken and roast beef sandwiches.
According to Jim, who checked with his dad, Marriott wanted to launch a national restaurant chain back in the 1960s. It bought RoBees restaurants in Fort Wayne, Ind., but Marriott was unable to nail down the national RoBees naming rights. A Marriott board member suggested naming the chain after the television and movie cowboy Roy Rogers, whose agent was a friend of the board members.
Roy Rogers saddled up (he received licensing fees for lending his name), and the first Roy Rogers restaurant opened in Falls Church, Va., in April 1968. The brand expanded through the conversion of Marriott-owned Jr. Hot Shoppes restaurants and the acquisition of other restaurant chains. (Trivia note: The Plamondon family appeared in a Jr. Hot Shoppes television commercial.)
When Peter Sr. left Marriott in 1979, his package included financing for Roy Rogers restaurants that he planned to develop. He became a franchisee of Roy Rogers, opening the first store in August 1980 in Frederick, eventually building it into 15 franchises.
The Plamondons kept the franchises even after Marriott sold Roy Rogers to Hardees in 1990. (Hardees ultimately converted or sold off the 650 Roy Rogers in that deal.)
The Plamondon brothers joined their fathers business in the 1990s and eventually bought out their dad in 1998 through a 15-year financing deal. In the meantime, Pete Jr., a graduate of Cornell Universitys School of Hotel Administration, suggested that they use their capital to diversify into the hotel business.
In 1996, they built a Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel, a Marriott brand, in a corporate office park in Frederick.
We didnt know the future of Roy Rogers, and we were looking for a growth vehicle, Jim said.
The brothers got a reassuring glimpse into RRs future four years later. The aha moment came Dec. 22, 2000, when they opened a Roy Rogers in an old Burger King location in a strip center in Montgomery County, which had not seen a Roy Rogers restaurant in years.
The lines were out both doors and were 30 people deep, Jim said. You would have thought we were giving the food away.
My brother and I said to each other, We need to buy this brand.
So they did, acquiring the rights to the brand in 2002 from the holding company of Hardees. With it came 70 restaurants, many of which were tired and had not paid royalties in years. Some of the owners were encouraged to try another brand.
Within a few years, they lowered the number of branded restaurants to 40, including the 15 owned by the brothers. They remodeled, reinvented service, and created a do-over on the image so the franchisees would start paying royalties and become fresh.
And as a bow to their cowboy namesake, the brothers called their reinvention Project Trigger.
That was the name of Roy Rogerss horse.
In 2011, when Peabody Energy, the nations largest coal company, shelled out $5.2 billion to buy Macarthur Coal, Peabodys then-chief executive, Gregory Boyce, told analysts, Its a large acquisition, but given the size of the company, it fits right within our ballpark.
Today the acquisition looks like a swing and a miss. Weighed down by debt used to make the purchase, squeezed by low shale gas prices and faced with declining coal use in a more climate-conscious world, St. Louis-based Peabody declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday.
Peabody, the largest and most storied U.S. coal company, cited an unprecedented industry downturn, including an economic slowdown in China, low coal prices and overproduction of domestic shale gas. That cheap natural gas, driven by the shale gas boom, has steadily eaten into coals share of electricity generation.
But the bankruptcy was also the starkest sign yet of the declining fortunes of the coal industry as governments around the world move to cut greenhouse gases that come from burning coal.
In addition, Peabody suffered self-inflicted wounds from its poorly timed acquisition of Australias Macarthur, which came near the peak for coal prices.
Peabody said last week that its mines would continue operating and that its Australian operations were not included in the Chapter 11 filing. Shares of Peabody, whose stock traded under the symbol BTU which is also a basic unit of energy, the British thermal unit finished the week at 88 cents a share, leaving the companys market capitalization at only $6.5 million.
The firm dates from the 1880s. Francis Peabody, its founder, first sold coal from the back of a mule-drawn wagon in Chicago in 1883. He opened Peabodys first mine a few years later. The company survived the Great Depression, fueled U.S. factories in World War II and powered a historic Antarctic exploration by Richard Byrd in 1939. It became the worlds largest publicly held coal company amid the oil embargo of the 1970s.
The companys expensive purchase of Macarthurs Australian coal operations was based on an optimistic assessment of the outlook for coal. Enormous energy needs around the world point to the early stages of what we expect to be a long-lived super-cycle for coal a period of sustained market expansion to meet the requirements of an emerging global middle class, Peabodys annual report for 2011 said, featuring photos of cargo ships from Hong Kong and skyscrapers in Shanghai.
But Peabodys sales volume has sunk steadily over the past five years while losses have mounted. Now it has become the latest coal giant to stumble into bankruptcy, following Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal and others.
It was very alluring to use debt to finance takeovers, said Chiza Vitta, a debt analyst at Standard & Poors. As result, they went into this downturn with weaker balance sheets.
Rep. Kathy Szeliga (R-Md.) takes her seat as the Maryland General Assembly opens for the 2016 session on Jan. 13, 2016, in Annapolis, Md. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Maryland Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County) raised nearly $260,000 between January and early April in her bid to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, more than any other opponents reported haul in a GOP primary marked by anemic fundraising.
Szeliga had $190,000 as of April 6 to spend in the final stretch of the campaign after spending about $220,000, according to her latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
The report precedes her $120,000 ad buy to air a commercial in the Baltimore market through the April 26 primary.
[Szeliga hits the airwaves in Maryland Republican Senate race]
A recent Washington Post and University of Maryland poll, conducted before Szeliga went on air, found that six in 10 likely Republican voters in Maryland had no preference in the Senate primary, possibly a reflection of the low name recognition of the candidates and the dearth of advertising in the race.
The pre-primary finance report is not yet posted for Chrys Kefalas, a trade association executive who had $91,000 heading into 2016, and his campaign declined to release it.
Former Pentagon official and Capitol Hill lawyer Richard Douglas, who finished a close second in the 2012 Republican Senate primary, reported raising just $6,000 since the first of the year and having $3,900 in the bank for the campaigns final weeks.
Tire company owner Joseph Hooe said he had roughly $1,000 after raising $13,000 in the same period. Conservative activist Dave Wallace reported loaning himself $27,000 and having a little more than $10,000 on hand.
[Van Hollen maintains financial advantage in close Senate race]
The fundraising and spending in the GOP Senate race pales in comparison to the close and hard-fought Democratic match between U.S. Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards.
They raised $2.8 million and their spending eclipsed $4.5 million in the early 2016 period And that doesnt include millions in spending by outside groups.
ABC News(CASPER, Wyo.) -- Ted Cruz swept all 14 delegate slots at stake in Saturday's Wyoming state Republican Party convention, marking yet another state meeting where Cruz's ground game and local party leader support boosted his delegate pursuit of Donald Trump.
The Texas senators success here means that 23 of the state's 29 delegates will be bound to Cruz on the first ballot. Trump has one, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has one and the other four are uncommitted.
Of the 14 alternates, seven are Cruz supporters and seven are uncommitted.
Following his sweep of Colorados delegates last weekend, the Cruz campaign was once again showing its organizational prowess, strengthening his good position in multilevel convention contests where local party officials choose the state's national delegates.
Donald Trump's organization in the state failed to fill a full slate of 14 preferred delegates for the open slots. Only six names were on the Trump slate even though any registered Republican in the state was eligible to be nominated with the support of just one of the almost 500 state-level delegates.
While at the convention, Cruz asked the crowd to vote for his slate.
"Weve got a slate of delegates who are committed to me in Cleveland," he said. "If you dont want to see Donald Trump as the nominee or hand [Hillary] Clinton the election, which is basically what a Trump nomination does ... I ask you to please support the men and women on this slate."
The Cruz-preferred slate of 14 delegates signed a non-binding pledge with the campaign saying they will support Cruz on all ballots of the convention, according to Ben Sherman, a delegate from Laramie and the assistant to Ed Buchanan, the Cruz chairman in Wyoming.
A total of 69 candidates for national delegate were on the ballot -- 40 were pledged to Cruz, 23 were uncommitted and six were pledged to Trump.
"The state of Wyoming right, now the entire country -- its eyes are on this state," Cruz told the convention.
Cruz catered to the crowd about the need to end the war on coal. Wyoming is the number one coal producer in the United States, producing 39 percent of all the coal mined in the county -- three times more than West Virginia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"America is the Saudi Arabia of coal," he said.
While Trump continued campaigning in New York ahead of Tuesday's primary, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin canceled her trip to Wyoming to stump for him at the convention. Instead, a local Trump-preferred delegate, Claire Powers, spoke for him.
She read a poem at the end of her speech that began, Who do we want, Cruz or Trump? The crowd interrupted her by shouting back -- "Cruz!"
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The Washington Posts Challenge Index, which began in 1998, is not the only way to rank high schools. (Gobalstock/iStock)
The Washington Posts Challenge Index, which began in 1998, is not the only way to rank high schools. Here is a quick survey of some others:
In 2007, U.S. News & World Report launched a high school list as part of its expanded rankings of several American institutions, inspired by its popular college rankings that began in 1983. Its newest high school rankings are expected to be released on Tuesday, April 19.
U.S. News uses a three-step analysis. First, find high schools that did better than expected on state tests, given their percentage of students from low-income families. Then, determine whether their economically disadvantaged, black and Hispanic students did better than the average for those groups on the tests.
Schools that survived those two screenings are further evaluated through formulas based on participation and success in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests.
In late 2007, the Wall Street Journal published a ranked list of 65 high schools based on the percentage of graduates who enrolled at eight selective colleges: Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Pomona, Princeton, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago and Williams. This was a facebook list, although it had nothing to do with the social networking service of that name it was based in part on information from the facebook each college publishes with photos of its freshman class.
Worth magazine attempted a similar list in 2003, rating high schools on the percentage of recent graduates who turned up in the freshman facebooks of three Ivy League colleges: Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The Worth and Journal lists consisted mostly of private schools. There were six public schools in Worths top 100 and six in the Journals top 65.
The highest-ranked school on the Journals list was the private Collegiate School in New York City, where 13 of 50 graduating seniors enrolled in the eight colleges, a 26 percent success rate. The highest-ranked Washington-area schools were private Holton-Arms in Montgomery County, No. 31 with a 10.8 percent success rate; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County (one of the lists few public schools, although highly selective), No. 47 with 9.1 percent; and private Sidwell Friends in the District, No. 55 with 8.5 percent.
In 1998, when I first ranked local schools in The Post, I also began ranking schools nationally for Newsweek, using the Challenge Index method I now use in The Posts Americas Most Challenging High Schools list. When The Washington Post Co. sold Newsweek, I moved my national list to The Post and added private schools, the only current list to do so. The new owners of Newsweek started their own Americas Best High Schools list in 2011, combining my methodology with data on graduation rates, college acceptance rates and test scores.
Both the U.S. News and Newsweek lists give too much emphasis to test scores, and thus too much to family income, in my view, but this is a subject on which reasonable school rankers can disagree.
[See the national Americas Most Challenging High Schools list]
[See the Washington area Americas Most Challenging High Schools list]
[Read this years column about the 2016 list]
I am having an argument with Erich Martel, an experienced former history teacher in the D.C. schools. He thinks it is wrong for schools to require that all, or nearly all, students take Advanced Placement courses, among the toughest our schools have.
I disagree. My view stems from hundreds of successful teachers I have interviewed who believe lack of progress in U.S. high school achievement is because so little is demanded in most classrooms. The 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools list, released this week by The Washington Post, reveals growing numbers of schools that share this opinion and are taking even low-income students much further than before.
[See the 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools national rankings]
Most public schools in the Washington region are in this group. The national list shows only about 10 percent of the nations schools meet our definition of challenging, compared with more than 70 percent in this region. Most suburban districts here are involving average students in AP, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge courses and tests on an introductory college level.
D.C. schools also are doing more with AP. The Columbia Heights Educational Campus, a program led by innovative principal Maria Tukeva for 35 years, requires all of its students, mostly from low-income families where English is not the first language, to take AP English. It has made significant gains in the percentage of students passing the three-hour final exams.
Basis Oro Valley students participate in a ninth-grade Advanced Placement Chemistry Lab. The school is ranked No. 1 in The Washington Posts 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools list. (Dan Williams/Kalare Studios)
[See the 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools rankings for the Washington area]
Even more startling is the appearance of six public charter high schools in some of the poorest parts of Texas among the top 50 schools on our list, which I have produced for The Post (and previously for Newsweek) for 18 years. Those six schools, and a seventh that ranks No. 106, are all part of the Idea Public Schools charter network. Last year they had AP test participation rates twice as high as those of affluent public schools such as McLean and Whitman high schools, or private schools such as National Cathedral and Holton-Arms.
Martel, very active in D.C. school policy debates, dislikes that approach, particularly the new D.C. policy requiring six AP courses per school next year and eight AP courses the year after that. It ignores student readiness and interest, he says, and forces students who are interested and who actually prepare for class to have their learning interrupted by students who are bored and dont want to be there.
But what if you have teachers who are skilled enough to grab the interest of many of those habitual slackers and who can show them that struggling with a challenging course is less boring than sitting through a painfully slow remedial course?
That seems to be what is happening in the Idea Public Schools network. It has 23,000 students in 44 schools in San Antonio, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley, where it began with teachers Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama in 1998.
Low-income students who take AP courses are significantly more likely to graduate from college than students who never take an AP course, said Michael Franco, the networks vice president for secondary school programs. In one year we . . . more than doubled the number of tests passed, increasing passing rates while increasing access. Last year, 81 percent of our seniors graduated with AP credit.
Most colleges grant course credits to students who pass AP tests, giving those students an edge before they even begin their college years.
[About the Americas Most Challenging High Schools annual rankings]
Idea network students have courses on AP skills beginning in sixth grade, and in ninth grade they take their first AP course, Human Geography. They are scheduled for 11 AP courses in all, with a goal of passing the exams in at least three of them to win an AP Scholar designation from the College Board. Most suburban high schools would reject this as too demanding, but disadvantaged Texas families see a bleak future if their children cannot break out of remedial courses. Idea teachers increase homework gradually so students get used to the load.
The largest national organization championing this approach is the nonprofit AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). It has classes for 444,559 students in 4,514 U.S. middle and high schools, including nearly 300 in Maryland, Virginia and the District. Anne Arundel County has AVID in every comprehensive middle school and high school, and some elementary schools. Since 2003, when the program began giving students extensive tutoring and other preparation, the number of AP and IB tests given in the county has increased to 15,512 from 3,519.
Despite the growth of such programs, they dont reach the majority of schools. In a survey of more than 1,800 schools that submitted data for the 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools list, just 29 percent said they had programs similar to AVID.
Passing rates on AP tests in such schools are often low, but teachers report the struggle is good for many low-scoring students, and more are passing because of better preparation. Columbia Heightss AP passing rate has gone from 13 percent in 2012 to 30 percent last year. The passing rate for D.C. Public Schools has gone from 27.5 percent in 2010 to 33 percent last year, district spokeswoman Michelle Lerner said. Last year, 15 percent of Idea seniors graduated having passed at least three AP tests. The networks goal is 35 percent.
That will take good teaching. D.C. Public Schools has spent $500,000 to raise the quality of AP instruction. Idea has partnered with the very experienced National Math and Science Initiative to help its teachers improve. That group also awards $100 bonuses to students and teachers for every passing AP score.
All could learn from teachers such as Martel. He found many ways to help students. He gave regular short quizzes to make sure reading was done. He had time-management work sheets so students could get organized. He conferred with parents on helping the most easily distracted.
What matters is not so much how difficult a class is, but how important. We worry that college-level courses focusing on writing and thinking something high schools rarely do are too stressful for teenagers. But if we were talking about teaching third-graders to read (also stressful for many), would we say such instruction isnt for everybody?
The list reveals many schools that have decided thinking and writing are as important as reading. With good teaching, they have found ways to convince even the most laid-back, average students of the necessity and importance of those subjects, too.
D.C. police are investigating a shooting that left one man dead and another wounded early Sunday morning in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Northwest Washington.
Police received a 911 call reporting the sound of gunfire and at 3:11 a.m. were dispatched to the 2500 block of 17th Street N.W., near H.D. Cooke Elementary school. There, police found the body of 35-year-old Jayvon Marshman, who had been shot multiple times, D.C. police spokeswoman Aquita Brown said. Another man, whose identity has not yet been released, was transported to a hospital with a single gunshot wound that is not life-threatening.
Marshman, of Southeast, was declared dead on arrival and was taken to the medical examiners office, police said. Police declined to say how many times Marshman was shot.
There are no suspects at this time, and the investigation is going.
The sister of a man who shot at Prince Georges County firefighters as they forced their way into his house Friday said her brother was trying to defend himself, thinking someone was breaking into his home.
It was a tragic horror story, the mans sister said Sunday in an interview. My brother was very sick. He is a gentle person.
Firefighters and medics responding to an emergency call from a man who had been unable to reach his diabetic brother decided to break through the brothers front door in the Temple Hills-Camp Springs area when he did not respond to repeated knocks. As they entered fearing he might have blacked out or had a seizure gunshots erupted from inside, killing firefighter John E. Ulmschneider and injuring another and the mans brother, who was outside with them.
We are so sorry about the firefighter and for the family, the mans sister said. We were praying so hard.
The sister spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of her family. She said her brother is still being monitored by doctors, but she declined to specify his medical condition. The Washington Post is not identifying the man because he has not been charged and police have not named him publicly. Efforts to reach the man by phone Sunday were not successful.
The 61-year-old man was released from police custody Saturday night, according to authorities.
A spokesman for the Prince Georges County states attorneys office and a fire department spokesman said Sunday that the sisters account of the shooting is consistent with preliminary assessments that it may have been a tragic mistake.
The states attorneys office is continuing to investigate with police to piece together what happened, said a spokesman for the office, John Erzen. We will determine what, if any, charges are appropriate.
Mark Brady, a fire department spokesman, said that the shooter has been consistent from the first moment to the end in his interviews with police.
On Friday night, rescuers announced themselves loudly three times and knocked repeatedly at the door before trying to enter.
Brady said the rescuers made the decision not to wait for police to arrive because they felt compelled that there could be a medical emergency going on and had to enter the house as soon as possible.
Shots were fired in their direction as they tried to get in, authorities said.
The wounded firefighter, Kevin Swain, 19, was shot four times and underwent surgery at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. Brady said Sunday that Swain, a volunteer at the Morningside station, continues to make progress and that the department looks forward to him making a full recovery.
The injured brother was shot in the shoulder and was listed in fair condition at a hospital, officials said. They did not identify either brother by name.
On Saturday, family members and colleagues mourned the death of Ulmschneider and prayed for Swains recovery. At Ulmschneiders station in Landover Hills, black bunting was draped over the firehouse and along the hood of an ambulance parked on the lawn.
Ulmschneider, 37, had been in the department for 13 years and was married and the father of a 2-year-old girl, officials said.
Ulmschneider worked at several fire departments to pick up overtime. On Friday night, fire officials said, he was on assignment with the Forestville Fire-EMS station, but he typically worked at the Landover Hills Fire-EMS station.
In a statement, Prince Georges County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) called Ulmschneider a dependable family man who loved serving this county as both a firefighter and paramedic.
Lori Aratani, Fenit Nirappil and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.
A man was killed and another was critically wounded in a double shooting Sunday morning in Prince Georges County, police said.
Prince Georges County police spokesman Officer Tyler Hunter said the shooting occurred about 3 a.m. in the 6800 block of Riggs Road in Chillum, near the intersection of Riggs Road and Maryland Route 410.
The victims were hospitalized and listed in critical condition early Sunday morning. By early afternoon, one of the men had died of his injuries, the department said. Police did not identify the man Sunday.
Police had said earlier Sunday that both men died of their injuries, but that information was reported in error due to a communication mix-up, Hunter said.
Few details were available about the circumstances of the shooting. Police said detectives are working to determine suspects and establish a motive.
No arrests had been made by late Sunday afternoon.
Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly said that Marine veteran George Lamb served in Iraq during the Gulf War. Lamb served in Bahrain. The story has been updated.
Amanda Causey Baity of Semper K9 Assistance Dogs works with Kiernan, a black Labrador mix. Kiernan is a rescued dog that Baitys husband, Christopher, is training to become a service dog for an injured veteran. (Jonathan Hunley/For The Washington Post)
Christopher and Amanda Causey Baity are in the saving business.
The Prince William County couple have other, paying jobs she works with a local magazine, and he is employed with a security company but much of their time is devoted to saving the lives of man and beast.
The Baitys operate Semper K9 Assistance Dogs, a nonprofit group that matches wounded or critically ill or injured military veterans with rescued dogs that are trained to become service animals. The work saves the dogs from euthanasia, and helps keep the veterans from lives of despair brought on by their physical difficulties.
Semper K9 has been operating for about 11/ 2 years, and the Baitys expect to have the first graduation of service dogs in July.
The organization combines Christopher Baitys love for dogs with his former active-duty service as a Marine.
Its a dream job, the 34-year-old said.
Baitys parents bred Labrador and golden retrievers when he was growing up, and even his military service was connected to canines.
I joined the Marine Corps to be a dog handler, he said.
Baity served 81/ 2 years in the Marines, where dogs are used mainly to find bombs, drugs or, in some cases, people. His service included a deployment to Iraq, as well as time in Afghanistan as a dog-handling contractor.
He and his wife met in ROTC in high school in the Atlanta area in 1996, but they then went their separate ways. By the time they reconnected, they each had children of their own.
The red-haired couple have been married three years, and they have added son Abram, 18 months, and several in-training dogs to their already-blended family.
The six-person clan lives near the middle of Prince William on 54 acres tucked in beside neighborhoods with smaller properties. The tract includes a lake that spans two to three acres. Although it is minutes from the county government center to the east and Manassas to the west, the property seems secluded.
The Baitys dubbed the farmland Camp Semper K9, and it has become a place where veterans can hang out and volunteers can help with projects, such as tending to the familys chickens.
The featured work is the dog training, however.
It takes nine months to two years of teaching before a pooch is ready to be turned over to a veteran, Christopher Baity said.
As of last week, Semper K9 had seven rescued dogs in training, many of them Labradors, and 40 to 50 veterans who were affiliated with the organization in one way or another. Baity also is helping other canine enthusiasts train another eight or nine dogs.
Baity has assisted fellow service members from the Washington area, and as far away as Florida and Idaho. Veterans who qualify for Semper K9s programs often have had amputations, burns, spinal cord problems, traumatic brain injuries, severe post-traumatic stress or other difficulties.
George Lamb, a Marine veteran who served in Bahrain, is one of the recipients of Semper K9s services. He met Baity at an event at Quantico last year, and Baity helped him train two pit bull puppies, Layla and Zoe.
Lamb, 56, has vertigo, and the dogs can retrieve his medication for him if he cannot get out of bed. They also know how to wake him up and comfort him when he has combat-induced nightmares.
They totally changed my life, he said of the dogs.
Army Special Forces veteran Vernon Bo Londagin said he appreciates that Christopher Baity took his military experience, brought it into the civilian world and uses it to give back to the military community. Londagin helps with Semper K9 and employs Baity at his business, Covert Security.
Some animal trainers may not want to disclose their training secrets for fear of rendering themselves unnecessary. But Londagin said Baity enjoys imparting his knowledge.
He wants people to learn, the Woodbridge resident said.
Training assistance dogs is not cheap. It costs about $20,000 to train a dog, according to Semper K9, but all of the organizations services are provided free. So donations are important to the Baitys, as are proceeds from events such as an open house that was to be held Saturday.
Fundraising can be a chore for any nonprofit group, but Semper K9s combined focus on dogs and veterans allows it to attract donors interested in animals, the military or both, the Baitys said.
Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications, which broadcasts the Discovery Channel and other cable networks, also boosted Semper K9 by filming a public service announcement for the organization in November.
Members of the Washington Metropolitan Accordion Society, on Merv Conn Way, a pedestrian path in Silver Spring honoring famed D.C. accordionist Merv Conn, who died in 2011. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
Merv Conn died in 2011, but hes unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. On April 10, a pedestrian path in Silver Spring was dedicated in honor of Merv, probably the most famous accordionist our town has ever seen.
[Merv Conn: A Legend With Oomph and Oompah]
I went to the little ceremony, held on a crisp Sunday afternoon. The path was originally going to be dedicated in October, but the threat of bad weather canceled the event. It was hoped that the delay might give the local squeezebox community time to organize to beat the Guinness World Record for the largest accordion ensemble ever assembled: 1,361, held by the China Accordion Association.
Ten members of the Washington Metropolitan Accordion Society performed, leaving things 1,352 accordions short. But a little accordion goes a long way. They played a couple of Mervs favorite tunes You Made Me Love You and Take Me Out to the Ball Game as his daughter, Maria Cohen, led the crowd in song. His son, Robert, was there, too.
Merv was the undisputed accordion king of Washington, toting his instrument all over town and operating a busy accordion school on 14th Street NW. Rock-and-roll the electric guitar, especially nearly killed the accordion, but Merv soldiered on. It was my honor to meet him and to hire him to play The Washington Post March in the newsroom.
A cake topped by an accordion is part of the celebration April 10, 2016. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
Merv Conn Way links Cameron Street with South Noyes Drive in the Woodside Park neighborhood where Merv used to live. The existing pathway, a 225-foot shortcut used by residents, was crumbling. United Therapeutics, the biotechnology company, owns the office building next door. Avi Halpert, United Therapeutics head of real estate, worked to get the path rebuilt, trading some land to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission to release an easement the water company had under the strip of pavement.
Avi, it turned out, remembered Merv from the countless bar mitzvahs he attended in the late 1970s. Merv, of course, had played there.
Grocery-cart blanche
A while back I wondered about shoppers who abandon their grocery shopping in odd places in the grocery store. Whats up?
[All lost in the supermarket: Whats up with those oddly displaced items?]
A Virginia reader wrote in with one possible explanation. He said his son has autism spectrum disorder and as a little boy was subject to frightening episodes.
He didnt have regular tantrums like many kids that age but had full-blown mega grand mal type behavioral meltdowns, sometimes called autistic fits, the reader wrote. His parents quickly learned to recognize when such storms were brewing and knew that it was vital in such cases to get him out of public places ASAP.
Wed learned that we usually only had seconds from the first signs of trouble to when he would go into a complete screaming meltdown, he wrote. So next time youre in the grocery store and see some cans left on the wrong shelf, sure, it could have just been some inconsiderate shopper being lazy. But it could also have been the parent of a special needs child who was trying to cope as best as they could with some extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Maria Cohen, daughter of Merv Conn, raises the ceremonial scissors after cutting the ribbon on Merv Conn Way. On the left is Avi Halpert of United Therapeutics, which owns the land and funded the work. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
I also groused in that column about shoppers who dont know how to use the ScanIt! lane at Giant. Its reserved for people who have already scanned all their items with a handheld scanner, not those who still have to scan their carts contents.
Well, apparently not all Giants have these lanes. Reader Grace Link wrote that some shoppers may be encountering them for the first time. Consider the fact that maybe this is new to them, too, she wrote. Assume that, perhaps instruct gently and you will be less frustrated!
Elizabeth Dellavedova of Oakton, Va., sent me an eight-slide PowerPoint deck she prepared outlining how to shop at Giant. Among her checkout advice: Avoid getting behind anyone buying flowers, certain bakery items, alcohol or certain drug products. They will need assistance. If you see cash or hear coins, move to another line. Be wary of those with fruit/veggies without the stickers!
Concluded Elizabeth: You need to ensure you get in and out of the store with your sanity intact.
Dewey defeats Truman!
Alice Danner of McLean, Va., was clearing out a deceased relatives house when she came upon a neatly framed page from the Kiplinger Newsletter. When Alice looked closely, she saw why it had been saved. It was dated Oct. 30, 1948, and the lead item was about the presidential election, just three days away.
The Kiplinger editors predicted the Electoral College would break down this way: Thomas Dewey, 367; Harry Truman, 126; Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, 38.
Concluded the editors: Dewey will be in for 8 years, until 57.
Wrote Alice: Some people seem to think they already know who will win this coming November.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
Water rushes through open bays on the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River near Conowingo, Md., in 2011. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
A national conservation group has named the Susquehanna No. 3 among Americas most endangered rivers, saying the Conowingo Dams ability to prevent pollutants and sediment from flowing into the Chesapeake Bay is threatened.
The group American Rivers warns that the Conowingos capacity for trapping those materials is exhausted. The 88-year-old dam, owned by Chicago-based Exelon, sits about 10 miles north of the Susquehannas mouth to the Chesapeake.
State leaders joined the group in raising concerns about the dam and its impact on the health of the river and bay. They are calling on the U.S. Senate to reject legislation they say would allow Exelon to avoid complying with state water quality standards.
Ben H. Grumbles and Mark J. Belton, the states secretaries of the environment and natural resources, respectively, spoke in support of American Rivers on Wednesday. They said the state is heeding the concerns as Exelon seeks a new federal license to operate the dam.
The state is committed to addressing the potential environmental damage caused by the Conowingo Dam reaching capacity, and is partnering with the federal government and Exelon to address fish passage and water quality concerns as part of the relicensing process, Belton said, appearing alongside officials from American Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis.
There is no doubt that the Susquehanna River is an endangered river, foundation Vice President Kim Coble said.
The Susquehanna runs more than 400 miles from Cooperstown, N.Y., to the Chesapeake, draining a 27,000-square-mile area that includes half the state of Pennsylvania.
It provides more than half of the bays fresh water but also brings heavy loads of nitrogen from farm runoff. The nitrogen feeds algae blooms that cloud bay waters, blocking sunlight from reaching underwater grasses; when the blooms die, they suck oxygen from the water, creating dead zones and killing fish en masse.
The federal legislation, known as the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015, includes a long list of measures addressing the reliability, resiliency and security of the nations electricity grid.
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) urged the Senate to reject the resolution, which has passed in the House.
The health of the Susquehanna River and of the Chesapeake Bay depends on the safe and environmentally conscious operation of the Conowingo Hydroelectric Dam, he said.
Today, we have an opportunity to ensure that the dam continues to limit nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution to the Bay.
An Exelon spokeswoman said the company is working with stakeholders to help protect the bays health.
Our goal is to keep Conowingo operating, while continuing to work with key stakeholders to ensure the long-term health of the Lower Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay, spokeswoman Deena OBrien said in an email.
The other rivers on this years endangered list are:
The Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, which form a basin across Alabama, Florida and Georgia; the San Joaquin River in California; the Smith River in Montana; the Green and Duwamish rivers in Washington; the Pee Dee River in North Carolina; the Russell Fork River in Kentucky and Virginia; the Merrimack River in New Hampshire and Massachusetts; the St. Lawrence River in New York; and the Pascagoula River in Mississippi and Alabama.
PENNSYLVANIA
Mother, father, 3 kids are killed in fire
A fire at a suburban duplex has killed a mother, a father and their three children.
The Friday night blaze in Bellevue, just northwest of Pittsburgh, doesnt appear to be suspicious, an Allegheny County fire official said Saturday.
Arriving crews found heavy fire coming from the left side of the duplex and pulled five victims from the home, Bellevue Fire Chief Glenn Pritchard said.
Angela Lasch, 38, was pronounced dead, along with her son Noah, 11, and daughters Kayley, 6, and Hannah, 4, the county medical examiners office said. Laschs husband and the childrens father, Stephen Lasch, 41, was pronounced dead Saturday afternoon, a county spokeswoman said.
Associated Press
Nelliss 57th Wing gets first female commander: Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada welcomed the first female leader of the 57th Wing when Brig. Gen. Jeannie M. Leavitt took command in a ceremony, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The move came more than two decades after Leavitt became the Air Forces first female fighter pilot in 1993. She went on to fly combat missions over Afghanistan and Iraq.
Utah town to memorialize Paiute massacre: A Utah town will erect a memorial to 30 men, women and children from the Paiute tribe who were slaughtered by Mormon settlers 150 years ago. The memorial will be dedicated in Circleville on April 22, the apparent date of the dark moment in Utah history, the Deseret News reported.
From news services
ECUADOR
At least 28 reported dead in 7.8 quake
Ecuadoran Vice President Jorge Glas said Saturday that at least 28 people were killed in a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the countrys central coast.
Glas said in a televised address that the dead were in the cities of Manta, Guayaquil and Portoviejo.
He said the earthquake was the strongest to hit Ecuador in decades.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the shallow quake was centered in a sparsely populated area of fishing ports popular with tourists.
The quake cracked buildings and rattled homes as far away as the capital, Quito.
In the port city of Guayaquil, an overpass collapsed on top of a car, and the roof of a shopping center buckled. In Manta, the airport was closed after the control tower was heavily damaged.
President Rafael Correa called on Ecuadorans to show strength while he and authorities monitor events. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said hazardous waves are possible for some coasts. But the governments natural disaster agency did not issue a tsunami alert.
Associated Press
JAPAN
At least 41 are killed by latest earthquake
Nearly 250,000 people have been ordered from their homes and the search for survivors went into early Sunday after a deadly earthquake struck the southern Japanese island of Kyushu on Saturday morning.
A 7.3-magnitude tremor struck early Saturday, killing at least 41 people and causing widespread damage. It was the second major quake to hit Kumamoto prefecture in just over 24 hours. The first, late Thursday, killed nine people.
To make matters worse, heavy rains and winds were predicted, hindering rescue operations in already difficult conditions. Television footage throughout Saturday showed fires, collapsed bridges, a severed road hanging over a ravine and gaping holes in the ground. Residents near a dam were told to leave because of fears it might crumble, according to broadcaster NHK.
NHK said that about 240,000 people had received evacuation orders across the affected region amid fears of landslides. Some shelters were too crowded to admit any more people, it reported. About 422,000 households were without water and 100,000 were without electricity, the government said.
Reuters
Castro says U.S. remains determined to end regime: President Raul Castro warned Cubans that the United States is determined to end the islands socialist revolution despite a restoration of relations with Washington and a visit by President Obama. Castro said one-party communism is essential to defend the system. We must be alert, today more than ever, Castro said Saturday, speaking at the inauguration of the Communist Party of Cubas first congress in five years. Castro said Obamas desire to end U.S. sanctions was welcome but merely a change of method, a reference to perceived efforts by Washington to bring political change to Cuba.
Ethiopia says killers crossed over from South Sudan: An Ethiopian official said armed groups entered the country from South Sudan and killed more than 140 civilians, including women and children, near the border. The Ethiopian defense force is currently chasing after the perpetrators, said Getachew Reda, Ethiopias communications minister, adding that there is no relation between the attackers and South Sudans government or rebels. Our defense forces have so far killed 60 members of the attackers.
France and Germany offer security training: The French and German foreign ministers visited Tripoli on Saturday to show their support for Libyas U.N.-backed unity government, saying they were ready to offer training for the countrys security forces and border guards if requested. The West is counting on the unity government to tackle Islamic State militants in Libya and prevent additional flows of migrants heading north across the Mediterranean, although the new governments leaders are still trying to establish themselves in Tripoli.
From news services
SYRIA
Rebel shelling kills 10 children in Aleppo
Ten children were among 16 killed by rebel shelling on Syrias largest city over the weekend, as the United Nations warned of desperate conditions inside a war-ravaged Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. The violence underscores the fragility of the cease-fire in Syria, which has unraveled in the north despite ongoing peace negotiations.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes killed an additional six people in the opposition-held parts of the citys old quarters. The state Syrian Arab News Agency said at least five of the 16 dead in the government-held areas were killed by rebel snipers.
Syrias warring factions have returned to violence in recent weeks, marring a period of relative calm brought about by a partial cease-fire that went into effect in late February.
Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that humanitarian conditions are desperate inside a Palestinian refugee camp that is home to about 10,000 civilians in the capital, Damascus.
The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said battles between extremists have left residents of the Yarmouk camp without food or water for more than a week.
The camp, a built-up neighborhood once home to an estimated 150,000 people, has been ravaged by fighting between the Islamic State group and al-Qaedas Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, while government forces regularly shell it from outside.
Associated Press
BURUNDI
Official says attack killed 4 from ruling party
An official in Burundi said Sunday that four members of the countrys ruling party were killed in an attack in continuing violence associated with the extended tenure of President Pierre Nkurunziza.
The attack targeted supporters of the ruling party who had gathered for an environmental cleanup exercise, said Jerome Ntakarutimana, chief of Mugamba district in Bururi province.
The four men died when attackers dressed in hoods and military fatigues stormed a bar Saturday night and opened fire, a survivor said. The assault increases the number killed in the past week to 10.
Nkurunzizas controversial third term has set off rounds of political violence in which more than 400 people have died.
Burundi has experienced violent street protests, which boiled over into a failed coup in May and now a rebellion, since the ruling party announced Nkurunzizas candidature for a third term in office in April last year. Nkurunziza won elections in July; observers said the vote was flawed.
The international community is concerned that Burundi, which has a long history of coup attempts and civil war, could be sliding into a full-blown conflict.
Associated Press
Floods cut water to millions in Chilean capital: Heavy rains have caused severe flooding and cut water service to 4.5 million people in Chiles capital, Santiago. Authorities said that the Rio Mapocho flooded several districts of the city and that landslides killed at least one person. Seven others are missing. City officials said the water service was cut because of contamination caused by the flooding. Power was cut to more than 80,000 people in Santiago and the provinces of Valparaiso and OHiggins.
Spain rescues 60 migrants at sea: Spains maritime rescue service said it rescued 60 people crammed into two small boats at the southwestern end of the Mediterranean Sea. The vessels were transporting migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa. The two operations brought the total number of migrants rescued off Spains southern coastline over the weekend to 136.
Air France resumes flights to Iran: Air France resumed flights to Iran as part of larger French and European efforts to rebuild trade ties after last years landmark deal to curb Iranian nuclear activities. The direct flight from Paris to Tehran was the first since 2008, when the service was suspended because of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Air France will fly to Iran three times a week. German carrier Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines also run several flights a week connecting Iran and Europe.
9 found dead in apparent drug house in Mexico: Mexican authorities said nine men have been found bound and dead inside a home in a suburb of the northern city of Monterrey. The governor of Nuevo Leon state, Jaime Rodriguez Calderon, said the initial investigation suggests the house was used for drug consumption. State prosecutor Roberto Flores said authorities responded to a call and found the victims in a bathroom and another room. Two appeared to have been stabbed and the others strangled.
British Airways flight may have hit drone on approach: Police said a British Airways flight from Geneva hit an object thought to be a drone while on approach to Londons Heathrow Airport. The airline said the plane landed safely. The Airbus A320 was carrying 132 passengers and five crew members. Police are investigating the incident. Aviation authorities have expressed concern about the risk posed by the increasing number of drones in the sky.
From news services
Syrian refugee children play as they wait with their families to register their information at a U.S. processing center for Syrian refugees in Amman, Jordan. (Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)
FORGET LEADING the way on Syrian refugee resettlement the United States is barely making a dent in the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
As the region around Syria continues to buckle under the influx of 4.8 million refugees, the Obama administration is on track to fail to meet its initial target of admitting a mere 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the 2016 fiscal year. According to Human Rights First, as of April 5, halfway through the fiscal year, only 1,285 Syrian refugees had been resettled. This number represents a measly 12.9 percent of the 2016 goal. According to the report, understaffing in the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies and massive case backlogs have been hampering efforts to resettle more refugees.
A State Department spokesman told us that the United States remains steadfastly committed to the presidents plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees. But while the administration says it is working to increase its capacity to interview refugee applicants in Lebanon and Jordan and shorten the processing time, it says that no changes will be made to the screening process.
The slow pace is a double failure. Its not just that the United States is falling pathetically short of its own ideal of providing a haven to those fleeing persecution and violence. U.S. allies are in desperate need of help to share the burdens of the refugee crisis. Admitting more refugees would not only show U.S. leadership, but also help preserve the stability of the front-line societies.
Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have accepted the most refugees, hosting 2.7 million, 638,000 and nearly 1.1 million, respectively. The arrivals are putting intense pressure on hospitals and schools. King Abdullah of Jordan said in February that his country was at a boiling point, adding: Sooner or later, I think, the dam is going to burst.
At a bare-bones minimum, the administration must do what is needed to meet its initial goal of 10,000, which represents just 0.2 percent of the overall Syrian refugee population of 4.8 million. But beyond that, it should dramatically increase its target goal so as to take in a fair share of the refugees fleeing the terror of the Islamic State and the Syrian civil war. In September, a bipartisan group of former U.S. government officials recommended that the United States increase its target to 100,000, closer to what an analysis by Oxfam concluded would be the U.S. fair share level of 163,392. Such a move would help relieve the suffering of desperate Syrians who are resigned to making life-threatening journeys across the sea into Europe, and send a needed signal to the rest of the world, and Europe in particular, about the urgency of fashioning Syrian refugee policies guided by compassion, instead of contempt.
As we have noted before, the United States has one of the most extensive refugee vetting processes. Homeland Security is tasked with performing background checks and conducting interviews, and each case can take between 18 and 24 months. If DHS needs more resources and staffing to sort through the backlog, then so be it; the Obama administration must provide the necessary funding. A continued failure to assist vulnerable Syrians will erode U.S. moral leadership and will be judged harshly for generations to come.
Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke leaves the Cook County Jail after posting bond on Nov. 30. Van Dyke was charged with murder in the shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald. (Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)
IT IS much easier to condemn police wrongdoing than it is to fix it. How, for example, do you reform a Chicago Police Department that suffers not from a few bad apples but from a rotten culture of racist policing and official impunity? A city task force empaneled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) attempted an answer in a report made public last week.
The depth of the problem came to national attention with the outrageous killing of Laquan McDonald, an African American man whom police shot 16 times. Officers told a false story about the threat that Mr. McDonald posed. Video that contradicted their account was withheld by the city for a year. Prosecutors were slow to act.
The independent review board meant to investigate police abuse turned out to be little more than a rubber stamp run by former law enforcement officials. It examined roughly 400 officer-involved shootings since 2007 and found problems in precisely one case. The review board and the police Bureau of Internal Affairs failed to fully investigate nearly half the complaints they received between 2011 and 2015. Collective bargaining agreements, which discourage officers from reporting on each other and which give officers 24 hours to get their story straight with partners before making statements, essentially turned the code of silence into official policy, the panel found.
This broken accountability system has enabled terrible practices. Three-quarters of police shootings between 2008 and 2015 killed or injured African Americans. Chicago police stop people, the vast majority black, at a much higher rate than do police in other major cities. In 2013, Chicago police searched African American drivers at four times the rate of whites, even though they found contraband twice as often on white drivers. Unsurprisingly, the panel found that the Chicago Police Department suffers from widespread mistrust, particularly in the African American community.
Better training is no doubt part of the solution, but hardly enough. The task force recommends creating and adequately staffing a new civilian oversight board and an inspector generals office to provide another layer of independent oversight. It proposes publication of data on arrests, stops and other police behavior. Collective bargaining agreements must also be revised. Noting that many of the people police pick up are unaware of their rights and legal protections, the panel wants arrestees to be able to call lawyers or family members within an hour of being detained. The task force also recommends expanding the citys body camera program and monitoring young officers to spot and correct improper conduct early.
A federal investigation of the Chicago police continues. The Justice Department should demand wide-reaching reforms, particularly if the city does not move swiftly to implement the task forces recommendations.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in happier times, at a groundbreaking ceremony at Mobiles Brookley Aeroplex in 2013. (Matthew Hinton/AFP/Getty Images)
In the mortuary of disaster that is Alabama politics, it is important to note that Gov. Dr. Robert J. Bentley is still in charge, for now.
The 74-year-old balding grandfather and star of sexy phone chats to the senior political adviser three decades his junior is accused of being at the center of a complex web of deceit, betrayal and mendacity that falls somewhere between the better parts of the Old Testament and the steamy Southern plays of Tennessee Williams.
Nor is it, by any means, over.
Reporters hound Bentley at his every appearance, asking about his $1,800 burner cellphones and the use of a state helicopter to pick up his forgotten wallet. Im the governor. And I had to have money. I had to buy something to eat, Bentley said last Thursday by way of explanation.
[The 4 most eyebrow-raising parts of the Bentley affair allegations]
The state House is expected to vote next week to set up an impeachment committee, and the lieutenant governor has been blunt: Shes ready to take over as soon as shes needed.
A Republican Alabama lawmaker said April 12 that he is filing an impeachment resolution against GOP Gov. Robert Bentley in the wake of a scandal involving one of the governors top aides, who has since resigned. ( Associated Press)
The states former top cop, Spencer Collier, plans to file a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit next week. Once a staunch ally of Bentley, he claims the governor sacked him because he refused an illegal order to not cooperate with a grand jury investigation involving the speaker of the House, who goes on trial next month on 23 felony counts of ethics violations.
As calls for the conservative Republicans resignation mount, the various investigations underway are heading into its not the crime, its the coverup territory.
A cloud has hung over Gov. Robert Bentley, seen here touring a womens prison in Wetumpka, Ala., on March 31, since the disclosure of his relationship with an aide. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via Associated Press)
Robert Bentley should not be sitting in the governors office, says Allen Farley, the Republican House member who last year asked the state attorney generals office to investigate Bentleys use of state resources to carry out his alleged affair. The woman in question is Rebekah Caldwell Mason, 44, a married mother of three.
Hes the state of Alabamas spokesperson, our representative, Farley said in an interview. And this is someone I want negotiating on behalf of the state? I dont think so.
When Bentley was first elected in 2010, he was a popular, soft-spoken dermatologist, a devout Baptist deacon, a father of four and grandfather of eight, and married for a half-century. He said he wouldnt take his $120,000-a-year salary until the state reached full employment, and he hasnt.
One year into his second term, he is divorced, estranged from his family, expelled from his church, ostracized by his party, pilloried by the public and at the center of an alleged sex and abuse-of-power scandal that may drive him from office.
Its like King David and Bathsheba in the Old Testament, says Johnny Mack Morrow, a Democrat from rural Franklin County, another former ally of the governor turned harsh critic. Or maybe like Percy Sledges song, When a Man Loves a Woman.
On a leaked phone recording that went viral, the septuagenarian governor tells Mason explicitly of his yearnings.
Youd kiss me? I love that. You know I do love that. You know what? When I stand behind you and I put my arms around you, and I put my hands on your breasts, and I put my hands on you and pull you in real close. Hey, I love that, too.
[Rebekah Caldwell Mason, and how the Alabama governor lost his mind]
The governor has admitted to an inappropriate relationship. Both have denied a physical affair. Throughout it all, he continues to insist he did nothing illegal.
Bentley, center, at the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery in March 2011. At right is Rebekah Mason, the senior adviser with whom he confessed to having an inappropriate relationship last month. (Dave Martin/AP)
The Southern politician with an outsize personality and appetites to match is by turns a staple and cliche of the region. Lyndon B. Johnson in Texas, Huey P. Long and Edwin Edwards in Louisiana, Theodore Bilbo in Mississippi, Bill Clinton in Arkansas the list is as long as one wishes to make it.
And the Roll Tide/War Eagle state that likes to advertise itself as the Heart of Dixie is, after all, accustomed to state-capital shenanigans. Big Jim Bait a Trap with a Blonde Folsom presided as governor here, as did George Segregation Forever Wallace.
More recently, backwoods-preacher-turned-governor Guy Hunt (R) was convicted of crimes in office in 1993. Gov. Don Siegelman (D), in office a decade later, was convicted of bribery and is still serving time.
In Montgomery, people arent surprised to have a governor mired in a sex-and-power scandal. Theyre just astonished that its Bentley.
Tall and thin, possessed of a mild manner and quiet disposition, he named his four sons after biblical apostles. He came to the state capital as a legislator in 2002, at 60, the oldest freshman Republican legislator elected in that cycle.
He struck up a friendship with Collier, at 32, the youngest freshman Republican elected that year. Bentley made no waves. He did not go out on the town.
He certainly did not impress anyone as a ladies man. Steve Flowers, the states veteran political commentator and author of Of Goats and Governors: Six Decades of Colorful Alabama Political Stories, compares Bentley to Goober and Gomer Pyle, small-town unsophisticates in the long-ago television series set in the South. Mark Childress, the novelist from Monroeville and author of Crazy in Alabama, independently suggested the milquetoast shop owner Sam Drucker in Petticoat Junction.
He was a just good, moral person, said Morrow, the Democratic representative, decent, likable, very low key. He and his wife, Dianne, they were good people.
[The inside story of how Bentleys sex scandal broke wide open]
Collier and Bentley held similar political views and became close friends over eight years together in the legislature, in a father-son sort of way, Collier said in a news conference after he was fired. They and their wives often had dinner after political conferences. When Colliers father died after years of mental illness and dementia, he and Bentley prayed together.
When Bentley won an upset bid for governor in 2010, part of his appeal was the straight-arrow family man (notwithstanding him legally changing his name so that Dr. was right there on the ballot). Well-off but not wealthy, he lived simply and tended to dress in khakis. He made his pledge to forgo his salary and released his tax returns even before he was elected as evidence of his transparency.
He was pro-gun, pro-business and pro-church, and anti-immigrant and anti-new-taxes, all popular positions in Alabama. But at the start of his second term, he switched directions on taxes and called for a $500 million increase, stunning his Republican colleagues. He has since been viewed as increasingly out of touch.
And in that second term, Mason, an accomplished broadcast journalist, moved up from his communications staff to become his senior political adviser.
No longer paid by the state, she was president of her own company, RCM Communications, and served on a consultant basis as the governors senior political adviser. She was paid from campaign funds a total of $500,000 over four years and the source of those campaign donations was not known. This meant that no one was entirely sure who was indirectly paying her.
Collier, Morrow and other legislators noticed that the governor began to be hard to reach. He started dressing more sharply. Mason began to be seen around the legislature as the gatekeeper to the governor, holding sway over his opinions. The recorded conversations reveal the intensity of their relationship.
You know, I worry about sometimes I love you so much, I worry about loving you so much. I do. I do, he can be heard saying. I feel like, all the time Im thinking, How can I contact her? How can I call her? How can I text her? How can I be in contact with her? How can we do this?
He just fell in love, bless his heart, says Flowers, the columnist. He was like a little schoolboy with a crush.
This was not a secret, Collier says, to the governors staff, family or close observers. The governors wife filed for divorce shortly after he was sworn in for a second term in January 2015.
Flowers says Mason and Bentley called him to Bentleys office in December to chew him out for a column hed written months earlier, when the governors divorce was finalized, about the rumors about their relationship.
She took control of the meeting and started browbeating me. . . . The governor was sitting there about to cry, saying he hadnt seen his family at Christmas, Flowers said. She was going on for 15 minutes. . . . I felt really sorry for him. He was trying to talk at me, but she was too busy doing it.
The whole messy affair blew up on March 22 when Bentley fired his longtime friend from his post as the highly respected executive director of the 1,400-member Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Collier, 44, then said he had seen and investigated text messages and audio of a sexual nature between Bentley and Mason. The governor, through a spokeswoman, denied the allegations.
For years, Bentley had a closer father-son rapport with Spencer Collier. After the governor fired him as head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Collier held a news conference, shown here, and divulged Bentleys relationship with Mason. (Albert Cesare/Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
A few hours before Colliers statement, the governors ex-wife gave the sex-spiced recordings to Yellowhammer News, a conservative website that promptly made them available to the world.
A week after that, Mason resigned. She is still married to Jon Mason, a former TV weatherman who continues to serve the governor in a cabinet-level position as his head of faith-based initiatives. She is no longer a member of the Tuscaloosa First Baptist Church: Like the governor, she was kicked out.
Mason declined interview requests for this report. But she did email WHNT-TV after the recordings went public. She blasted critics as good ol boy sexists.
There are those who are bent on hindering womens abilities to work in politics. I have dealt repeatedly with those obstacles in my career, and continue to succeed in spite of those efforts, Mason wrote. Its disappointing that a working mom cant simply do her job and do it well without inviting unwarranted criticism.
Before and after the uproar that has followed, the state auditor and four legislators, including several fellow Republicans, filed separate requests asking the states ethics and criminal justice agencies to investigate the governors conduct. A fifth legislator filed an impeachment motion last week. Rumors swirl in Montgomerys political circles of a federal investigation.
Were all very disappointed in the governors activities and actions, Kay Ivey, the lieutenant governor, said in an interview Tuesday with the student newspaper at Auburn University, her alma mater. They speak for themselves. It saddens me that the highest office in the land is receiving such low marks right now.
Meanwhile, the governors train wreck is hardly the only one on the political tracks in Alabama.
Eighteen months after he was indicted on allegations of using his office for personal gain and soliciting things of value, House Speaker Mike Hubbard, a powerful leader in the state Republican Party, is finally going on trial. Bentley is expected to be a witness. Should impeachment proceedings come to pass, they would be overseen by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office in 2003 for defying federal orders to remove a stone monument of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the states Judicial Building.
[Roy Moore, the judge at the center of Alabamas muddled gay marriage situation]
Voters reelected him anyway in 2013.
If I sent this story to my fiction editor, says Childress, the novelist, she would send it back and tell me to make it more realistic.
Morrow, the veteran legislator, reflects on the plight of the central character in the story, his biblical fall from grace and his persistent defiance.
He does not think this is going to end well.
Robert is just not strong enough a person for this, he said. Its only going to get worse. Hes trying to go out and do business as usual, and people are not going to let him. Were a laughingstock.
There is no place in the country that will be more affected by the Supreme Court battle over President Obamas plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation than sprawling Los Angeles County.
There are an estimated 1 million undocumented people here, about 400,000 of whom could be eligible for the protected status that Obama says would bring them out of the shadows.
County officials plan an aggressive program to sign them up should the justices give the green light. Arguments in the case are scheduled for Monday.
[Supreme Court to review Obamas immigration policy change]
Im looking at the return the county gets, said Hilda L. Solis, Obamas former labor secretary who is now chair of the powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Do I want them to pay taxes? Absolutely. Do I want them to be established, with some form of identification? Yes. I think were all better off, were safer.
Leo Murrieta and his family were homeless after immigrating to the United States from Mexico, but his parents found jobs working in the Las Vegas casinos. He sees immigration reform as a top issue for this election, but also is optimistic that progress can be made. (Alice Li,Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post)
It is a familiar view from a Democratic politician in the state with the countrys largest concentration of immigrants.
But the state with the second-largest concentration Texas is leading the fight against what it and 25 other states say would saddle them with the cost of providing benefits for millions of people newly eligible for work permits and government programs. The crux of the states legal argument is that the program, regardless of its merits, represents an unlawful power grab by the president.
It is not whether this is the right solution or not, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), whose efforts have led lower courts to block the plan from being implemented. Its whether the president is acting outside his constitutional authority.
[Obama takes immigration leniency plan to the Supreme Court]
It is true that justices will concentrate on whether Obama overstepped his authority and ignored legal procedures in November 2014 when he announced the immigration changes that Congress refused to enact. And the court also will consider whether Texas and the other states have the legal standing to interfere in immigration policy that the White House insists belongs to the executive.
But the societal impact of immigration is debated in the court filings. And there is a stark partisan and ideological divide in the case that Daniel Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), calls Donald Trump huge.
It is impossible to ignore the political backdrop as well.
President Obama's executive order would allow more than 4 million undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. for three years, but the Supreme Court could strike it down. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
The case arrives during a presidential election year in which Trump promises a wall along the border to keep immigrants out and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is adamant that he would immediately reverse Obamas plans should the court uphold them. On the Democratic side, both candidates have taken positions on immigration to the left of the president.
From California, a broad coalition of educators, religious leaders, business executives, politicians and police has coalesced around a message that it is time for a cease-fire.
In the last half-century, California has attracted more immigrants and done more to grapple with immigration policy than any other state, said one brief that contends that Obamas plan would result in stronger, safer, and more prosperous communities.
It added, in a mellow tone, The identity of a thriving city or state depends on the sense of community shared by its inhabitants and those inhabitants in turn draw their dignity and their identities from the social and religious communities they build.
It is a far different statement from the one California voters made in 1994, when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187. It withheld from illegal immigrants public education, all manner of state services and non-emergency health care. The proposal was ruled unconstitutional.
A generation later, the state has gone through all that bumpy stuff that the rest of the country is experiencing now, said Manuel Pastor, executive director of the University of Southern Californias Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration.
We understand that undocumented folks are now part of the states fabric, Pastor said. One of six people you touch in the labor force is not here legally. I mean, my God, thats how Southern California functions.
Obama said it was a recognition of that reality that led him to announce the deportation guidance after House Republicans blocked an effort to pass a comprehensive immigration bill.
The plan is called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). It would allow illegal immigrants in those categories to remain in the country and apply for work permits if they have been here for at least five years and have not committed felonies or repeated misdemeanors.
More than 4 million immigrants could qualify for the program and a simultaneously announced expansion of an earlier program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which affects those who were brought to this country as children.
The Obama administration says it is doing nothing more than setting priorities about whom to deport. As a practical matter, it argues, Congress has given the administration only enough money to deport annually no more than about 400,000 of the nations estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
The money should be used to find and deport those with criminal violations, the administration says, rather than immigrants who have established a life here and anchor families that would be torn apart by deportation.
But a federal district judge in Texas and then an appeals court ruled 2-to-1 that the plan is much more than nonenforcement: It would affirmatively confer lawful presence and associated benefits on a class of unlawfully present aliens.
The ruling was welcomed by Texas officials. But it is Obamas message that resonates in California, where immigrants have become a powerful political force, even if many of them cannot vote. In Los Angeles County, for instance, home to more people than the entire state of Michigan, more than two-thirds of those younger than 18 have at least one parent who is an immigrant.
There are lots of immigrants who can vote who are sympathetic to the plight of the undocumented, Pastor said. Moreover, he said, there is a recognition of how integrated the communities have become.
Forty percent of the people aged 25 to 64 who have a PhD in the state of California are immigrants, he said. And those high-skilled immigrants for instance, in Silicon Valley are often coupled with unskilled undocumented immigrants, because who takes care of their children? Who prepares their food? Who mows their lawns?
A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll published last month showed that nearly two-thirds of Californians think illegal immigration is a major problem in the state; 9 in 10 Republicans think it is either a crisis or major problem.
But more than three-fourths of voters said immigrants already here should be allowed to stay, and 60 percent said they should be allowed to apply for citizenship something DAPA does not contemplate.
Even among Republicans, only 36 percent said immigrants should be required to leave, the poll indicated.
The political impact in a state where Democrats rule has been striking. The place that in the 1990s would have denied state benefits to any illegal immigrant just extended health-care coverage to the undocumented population 19 and younger. This was a compromise from a proposal to extend it to all.
Robin Hvidston, executive director of a group called We the People Rising, said her organization testified against the plan but lacks much support in the California legislature.
We feel like we dont have a voice in Sacramento, she said. We look with more hope to Congress.
Solis, whose district of more than 2 million residents is more than 50 percent Latino, said the political climate has changed as the undocumented community has become more established. More than half of those in the county have been there more than 10 years.
Theres more of a tolerance because there are so many people now who can say, I know somebody whos in that situation, she said in an interview in her office. There are probably some people in this building who are in that situation. Im pretty sure of it.
She also credits a younger generation that has taken advantage of DACA and changes that allow them to pay in-state college tuition.
They paid for their own education because they didnt qualify for federal or even state aid at the time, Solis said. Why would you want to deport those kids? These are going to be the people who replace me or replace you, the bankers, the lawyers.
She might have been talking about Anabel Cuevas. Her father, Eugenio, came from Mexico in 1989, followed by Anabel and her mother, Victoria, a year later.
Anabel Cuevas grew up in Pasadena and said she did not know she was undocumented until applying for college. She found that she could not accept the scholarship she was offered at a private college because she was not a citizen.
My parents were always hard workers so we were always, I guess you could say, moving one step up, to a better apartment or whatever, she said. Her mother has worked as a babysitter and housekeeper; her father is an independent construction contractor, specializing in tile and stone.
When the private college fell through, Anabel Cuevas went to California State University at Northridge. It cost her father about $70,000, he said.
She was able to get a work permit through DACA and now writes computer code for a high-tech company. And hers is one of the many mixed families in the county: She has the work permit, her parents are undocumented, and her younger brother, born here, is a citizen.
So the Cuevases would qualify. But nothing is certain. The DAPA program may not survive the court challenge. If it does, it could still be revoked. And the deferral from deportation under DAPA is only temporary.
But she said it is worth speaking out and being identified. She feels there is little danger of being deported in L.A. County.
But were so close as a family, Ive told [her parents], If you guys get deported, Im coming with you, and well start a business somewhere else, she said. My experience as an immigrant is that nothing is guaranteed.
As one of the largest rallies of his presidential campaign drew to a close, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) offered his voters some unusual and unwanted advice.
They might lose.
This is a tough race for us, Sanders told thousands of supporters in Manhattan last week. We have a system here in New York where independents cant get involved in the Democratic primary, where young people who have not previously registered and want to register just cant do it.
Boos echoed through Washington Square Park, where plenty of voters had learned this the hard way. They had missed New Yorks stringent deadline in October to switch party registration in order to cast a ballot in Tuesdays Democratic primary. Now, the Sanders campaign is pre-
spinning a possible loss here by criticizing that rule.
The challenge of competing in a closed primary such as New Yorks, where polls show Sanders trailing front-runner Hillary Clinton by double digits, could serve as a final blow to his campaign. The democratic socialists success has been bolstered by independent voters in states where they were permitted to vote. But the improbable odds of winning the nomination in a party Sanders doesnt even belong to may finally be catching up to him.
The presidential campaign for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders released this video, focusing on Sanders New York roots ahead of the state's April 19 primary. (Bernie Sanders)
Beyond the trove of delegates at stake Tuesday in New York, the issue has sparked an existential question about what the primary should be a lowercase-d democratic festival for all voters, or a chance for loyal activists to pick a nominee.
To some, including Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, independent voters distort the process when theyre allowed to barrel into the primaries.
Im speaking for myself this is not something that the national partys had a discussion on but in my opinion the Democratic primary should be determined by Democratic voters, Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida, said after Clinton and Sanders debated in New York on Thursday.
But to Sanders and his supporters, New York has become a study in shame, a reason why the primaries should be opened.
Probably a lot of those people out there in the crowd, hopefully a small number comparatively, are not even able to vote in this election because they didnt change their registration to Democrat last October, when they havent even heard of Bernie Sanders, the candidates wife, Jane, said on MSNBC this week. Those kind of things seem silly. Were bringing a lot more people into the party, and the party is shutting the door on them.
Said Ben Jealous, a former president of the NAACP: The test of who can most unify and strengthen the party is informed by who can attract independent voters in the primaries. There are a lot of people who left the party looking for an authentic progressive, and in Bernie Sanders they have found an authentic progressive.
Sanders himself has strongly suggested that the candidate who can pull independents into the primary in this case, himself is de facto the better candidate for a general election.
This may be a shock to the secretary, but there are a whole lot of independents in this country, he said on the debate stage Thursday. We are not going to win the White House just with Democratic votes.
One thing is clear: Without independents in those other states, Sanders probably wouldve been sunk long ago.
In Michigan, where Sanders won his greatest upset, Clinton beat him by 18 points among self-identified Democrats, according to exit polls. In Oklahoma, one of the few states that Clinton won in 2008s primary but lost this year, she beat Sanders by nine points with Democrats. In Wisconsin, Sanders won overall by 13 points; he split the Democratic vote with Clinton 50-50.
In each case, independents who felt like pulling a Democratic ballot were able to vote for Sanders. In New York, many of the people who crowded Sanderss rallies some lining up for hours, Bernie buttons on their winter coats admitted that they had not understood that New Yorks rules were different.
Nobody told us that we had to re-register, said Toni Lantz, 24, who waited three hours to see Sanders speak in Rochester. Ive been an independent since I was 18. I didnt like the choices until now; I consider myself to be more in the middle.
Some did check the rules but couldnt bring themselves to become Democrats.
The minute that he declared he was running, I was supporting him, Isabel Madden, 68, said at the Washington Square Park rally. But it was important for me to remain independent, so Ive been going around, trying to convince people to vote for him.
Madden pointed to a friend shed brought to the park. Theres my proxy, she said.
Its been a problem for Republican front-runner Donald Trump, too. Like Sanders, Trump has benefited enormously from crossover votes. But his attorney and oldest children admitted that they missed the registration deadline in New York.
As Sanders attempts to surge from behind in the overall delegate race, he has to contend with half a dozen more closed primaries. Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania all limit their contests to registered Democrats.
New Yorks closed primary elicited a special effort from the Sanders campaign. While voters registered as independents, Greens, Republicans or members of the Working Families Party had to switch in October, voters who had never registered before could become Democrats by March 25.
The campaign made a push for those potential new voters, especially on college campuses. In just the 10 days between March 10 and 20, close to 41,000 new voters joined the rolls.
Still, the push came before some voters had tuned in, and before Sanders himself really campaigned in the state. Its hard to know exactly what it yielded, said Robert Becker, the campaigns deputy national field director.
This month, as more Sanders fans learned of the rules, some grew desperate. Fred Thiele, an independent member of the state legislature who caucuses with Democrats, started getting more and more calls about his legislation to open up the primary.
This is YUUUUGGGGEEE!!! Sanders supporter Teresa Ash Willis wrote on a pro-Sanders Facebook page, sharing a link to Thieles bill. If someone can find out when they are voting on this legislation, we should set up an event to have the public go to the hearing in massive numbers!
Again and again, Thiele had to share the sad news: The bill couldnt be acted on by April 19.
I feel disenfranchised, too, he said. Its ironic that I can vote on a $155 billion state budget, but next Tuesday I cant vote in the primary. Maybe by 2020 we can change the law. In the meantime, what I tell people is that my heart and my $27 are going to Bernie Sanders.
And in the meantime, Sanders will keep holding rallies where some of the faithful will be unable to vote for him.
In Washington Square Park, at least one of those voters had good news. Nika Lomazzo, 21, had never registered to vote in New York. She planned to travel home to Rhode Island, where she belonged to no party, and take advantage of that states open primary on April 26.
Ive never wanted to get registered with a party, Lomazzo said. I always want to remain independent. Im glad I can keep loyal to that and still vote for Bernie.
A short-handed Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in the fight over President Obamas executive actions on immigration, a case that could alter the fate of millions of people and become a flash point in the 2016 elections.
The courts decision in United States v. Texas, which is expected in late June, will determine whether the administration can begin enrolling illegal immigrants in a federal program to grant them work permits without fear of deportation.
Obamas use of executive power to establish the deferred-action program in November 2014 came after House Republicans blocked a legislative overhaul of border-control laws in Congress. But the presidents move outraged his detractors and led to a legal challenge from more than two dozen states, most of which have Republican governors.
The court battle presaged a divisive political fight over immigration on the presidential campaign trail, where Republicans Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) have promised to sharply reverse Obamas policies and ramp up enforcement on the nations 11 million illegal immigrants. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), the Democratic candidates, have backed the presidents initiatives and pledged to expand them.
[Supreme Court could bring Californias undocumented out of the shadows]
White House officials professed confidence that the high court would overturn an injunction from a federal judge in Texas that blocked the deferred-action program last year. But they also suggested the president was eager to make his case to voters to highlight the stark divide between the parties.
We are prepared to make a strong case, both on the political merits but also on the legal merits, that what President Obama is seeking to do . . . is actually good for the country, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. And thats an argument I suspect well have multiple opportunities to make not just before the Supreme Court, but potentially over the course of the election as were debating all these policies.
Emotions are running high. Advocates for immigrant rights said they expect hundreds of demonstrators outside the courthouse Monday, and several Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), said they will attend the hearing.
In an unprecedented move, the court has granted the Republican-led House time to present its argument in support of the states that have opposed the Obama administration.
Opponents of the presidents efforts said the outcome will resonate in a campaign season that has been animated by the debate over immigration and Obamas use of executive power.
Whether the court upholds the presidents actions or rules against him, its going to affect the [presidential] race to some degree, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration levels. Ironically, if they find for the president, it seems to me it would energize Republicans and vice versa.
Obama explained his deferred-action program as part of a broader effort to concentrate federal resources on hardened criminals and undocumented immigrants who have entered the country recently. The program is modeled after a smaller-scale 2012 initiative that has provided work permits for 700,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
The new regulations expanded the effort to cover the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, provided they have not committed other crimes and have lived in the country since Jan. 1, 2010. That population is estimated at more than 4 million.
But Texas and 25 other states filed a federal lawsuit challenging the initiative, and U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Brownsville, Tex., issued an injunction in February 2015 to halt the program a day before it was set to begin. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the ruling late last year.
The Obama administration is challenging Texass legal standing to sue over border enforcement policies, which are the domain of the federal government. Texas officials have said that the state would incur new administrative fees, including to issue drivers licenses, if the program moves forward.
The Supreme Court also will examine whether Obamas policies are arbitrary and capricious; whether the administration failed to follow federal rulemaking requirements; and whether Obamas deferred action program violates the Constitutions take care clause that stipulates the president carry out laws set by Congress.
Legal analysts said that if the high court, which has just eight justices after the death of Antonin Scalia in February, deadlocks at 4-to-4, the lower-court ruling would remain in place. In that case, other states or advocacy groups could attempt to file suit in other jurisdictions in hopes of winning a favorable ruling to move forward with the program, analysts said.
A 4-4 decision would leave a very complicated and confusing scenario in place, said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center.
For Obama, the outcome could help determine his legacy on immigration, which has been mixed over his time in office. Immigration rights advocates have criticized his administration for record levels of deportations: more than 2.5 million in all. But they have praised the president for using his executive power in 2012 to shield the younger immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation.
Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a liberal think tank, pointed to the sharp reduction in overall deportations in recent years as the administration has sought to implement and strengthen guidelines that put the focus on felons and new arrivals.
History books will show President Obama did far more, regardless of the outcome of this case, to improve the management of the border and the domestic immigration system than virtually anybody gives him credit for, Rosenberg said. If this case is decided in his favor, it will be an extraordinary achievement against incredible political opposition.
But others said the president has moved too cautiously over the years to exert his powers.
We provided advice that was hundreds of pages of actions the president could take under existing law. He was very conservative, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who supports the deferred-action program. Asked whether Obama was out of options if he loses in the Supreme Court, she added: We believe there are [more] things that administrations can do. Well have to wait and see. But I expect to win.
Dont look now, but Donald Trump has made moves in the past week that are wait for it actually quite smart.
Consider:
Trump announced the hiring of Rick Wiley, who managed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkers presidential campaign, as his national political director this past week. Wiley joins other longtime GOP operatives, including Paul Manafort, Don McGahn, Ed Brookover and Rick Reed, in Trumps inner circle evidence that Trump rightly assessed that his loyal core of staffers wasnt equipped to handle the knife-fight battle for delegates between now and July 18, when the Republican National Convention is to begin.
Trump has leaned hard into the idea that the whole process is rigged against him, pointing to what happened in Colorado two weekends ago where he was out-organized and lost all 34 of the states delegates to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas as evidence that party leaders are trying to silence him. (More on Trumps delegate problems below.)
This is a terrific message for Trump and may be the second act he needs to push himself over the delegate threshold by June 7, when California votes. He always runs best as the aggrieved outsider, the guy whom the establishment is trying to control but keeps slipping out of its grasp. He has struggled of late because he became the very clear front-runner and didnt really have anything or anyone to run against. Now that he can rail against the rigged system, he is right back in his messaging wheelhouse.
The Republican National Committee, theyd better get going, because Ill tell you what: Youre going to have a rough July at that convention, Trump said Saturday in Syracuse, N.Y. a message that will thrill his supporters and send shivers through the RNC and the rest of the GOP establishment.
The Trump family town hall meeting on CNN last week was an absolute home run for his candidacy. Trump himself is never going to be warm and fuzzy. His pointy edges are what make his supporters love him. But they are also what make lots and lots of people not like him; 67 percent of Americans view Trump unfavorably in a new Washington Post-ABC poll. His family especially his daughter Ivanka, who is not only his best surrogate but should consider running for office herself one day (Ill have more to say on that later in this space) rounds off some of his sharp edges. You look at his children, and they all seem to be relatively normal, well-adjusted people who love and admire their dad. Which, you think to yourself, must mean that Trump the dad was doing something right. The more that Trumps family is in the picture, the better for him.
Looking forward, theres reason for optimism in the Trump camp. He looks well positioned to take the lions share of New Yorks 95 delegates Tuesday. Seven days later, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island vote these should be good states for Trump. Its not until May 3, in Indiana, where Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich will go all out, that Trump would be likely to face the prospect of defeat again.
Then theres this fact: Recent polling suggests little appetite in the Republican Party to keep the nomination from Trump if he has the most votes but cant get to 1,237 delegates before the convention.
Sixty-two percent of Republicans in an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday morning said that if no candidate had a majority of delegates going into the convention, then the person with the most votes should be the nominee. That will, almost certainly, be Trump, who has 8.2 million votes to Cruzs 6.3 million. Just 1 in 3 respondents said the GOP delegates should choose the nominee who would be the best standard-bearer for the party in the general election.
(Sidebar for those keeping the Paul D. Ryan flame lit despite the House speakers repeated insistence that he is not running 71 percent of those polled said it would be unacceptable for the party to nominate someone who didnt run in the primary process.)
But wait! Theres more! That same NBC-WSJ poll found that Republicans divided on whether a third-party bid by Trump if he doesnt get the GOP nod would be okay; 45 percent said it would be acceptable and 47 percent said it wouldnt, a split decision that Trump would almost certainly take if he decided to go that route.
And he may have to do just that if he doesnt get the 1,237 delegates he needs on the first ballot. For a second straight weekend, Cruz dominated Trump in the local and county meetings that select the delegates for the convention. He was shut out of Wyomings 14 delegates and was drubbed in Georgia.
Many of those delegates will be bound to Trump on the first ballot at the convention but will be free to choose their own candidate Cruz on the second ballot and beyond.
Trumps losses in the delegate-selection process mar what has been a good 10 days for him. But the truth is that his only shot at the nomination has long been to get 1,237 delegates either before the convention or on its first ballot. In that regard, nothing has changed.
The volatility of the Republican presidential race threatens to undermine the partys July convention, putting potential donors on edge, raising security concerns and prompting some GOP politicians, including those in competitive reelection battles, to skip the Cleveland gathering altogether.
A bungled and possibly contested convention could have lasting repercussions not only for the eventual nominee but also for the Republican brand. Party leaders fear that a week of contentious floor fights, inflammatory rhetoric and potentially violent protests could project a negative image to voters nationwide.
Compounding the challenges facing organizers are the expectations of Donald Trump, who asserted in an interview that he should have at least partial control over programming, stagecraft and other issues by virtue of his front-runner status even if he does not have the delegates to secure the nomination beforehand.
Trump blasted the GOPs last convention, in Tampa four years ago, as the single most boring convention Ive ever seen. The billionaire real estate mogul and reality-television star said it was imperative that this years gathering have a showbiz quality and he cast doubt on the ability of the Republican National Committee, which oversees the convention, to deliver.
Its very important to put some showbiz into a convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep, Trump said in a 45-minute interview here last week in his Trump Tower office. We dont have the people who know how to put showbiz into a convention.
Trumps comments capped a week of feuding between him and the RNC as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has outmaneuvered him in the chase for the convention delegates who will decide the nomination. Trump argued that the delegate selection process is rigged, prompting the RNC to proclaim in a memo that the rules of the system have been clear.
Trump left open the possibility that he would seek to install his own allies at the RNC should he accrue the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination by the time primary voting ends in June. Asked in the interview whether he would retain RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in that scenario, Trump replied: I dont know. I havent made the determination.
Despite the sparring, some party leaders say they remain optimistic about putting on a successful convention. RNC members will meet this week in Florida and receive updates on planning for Cleveland and political preparations for the general election.
Theres an unprecedented level of excitement for our party and our convention, said the RNCs chief strategist, Sean Spicer. Were going to have an opportunity to present our candidates and our principles not just to the country but to the world, and I think its going to propel us to victory in November.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), national co-chairman of the Cruz campaign, said that the [convention] program should be set by a balanced mix of the candidates and the RNC. . . . You dont want to give Trump a blank check to run the convention.
And John Weaver, chief strategist for the Kasich campaign, dismissed the idea that Trump should decide programming, absent a majority of the delegates. Hes not the nominee. He can decide anything if he gets to 1,237. But until then, no, Weaver said. If youre ahead in the third quarter of the Super Bowl, you dont get to decide who gets the Lombardi Trophy.
If the convention is contested, one factor up in the air is the vice presidential nomination: Would Trump, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich each arrive in Cleveland with declared running mates? Trump said he plans to name one only if he has the nomination secured; otherwise, he will wait to do so at the convention.
Trump supporters argue with protestors outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had just spoke on Wednesday, April 13. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Meanwhile, the city of Cleveland is preparing for potential violence. Over the past two months, the city has sought bids for 2,000 sets of riot gear, knee and shin guards, breastplates, and other protective items for its police officers, as well as flexible handcuffs, collapsible batons and miles of interlocking steel barriers.
The equipment will be funded through a $50 million federal security grant.
We are excited and we anticipate a great convention, said Daniel Williams, a spokesman for Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson (D).
Trump has privately voiced displeasure with the RNCs selection of Cleveland, a heavily Democratic city, believing it could become a destination for people looking to disrupt the Republican celebration, according to people who have spoken to him.
In the interview, Trump said with irritation, It should be a monumentally magnificent convention and it should be brilliantly staged, but theyre spending $50 million on security.
Philadelphia, where the Democrats will hold their convention later in July, also is getting a $50 million federal grant to cover security costs.
Last month, Trump predicted that if he arrived in Cleveland roughly 100 delegates shy of the threshold and is not easily handed the nomination, I think youd have riots. He has since backed off talk of violence, but Roger Stone, a Trump confidant who is not part of the campaign, is organizing supporters as a force of intimidation.
In recent interviews, Stone has previewed a day of rage and threatened to publicly disclose the hotel room numbers of delegates who work against Trump. Stones activist group, Stop the Steal, has a website advertising four days of non-violent demonstrations, protests and lobbying delegates face to face. . . . We must own the streets. In numbers there is strength.
Priebus said Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation that Stones talk was not appropriate, adding: Im committed to making sure that the delegates have a great week that they have a fun week, but a constructive week and a safe week.
This summer's political conventions could get heated but it certainly wouldn't be the first time. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
The potential for chaos in Cleveland not to mention associating their brands with Trumps divisive candidacy has led some corporations and other donors to reevaluate whether to sponsor the convention.
If youre not a longtime participant, this is not the year youre going to start, said Stewart Verdery, a GOP lobbyist. Others are scaling back or waiting longer. If you add it all up, theres a drop-off in commitment. But its not some drastic kind of thing.
The RNC says it had raised nearly $12 million for its convention committee through March 31.
Unlike in past years, the conventions will not receive public funding, putting the pressure on the parties to come up with all the cash to finance the events. In 2012, each convention committee spent about $18 million.
Separately, the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee is charged with raising tens of millions of dollars to produce the festivities around the convention. Typically, those costs are covered by big corporations, along with some individuals who ante up large sums.
The Cleveland 2016 Host Committee has raised $56 million of our $64 million goal which is more money raised than any other convention in history, spokeswoman Emily Lauer said. Our fundraising is on track, and we continue to make forward progress. Were confident that well raise the $64 million needed to host a successful convention in Cleveland this summer.
For corporate lobbyist donors, one perk of the convention is to mingle with elected officials. But the list of Republicans planning to skip the convention is growing.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a Trump critic and unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate, will not go. Sen. Mark Kirk, facing a tough reelection challenge in blue-state Illinois, announced last week that he would not attend, while Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Richard Burr (N.C.) told CNN that they probably will stay away.
Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), also on the ballot this November, will attend the convention in his home state but will mostly be involved in outside volunteer appreciation events for his Senate campaign and a local Habitat for Humanity project, campaign manager Corry Bliss said.
Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee, who gave a blistering anti-Trump speech last month, did not respond through a spokeswoman when asked whether he would be in Cleveland.
Trump said in the interview, I think its very hard for Bush and some of these guys to come back and feel well toward Trump, feel good about Trump. Romney, the same thing. I dont know if I can bring Romney back.
Later, however, Trump said he would have no qualms about Romney being in Cleveland: I dont care. He can be there if he wants.
Trump charged that Romney made a serious error in 2012 by refusing to air a convention video Trump had filmed in which he sat across his office desk from a Barack Obama look-alike.
I said, Barack Hussein Obama, youre fired! Trump recalled of the video, which was a nod to his NBC show, The Apprentice. But [Romneys campaign] never played it. They thought it was too controversial. Stupid people. The cinematographer said it was one of the best things he ever did.
In Cleveland, Trump envisions this kind of showbiz element. He wants to give business leaders and other non-politicians speaking slots. Asked, for instance, if he would support giving the keynote slot to Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina one of the partys shining stars and a Trump critic Trump said, Nikki Haley would not be my first choice.
At this stage in recent past cycles, a presumptive nominee had emerged and begun orchestrating the convention around his campaign. But if the Cleveland gathering is contested, it will fall to Priebus and his RNC lieutenants to put on the show.
Former RNC chairman Michael Steele said party officials are likely to devise broadly acceptable themes, such as rebuilding America and unity, that could be customized at the last minute to suit the eventual nominee.
The next few months will be about coming up with things that wont offend Trump, Cruz or Kasich, Steele said. But, he added, If Trump is sitting 60 to 80 delegates away from the nomination, he may be the only one in position to make significant demands and they may have to give him the deference he wants.
Costa reported from Washington. Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Catherine Ho in Washington contributed to this report.
Migrants from Afghanistan protest against deportations to Turkey and ask for the opening of the borders in central Athens on April 9. (Orestis Panagiotou/European Pressphoto Agency)
With roads to Europe increasingly blocked by strict border controls, Afghans hoping to flee war and economic peril are desperately searching for new escape routes by way of refugee camps in India, airports in Russia and even the beaches of Cuba.
The shifting travel plans which are also seeing Afghans attempting to buy their way into Europe before leaving Kabul, through the purchase of visas may signal the next phase in a migration crisis that is rattling world leaders and draining Afghanistan of its workforce.
After a year in which hundreds of thousands of Afghans poured into Europe by land, more migrants are now trying to skirt hostile border agents and dangerous boat trips by flying to their destinations. As a result, although human smuggling was a booming industry in Afghanistan last year, criminal rackets that trade in visas may be reaping a windfall this year.
People now are not willing to take great risks, said Tamin Omarzi, who works as a travel agent in Kabuls largest mall. They want to just travel with a passport, and dont come back.
Last year, along with more than 1 million refugees from Syria and Iraq, about 250,000 Afghans journeyed to Europe in hopes of securing asylum there. Many traveled through Iran and Turkey before crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece.
Overwhelmed by the influx, European leaders have shown less sympathy for Afghans than for refugees from Syria and Iraq. Much of Afghanistan, they note, remains under the control of a Western-backed government.
Last month, the European Union reached a deal with Turkey to send migrants back to refugee camps there, effectively severing the land route to Europe.
Since then, travel agents in Kabul report that requests for visas to Iran and Turkey are down by as much as 80 percent compared with last year at this time. A United Nations report released Thursday also concluded that the flow of migrants from Afghanistan has slowed while people reconsider destinations and subsequent optimal routes.
There is currently lower movement but no dropoff in the people wanting to go, said Alexander Mundt, assistant representative for protection at the U.N. refugee agency. They are just exploring their options, their means and the right moment to go.
Plenty of Afghans are still on the move, however, in a mass migration that is raising new challenges for immigration agencies across the world.
Sulaiman Sayeedi, a travel agent in Kabuls middle-class Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, said there has been a surge in demand for flights to India, Indonesia and Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Once they arrive, Afghan travelers often claim refugee status with the United Nations in hopes of being resettled. In India, for example, Afghan asylum applications have doubled in recent months, according to Mundt.
Other Afghans are flying to Moscow, believing that from there they can cross into Ukraine or even Belarus and then move onward to E.U. countries.
Some people are coming in and just asking for tickets to anywhere they can get to, Sayeedi said. They just want a better life, a more civilized, modern life.
To achieve that in the United States or Canada, Afghans may make Cuba their gateway to the Western Hemisphere.
Over the past two months, travel agents in Kabul have been surprised by Afghans showing up at their offices with Cuban visas, which are suspected of having been issued in Iran or acquired on the black market.
Ten or 15 people have come just since January asking for tickets for Cuba, Sayeedi said. And they are not staying there. The only option is to move forward, probably on to Mexico and then America or Canada.
Other agents in Kabul also report a spike in interest in Cuba, and U.N. officials in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz say they recently encountered a family with Cuban visas. Havana has been a way station in the past for South Asians hoping to transit to Central America and from there to the United States.
Besides Cuba, some Afghans are attempting to land in South America, either to seek residency there or make the trip north toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
Rahimihi, a travel agent in Kabuls central Shar-e Naw district, recently booked flights for relatives who had obtained visas for Ecuador, as well as transit visas through Brazil.
They first had to go to Pakistan to get the transit visa [from the Brazilian Embassy], and then left two weeks ago, said Rahimihi, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. They want to go to Canada.
But central and northern European countries remain Afghans preferred destinations, reflecting the widely held belief here that Germany, Norway and Sweden are the most welcoming toward refugees.
Mohammad Unus has been deported from both Italy and Turkey over the past two years while attempting to reach Germany. Now, for his third attempt, hes working with a local travel agent.
Since Ashraf Ghani became president, all the people want to escape from Afghanistan, Unus said, reflecting widespread concern here that Ghanis promised economic reforms havent materialized. Ive already spent $40,000 trying to get to Europe, and now I plan to sell my house to get there if I have to this time.
Such desperation is fueling the shady enterprise of visa dealing on the streets of Kabul.
According to travel agents, Afghans are now paying dealers $15,000 to $25,000 to obtain a Schengen visa a reference to countries that are part of the Schengen Agreement, which was drawn up to allow unrestricted movement among 26 European nations. The business continues even though seven of those nations, including Germany and Sweden, have re-imposed temporary border controls.
The visa dealers work directly with rogue staffers at European embassies who issue the visas for a kickback, the agents claim.
You never know who is doing it on the inside, but its someone with a soft heart who is approving these documents, said Peer Muhammad Roheen, managing director of Air Gateway Travel and Tours in Kabul.
One travel broker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his sensitive business, said Afghans even with modest means are now turning to visa dealers because people now prefer to go by air to Europe directly.
If you got good contacts inside the embassy, you can get it done in one week, the broker said.
When visa dealers fail to obtain valid visas, they sometimes turn to even more elaborate schemes, according to travel agents.
Legal residents of Europe, for example, are being paid to travel to Afghanistan or Pakistan and then give their passports to Afghans with similar physical characteristics, said Mustafa, a travel agent in southwest Kabul who also uses only one name. The person who gives up the passport then claims it was lost or stolen.
People will pay, and those short on cash will sell anything they have, Mustafa said.
But U.N. officials question how many Afghans will be able to afford expensive options for fleeing.
The people with that kind of money to spend are already gone, Mundt said, adding that many of those now trying to flee are poor and middle-class families. They may still have some means, but maybe $6,000 to invest and not $20,000.
The recent outflow of wealth and talent from Afghanistan has alarmed Ghani, who has been urging Afghans to stay home.
But until stability returns, travel agents expect to stay busy planning one-way trips.
For survival, people will do anything, said Roheen, who estimates that 30 percent of urban Afghan youths hope to leave the country. If they encounter a problem, then they will just try another option.
Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.
Read more:
A wave of political defections spells new trouble for Afghanistan
Europe wants to deport Afghan migrants, but Kabul is reluctant to accept them
Migrants find doors slamming shut across Europe
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Residents of the hard-hit town of Pedernales comfort each other after an earthquake killed hundreds in Ecuador. (Jose Jacome/European Pressphoto Agency)
As darkness fell Sunday on the seaside town of Pedernales, the epicenter of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 246 people, residents gathered outside a soccer stadium, hoping for supplies and news.
Some, huddling silently and teary-eyed at one entrance, had come to identify the bodies of missing loved ones.
Others, jockeying for a place in long lines for water and food, told stories of close calls.
It was only after the earthquake finished that we could get out of the house, said Angelica Valencia, 30, clutching a gallon of water and surrounded by her three young children. It was terrifying, and now were sleeping on the street.
Pedernales, a sleepy tourist town of pastel-colored cement houses, was shaken Saturday evening by the quake, which injured more than 2,000 people.
Residents and army forces look for survivors in Pedernales, Ecuador. (Jose Jacome/European Pressphoto Agency)
President Rafael Correa, who rushed back from a visit to Italy, said that finding survivors was the main priority.
The whole country is mobilizing, he said on Twitter, adding that Pedernales was destroyed.
The death toll here has reached at least 91, most of whom have been identified, police Gen. Milton Zarate said. Bodies, some covered by black tarps, were arranged under tents in one corner of the stadium.
About 600 people were treated at clinics and a pop-up first aid station in the stadium, the Ecuadoran Red Cross said.
Rescue operations would continue through the night, officials said, as long as intermittent rain did not make conditions too treacherous for rescue teams.
Many residents, fearful of aftershocks, said that they planned to sleep outside. The interiors of some houses were fully visible, their outside walls knocked away but their foundations left standing.
Some of the 1,100 police officers brought into the area were packed into pickup beds as night fell, deploying to points around the city to protect residents sleeping outdoors without electricity.
You can still hear people calling for help we cant get to them, said Luis Flores, 41. What can we do?
The quake, the countrys worst in decades, collapsed buildings and buckled roads along the Pacific Coast. A state of emergency was declared in six provinces.
Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and thats what hurts the most, Correa said on state radio.
Several major roadways remained closed Sunday because of damage and concerns about possible landslides. Others were closed at sunset.
Local radio stations urged calm, while photos posted on social media showed roads broken into pieces.
Schools in the worst-hit provinces will not hold classes until further notice. The Esmeraldas oil refinery, key to the oil producers economy, halted output after the quake.
A bridge in Guayaquil, Ecuadors largest city, collapsed after the quake. Other bridges across the country were undergoing safety checks.
About $300 million was available for relief efforts, the government said.
Residents who were evacuated from coastal towns because of fears of a tsunami would be allowed to return to their homes, said Vice President Jorge Glas, who visited disaster sites Sunday.
No Ecuadoran is alone, Glas tweeted. We will come out of this emergency stronger.
Residents should not enter areas with rubble to gather possessions, the vice president told journalists in a news conference.
The attorney generals office will oversee the return of victims bodies to their families, the national police said.
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The Golan Heights will always stay in Israeli hands. Israel will never leave the Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at his weekly cabinet meeting, held for the first time in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. (Sebastian Scheiner/AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the occupied Golan Heights on Sunday to declare that Israel will retain full control of the mountainous plateau forever and will never return the strategic highlands to neighboring Syria.
As talks on the future of Syria are underway in Geneva, Netanyahu convened a symbolic meeting of his cabinet on a mountaintop in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.
In a lead-up to the Geneva talks, representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signaled that they wanted the discussions to include a possible return of the region.
Netanyahu was having none of it.
The time has come after 40 years for the international community to finally recognize that the Golan Heights will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty, he said.
Whatever the outcome of the peace talks, he added, the border will not change.
[Israel fears Russias pullout from Syria will leave dangerous void]
Israel essentially annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 when it extended Israeli civil law versus military rule to the territory.
The international community, including the United States, has never recognized Israels annexation of the heights and views the plateau as Syrian territory occupied by Israel.
Syrias Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said his country would retake the Golan Heights by force if necessary.
All options are on the table for getting back the occupied territory from Israel, Mekdad told the Beirut-based al-Mayadeen news channel, according to a report in the Times of Israel. We are prepared to do anything in order to return the Golan to the Syrian motherland, including using military force.
The Associated Press reported that Syrias Foreign Ministry complained to the U.N. Security Council about Netanyahus cabinet meeting, calling it reckless and provocative.
Netanyahu said he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Saturday and asserted that the Golan Heights, as far as Israel is concerned, was not a bargaining chip in the Syria talks.
Netanyahu said he told Kerry that Israel did not oppose the Syrian peace effort, on the condition that it does not come at the cost of Israeli security.
The prime minister said he wanted to see Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters, who are allied with the Assad regime, and Islamic State militants, who are fighting government forces, out of Syria.
I decided to hold this meeting on the Golan Heights to send a clear message, Netanyahu said as he convened his cabinet meeting, the first held in the region. The Golan Heights will always stay in Israeli hands. Israel will never leave the Golan Heights.
The Golan Heights is a bucolic, sparsely populated region known for fine wines, goat cheese and Israeli cowboys. The area contains Israels lone ski resort, on the slopes of Mount Hermon. The area is filled with abandoned land mines left behind by the Syrian army.
Many of the Druze people who lived in the area fled to Syria behind the retreating Syrian army, but a significant number stayed and continue to live in their villages in the highlands.
The civil war in Syria is visible to the naked eye from the Israeli side. Occasionally, mortar rounds and artillery shells land near Israeli farm towns.
An international force of peacekeepers, overseen by the United Nations, is deployed in a demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel.
Over the years, Israel has discussed returning the Golan Heights to Syria, but Israeli leaders say there is no way they will return the land given the chaos in Syria and the proliferation of Islamist militant groups in the country.
For the 19 years that the Golan was under Syrian occupation, it served as a place for bunkers, barbed wires, mines and aggression it was used for war, Netanyahu said. In the 49 years that the Golan is under Israeli control, it was used for agriculture, tourism, economic initiatives, building it was used for peace.
Read more
Heres what you need to know about the Syria peace talks
Some Israelis want to take in Syrian refugees. Netanyahu says no.
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The armed men drove right into the nighttime ambush. The militants, led by a veteran jihadist blamed for a bloody attack on Westerners just 10 days earlier, were winding their way along a narrow desert road in central Tunisia.
When the elite Tunisian forces hidden in the surrounding hills opened fire, their tracers lit up the night sky, and some of the militants tried to flee. All nine suspects, including the senior militant, Khaled Chaib, were killed. An informant in the truck at the time of the ambush was wounded in the shoulder.
The March 2015 operation was a badly needed victory for Tunisias fragile democracy, whose leaders were struggling to deliver on the promise of the 2011 revolution. Prime Minister Habib Essid called the ambush by Tunisian National Guard forces the crowning success of a growing counterterrorism capability. One newspaper headline proclaimed: The country has been saved from catastrophe.
But what Tunisian leaders did not reveal was the pivotal role that U.S. Special Operations forces had taken in helping to design and stage the operation.
[This is where American Special Operations forces are helping advise U.S. allies]
According to Tunisian and U.S. officials, American communications intercepts tracked down Chaib, an Algerian also known as Loqman Abu Sakhr, allowing the local troops to position themselves in the desert. An American team, made up of Special Operations commandos assisted by CIA personnel, helped the Tunisian forces craft and rehearse the ambush. And while the raid unfolded, an American surveillance aircraft circled overhead and a small team of U.S. advisers stood watch from a forward location.
Speaking by telephone, Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Africa Command, praised the counterterrorism efforts of Tunisian forces but declined to comment on the operation in Tunisias Gafsa region. The CIA also declined to comment.
The operation illustrates the central but little-known role that U.S. Special Operations troops can play in helping foreign forces plan and execute deadly missions against militant targets.
In recent years, U.S. forces have provided this kind of close operational support a range of activities including whats known in military parlance as combat advising or accompany and enabling assistance in a growing list of countries beyond the active battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, including Uganda, Mauritania, Kenya, Colombia, the Philippines and Tunisia.
[Top Secret America: A look at the militarys Joint Special Operations Command]
Those activities have taken on greater importance as the Obama administration has scaled back the direct combat role of U.S. troops overseas and instead sought to empower local forces to manage extremist threats.
At the same time, the strategy, while low-risk to Americans, has done little to change the overall security picture in countries with deep political and economic problems. It is an approach that some analysts say may provide the partner forces and the United States with a false sense of security while having little lasting effect.
Much of this hands-on support has taken place in Africa, where the growth of militant groups, often allied with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, has outpaced under-equipped and under-trained local militaries.
There is still this misunderstanding that we have one mode which is combat, and another mode which is [training], said Linda Robinson, a scholar at the Rand Corp. who tracks U.S. Special Operations activities. Theres this whole spectrum in between, which is operational advise and assist.
In that role, American forces help partner forces plot out risky operations, which are often enabled by U.S. hardware and intelligence, including spy planes and other advanced intelligence systems. U.S. aircraft have flown foreign forces to the site of an operation or stood by to evacuate casualties. In certain cases, U.S. troops are authorized to act as combat advisers, accompanying foreign forces into battle and stopping just short of the front lines.
The operations differ from the U.S. direct action missions such as the 2011 assault on Osama bin Ladens Pakistan hideout or the 2014 raid to rescue American hostages in Syria.
[Ex-SEAL reveals himself as shooter who killed Osama bin Laden]
In those operations, President Obama has proved willing to risk American lives to capture or kill a high-value militant or rescue hostages. But he has also instructed his military leaders to look for opportunities for indirect U.S. action, which puts both the risk and the glory on partners shoulders.
This enables them to take those responsibilities themselves and reduces what are often very politically sensitive issues, said a senior U.S. defense official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate operations. It reduces our footprint, our presence, and it gives credit to the [partner] country.
William F. Wechsler, who was a senior Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations activities until last year, said that preparing foreign forces to carry out assaults, rather than a direct U.S. strike, involved a balance between long- and short-term objectives.
Its almost always easier for U.S. forces to do it directly, Wechsler said. But if your wider mission is to build up the capabilities of our partner, you accept some risk to mission and support local forces doing it.
Done right, this becomes a virtuous cycle.
The partnerships, which typically involve small Special Operations teams, are seen as a lower-risk, lower-cost approach than the massive programs that former president George W. Bush launched to rebuild the militaries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those experiences created lasting doubts at the Pentagon about the United States ability to transform foreign forces.
In Afghanistan, the shortcomings of local troops may prompt the White House to once again delay Obamas troop withdrawal. In Iraq, the army that American troops trained at a cost of more than $20 billion collapsed to advancing Islamic State fighters in 2014.
This is one of the big debates right now: Does this work? Robinson said. A lot of people have been pessimistic about the U.S. ability to build partner capacity and whether it has been able to take care of the security threat.
Were a security blanket
Military officials said the growth in programs providing hands-on support to foreign operations grew out of earlier experiences in places such as Mali, where U.S. Special Operations troops trained and did exercises alongside local forces between 2005 and 2009. After conducting training exercises, U.S. officials were disappointed to watch Malian troops stumble in battle.
That was one of the lessons learned, that . . . we probably would be more effective if we stayed with them, the defense official said. Youre trying to bring guys from a pretty basic place in terms of their knowledge set and give them some advance skills, and then youre tossing them into the deep end of the pool.
So it sort of evolved, and we began to ask for the authorities to stay with them, the official said.
Pentagon officials describe the ongoing U.S. mission in Somalia, where Special Operations forces are advising troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as a successful illustration of this kind of operational support.
[U.S. Special Operations forces conduct helicopter raid in Somalia]
Although the United States had trained AMISOM troops in their home countries in the past, officials realized those forces needed extra help when they faced the militant group al-Shabab. U.S. troops now help allied forces in Somalia plan and execute missions. They provide aerial surveillance and, under authorities that allow them to protect partner forces, conduct airstrikes against militants.
The African troops do the bulk of the work, but weve been able to help them through particularly tricky problems they may have, the official said.
While U.S. officials say the strikes reflect the increasing scope of AMISOM activities, the attacks also point to the continuing strength of al-Shabab fighters even after they were dislodged from major Somali cities.
Mark Mitchell, a former White House official and Green Beret who worked closely with local forces in Iraq, said that sending U.S. troops on missions with local forces allowed opportunities for training and mentoring, including on human rights. It also ensures efficient exploitation of evidence obtained during operations, he said, and increases the confidence of local forces.
They know Americans are not going to be left out to dry, he said. So if things go badly, were a security blanket for them.
But even missions that are not supposed to expose U.S. troops to combat can bring deadly risks.
The renewed U.S. mission in Iraq suffered its first combat casualty last year when a Delta Force soldier was killed during a mission accompanying Kurdish peshmerga troops. Although American forces were supposed to remain in a supporting role, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler became engaged in a firefight when he came to the defense of the Kurds.
Decline after U.S. departure
The broader effect of U.S. support, even if it can hone the skills of foreign counterterrorism forces, has at times amounted to little when assistance is too narrowly focused on small, elite units.
In Yemen, a long-running combat advisory mission was halted after the disintegration of the government at the end of 2014. After U.S. Special Operations troops departed abruptly several months later, the United States ability to counter al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was severely curtailed. U.S. officials were unable to account for hundreds of millions of dollars in fighting gear provided to local forces.
The experience with combat advising in Yemen highlights the risk that U.S. training may succeed in building up the tactical ability of those forces for a period of time but fail to shape the larger security organizations or political environments in which they operate. Without broader changes to military leadership, systems to equip and pay troops, or efforts to tackle corruption, the impact of U.S. help can quickly vanish.
Heres where the downfall or flaw is, Mitchell said. The minute we leave the organizations that we create . . . they have a half-life. After about a year, that capability we built is squandered, and its back to square one.
Robinson said a long-running American advisory mission in the Philippines, where U.S. troops helped local forces plan missions against Abu Sayyaf and other militant groups, had managed to avoid that transition problem by spreading training across a wide array of Philippine units. That mission concluded in 2014.
It was also pretty carefully done so U.S. forces wouldnt end up inadvertently in the front line fighting the fight, meaning local units were forced to gain their own skills, she said.
In Tunisia, officials were forced to grapple with intensifying security threats after the 2011 revolution. The security services that former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had employed to keep tabs on Tunisians struggled to contain growing radicalization, which spread in the countrys newly permissive environment. Chaos in neighboring Libya allowed jihadist groups to gain strength.
You have so many different types of threats that intersect in Tunisia, with limited resources to address it, said Haim Malka, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Its overwhelming.
On March 18 last year, the costs of insecurity came into stark relief when a small cell of attackers stormed the Bardo, the famed national museum in Tunis. At the end of the siege, at least 20 people, mostly Western tourists, were dead.
The bloodshed at a beloved national monument was a stunning blow to the countrys tourism industry and, since at least one of the gunmen was known to local authorities, an indictment of the governments ability to keep people safe.
Although the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the government pointed the finger at Chaibs group, al-Qaeda-linked Okba Ibn Nafaa, which had also launched repeated attacks on Tunisian forces.
After 2011, Tunisias new democratic leaders knew they needed help. Officials asked allies, including the United States and Germany, to help tighten the border with Libya. U.S. military personnel, who number up to about 100 in the country at a time, are also training national guard and army special forces soldiers.
The United States arranged to provide ScanEagle surveillance planes to Tunisia; the Tunisian government is also waiting for Black Hawk helicopters that it purchased. In a recent interview in Tunis, President Beji Caid Essebsi said that U.S. support is valuable but that more is needed.
If our friends are keen to help us, we will be happy, he said.
But officials there, mindful of Tunisians feelings about foreign involvement, want to play down any perception of overt U.S. military involvement. The Tunisian government has to be careful about being seen as working too closely with the United States, Malka said.
According to a Tunisian security official, the low-profile U.S. assistance was critical in staging the Gafsa mission. The Americans provided the training and supported the operation with intelligence and other means, the official said. U.S. forces also helped rig the vehicle that militants drove into the ambush.
The day after the raid, Tunisias Interior Ministry hailed the operation, showcasing photos of the dead men, splayed in the truck or lying on the rocky ground.
The operation was intended to kill them, the official said. We did not intend to arrest them.
Read more:
One woman helped the mastermind of the Paris attacks. The other turned him in.
The shadowy JSOC general expected to be next leader of special operations forces
U.S. Special Operations units are using faulty rifle sights
Asia
Philippines workers strike over victimisation and poor conditions
Workers at South Korean-owned electronics subcontractor Seung Yeun Technology Industries Corp (SYTIC) in the Philippines Cavite Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) went on strike on Monday. They are demanding reinstatement of 20 workers fired for carrying out union activities and are opposing company breaches of labour standards on working conditions and wage payments.
The SYTIC strikers claim that deductions are made from their wages for meals and to fund various company events. The company has also organised work schedules in order to avoid paying overtime and failed to provide a doctor and nurse on site as required by law.
The strike erupted after two mediation sessions before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) failed to resolve the issues. The strikers are picketing the plant and held marches in the economic zone calling on other workers to support their struggle. The Cavite EPZA has 60,000 workers and is the largest economic zone in the Philippines.
SYTIC manufactures plastic products used to ship integrated circuits and electronic components. It supplies these to local subsidiaries of big US electronics companies such as ON Semiconductor, a Motorola spinoff, Texas Instruments and Analog Devices.
Vietnam: Electronics workers strike for better wages and conditions
Nearly 1,000 workers at the South Korean-owned Bluecom Vina electronics company in Vietnams northern city of Haiphong began an indefinite strike on April 11 to demand improved wages and working hours and the right to form a union. They also want two Saturdays off each month.
The workers claim that the company, which produces TV speakers and earphones, does not operate official working hours. Employees are expected to start at 8 a.m. and continue until management allows them to finish. This is usually at 9 or 10 p.m., including Saturdays. Workers are only paid $US165 per month and a total of just $4.50 per month for extra hours worked.
Sri Lankan electricity meter readers protest enters second week
Striking workers employed on contract by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to read household meters are continuing a fasting protest opposite the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry. The protest, which involves 800 of the workers and family members, entered its second week on April 11.
About 1,400 contract meter readers service 5.5 million households across Sri Lanka. Many of them have worked at CEB for more than ten years. They are demanding that the government honour an election promise made by President Maithripala Sirisena to make them permanent.
Protestors told the media that they had to read meters at 150 residences per day in order to reach the company target of over 3,000 meters within 25 days. The contract meter readers are not provided with motor cycles to do their rounds and have no medical coverage for work accidents or dog bites. A spokesman for the Billing Officers Union said the workers would maintain their protests until they were given a written assurance from the government that they will be made permanent employees.
Unions end Colombo port work-to-rule
Unions have called off a work-to-rule campaign by Sri Lanka Ports Authority workers at Colombo, claiming that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had agreed to pay a full New Year (Sri Lankan) bonus.
The port workers, who had been promised a special New Year bonus and productivity payments from December 2015, began their work-to-rule on April 6 with a demonstration and picket outside the port.
After meeting with Wickremesinghe and Ports Minister Arjuna Ranatunga, officials from the 17-union Port Trade Unions Collective said that the government had agreed to establish a committee to organise payment of the special allowances.
Union officials also claimed that Wickremesinghe would investigate workers other demands, including removal of recruitment anomalies and stopping the privatisation of port assets after April 22. The unions have also called for dismissal of the ports minister and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority chairman, and for action against corrupt port officials.
Pakistan railway workers strike
Pakistan Railways loco-shed workers at Karachi Cantonment Station went on strike on April 11 over several issues, including promotions and the lack of basic safety conditions and facilities, such as clean water.
While most of the workers have over 25 years of service they have not been promoted to higher pay grades. According to workers, management has ignored the results of a January investigation to determine a scale-upgrade. The All Pakistan Railways Shed Technical Staff Union called off the strike shortly after meeting with the management.
Police attack Pakistan doctors protest
Police in Quetta in Pakistans Balochistan province attacked a Young Doctors Association protest on April 7 on the orders of the provincial government. The doctors were demanding a pay rise, job permanency, positions for unemployed doctors and for the provision of basic facilities in the hospitals.
Police used batons, tear gas and fired warning shots into the air to break up the demonstration which was being held outside the Quetta Provincial Assembly. Ten doctors were arrested and at least eight others badly injured, including one who may have been blinded.
Young Doctors Association members began boycotting duties on April 8 in hospital outpatient departments and imposed bans on the governments vaccination campaign in protest against the police attack. The government has responded by deploying large numbers of police to hospitals in a bid to intimidate the doctors.
Indian contract teachers protest job losses
Contract teachers protested outside the deputy chief ministers residence in New Delhi on April 9 over job losses and to call for permanency. Over 1,900 teachers employed under the federal Indian governments Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Scheme lost their jobs on March 31 when the Human Resource Development ministry refused to renew their contracts.
The scheme was introduced in 2001 and is operated in conjunction with Indian state governments. It was designed to provide extra teachers to understaffed schools and legally mandates a 1:40 student teacher ratio in schools. Teachers contracts are normally renewed between March and May each year.
In a separate dispute, lecturers from two private colleges in Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu, held a sit-down protest outside the joint director of educations office on April 12 over unpaid wages. The 42 lecturers were not paid because the director of collegiate education had delayed approving their appointments.
Karnataka: Textile workers strike continues
Close to 3,500 workers at the Gokak textile mill in the Indian state of Karnataka are maintaining strike action which began on March 8 over harassment by mill management and the suspension of 16 employees. Mill management responded to the walkout by locking out workers on March 17.
Ramesh Jarkiholi, who is a legislative assembly member for Gokak and a union official, has held reconciliation talks with the mill management but failed to get any agreement on workers demands. Further negotiations are scheduled for April 18.
Tamil Nadu council and ambulance workers walk out
Contract sanitary workers in the Anakaputhur Municipality near Chennai went on strike on April 11 over their exclusion from the Provident Funds scheme. The workers were excluded from the scheme after the municipal authority outsourced waste collection to Srinivasa Waste Management. The strike was called off after municipal officials agreed to address the issue.
In Madurai 108 division ambulance and paramedics demonstrated on April 11 to oppose the GVK Emergency Management and Research Institutes employee-appraisal system.
Workers claim that the system is being used to avoid paying correct salary levels and allowances. They are also protesting the lack of any mechanism to register grievances and want the institute to stop targeting workers involved in union activities.
Australia and the Pacific
Port workers in Sydney strike for 48 hours
Waterside workers at the Asciano-owned Patrick Stevedores container terminal at Port Botany, Sydney, went on strike for 48 hours on April 13 as part of a national dispute over a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
The stoppage follows two 72-hour strikes at the companys terminal in Fremantle, Western Australia earlier this month. A 48-hour strike is planned for the Brisbane terminal on April 20. Senior Patrick Stevedores executive Alex Badenoch threatened to consider all the options available to us under the present system, including the possibility of a lockout.
Year-long negotiations between the company and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) have failed to resolve differences over a new rostering system. The MUA has agreed to allow its members to work more midnight and weekend shifts and forgo higher penalty rates in exchange for the reduction of the working weekfrom 35 to 32 hourswith no loss of pay. The union also wants curbs on further casualisation of work.
MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer told media that the union saved $1.5 million on our previous proposal and made it cost-neutral. Its incredibly disingenuous of them (the company) to reject it.
Over the past two years the union has collaborated with Patricks to introduce remotely controlled cranes and other technology, slashing the companys Port Botany workforce from 440 to 260.
The MUA has also endorsed the axing of jobs at DP Worlds and Hutchisons Australian port facilities. Last November they negotiated a deal with Hutchison to eliminate 65 jobs, extend the working week from 30 to 32 hours and expand the number of casuals. The MUA claimed it was a victory.
Solomon Islands nurses union calls off strike
The Solomon Islands Nurses Association (SINA) last week called off a strike planned for April 8 and extended its strike notice by a further 30 days. The initial 28-day notice of industrial action lapsed on April 7.
SINA claimed it cancelled the strike to give the government more time to address an outstanding pay issue. A union spokesperson said that multi-allowances and special-duty allowances had not been paid to a large number of nurses since 2013.
A New Orleans-area woman was arrested earlier this week after she was accused of a weeks-long sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy, authorities tell PEOPLE.
December Hebert, 38, was arrested Wednesday in Marrero, outside New Orleans, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Col. John Fortunato says.
She was booked into jail Thursday and accused of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and indecent behavior of a juvenile, Fortunato says.
Hebert's bond was set at $5,000, according to NOLA.com, and she was barred by a judge from contacting the alleged victim. It was not immediately clear if she had entered a plea or retained an attorney.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? A "Click to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
Officials allege that Hebert convinced the victim to enter into a sexual relationship for about three weeks in April 2015, after the two first met through acquaintances, Fortunato says.
The Sheriff's Office was first contacted in May 2015 by a friend of Hebert's, after she learned of the alleged relationship, Fortunato says.
Hebert allegedly "threatened to harm" the boy in order to keep the relationship secret, Fortunato says.
Though a warrant was obtained for her arrest last year, following months of investigation, Fortunato says Hebert was "very transient" and hard to find.
She was only arrested on the charge after being investigated for an unrelated issue, he says.
Oscar-winning Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore has signed to direct a feature film for Alibaba Pictures Group, the fast-expanding moviemaking subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The agreement was announced Sunday during the first day of the Beijing International Film Festival in the Chinese capital. At the tail end of a co-production seminar, Tornatore took the stage with Alibaba Pictures CEO Zhang Qiang to acknowledge the partnership in a symbolic signing ceremony.
No additional details on the planned project were revealed.
Read More: Alibaba Film Chief Grants First Interview: What China Can Do for Hollywood
Tornatore's most recent film, Correspondence, starring Jeremy Irons and Olga Kurylenko and with a score by Ennio Morricone, was released in January. He has made 14 films across his 30-year career and remains best known for Cinema Paradiso, which won the 1988 Academy Award for best foreign-language film. The new Alibaba-backed picture will be Tornatore's fist collaboration with a Chinese studio.
Launched in 2014, Alibaba Pictures Group has yet to release a movie of its own, but the upstart studio's slate has begun to take shape.
APG's first feature The Ferryman, directed by Zhang Jiajia and produced by Wong Kar-wai, will be released in the second half of this year. The company also has signed Chinese actress and filmmaker Vicki Zhao to direct an animated film adaptation of My Fair Princess, the hit period TV drama that launched her to stardom in the 1990s.
Earlier this month, APG announced a partnership with Skydance Media to co-finance and produce The Flying Tigers, a China-set WWII pic to be scripted by Braveheart writer Randall Wallace. APG previously took a 20 percent investment stake in Skydance and Paramount's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which grossed $135.6 million of its $682.3 million worldwide haul in China.
The New York Times
EWA BEACH, Hawaii It was rough enough when Ashley Badis and her teammates in girls water polo had to practice in the ocean, battling fickle winds and choppy waves because their high school had failed to provide them a pool. But it was humiliating, Badis said, when she learned about female athletes on other teams lugging their gear around school all day, running to a nearby Burger King to use the bathroom, or changing clothes under the bleachers or on the bus. The boys had no such worries beca
Brussels (AFP) - Around 7,000 people marched through Brussels against jihadist violence on Sunday, nearly a month after coordinated suicide attacks in the Belgian capital killed 32 people and wounded hundreds of others.
Organised by civil society groups, the so-called "march against terror and hatred" was aimed at putting on a show of unity after the bloodshed.
But turnout was less than half of the 15,000 people they had hoped for.
Around 6,000 people set off from the Gare du Nord railway station and joined up in the city centre with around 1,000 marchers who had started from Molenbeek, the rundown district that has gained an unwelcome reputation as a jihadi haven.
Many clutched flowers and emblems of peace.
"When our fellow citizens, defenceless civilians, are cut down in a cowardly attack, all citizens should stand up to express their disgust and solidarity," said Hassan Bousetta, a local councillor from the city of Liege, who helped organise the march.
"It is a moment of reflection, a message of compassion for the victims and a moment when citizens come together," he told AFP.
Carrying a banner in French and Flemish reading "#alltogether against hatred and terror," the main group of marchers was led by families of the victims, followed by representatives from various religious communities.
A dozen members of an association for inter-religious dialogue carried a banner with drawings of doves emblazoned with: "Together in peace" while a Muslim group carried a placard reading: "Love is my religion and my faith."
In the group that set off from Molenbeek, children chanted, "Daesh, off you go, Brussels isn't for you!" using an acronym for the Islamic State jihadist group, which claimed the attacks.
Thirty-two people were killed in the March 22 bomb attacks, which targeted Zaventem airport and a subway train at Maalbeek station, near the European Union (EU) institutions in central Brussels.
Story continues
At the ceremony, the names of the dead were read out before relatives of the dead and witnesses took turns to speak.
- 'Islam of love' -
"Our Islam is based on the love of God and love for each other, regardless of one's culture, origin, religion," said a message from the widower of Loubna Lafquiri, a Belgian-Moroccan mother of three who was killed in the metro blast.
In a poignant address to his wife, he wrote: "My princess, my treasure, my eternal love, I say to you that we will meet again soon."
The bloodshed tore at Belgium's social fabric, already weakened along linguistic lines between francophones and Dutch-speaking Flemings, and stirred anguished debate about the emergence of jihadists among the country's Muslim underclass.
On Saturday, Interior Minister Jan Jambon -- a Flemish nationalist who has been criticised for his handling of security -- said a "significant section of the Muslim population danced" when the attacks took place.
He also accused Muslim residents of Molenbeek of throwing stones and bottles at police during an operation last month to arrest a suspect in connection with November's attacks in Paris.
"This is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil. Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it won't be overnight," he said.
His comments drew fire on Sunday.
"It is abysmal to exploit events in order to sow division," said Pieter Bouchery, a union official with telephone operator Mobistar.
"To say that Molenbeek is a jihadists' paradise is stupid and not right for the people who live there."
Several Socialist MPs have called on Prime Minister Charles Michel to condemn Jambon's remarks, media reports said.
The march, which involved 160 associations, was initially to have taken place on March 27 but was postponed after the authorities raised security concerns.
(Corrects headline and first paragraph to show spokesman was referring to U.S. financial system, not global financial system in April 15 story.) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An agreement with Iran aimed at preventing it from developing nuclear weapons does not include giving it access to the U.S. financial system, the White House said on Friday. The comment from a White House spokesman at a regular news briefing followed a request by Iran's central bank governor earlier on Friday for the United States and European Union to help Iran gain access to the global financial system. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
LONDON (Reuters) - Sergio Aguero was acclaimed as "the best striker in the Premier League" by manager Manuel Pellegrini after his hat-trick helped Manchester City beat Chelsea 3-0 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. The win capped an excellent week for City, who moved ahead of Arsenal into third place in the table and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League after beating Paris St Germain on Tuesday. Aguero took his season's league tally to 21 goals with strikes in the 32nd and 54th minutes and an 80th-minute penalty after Chelsea keeper Thibaut Courtois was sent off for upending Fernandinho. The performance delighted City's manager Manuel Pellegrini, who said: I am sure he is the best striker in the league, he makes a difference playing every game." Equally influential in the victory was midfielder Kevin de Bruyne who produced the sort of performance that has left many questioning why Chelsea let their former midfielder leave without having had the chance to prove himself at Stamford Bridge. The Belgian's return from injury has played a significant part in City's recent improved form and he was at the hub of most of their attacks, linking superbly with Aguero for the first two goals. First De Bruyne broke from a Chelsea corner to allow the Argentine to cut inside and open the scoring. Then De Bruyne produced another telling thrust from his own half to again feed Aguero, via Samir Nasri, as City overwhelmed Chelsea with a series of clinical attacks. Courtois's rash challenge on Fernandinho gave away the penalty which allowed Aguero, who had missed from the spot against PSG on Tuesday, to complete his hat-trick. Defeat left Chelsea looking ahead to a new start under new manager Antonio Conte, who will join ahead of next season. "Chelsea are (in) a difficult situation this season," outgoing boss Guus Hiddink said. "Chelsea need to be in the first four places. We were knocking on the door but we didnt create open chances. They outplayed us on 60-70 yard counters." (Reporting by Neil Robinson, editing by Alan Baldwin/Toby Davis)
Hong Kong (AFP) - More than 1,000 people staged a protest at Hong Kong airport Sunday over an alleged breach of aviation safety rules involving the baggage of the city leader's daughter.
It was the latest controversy to hit Beijing-backed Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying since he took office in 2012 in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. His popularity ratings are currently low.
Protesters -- including cabin crew, pilots and activists -- staged a sit-in at Chek Lap Kok airport's arrival hall, alleging special treatment for Leung's family.
They said they were annoyed by an apparent special arrangement which helped 23-year-old Leung Chung-yan after she accidentally left her hand baggage at the check-in counter last month.
Local media have reported that the chief executive made a phone call to relevant officers before the bag was delivered to the 23-year-old.
C.Y. Leung has admitted making a call but denied pressuring staff.
Protesters alleged that Leung misused his power and said the incident could jeopardise aviation safety.
"We are strongly against privileges. We are stressed and annoyed. We cannot stay silent," Carol Ng, of the Hong Kong Cabin Crew Federation, one of the protest organisers, told AFP.
Slogan-shouting protesters held banners reading "No compromise on professionalism" and "The sky with 100 percent safety".
They ended the three-hour demonstration by marching around the busy airport terminal as curious travellers recorded the scene with smartphones.
Hong Kong was handed over by Britain to China in 1997 under a "One country, two systems" arrangement which guarantees its freedoms for 50 years. But there are fears such freedoms are being eroded due to the increasing behind-the-scenes influence of Beijing.
A government spokesman said the bag of Leung's daughter had undergone a thorough security check and aviation safety was not affected by the incident.
As with previous leaders since 1997 Leung was picked by a 1,200-strong electoral committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites. Since then, he has faced several controversies.
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In 2012 he was embroiled in a row stemming from illegal structures at his luxury home.
In 2014 the former surveyor was accused of taking a $7 million payment from an Australian company arising from his business before he became the city's leader.
He denied any wrongdoing.
Algiers (AFP) - The Algerian army killed 14 Islamist fighters last month in the El-Oued region near the border with Tunisia, the government said on Sunday.
The Islamists were killed in an operation in the town of Kouinine near El-Oued, the defence ministry said on its website.
It also announced that soldiers had found an arms cache in the area on Friday, the second such discovery in 10 days.
Last year the Algerian army killed or arrested 157 "terrorists", according to ministry figures.
A brutal civil war in the 1990s between the government and Islamists claimed the lives of some 200,000 people.
Despite adopting a peace and reconciliation charter in 2005 aimed at turning the page on the conflict, armed groups remain active in central and eastern Algeria.
Addis Ababa (AFP) - Armed men from South Sudan have killed around 140 people and kidnapped a number of others in a cross-border raid into Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government said Sunday.
Ethnic Murle gunmen on Friday "attacked near Gambella and killed close to 140 people. They also abducted some of them," Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Tewolde Muluteg told AFP.
The Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region, often stage raids to steal cattle.
They attacked the Nuer tribe, one of the two main ethnic groups in South Sudan, but who also live across the border in Ethiopia.
The western Ethiopian region of Gambella, which borders South Sudan, is also home to some 272,000 South Sudanese refugees who have fled the civil war that erupted in their country in December 2013.
"Our forces have been in pursuit of the attackers and they decimated scores of them," Muluteg said, without indicating whether the Ethiopian forces entered South Sudan territory.
"In border areas cattle feuds and raids are not uncommon. Of course, something of this magnitude is different," he added.
"We don't think (the armed men) have any links to the South Sudan government or the rebels."
Ethiopia has been heavily involved in the South Sudan peace process, partly because of the risk that the conflict could destabilise Gambella.
South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar is due to return to South Sudan's capital Juba on Monday from his rebel base at Pagak in the far east of the country, close to the Ethiopian border, rebel spokesman Colonel Nyarji Roman said.
Machar, who has not set foot in Juba for two years, is to form a transitional government with his rival, President Salva Kiir, as part of a peace deal signed in August.
Machar, who was Kiir's deputy before the war, has been living in exile in Kenya and Ethiopia, but was re-appointed vice president in February.
He is expected to be swiftly sworn into office as vice president at the presidential palace alongside Kiir on Monday but a welcome rally by his supporters may be cancelled amid government security fears.
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After winning independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into war two years later, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken country along ethnic lines.
Tens of thousands have been killed and over two million people forced to flee their homes during the war.
Both the government and rebel sides have been accused of perpetrating ethnic massacres, recruiting and killing children and carrying out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to "cleanse" areas of their opponents.
You know those viral videos where some clever and exhaustive editing makes it seem as if Brian Williams is sort of singing along to Warren G's song Regulate or that Barack Obama is casually performing Uptown Funk? Well, a new website lets users create similar videos on their own, albeit without the accompanying music.
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If you haven't yet heard of the website Talk Obama To Me, do yourself a favor and check it out immediately. The premise of the site is simple and the resulting fun is endless; simply type in a phrase of your choosing and the site will scour a vast database of Obama video footage whereupon it will splice together clips such that Obama will appear to utter your chosen phrase.
You can definitely have a lot of fun with this, as evidenced by Engadget having Obama cite the Night's Watch pledge from Game of Thrones.
While the site works for the most part, it can be a bit temperamental at times - sometimes the site seems overwhelmed by traffic and other times it can't seem to match a video to a desired phrase. But that's just a small price to pay to have a bit of fun with such a clever idea implemented so seamlessly.
As pointed out by Gizmodo, the mastermind behind this great idea and site is Ed King, a Linguistics PhD student at Stanford.
Related stories
Barack Obama talks iPhone encryption, cautions against taking an 'absolutist view' and 'fetishizing our phones'
Watch Obama's final State of the Union address right here
Trump slams Obama for watching 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'
More from BGR: You can make yourself hallucinate without taking any drugs
This article was originally published on BGR.com
On a late night 226 years ago today, the iconic American founder Benjamin Franklin passed away quietly at his daughters house in Philadelphia. So in terms of significant Americans, how highly do historians and publishers regard Franklin?
Franklin in 1762
That would seem to be a nearly impossible question to answer, based on the vagueness of what qualities make a great or influential citizen. But in recent years, surveys taken by newspapers, TV producers and journalists of historians and academics have tried to rank the most influential Americans.
The efforts are surely ways to start a dialogue or argument in an effort to sell a few print publications or online ads, but in terms of Franklin, he is usually near the top of any such list with one exception.
To sum up Franklins public career, it began in 1721 when he started writing for his brothers newspaper as a teenager, and his last significant public efforts were as a moderating force at the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia. In between, Franklin did a lot of things and he was probably the most well-known American in the world at the time of his death, and one of the most respected.
Link: A short Franklin biography
Franklins list of achievements in business, journalism, science, charity and politics is too long to recount here. Franklins role as a diplomat in Europe was a critical one for the nascent country, and he also was on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Here is how Franklin ranks among historic Americans in four recent survey and ranking efforts.
The Atlantic (2006). In December 2006, the magazine asked 10 prominent historians to rank the 100 most influential Americans and consider influence looselyas a persons impact, for good or ill, both on his or her own era and on the way we live now.
In this survey, Franklin came in sixth, behind Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Alexander Hamilton. John Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were after Franklin.
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Time Magazine (2012). As part of a Time project to rank the 100 most influential historical figures globally, Franklin was listed as the 35th most significant person in world history, with Paul the Apostle as 34th and George W. Bush as 36th. There were seven other Americans ranked ahead of Franklin in that global study, which was data-driven and not reliant on historians.
Biography Channel (1999). In a 25-part series, A&Es Biography Channel looked at the 100 most influential people of the past 1,000 years.
And in this imposing list, Franklin was ranked at 68th, just ahead of William Harvey and Pope Gregory VII. Among the Americans, Elvis Presley, D.W. Griffith and Bill Gates were ranked ahead of Franklin.
Smithsonian (2014). In 2014, the editors at Smithsonian Magazine worked with Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward, the data crunchers behind the Time magazine stories, to form a different kind of list of the 100 most significant Americans.
The magazine said that Skiena and Ward embrace a theory that accounts not only for what individuals have done, but also for how well others remember and value them for it. Smithsonian Magazine asked them to pull out the top 100 Americans in their database, and then the magazine sorted then into 10 different categories.
In the end, Franklin didnt make Smithsonian Magazines top 100 significant Americans list, even though the list included Hulk Hogan, Madonna, Sarah Palin, Benedict Arnold and Charles Manson.
As a newspaper publisher, Franklin would probably appreciate the magazines efforts to sell a few special issues.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
La Paz (AFP) - Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country has decided to file suit against Chile at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a water dispute.
Bolivia argues it owns the Silala spring waters originating in its southwest department of Potosi and that it is not being compensated for Chile's use of the water, which flow across their shared border.
Chile, however, argues that the waters constitute an international river.
"We have decided as a pacifist country to go to The Hague so that Chile respects our water in Silala," Morales said at a public event.
Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz said Saturday his country would file a counterclaim if Bolivia goes forward with the suit.
"If a suit materializes regarding use of the water from the Silala River at any time, Chile will file a counterclaim against Bolivia to safeguard our interests," Munoz said.
The move would mark the second legal action taken by Bolivia against Chile at the Netherlands-based court that oversees disputes between countries.
Last year, the ICJ agreed to take up a century-old dispute between the two nations in which La Paz is seeking to regain its former access to the Pacific Ocean.
Bolivia became landlocked after losing a four-year war against Chile at the end of the 19th century, forfeiting territory and its access to the sea.
After a number of fruitless negotiations with Santiago over the issue, La Paz lodged a complaint to the ICJ in April 2013.
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazilian lawmakers fought and shouted at the opening of a session Sunday to decide whether President Dilma Rousseff should face impeachment, in a political showdown watched by millions around the deeply divided country.
Months of rancorous debate that have seen Rousseff's ruling coalition collapse and prompted huge street demonstrations came to a head in the capital Brasilia, where the lower house of Congress was voting on whether to authorize an impeachment trial.
Tension erupted into scuffles and yelling as soon as the house speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who is a fierce Rousseff opponent, opened the session.
Final statements by party leaders were then regularly interrupted in circus-like scenes of deputies leading their allies in patriotic anthems or singing parodies that poked fun at Rousseff. Others chanted, waved large flags and one deputy even fired off a confetti cannon.
Voting was to start shortly, going on late into the evening, with most experts predicting deputies would approve sending Rousseff to the Senate for impeachment trial.
Brazil's first female president is accused of illegal government accounting tricks but, more broadly, is blamed for the country's worst recession in decades and galloping corruption.
The whole procedure was being aired live on television to the country of 204 million, the biggest in Latin America, and also on screens erected in city squares.
Pro-impeachment deputy Antonio Imbassahy, from the PSDB party, told lawmakers that Brazil needed "moral reconstruction."
But Afonso Florence, from Rousseff's Workers' Party, urged a "democratic conscience" and attacked impeachment leaders like Cunha as the most corrupt.
Latest estimates in major Brazilian newspapers indicated that pro-impeachment deputies in the house would succeed. They need 342 of the 513 votes, or two-thirds of the house.
But Jose Guimaraes, a senior member of the Workers' Party, said the opposition was "far from 342."
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- Impassioned street debate -
In Brasilia about 18,000 pro-impeachment demonstrators massed outside Congress, according to a police count. About half that number turned out on the pro-Rousseff side, separated by a metal fence.
In Rio de Janeiro, which is scrambling to organize the Olympics this August, about 3,000 people each from the two sides demonstrated at separate time slots next to Copacabana beach.
So far, the atmosphere on the streets was peaceful, even festive, with a funk band singing in Rio and protesters blowing trumpets and vuvuzelas, as if at a football game, in Brasilia.
In Sao Paulo, the financial center, thousands of pro-impeachment supporters thronged the central Paulista Avenue, many of them in the country's green and yellow national football shirts.
In Brasilia, psychologist Eric Gamaliel, 29, said he'd joined pro-Rousseff protesters because impeachment would mean "Brazil loses a lot. The world will lose a lot. It will be a step backwards."
But farmer Silmar Borazio, 50, who made a 20-hour journey to the capital with pro-impeachment supporters, said Brazil needs change.
"The first thing that needs to happen is for Dilma to leave. We are tired of producing revenue and seeing that in the end nothing improves in the country and it gets stolen," he said.
- Last-minute bargaining -
Rousseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting maneuvers to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection. Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the economic mess and a massive corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras, a toxic record that has left her government with 10 percent approval ratings.
The president and her allies lobbied frantically in a last-minute effort to turn a tide that appeared to be going against Rousseff. Her mentor, the fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flew back from his home in Sao Paulo to join the final assault.
If she can prevent the opposition reaching 342 votes Sunday, she will escape, even though opposition leaders warn they will quickly launch a new impeachment attempt.
Most experts think the vote will pass.
If so, then the Senate will vote, probably in May, whether to open a trial. In case of a yes vote there, which experts also consider likely, then Rousseff would step down for 180 days.
During this period she'd be replaced by her vice president Michel Temer, who has emerged as a leader of the impeachment drive. If the Senate then ended the trial with a two-thirds majority in favor of ejecting her, Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.
Sylvio Costa, who heads the specialist politics website Congresso en Foco, told AFP that Rousseff was nearly sure to go, but that more trouble lies ahead.
"Whoever loses will keep protesting in the streets," he said. "What's certain is that the crisis will not end today."
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazilian lawmakers voted Sunday on whether President Dilma Rousseff should face impeachment trial in a tense and at times circus-like showdown watched live by millions around the deeply divided country.
After nearly two hours of voting the opposition in the lower house of Congress in Brasilia had reached 171 votes -- halfway to its target of 342, or a two-thirds majority, which would send Rousseff to the Senate for the next stage of the process.
Most experts predicted that deputies would reach 342, but deputies from the most pro-government regions had yet to vote, meaning the result could still be close.
The vote brought to a boil months of rancorous debate that has seen Rousseff's ruling coalition collapse and prompted huge street demonstrations.
The chamber's 513 deputies rose one by one to announce their vote at a microphone, greeted by cheers and sometimes jeering from the rest of the chamber.
Earlier, there were hours of debate regularly interrupted by chaotic scenes of deputies leading allies in patriotic anthems or singing parodies about the leftist Rousseff. Others chanted, waved large flags and one deputy even fired off a confetti cannon.
Brazil's first female president is accused of illegal government accounting tricks but, more broadly, is blamed for the country's worst recession in decades and galloping corruption.
The whole procedure was being aired live on television to the country of 204 million, the biggest in Latin America, and also on screens erected in city squares.
Voting against impeachment, Henrique Fontana, from Rousseff's Workers' Party, said he was "for democracy and against the coup."
But opposition deputy Darcisio Perondi cast a vote to oust Rousseff, declaring himself "for a decent government, and above all for hope for Brazilians."
- Protests peaceful so far -
In Brasilia, about 40,000 pro-impeachment demonstrators massed outside Congress, according to a police count. About 17,000 turned out on the pro-Rousseff side, separated by a metal fence.
Story continues
In Rio de Janeiro, which is scrambling to organize the Olympics this August, about 3,000 people each from the two sides demonstrated at separate time slots next to Copacabana beach.
So far, the atmosphere on the streets was peaceful, even festive, with a funk band singing in Rio and protesters blowing trumpets and vuvuzelas, as if at a football game, in Brasilia.
In Sao Paulo, the financial center, thousands of pro-impeachment supporters thronged the central Paulista Avenue, many of them in the country's green and yellow national football shirts.
In Brasilia, psychologist Eric Gamaliel, 29, said he had joined pro-Rousseff protesters because impeachment would mean "Brazil loses a lot. The world will lose a lot. It will be a step backwards."
But farmer Silmar Borazio, 50, who made a 20-hour journey to the capital with pro-impeachment supporters, said Brazil needs change.
"The first thing that needs to happen is for Dilma to leave. We are tired of producing revenue and seeing that in the end nothing improves in the country and it gets stolen," he said.
- Senate could vote in May -
Rousseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting maneuvers to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection. Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the economic mess and a massive corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras, a toxic record that has left her government with 10 percent approval ratings.
The president and her allies lobbied frantically in a last-minute effort to turn a tide that appeared to be going against Rousseff. Her mentor, the fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flew back from his home in Sao Paulo to join the final assault.
If she could prevent the opposition reaching 342 votes Sunday, she would escape, even though opposition leaders warned they would quickly launch a new impeachment attempt.
In case of impeachment being authorized Sunday, the Senate would vote, probably in May, on whether to open a trial. In case of a yes vote there, which experts also consider likely, Rousseff would step down for 180 days.
During this period she would be replaced by her vice president Michel Temer, who has emerged as a leader of the impeachment drive. If the Senate then ended the trial with a two-thirds majority in favor of ejecting her, Rousseff would have to leave and Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.
Sylvio Costa, who heads the specialist politics website Congresso en Foco, told AFP that Rousseff was nearly sure to go, but that more trouble lies ahead.
"Whoever loses will keep protesting in the streets," he said. "What's certain is that the crisis will not end today."
LONDON (Reuters) - A British Airways passenger aircraft was hit by what most likely was a drone on Sunday as it prepared to land at Britain's Heathrow Airport, police said. The police said the pilot of the flight from Geneva had reported that he believed a drone had struck the aircraft before it landed safely at Terminal 5. British police have issued warnings in the past about the danger of the public use of remotely controlled drones near airports and other sensitive sites. "At approximately 12:50 hours, on Sunday, 17 April, a pilot on an inbound flight into Heathrow Airport from Geneva reported to police that he believed a drone had struck the aircraft," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. "It transpired that an object, believed to be a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft." British Airways said in a statement that the aircraft, which had 132 customers and five crew on board, was "fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight". (reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Cairo (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande said Sunday human rights should be respected in the fight against "terrorism" after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was overshadowed by claims of rights abuses.
Hollande had arrived in Cairo earlier for a two-day visit to oversee the signing of several economic agreements, but a press conference with Sisi was dominated by the Egyptian leader's human rights record.
Sisi said the French president had brought up the issue during their meeting.
"The region we live in, President Hollande, is very turbulent," said Sisi, turning to the visiting French leader.
When it was his turn to speak, Hollande said respecting human rights was not an obstacle to fighting jihadists, who have carried out large scale attacks in both France and Egypt.
"Human rights are not a constraint but also a way to fight against terrorism," he said.
Hollande said he had raised the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found covered in torture marks in February in Cairo, more than a week after his disappearance.
He said he also brought up the case of Eric Lang, a French teacher who was murdered in an Egyptian jail in 2013.
On the eve of Hollande's visit, rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on allegations of abuses in Egypt.
When a reporter brought up the case of Regeni, Sisi said there was a plot against the country by an "evil force".
"Let me say we are being confronted by an evil force that is trying to shake Egypt, and give a false impression of what is happening in Egypt," he said.
Italian officials have voiced suspicion that the PhD student was killed by security services, and Rome has recalled its ambassador from Cairo in protest at the pace of Egypt's investigation into his death.
Egypt denies he was killed by the police.
- Deals signed -
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"I want to say what is happening in Egypt is an attempt to destroy state institutions. Today accusations are made against the police to bring down the police, then against judges to bring down the judiciary," Sisi said.
On the economic front, the two leaders oversaw the signing of 18 memorandums of understanding between Egypt and France, and a 1.2 billion euro agreement to expand the metro line in Cairo.
The deals included financing for a wind farm and a solar power plant.
Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters.
The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi.
Meanwhile, jihadists have mounted an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board.
Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against IS, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria.
The jihadist group has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime.
For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has become the main concern rather than pushing democracy.
For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware.
Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships.
After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed.
Canada's broadcast regulator on March 1 tried to deter cord-cutting by ordering cable and satellite TV operators to start offering a $25 per-month "skinny basic" TV package.
The results so far indicate Canada's great cable unbundling is an early bust as cord-cutting has only continued to gather steam. Most Canadians have yet to unravel their pay TV bundle, as the CRTC on Friday reported only 66,000 Canadians have signed up to the $25 starter TV package in the last six weeks.
And only just over a third of Canadians in a national market of over 13 million households have subscribed to individual pick-and-pay channels, or slimmer cable packages, or both. The fault, says analysts, lies in part with a CRTC that allows service providers to make the $25 basic cable packages more appealing by dropping the price only, and not by including more popular U.S. channels.
"The $25 packages are essentially all the over-the-air stations, which can also be accessed by using an antenna, a cheaper alternative," Brahm Eiley, president of the Convergence Consulting Group, told The Hollywood Reporter. On March 1, phone giant Bell Canada began offering a $25 entry-level TV package with no cross-border U.S. network station signals or American cable services, and 10 French-language services among its 26-channel offering.
That left out cross-border U.S. channels for ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox that Canadians have long considered staples of their pay TV bundle. Rival cable carriers Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications also rolled out their own skinny cable packages at $25 per month that include U.S. channels like the major networks and PBS.
But Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, argued domestic carriers have done their best to discourage the take-up of the entry-level TV packages as they look to maintain their market dominance. "I don't think it's ended up all that attractive an offer. The companies have tried to give this stuff a stillbirth," he said.
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Winseck added the CRTC deserved credit for giving Canadians viewing platforms beyond costly pay TV bundles as a real-world cable unbundling experiment gets underway. "We have fostered greater awareness of options, including sticking with what you got, going to the skinny basic package, or you can go OTA, or you can go OTT," he said, referring to over-the-air antenna and over-the-top streaming services.
Analysts add the real test for Canada's cable unbundling will come on Dec. 1, 2016, when the CRTC has mandated that TV service providers must begin offering full pick-and-pay. The era of cable unbundling underpinned by affordable entry-level packages was ordered by the CRTC to discourage cord-cutting and cord-shaving as Canadians increasingly embrace Netflix Canada and other digital options.
The CRTC's starter TV packages have done little to stop cord-cutting as it gathers pace north of the border. Convergence Consulting reports 190,000 Canadian households ended their cable or satellite TV subscriptions in 2015, up 81 percent from 105,00 Canadians cutting the cord in 2014.
Convergence predicts another 191,000 Canadians will cancel their cable or satellite TV package in 2016. Where are they going for their TV fix?
The Convergence report estimates Netflix Canada currently has around 4.9 million subscribers. The Canadian streaming market has also been bolstered by the entry of local SVODs Shomi and CraveTV, and the recent launch of the Sportsnet Now streaming service by media giant Rogers Media.
Read More: Canada's Great Cable Unbundling Launches With "Skinny" TV Packages
By Frank Jack Daniel and Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) - President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Saturday that the United States was determined to end Cuba's socialist revolution despite restoring relations and a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, saying one-party Communism was essential to defend the system. "We must be alert, today more than ever," Castro said, speaking in front of a giant portrait of his brother Fidel Castro at the inauguration of the Communist Party's first congress in five years. Speaking for over two hours, Castro used a defiant tone that belied the breakthrough between the Cold War enemies. He said Obama's desire to end U.S. sanctions was welcome but just a change of "method", in reference to efforts by Washington to bring political change to Cuba ever since the Castro brothers toppled a pro-American government in 1959. Obama and Castro announced in December 2014 they would end decades of hostility and normalize relations. But on a historic trip to the island last month, Obama angered the government with a speech broadcast directly into Cubans' homes calling for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state. Castro and his lieutenants, many of them in their 70s and 80s, faced some discontent ahead of the congress among younger members who are critical of their slow delivery on promised economic reforms in the past five years and a lack of transparency on discussions. "The key function of the congress is a message that the Obama visit has not changed anything. To reduce expectations," said Bert Hoffman, a Latin American expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Castro reiterated the party's commitment to the reforms which he said should be implemented faster. But he said Cuba was not moving towards capitalism, citing China and Vietnam as models, while emphasizing that social ownership and cooperatives were mostly preferable to private property. He celebrated Cuba's growing number of self-employed people but cautioned that the United States was seeking to turn them into a opposition force. Obama spent hours talking to small business people and entrepreneurs during his Havana visit. 'POWERFUL EXTERNAL FORCES' "We are not naive, and we are aware of powerful external forces that aspire to, as they say, 'empower' non-state actors to generate agents of change and finish off the revolution by other means," he said. Castro did not detail which reforms would be implemented next, although he singled out Cuba's complex dual currency system as a major economic distortion that needed to be rectified and emphasized the need for foreign investment. He said he remained convinced of the benefits of improved relations with the United States and said Cuba was committed to the diplomatic thaw. But he did not believe Obama's promise that the United States would not impose political or economic change on Cuba. "The goals are the same, only the methods have changed," Castro said, adding that U.S. migration policies that encourage Cubans to defect were "a weapon against the revolution." "These practices do not correspond to the declared change in policy towards Cuba, and cause difficulties in third countries," he said. Migration has surged since the 2014 detente as Cubans take advantage of a U.S. policy that grants them citizenship as soon as they arrive. Bottlenecks of migrants in transit have formed in Central America. Cuba's top leaders started their careers as young guerrilla fighters who overthrew a U.S. backed government in 1959, and a few years later repelled the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion - which the party congress is timed to commemorate. Castro said the one-party system was the greatest defence against Washington's past attempts to dominate Cuba. "If one day they manage to fragment us, that would be the beginning of the end of the revolution, of socialism and independence in our homeland," he told 1,000 delegates gathered for the congress. Recalling a conversations with one U.S. official, he said he told "el Americano" that the Democrats and Republicans were so similar that they were like one party. "It's the same as if in Cuba we had two parties, Fidel leads one and I lead the other," he joked to laughter and applause. Castro is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is 85. In a nod to the next generation of leaders, Castro said no one should be more than 60 years old when they join the party's main decision-making body. Castro is due to retire as president in 2018 and by the end of the four-day congress it will be clear whether he remains as party leader until 2021, or whether somebody younger takes over the leadership. Founded in 1965, the Communist Party is seen as more powerful in Cuba than the government. It was formally led by Fidel Castro until 2011, although his younger brother had effectively taken command several years earlier. (Additional reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Mary Milliken)
ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
For the second straight weekend, a franchise quarterback missed a Saturday walk-through practice. This week, the franchise quarterback who missed practice had a good reason for it. Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson didnt participate in the walk-through because, at the outset of it, coach Nathaniel Hackett informed the team that Wilson would not be playing, and [more]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei criticized Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, calling him "an irrational type" due to the candidate's proposal that tariffs on imported Chinese goods be increased to up to 45 percent.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Sunday, Lou said, "Trump is an irrational type. If he were to do this, that would be in violation of the rules set by the World Trade Organization."
Lou said that if the United States put Trump's proposal into effect, it "would not be entitled to its position as the worlds major power. The U.S. needs to recognize that the U.S. and China are mutually dependent on each other. Our economic cycles are intertwined."
He acknowledged that rhetoric in a U.S. presidential campaign can become heated.
Trump on Sunday again asserted that China has waged "economic war" against the United States.
"They've taken our jobs, they've taken our money," the billionaire businessman said at a campaign rally in New York. "We can't continue to be ripped off like we're being ripped off."
At a Republican presidential debate last month, Trump said China will not allow free trade or U.S. manufacturers to compete freely.
"The 45 percent (tariff) is a threat that if they don't behave, if they don't follow the rules and regulations so that we can have it equal on both sides, we will tax you," he said.
Republican rival Ted Cruz criticized the 45 percent tariff proposal, saying during the same debate that it would be passed on to U.S. consumers.
"How does it help you to have a president come and say ... I'm going to put a 45 percent tax on diapers when you buy diapers, on automobiles when you buy automobiles, on clothing when you buy clothing. That hurts you," the U.S. senator from Texas said.
The United States reported a $366 billion trade deficit with China in 2015, up from $343 billion in 2014 - the largest U.S. trade imbalance with any nation. The deficit is up nearly 12 percent in the first two months of 2016 to $57 billion. China is the United State's largest trading partner.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Washington (AFP) - The vast sums of money funding political campaigns in the race to the White House are "obscene," George Clooney said Sunday, chiming with Bernie Sanders despite supporting rival Hillary Clinton.
"I've been a very big fan of hers," the Hollywood heartthrob said of Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press.
"But I want to say this: I really like Bernie and I think what he's saying in this election is important if you're a Democrat," Clooney added, just two days before a crucial primary in New York.
Clooney was asked about the huge sums raised at dinners with rich donors, like those the actor hosted for Clinton in San Francisco on Friday and at his Los Angeles home Saturday.
The back-to-back events were reported to have raised over $15 million, with donors paying as much as $350,000 a head.
"Yes, I think it's an obscene amount of money," he said.
"You know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco -- and they're right to protest, they're absolutely right."
"The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it, is absolutely right. It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics, I agree," Clooney added.
Unlike Clinton, who has tapped big donors to fuel her campaign, Sanders has relied on small donations that he says average $27 per person.
CNN reported that a Los Angeles neighbor of Clooney's held a rival fundraiser for Sanders at $27 a head, and handed out dollar bills to be thrown at Clinton's motorcade as she drove by.
Clooney blamed the fundraising excesses on a Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates on unlimited corporate and private giving to campaigns.
"The Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United (the ruling) and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again," he said.
In the meantime, he argued, funds have to be raised so Democrats can win back control of the Senate.
Havana (AFP) - Colombia's FARC leftist rebel force called on Sunday for Pope Francis's support to prevent other armed groups from disrupting its efforts to seal a peace deal with the government.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the country's government say they are close to a deal to end a half-century conflict.
But the FARC Marxist guerrillas say remnants of right-wing paramilitary groups that were previously key players in the conflict have been attacking them in a "criminal offensive" aiming to undermine the peace initiative.
"There are serious storm threats on the horizon, which threaten to knock down this grand effort by all the Colombian people," the FARC's top commander Timoleon Jimenez wrote in an open letter to the Vatican published online.
"Their terrible actions coincide with plotting by political players that benefit from the war, which stir up passions and intend to turn public opinion against the agreements that have been reached."
He called on the Catholic Church to take a "leading role" and asked Francis to openly support efforts to seal a peace deal.
Right-wing paramilitary groups fought the leftist guerrillas for decades in the drawn-out territorial dispute, trying to drive them from their bases in the countryside.
The government officially disbanded the paramilitary groups a decade ago, but in many cases their remnants have transformed into drug gangs in the world's largest cocaine-producing country.
The FARC says paramilitary death squads will come after former rebels if they disarm, posing an obstacle to the peace agreement.
The half-century conflict in Colombia has claimed the lives of more than 260,000 people.
After more than three years of peace talks in the Cuban capital Havana, the government and FARC say they are close to signing a deal.
But they have yet to agree on disarmament and how to ratify the final accord.
(Changes the number of Iran's ballistic missile tests from 2 to 4) By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Julia Fioretti DUBAI/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran, seeking European leverage to secure better terms from the United States following last year's nuclear deal, asked the European Union to put pressure on Washington to let it into the global financial system. In a visit to Tehran by a high-powered EU team in which both sides spoke of a significant expansion in economic and energy ties, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed EU support for its bid to join the World Trade Organisation and spoke of a "new beginning" in relations with Europe. EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini, whose team of seven commissioners was the biggest to visit Tehran in more than a decade, said it was in Europe's interest to make sure European banks felt confident to do business in Iran. But she chided Tehran for holding ballistic missile tests despite last year's nuclear deal and said the EU would continue to stand firm on human rights violations in Iran. Following last year's nuclear deal, world powers led by the United States and the EU lifted most sanctions on the long-isolated Islamic Republic in January in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Despite the nuclear agreement, some U.S. sanctions remain and U.S. banks remain prohibited from doing business with Iran directly or indirectly because Washington still accuses Tehran of supporting terrorism and permitting human rights abuses. Some European banks like France bank BNP Paribas or Germanys Commerzbank AG, once hit by huge U.S. fines for sanctions busting, fear falling foul of the many other restrictions imposed by Washington that remain in force. The White House said on Friday that the nuclear agreement did not include allowing it access to the global financial system. "Iran and the EU will put pressure on the United States to facilitate the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran," Zarif said at a news conference in Tehran with Mogherini. "It's essential that the other side, especially the United States, fulfil its commitments not on paper but in practice and removes the obstacles especially in banking sector." Zarif and Mogherini said in a joint statement that the EU and Iran were agreed on the expansion of economic relations, and "encouraging banking cooperation." "EU will support and assist Iran to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO)," and will pursue opening a full EU diplomatic mission in Tehran, the statement said. "Today is a new beginning in Iran and EU relations. We hope this cooperation between the Iranian nation and European Union brings about shared interests and global development," Zarif was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA. Mogherini, who headed a team of seven EU commissioners, said cooperation on energy would also be important as Iranian oil and gas would again become a part of the European energy mix and help increase the bloc's energy security. MISSILES AND RIGHTS Iranian officials have complained their country is not getting the full economic fruits of the nuclear deal due to American "deceitfulness", but Washington believes it has been Iran's missile launches that have scared businesses off. Since July's nuclear deal, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has conducted four ballistic missile tests and the U.S. Treasury has in return put new sanctions on entities and individuals linked to the programme. President Obama said this month that Iran had so far stuck to the nuclear agreement, but Tehran's launch of ballistic missiles "with slogans calling for the destruction of Israel" undermined the spirit of the deal. Mogherini said she did not see the missile tests as a breach of the accord between Iran and world powers, though she added it was a worrying step. "This doesn't mean that we are not concerned," Mogherini said. "On the contrary, we see this as a worrying step ... and we are encouraging (Iran) to abstain from further steps." Despite the lifting of nuclear related sanctions, the EU extended some of its sanctions on Iran because of perceived violations of human rights in the Islamic Republic. The EU is troubled by the more than 1,000 executions in Iran last year. Mogherini said the EU would continue to be firm on issue of human rights while maintaining dialogue with Iran. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Julia Fioretti; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Paris (AFP) - Karolina Pliskova and Lucie Hradecka secured the Czech Republic a fifth Fed Cup final appearance in six years with victory in the deciding doubles against Switzerland on Sunday.
Waiting for the defending champions in the November 12-13 final will be France, who edged the Netherlands in their semi-final in Trelaze.
The semi-final in Lucerne, level at 1-1 overnight, went down to the wire after Pliskova's comfortable win over Timea Bacsinszky before a stunning 3-6, 7-6 (8/6) 6-1 comeback win from Viktorija Golubic against Barbora Strycova.
But Switzerland's dream of making their first final since 1998 was ended when Pliskova and Hradecka despatched Golubic and Martina Hingis 6-2, 6-2 to take the tie 3-2.
Czech captain Petr Pala paid tribute to his team.
"It was sensational the way they played.
"The key was the depth of our team today. It gave me more opportunities to make the doubles team. It is a great feeling for the camp. The sprit is there, everybody wants to win the cup."
Swiss skipper Heinz Guenthardt said: "I am very proud of my team. We left everything out on the centre court and I don't think there is any question or any doubt in anyone's mind that we did that.
"You can't ask of a team anything more than that."
France, all square with the Dutch at 1-1 after Saturday's singles, progressed in similar fashion to the Czechs to make their first final since 2005.
Skippered by Amelie Mauresmo the French went into the tie on claycourt against surprise semi-finalists the Netherlands as clear favourites.
But the Dutch took a 2-1 lead courtesy of Kiki Bertens's 7-5, 6-4 win over Kristina Mladenovic in Sunday's opening match.
Caroline Garcia defeated Arantxa Rus 6-3, 6-4 to get the hosts back level, and then Garcia teamed up with Maldenovic in the concluding doubles against Bertens and Richel Hogenkamp to clinch the tie 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Dutch number 1 Bertens's opening success was her 15th in FedCup singles and put the Dutch in sight of a Fed Cup final for the first time in 19 years.
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Garcia then answered the pressure of the home fans at the Arena Loire in the west of France in fine style.
The French No.2 made amends after losing Saturday's singles to Bertens, the 22-year-old seeing off Rus and then returning to help win the doubles to give France a shot at a third FedCup crown and first in 16 years.
"There was lost of frustration (after Saturday) but then it was as if an energy rose up, a desire to gain my revenge," said Garcia.
She added: "The fact that Amelie had confidence in me gave me a lift."
Dutch captain Paul Haarhuis said: "It's difficult to get so close to your goal and then lose, it's hard to take."
PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech Republic cannot rule out legal action if the European Union tries to put in place any permanent quota system for distributing asylum seekers, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Sunday. The country was one of four central and eastern European states to oppose an EU quota scheme approved by member states last year to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers. Now the European Commission wants a permanent re-distribution system in place. The Czech leader said he thought it was unlikely the bloc would approve a permanent quota plan. "I expect the line of opposition will be wider (against permanent quotas)," Sobotka said on a Sunday debate show. "Let us talk about legal action against the proposal when it is necessary," he added. The Czechs swiftly rejected the idea of compulsory quotas when they were included in the European Commission's proposed strengthening of the bloc's common asylum rules this month. Sobotka reiterated it was important that a permanent quota system is not included in the reform. (Reporting by Petra Vodstrcilova; Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Ho Binh Minh CU LAO DUNG, Vietnam (Reuters) - While China has been releasing water from a hydro-electric dam in the upper Mekong River to help relieve drought down river in Southeast Asia, little of it has flowed to Nguyen Van Thach's sugarcane farm in southern Vietnam. After feeding his six cows with grass uprooted from a village nearby, Thach took a knife and cut a slice of sugarcane from his withered crop. "It's too salty," the 62-year-old farmer said, grimacing as he licked the piece of cane. "Even cows can't eat this." Thach has quit growing sugarcane and is building houses instead to repay loans after his farm in Soc Trang province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta rice bowl lost 10 million dong ($449). The sprawling Mekong Delta has been worst hit by salination in a region that provides half of Vietnam's rice and 60 percent of its shrimp and fish. Low river levels have allowed seawater to penetrate 90 kms (56 miles) inland, ruining vast swathes of cropland in the fertile delta. Vietnam says the salt water intrusion in the delta is unprecedented. It could be the new normal along the mighty Mekong, the 4,900 km (3,044 mile) river that sustains 60 million livelihoods as it flows through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. At least 39 hydro-electric dams are being built or under development in China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to meet the industrial demands of developing economies. Environmentalists say they are also endangering traditional agriculture downstream, where there is now less fresh water for drinking and irrigation. The water China is discharging from its existing dams upstream has had little discernible impact as it dissipates into the expansive delta region where Thach and nearly 20 million other people live. Vietnam is also suffering its most severe drought in 90 years, blamed partly on the El Nino weather phenomenon, which produces drier and hotter weather in Asia. Climate change is also factor in the drought, said Nguyen Huu Thien, an independent expert on the Mekong Delta's ecology. "In the context of climate change, this kind of crisis (in the Mekong Delta) is forecast to happen more often, for example it could be once in 20 years instead of once in 90 years." HITTING COMMODITY EXPORTS Moreover, the delta, much of which is only two meters or less above sea level, has been sinking in recent years due to rising sea levels and heavy groundwater extraction from an ever increasing number of wells. Depleted water tables cause the ground to compact, allowing seawater to intrude into cropland and water supplies. The drought and sea water intrusion is sapping Vietnam's economy, which leans on commodity exports. The agriculture sector contracted 2.69 percent in the first quarter of 2016 and overall economic growth of 5.56 percent was the slowest in two years. Vietnam is a major global exporter for rice, coffee, pepper, fish and shrimp. Preliminary losses for those crops so far this year are at 5.57 trillion dong ($250 million), according to a government report as of April 14, nearly 70 percent of which was in the Mekong Delta. The drought has affected a third of the coffee farms in the Central Highlands coffee belt, said the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association. Vietnam is the world's second-biggest producer of the beans. The agriculture ministry said sugar refineries reported an 11 percent drop in the cane volume to 10.23 million tonnes. The government says 240,000 hectares (593,000 acres) of paddy have been destroyed in the world's third-largest rice exporter. Southwest of the delta in Bac Lieu, a major shrimp-raising province, signs are planted on dried-up shrimp ponds advertising land for sale or for lease. Vietnam, a major shrimp exporter to the United States, produced 91,900 tonnes in the January-March period, down 1 percent from a year ago, government data says. To Viet Tien, 61, has been raising shrimp since 1982 and has never seen it so bad. "It's been too hot toward the bottom of the pond and shrimp can't stand it," he said. "On this (salty) soil, it's impossible to switch to another crop," Tien said. HOSTAGE TO HYDROPOWER Mekong Delta farmers are beholden to those managing the river beyond Vietnam's borders. Up to 70 percent of the water irrigating their crops comes from the river. Pianporn Deetes of International Rivers, a U.S.-based advocacy group, said China has "absolute control" of the Mekong: "The region is being held hostage by hydropower development." Environmental groups have waged campaigns for years to stop the dam construction to no avail. Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have 11 new dams planned between them, potentially affecting 82 percent of Mekong river's water. Laos is building its economy around hydropower production to become the "Battery of Southeast Asia". The big dams not only reduce water volume, but also retain alluvial soil, needed to consolidate subsidence in the sinking Mekong Delta. "The dams are killing the Mekong Delta," said Duong Van Ni, a lecturer at Can Tho university. "A shortage of fertile soil is the unavoidable death." China will continue to release more water from its Jinghong dam in Yunnan province until the "low water period" is over, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Tuesday. The action was hailed as a goodwill gesture in the region, but also underlined the power China maintains over one of the world's great river basins. (Additional reporting by Prak Chan Thul in PHNOM PENH, Amy Lefevre in BANGKOK, Marcy Nicholson in NEW YORK and David Brough in LONDON; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
DOHA (Reuters) - Talks between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers in the Qatari capital of Doha have been running for over two hours with the main debate focusing on the wording of a proposed freeze on output, industry sources said on Sunday.
Some 18 countries, including Russia, had been due to meet on Sunday morning to rubber-stamp a deal - in the making since February - to freeze output at January levels until October 2016.
But the meeting was postponed after OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia told participants it wanted all OPEC members to take part in the freeze.
As a result, a reworked draft communique seen by Reuters contained none of the binding points of the previous outline.
It also said producers in and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries should agree to freeze oil production at "an agreeable level" as long as all OPEC countries and major exporting nations participated.
(Reporting by Reuters OPEC team; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)
Doha (AFP) - The world's top oil producers failed to reach agreement on capping output in Doha Sunday amid a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran and raising fears about how markets will react.
Qatari Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said oil producers concluded after six hours of negotiations that they needed "more time".
"The general conclusion was that we need more time to consult among ourselves in OPEC and non-OPEC producers," Sada said.
Rivalry between OPEC and regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran appear to have prevented a deal despite the six-hour formal meeting between 18 producers.
Iran boycotted the meeting after refusing to abide by any production freeze agreement saying it wants to raise its output to pre-sanctions levels.
Asked if Iran was at the centre of discussions which included non-OPEC Russia, the world's top producer, Sada said that Tehran's participation would have made any freeze more effective.
"We respect their (Iran's) position... certainly a freeze will be more effective if major producers including Iran are included," said Sada.
"That would help rebalance the market."
Saudi deputy crown prince Mohamed bin Salman had insisted that Riyadh will not accept a freeze in production without Iran's participation.
Sada said that no date was fixed for any meeting in the future among oil producers, adding they needed to have more consultations.
The impact of the failure of the much-anticipated meeting on prices could be catastrophic.
The Qatari minister however tried to play down the full impact on crude prices, saying that the oil market fundamentals have improved since February when Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar struck an initial agreement on the freeze.
Sada said he expected the prices to be more responsive to fundamentals rather than to sentiment.
The meeting aimed at capping output to reduce a production glut in the market that sent prices crashing.
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Talks were delayed by several hours after some countries demanded changes to a draft agreement that calls for freezing production until October, a delegate told AFP.
The delegate said a "small team of experts" was assigned to make the changes before the ministers went into the official meeting in the afternoon.
Nations inside and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are anxious to stem a market nosedive that has cost exporters billions in lost revenue.
From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40.
- Iran won't 'give up' production -
Saudi Arabia has insisted all major producers must be on board for the freeze to work, including fellow OPEC member and regional rival Iran.
But Tehran, which has boosted production following the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal with world powers, has rejected any talk of a freeze.
Iran had initially said its OPEC representative would participate in the talks but on Sunday Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh announced Tehran would send no delegation at all.
"The Doha meeting is for people who want to participate in the production freeze plan... but since Iran isn't expected to sign up to the plan the presence of an Iranian representative isn't necessary," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Shana news agency.
"Iran will in no way give up its historic production quota," Zanganeh said.
OPEC said on Wednesday that Iranian oil production in March was 3.3 million bpd, up from 2.9 million in January, but still short of its pre-embargo level of around 4.0 million.
OPEC said its members pumped 32.25 million bpd in March -- with Saudi Arabia accounting for nearly a third -- up from an average of 31.85 million bpd in 2015.
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut production despite the price fall, as it seeks to drive less-competitive players, especially US shale producers, out of the market.
But pressure has been building as falling oil revenues hit state coffers, with Riyadh posting a record budget deficit last year.
Oil prices had tumbled on Friday as traders bet that the meeting in Doha will yield no effective measures to curb the global oversupply.
On Thursday the International Energy Agency had warned against expecting too much from the Doha talks, saying that the meeting would have only a "limited" impact on supplies.
By Rania El Gamal and Reem Shamseddine DOHA (Reuters) - A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell apart on Sunday after Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join in despite calls on Riyadh to save the agreement and help prop up crude prices. The development will revive oil industry fears that major producers are embarking again on a battle for market share, especially after Riyadh threatened to raise output steeply if no freeze deal were reached. Iran is also pledging to ramp up production following the lifting of Western sanctions in January, making a compromise with Riyadh almost impossible as the two fight proxy wars in Yemen and Syria. Some 18 oil nations, including non-OPEC Russia, gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha for what was expected to be the rubber-stamping of a deal - in the making since February - to stabilize output at January levels until October 2016. But OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia told participants it wanted all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to take part in the freeze, including Iran, which was absent from the talks. Tehran had refused to stabilize production, seeking to regain market share post-sanctions. After five hours of fierce debate about the wording of a communique - including between Saudi Arabia and Russia - delegates and ministers announced no deal had been reached. "We concluded we all need time to consult further," Qatar's energy minister Mohammed al-Sada told reporters. Several OPEC sources said if Iran agreed to join the freeze at the next OPEC meeting on June 2, talks with non-OPEC producers could resume. Russian oil minister Alexander Novak called the Saudi demand "unreasonable" and said he was disappointed as he had come to Doha under the impression that all sides would sign the deal instead of debating it. Novak said Russia was not shutting the door on a deal but the government would not restrain output for now. Russia is a key ally of Iran and has been defending Tehran's right to raise output post-sanctions while also supporting the Islamic Republic in many of its conflicts with Riyadh. TOUGH SAUDI STANCE The failure to reach a global deal could halt a recent recovery in oil prices. "With no deal today, markets' confidence in OPEC's ability to achieve any sensible supply balancing act is likely to diminish and this is surely bearish for the oil markets, where prices had rallied partly on expectations of a deal," said Natixis oil analyst Abhishek Deshpande. In December, OPEC failed to agree on output policy for the first time in years after Iran disagreed over a production ceiling proposed by Saudi Arabia, arguing again that it wanted to boost output post-sanctions. "Without a deal, the likelihood of markets balancing is now pushed back to mid-2017. We will see a lot of speculators getting out next week," said Deshpande, who added that prices could fall close to $30 per barrel. Brent oil has risen to nearly $45 a barrel, up 60 percent from January lows, on optimism that a deal would help ease the supply glut that has seen prices sink from levels as high as $115 hit in mid-2014. Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects said oil prices could fall below $40 on Monday in a knee-jerk reaction. "While todays lack of a freeze deal has no negative impact on balances - since Iran is really the only country likely to raise output substantially - it has a huge negative impact on sentiment especially as the deal had been hyped up so much," she said. Gary Ross, the founder and executive chairman of New York-based consultancy PIRA, said the failure to reach a deal was negative but would not have a long-lasting impact. "The market has recently moved up due to tightening balances. We see geopolitical risks to supply rising, we see U.S. production declining. In many respects, the rebalancing has already started," he said. Saudi Arabia has taken a tough stance on Iran, the only major OPEC producer to refuse to participate in the freeze. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg that the kingdom could quickly raise production and would restrain its output only if Iran agreed to a freeze. Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Saturday OPEC and non-OPEC should simply accept the reality of Iran's return to the oil market: "If Iran freezes its oil production ... it cannot benefit from the lifting of sanctions." (Reporting by Rania El Gamal and Reem Shamseddine; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Sam Wilkin, Katie Paul and Tom Finn; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Andrew Torchia; Editing by Dale Hudson)
When Michelle Quinn filed her tax return last year, she didnt get the check someone in Nigeria did. It wasnt until the 34-year-old mother of three wrote numerous complaints, filed a police report and spent weeks dealing with the Internal Revenue Service that she got ahold of her $8,000 rebate, she says. This year was going to be different, which was why she filed her taxes early in January. But soon after, Quinn says, she got a letter saying her returns had been rejected. It turns out the tax scammers had beat her to it, in an attempt to claim another fraudulent refund. Its amazing that this is going on, and its happening so easily, Quinn says.
This years tax-filing deadline is just around the corner, but tax fraudsters have been busy of late coming up with more clandestine methods of making money than in the past. Some have been working California neighborhoods by breaking into mailboxes, stealing tax refunds and then cashing them through a complicated web of accomplices who are in on the scheme. In New York, thieves have directed hundreds of fake tax rebates to a single home, hoping to make a fortune. These kinds of problems have become so severe that the IRS rejected or suspended 4.8 million suspicious returns last year, thwarting $11.8 billion in confirmed fraudulent refunds, according to IRS data. This is a pandemic were facing, and [scammers] are coming in through all sorts of ways, says Adam Levin, the former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and founder of IDT911, an identity-protection and risk-services firm that calls for increased protections online to prevent tax frauds.
The U.S. Postal Service, which partnered with the IRS after a spate of crimes, discovered one address in the Bronx last year that had received more than 100 tax rebates all of them fake.
Indeed, tax-related identity theft increasingly occurring online is one of the newest crimes du jour, and Levin knows of cases where children as young as 2 have had their Social Security numbers stolen and obituaries milked for key personal details. Last year saw a nearly 50 percent jump in ID-theft complaints compared to 2014, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission warns, and its by far the biggest contributor to a spike in tax-refund fraud. Refund fraud caused by identity theft [is] one of the biggest challenges facing the IRS, the agencys commissioner, John Koskinen, acknowledged publicly last year. And the IRS tells OZY that fighting identify theft remains a top priority.
Now come a variety of attempts to stamp out these new waves of tax scams. The U.S. Postal Service, which partnered with the IRS after a spate of crimes, discovered one address in the Bronx last year that had received more than 100 tax rebates all of them fake. We did surveillances, but we never actually caught that person, says Thomas Boyle, the assistant inspector-in-charge at the Postal Service who oversees New Yorks division of criminal investigators and postal police. Even so, postal carriers in the area have recently been told to watch for red flags. We educate our carriers to notify us as soon as they see a lot of IRS letters going to the same address, says Boyle and some perps have ended up in jail for their crimes.
The IRS has also joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and police forces in recent years, giving the agency fresh access to technology, surveillance and otherwise hard-to-get personal data. There is a lot more information sharing, says Aaron Gogley, a special agent working with the FBI who was brought in from the IRS as part of the new task force. In one Texas-based case that Gogley says he worked on last year, a 23-year-old was arrested as part of a stolen-identity refund fraud scheme that used surveillance technology only the Houston police department could access. The sum he had allegedly stolen was not revealed, but if convicted, the man could face decades in prison. Oftentimes, Gogley says, theres overlap where the IRS knows the perp but can only find and arrest them with help from the police or FBI.
But even when the bad guys get caught these days, thats no guarantee the info-sharing, tech-centric means of nabbing them will translate to a swift resolution. Case in point: The IRS prevented $24.2 billion in fraudulent refunds requested in 2013 but paid out only $5.8 billion, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year. Tate Renwick knows all too well about the frustrations. The 38-year-old vice president of sales at a tech company lost out on $12,000 in an unclaimed tax return last year when his Social Security number was stolen. After a drawn-out back and forth with the IRS, Renwick says he still needs to wait months before hell see his money. He notes the IRS, which wouldnt comment on this particular case, communicated with him only via snail mail, making the process that much more antiquated. Its like having a pen pal far away who is holding your money, he says.
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By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The death toll from a raid carried out by South Sudanese gunmen in western Ethiopia has risen to 208 people and the assailants kidnapped 108 children, an Ethiopian official said on Sunday. The attack took place on Friday in the Horn of Africa nation's Gambela region which, alongside a neighboring province, hosts more than 284,000 South Sudanese refugees who fled conflict in their country. By Sunday afternoon, the number had risen to "208 dead and 75 people wounded" from 140 a day earlier, government spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters, adding the assailants had also abducted 108 children and taken 2,000 head of livestock. "Ethiopian Defense Forces are taking measures. They are closing in on the attackers," he said. Getachew did not give further details, but officials in Gambela said on Saturday Ethiopian troops had crossed the border in pursuit of the attackers. Cross-border cattle raids have occurred in the same area in the past, often involving Murle tribesmen from South Sudan's Jonglei and Upper Nile regions - areas awash with weapons that share borders with Ethiopia. Previous attacks, however, were smaller in scale. The gunmen are not believed to have links with South Sudanese government troops or rebel forces who fought the government in Juba in a civil war that ended with a peace deal signed last year. South Sudanese officials were not immediately available for comment. Under pressure from neighboring states, the United States, the United Nations and other powers, South Sudan's feuding sides signed an initial peace deal in August and agreed to share out ministerial positions in January. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Stephen Powell)
An ex cop wrongly convicted of an over half-century old slaying has been released.
Jack McCullough became a free man on Friday after a judge vacated his conviction in the 1957 murder of a 7-year-old Illinois girl.
McCullough, 76, was convicted in September 2012 in what was one of the oldest unsolved crimes in American history. He received the maximum sentence of life behind bars.
Read: After 33 Years in Prison, Ex-Sailor Freed By New DNA Evidence
Following a six-month review, Judge William Brady set McCullough free, citing evidence that the former Washington state police officer was miles away from where Maria Ridulph was abducted while playing in the snow in December 1957.
Prosecutors contended in 2012 that then 17-year-old McCullough dragged Maria into an alley and choked her with a wire, before stabbing her to death.
Prosecutors maintained the teenage McCullough then drove the girl's body 100 miles to a wooded area where it was discovered months later.
However, DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack's six-month review concluded that McCullough couldn't possibly have killed Maria, the AP reports.
Read: Man Exonerated After 25 Years in Prison: 'I Told Y'all I Didn't Do This'
Schmack found evidence that McCullough had been 35 miles away in Rockford, Illinois, when Maria was abducted.
Hours after the decision, McCullough's stepdaughter, Janey O'Connor, arrived to drive him home.
Schmack told the court his office wouldn't retry McCullough if a retrial was ordered because prosecutors were fully convinced of McCullough's innocence.
However, McCullough, a Washington resident, will not be allowed to leave the state of Illinois until a formal decision is made regarding retrial.
Watch: Man Found Innocent After Serving 16 Years in Prison For Rape
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(Reuters) - Codelco [CODEL.UL] and Anglo American Plc have suspended operations at two of the world's biggest copper mines in Chile with combined annual capacity of 880,000 tonnes, as heavy rains wreaked havoc across the center of the Andean nation. Chile accounts for a third of global copper production. Here is the latest update on the status of the country's mines: ANGLO AMERICAN: The London-listed miner suspended mining activities at its flagship Los Bronces copper mine and the smaller El Soldado deposit for security reasons following heavy rains. Los Bronces has capacity to produce 460,000 tonnes per year of copper and is ranked the fourth in the world's copper mines. CODELCO: Chile's state copper miner suspend production at its century-old underground El Teniente mine, likely leading to the loss of 5,000 tonnes of copper With capacity of 420,000 tonnes per year, the mine is the world's 8th largest. Andina is operating normally, the company said on Sunday. ANTOFAGASTA: Los Pelambres, which has capacity to produce 420,000 tonnes per year and is located to the north of the most affected areas, is operating normally, the company said on Sunday. (Compiled by Josephine Mason in New York; Reporting by Anthony Esposito in Santiago)
Hi there! Im really fascinated by your reader series on religious choice. Some basic facts before I get into my little story: Im 32 years old, Im white, grew up outside of Detroit in a religiously diverse city/high school, and now I live in the most Catholic state in the union (Rhode Island). Oh and Im gay and married to an atheist.
My biggest religious choice, hands down, is when I decided to convert to Daoism (please note the spelling, as there are some different opinions about that). My family is Catholicby the quotes I mean I was never baptized, we never went to church, and I didnt actually see a real live Bible until I was in college. Basically, we were very secular, but I think my parents felt they had to give me some religious upbringing and would ask me randomly if I believed in God (I said yes, because that was the socially acceptable answer). But that was it when it came to religion.
Around the time I was 16 and finally coming to terms with my sexuality and the fact that frankly all the branches of Christianity werent too hot about the gays in the early 00s, I turned to my familys set of World Book Encyclopedias. At the time we didnt have internet or a computer, so these were my only real outlet to explore what else was out there.
Tehran (AFP) - The first Air France flight between Paris and Tehran for eight years landed in the Islamic republic's capital on Sunday, bearing a government minister and a business delegation.
The airline's route had been suspended since 2008 because of international sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
However, sanctions have been lifted under an accord with world powers that has now been in force for three months.
Flight AF738 from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle touched down at Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport at 1530 GMT, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, an AFP journalist said.
French Transport Minister Alain Vidalies was on board, along with members of a delegation some 15-strong who will spend two days in the Iranian capital.
At a welcoming ceremony Vidalies said he was "proud of the resumption of these direct flights" and said being "able to move between Paris and Tehran was crucial... for entering into partnerships".
Iran's deputy transport minister, Ali Abedzadeh, said he was happy to see the Air France service resume.
Frederic Gagey, the airline's chief executive, spoke of its "great pride in returning to Iran".
However, resumption of the service caused controversy in France after unions said the airline sent an internal memo saying female cabin crew would have to wear trousers on board with a loose fitting jacket and must cover their hair with a scarf when they leave the plane.
The headscarf rule is already in place when flying to certain destinations such as Saudi Arabia.
But on Monday, a company official said female staff would be allowed to opt out of the route and the airline will appoint a "special unit" to replace those who do not want to fly to Tehran.
Italy's Alitalia, Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa of Germany already fly to Tehran, and British Airways is planning to resume its London-Tehran service in July.
Buenos Aires (AFP) - "Toxic" drugs killed five young partygoers at a dance music festival in Argentina, authorities and experts said Sunday.
Aged between 21 and 25, they died after attending the Time Warp electronic music festival in Buenos Aires on Friday night into Saturday, the state news agency Telam said, citing judicial sources.
Four other people were hospitalized in critical condition and the condition of a fifth had improved, the city health department said in a statement.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said it was thought they had taken a recreational drug spiked with a deadly substance.
"Clearly someone had put some kind of toxic poison in the drug because these young people's deaths resembled what happens when someone takes poison," she said on television.
Authorities did not immediately indicate if the drugs were purposely laced to cause damage.
The head of the Buenos Aires emergency medical service, Alberto Crescenti, said the victims suffered convulsions and high fever.
Toxicologist Marti Braschi said the victims were suspected to have taken a designer drug called "Superman," a mix of ecstasy and methamphetamine.
Madrid (AFP) - He is best known for "Don Quixote", but the eventful life of Spain's revered author Miguel de Cervantes was just as intriguing as any adventures of the delusional wanna-be knight of his famous novel.
Cervantes -- whose death on April 22, 1616 will be commemorated in Spain this week just as Britain marks the passing of Shakespeare 400 years ago -- survived a sea battle, capture by pirates, five years of captivity in Algiers and stints in prison.
"What gives such power to Cervantes' literature is that he lived his life so intensely," says photographer Jose Manuel Navia, who, for a Madrid exhibition, travelled to sites where the author once set foot.
Many questions surround the life of the soldier turned captive turned tax collector, whose writings largely took a back bench until he achieved overnight success with "Don Quixote" in his late fifties.
Using official archives, scant witness accounts and autobiographical prefaces to his books, academics have for decades tried to decipher the myth of the man known as the father of the modern novel.
- Adventures abroad -
Born in 1547 in Alcala de Henares near Madrid, his family struggled financially.
They settled in Madrid when the future superstar author was close to 20, and he wrote his first known poetry there.
But a few years later in 1569, Cervantes moved to Rome for reasons that remain unclear, and may have had to do with his involvement in a duel that forced him to escape.
In Italy, he enlisted as a soldier and fought in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto that saw more than 200 galleys of an alliance of Christian powers confront and defeat an Ottoman Empire fleet in the seas off Greece.
"Trembling with fever, he lies in a rickety old bed infested with lice between decks in an area that serves as a sick bay... afflicted by sea sickness and malaria," writes biographer Jean Canavaggio of the day of the battle.
But Cervantes still went on deck to fight, ending up shot in the chest and in the left hand, which he would never again be able to use.
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After recovering from his wounds, Cervantes continued to participate in military campaigns until deciding to return to Spain in 1575.
But his ship was captured by pirates and Cervantes was taken to Algiers -- a bustling city administered by the Ottoman Turks.
He remained there for five years despite several attempts to escape, waiting to be freed in exchange for a ransom.
One of these attempts saw him and others hole up in a cavern east of Algiers for five months, waiting for a ship dispatched by his brother that never arrived.
Eventually, his family and a religious order raised money for the ransom and he returned to Spain, where he tried unsuccessfully to get official postings in return for his services as a soldier.
Then in 1584, Cervantes had a daughter -- his only offspring -- with one woman before marrying another who was nearly 20 years his junior.
He settled with her in a tiny village in the central region of Castilla-la-Mancha, where "Don Quixote" would later be based.
During that time he wrote his first novel "La Galatea," without much success.
Finally in 1587, he got an official posting that saw him on the move again, criss-crossing southern Spain for the next decade requisitioning wheat and oil for authorities and then collecting taxes.
During that time, he went to prison for what may have been debt-related reasons, and some believe he could have started dreaming up "Don Quixote" then.
When the novel was finally published in 1605, it was an overnight success.
The years after saw Cervantes move to Madrid and devote his time to writing -- including the second part of "Don Quixote" -- before dying of illness in 1616, a relatively poor man who probably never expected to leave such a lasting literary legacy.
- Best-selling fiction -
"Don Quixote" has become one of the world's most translated works, perhaps only surpassed by the Bible.
Its tale of a man who fancies himself as a knight and set outs to rid the world of its ills has been universally praised.
Cervantes' portrayal of a hero as vulnerable and imperfect as any other human being was revolutionary, and inspired authors from Jane Austen and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Gustave Flaubert and Mark Twain.
More than 300 events -- exhibitions, plays, readings, conferences -- are taking place in Spain over the year to mark his death.
On Saturday, Spain's royals and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will go to Alcala de Henares to attend the prize-giving ceremony for the annual Miguel de Cervantes award, which honours the lifetime achievement of a writer.
And for Javier Rodriguez Palacios, mayor of Alcala de Henares, the author is still hugely relevant today.
"You describe his life to a 16-year-old guy... and he will start to realise that what is happening now in some places -- unemployment, youth having to go abroad, occasional conflict between those of Spanish origin and those who aren't -- Cervantes experienced this too," he says.
(Reuters) - Netherlands' dream run in the Fed Cup ended agonizingly short of the final when they lost the deciding doubles rubber of a thrilling semi-final against France in Trelaze. When Kiki Bertens beat Kristina Mladenovic to put the Dutch 2-1 ahead on Sunday the visitors had one foot in the final but Caroline Garcia leveled it up by beating 257th-ranked Arantxa Rus in straight sets. Mladenovic and Garcia then teamed up to beat Bertens and Richel Hogenkamp, coming from a set down to win 4-6 6-3 6-3 in a nail-biting climax to the weekend. France have reached their first final since 2005 where they will be up against the Czech Republic, who also needed a final doubles rubber to win in Switzerland. The Netherlands were unbeaten since 2013 despite a team full of lower-ranked players, beating Australia last year to reach the World Group and stunning Russia in the first round. Karolina Pliskova and Lucie Hradecka booked the Czech Republic's place in a fifth Fed Cup final when they beat Swiss duo Martina Hingis and Viktorija Golubic 6-2 6-2. Golubic, ranked 129 in the world, had kept the Swiss in the hunt with two singles wins. Four-times champions Italy were relegated from the World Group for the first time in 18 years after losing 4-0 in a playoff with Spain who return to the elite after a two-year absence. Belarus caused an upset by beating Russia 3-1 in their World Group playoff, meaning the Russians are also relegated from the top group for the first time in 18 years. (Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Cairo (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande arrived in Cairo on Sunday for a two-day visit seen as a boost for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with security and economic cooperation on the table.
Hollande arrived from Beirut, as part of a regional tour that will also take him to Jordan. A beaming Sisi greeted the French president at Cairo airport, live footage on state television showed.
Hollande brings a delegation of business leaders in tow, and he and Sisi are expected to also discuss Middle East crises including the war against the Islamic State group and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He went straight to the historic Al-Qubbah palace, where his car, flanked by a cavalry guard, pulled up to a gun salute.
Hollande and Sisi were to hold a meeting and were expected to give a press conference later Sunday.
The question of human rights will be in the background. Hollande has been among Sisi's strongest supporters in Europe, since the former army chief overthrew his Islamist predecessor and launched a bloody crackdown on protesters in 2013.
France has already signed major arms contracts with Egypt since, and Hollande and his delegation are expected to agree economic deals throughout the visit.
These agreements will include deals on funding transportation and renewable energy, the French presidency has said.
On the eve of the visit, human rights groups including Amnesty International had criticised what they called France's "deafening silence" on rights violations in Egypt.
Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, police have waged a bloody crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 protesters.
The crackdown has spread to secular and leftwing dissidents who had supported Morsi's overthrow but then turned on Sisi.
Meanwhile, jihadists have staged an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The Islamic State group's Egypt affiliate has also claimed responsibility for bombing a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board.
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Sisi, who won a presidential election in 2014, has manoeuvred his country into being a cornerstone in the fight against the Islamic State group, which a US-led coalition is battling in Iraq and Syria.
IS has taken over the city of Sirte in neighbouring Libya, more than five years after French-led air strikes helped rebels there defeat dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime.
For many governments in the West that initially condemned the overthrow of Morsi -- Egypt's first democratically elected president -- the fight against jihadists has became the main concern rather than pushing democracy.
For France, Egypt has also become a key market, especially for military hardware.
Egypt was the first country to buy French Rafale warplanes, and also purchased two Mistral helicopter carrier ships.
After his Cairo trip, Hollande will on Tuesday visit Jordan's Prince Hassan air base, where French aircraft taking part in the coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq are stationed.
Beirut (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande met with Syrian refugee children in eastern Lebanon on Sunday before he was to head to Egypt as part of a four-day regional tour.
The French leader travelled to an informal settlement in Lebanon's Bekaa valley that is home to some 600 Syrian refugees, mostly women and children.
"I just visited a camp the likes of which are all over Lebanon," Hollande told reporters after spending nearly an hour in the Al-Dalhamiyah camp.
"They (Syrian children) don't want violence. They want to learn and go home, join their families, their country," he said.
About 15 Syrian schoolchildren greeted the French president as he entered the large communal tent used as their makeshift school.
They recited a poem in Arabic and gave Hollande pictures they had drawn.
"You will be the messengers of peace... France's children are thinking of you a lot," Hollande told them.
He met with the UN refugee agency's Lebanon representative Mireille Girard, who said difficult living conditions were forcing young Syrian children into child labour.
Lebanon, home to four million people, hosts more than one million Syrian refugees. France hosts more than 10,000.
Hollande landed in Beirut on Saturday for meetings with Lebanese officials and announced 100 million euros ($113 million) in assistance to the small Mediterranean country over the next three years.
He was to leave Lebanon on Sunday afternoon for Egypt and to eventually travel on to Jordan.
In Cairo, Hollande is expected to discuss with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi both the political crisis in Egypt's western neighbour Libya and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
His visit to Jordan on Tuesday will take him to the Prince Hassan air base, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Amman.
French aircraft taking part in the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State jihadist group in Iraq and Syria are stationed at the base.
By Aidan Lewis TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The French and German foreign ministers visited Tripoli on Saturday to show their support for Libya's U.N.-backed unity government, saying they were ready to offer training for the country's security forces and border guards if it is requested. The West is counting on the unity government to tackle Islamic State militants in Libya and prevent new flows of migrants heading north across the Mediterranean, though the new government's leaders are still trying to establish themselves in Tripoli. After talks at the naval base where the government's Presidential Council has been working since its arrival late last month, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said European training for Libyan forces was likely to begin outside the country in the initial stages. "I think it is realistic enough to say we have to start training measures from my point of view outside of Libya," Steinmeier told reporters. He said training could be in Libya later, if the security situation stabilised. Steinmeier said EU states would only act once they received a Libyan request, and that the issue would be addressed at a dinner for EU foreign and defence ministers to discuss Libya on Monday. "Nothing will be done unless the government wants it and examines it in a very concrete manner," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. Libya slipped into political turmoil after a NATO backed air campaign helped rebels topple autocrat Muammar Gaddafi five years ago. Paris played a leading part in the campaign, but has regretted the lack of support given to the authorities afterwards. Previous foreign efforts to train Libyan security forces were hampered by militia infighting and political squabbling among factions. Since 2014 the country has had two competing sets of parliaments and governments in Tripoli and the east, both backed by loose alliances of armed brigades. "We will not repeat the mistakes of 2011, we need to be clear on that," Ayrault said. Ayrault said it was also "very important" for Libya's eastern, internationally recognised parliament to hold a vote on the new government. That vote has been repeatedly delayed, but the parliament is expected to convene on Monday. He said France was urging Libya's neighbours - including Egypt, which is close to military forces allied with Libya's eastern government - to get behind the U.N.-backed administration. "There is no other possible path," Ayrault said. Unity government head Fayez Seraj told reporters that the three priorities for his administration were reconciliation, security and trying to revive the country's economy, which has been hit by tumbling oil revenues. "We are seeking international support in Libya in fighting terrorism but we don't expect an international intervention in the field," Seraj said. "We're expecting cooperation in tackling illegal migration so that we can see Libyan beaches as they were before and not as a source of boats of death." The Presidential Council arrived in Libya by ship after its opponents shut down Tripoli's air space to prevent it from flying in. It has been working for months to secure the backing or acquiescence of powerful militias operating in the capital. Seraj told Reuters that the unity government would start moving into ministries in Tripoli "in the next couple of days", and that it would not wait for the eastern parliament to vote before doing so. (Additional reporting by John Irish in Geneva; Editing by Mark Potter)
George Clooney in an appearance on NBCs Meet the Press Sunday. (NBC)
Actor George Clooney says Bernie Sanders is absolutely right to criticize the big-money fundraisers he co-hosted for Hillary Clinton over the weekend.
I think its an obscene amount of money, Clooney said on NBCs Meet the Press in an interview that aired Sunday. The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. Its ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely.
On Saturday, Clooney and his wife hosted a $33,400-per-person fundraiser for the Democratic frontrunner at the couples Los Angeles home. On Friday at a fundraiser in San Francisco where Clinton had asked donors for $353,400 for two seats at the head table with herself, Clooney and his wife, Amal a group of about 100 protesters demonstrated outside the event, which was held at the home of venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar.
The 54-year-old Academy Award winner said he agreed with them too.
Theyre right to protest, Clooney said. Theyre absolutely right. It is an obscene amount of money.
Both events were benefits for the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising effort for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Sanders had called Clintons use of people like Clooney the problem with American politics.
It is obscene that Secretary Clinton keeps going to big-money people to fund her campaign, the Vermont senator said in an interview on CNNs State of the Union last month. I have a lot of respect for George Clooney. Hes a great actor. I like him. But this is the problem with American politics Big money is dominating our political system. And [my supporters and I] are trying to move as far away from that as we can.
Sanders, whose campaign has been largely funded by small donations, says his events usually cost $15 or $50 to get into.
So its not a criticism of Clooney, he said. Its a criticism of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and its not Clooney, its the people coming to this event have undue influence on the political process.
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Sanders was asked about Clooneys Meet the Press comments on Sundays State of the Union.
I have a lot of respect for George Clooneys honesty and integrity on this issue, the senator said. He is right. One of the great tragedies of American life today is the degree to which big money is buying elections, in which elected officials become responsive to the needs of Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributors, rather than the needs of ordinary people.
Sanders was also asked if he feels Clooney is backing the wrong horse.
Well, I think he is, Sanders said. But he is honest enough to say that there is something wrong when few people, in this case wealthy individuals, but in other instances for the secretary, it is Wall Street and powerful special interests, who are able to contribute unbelievably large sums of money. Thats not what democracy is about.
After hosting two fundraisers over the weekend for Hillary Clinton, George Clooney called the thousands of dollars raised "obscene" in a pre-taped interview that aired Sunday morning on NBC News' Meet the Press. With co-chairs donating $353,000 a couple, MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked Clooney how he felt about the large amounts of money being shelled out.
"Yes. I think it's an obscene amount of money," said Clooney on the nature of political fundraisers. "I think that, you know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they're right to protest. They're absolutely right. It is an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely."
Clooney was seen talking to some of the protesters in San Francisco.
"I went over to try to talk to them and [one] said I was some corporate shill which, you know, me that's one of the funnier things you could say about me," said Clooney. "And then he just said, you know, 'You sucked as Batman.' And I was like, 'Well, you kind of got me on that one.'"
Read More: 'SNL' Reunites 'Seinfeld's' Larry David and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Clooney, however, said that there is a difference between his fundraisers and that of the Koch brothers (who said they would spend $900 million on the Presidency).
"I think there is a difference between the Koch brothers and us, you know?" said Clooney. "The difference is if I succeed, if we succeed in electing an entire Congress, which would be quite a success, but a Senate and a President, you know, the tax policies that they would enact would probably cost us a lot more money quite honestly. The Koch brothers would profit if they get their way and that's what, you know, there's no profit for us in this."
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Although Clooney supports Clinton and worked with her during the crisis in Sudan and South Sudan, he expressed that her campaign hasn't done the best job at explaining that the money he and others are raising is going to the Democratic down ballot and not Clinton's campaign. Clooney also added that he doesn't feel anybody, even politicians, enjoy having the high-profile fundraisers.
"It's going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress," said Clooney. "And the reason that's important, and the reason it's important to me, is because we need - I'm a Democrat, so if you're a Republican, you're going to disagree - but we need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out, so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And that's why I'm doing it."
Read More: How Marvel's 'Thor' Contest Empowered a Group of Young Women Science Buffs
The actor admitted that as a Democrat, he likes Bernie Sanders as well and will support him if he wins the nomination.
"I think what he's saying in this election is important if you're a Democrat," said Clooney. "Again, to have these conversations, I hope he stays in for the entire election and if he were to win the nomination, I will do whatever I can - including, if asked, a fundraiser like this again to try to give him or her, Hillary ... I hope she wins a Senate because honestly we see what happens when a President tries to get their Supreme Court justice confirmed without the Senate."
On the Republican side, Clooney expressed that Trump (whom he said he met once) and Cruz are making the election a "campaign of fear."
When asked about the controversial North Carolina anti-LGBT "bathroom law," Clooney called the bill "ridiculous."
Watch Clooney's full interview on Meet the Press below.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is considering adopting measures proposed by EU institutions now and agreeing to implement additional reforms if it misses its 2018 bailout targets, in an effort to unlock new bailout loans, a government official said on Sunday.
Talks on the review of Greek reforms have dragged on for months partly because the International Monetary Fund and EU institutions cannot agree between themselves on some economic assumptions and scenarios of how the Greek economy might develop.
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism believe Athens can achieve a 3.5 percent of gross domestic product target for its primary surplus in 2018, if it takes measures to plug a 3 percent fiscal gap.
Greece, which is also at the forefront of Europe's refugee crisis, has reached an accord with its EU lenders on the targets.
The IMF sees slow fiscal adjustment and expects the country to achieve a primary surplus - which excludes debt-servicing costs - of 1.5 of GDP in 2018. It has also urged Greece's European peers to grant it substantial debt relief to make its debt sustainable.
"Among the various proposals brought forward for the lenders to reach a compromise is the one for extra measures that could be decided now but implemented only if we don't meet our target for a 3.5 percent primary surplus in 2018," the official said.
"The Greek government's final decision will depend on the whole package, which will be put on the table and will include debt relief."
Concluding the review swiftly is crucial for the left-led government, which has a fragile parliamentary majority and needs extra funds to pay debt obligations and unpaid state bills.
Greek government officials held talks with euro zone finance ministers and top IMF officials in Washington during the weekend over the progress of the review and the prospect of debt relief.
(Editing by Louise Heavens)
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen killed four people on Saturday night in two villages southeast of Burundi's capital Bujumbura. The killings were the latest in a series of violent incidents which have rattled the small central African nation since a political dispute erupted a year ago. Tit-for-tat attacks between President Pierre Nkurunziza's security forces and his opponents have been escalating since he announced a disputed bid for a third term in April 2015. More than 400 people have been killed in the ensuing violence, according to estimates by the U.N. and rights groups. Nkurunziza's opponents said a third term violated Burundi's constitution and a peace pact that ended the country's 1993-2005 civil war. A constitutional court ruling, however, said Nkurunziza could extend his rule. Citing that ruling, the government organized an election which the president won in July. Etienne Nijimbere, a local government official, told Reuters on Sunday the gunmen had attacked two villages in Mugamba district, 60 kilometers southeast of Bujumbura, and killed four people. Another source told Reuters that "some of the attackers were wearing military uniforms with hoods on (their) heads". Nijimbere said all four people killed were likely targeted because they were members of the ruling CNDD-FDD party. Late on Saturday a grenade was also thrown at a fuel reserve facility in Burundi's second largest town, Gitenga, although the blast caused no damage, according to a regional government official, Anicet Manirambona. Three armed groups, including one led by officers that attempted a coup in May 2015, have launched armed rebellions against the government, officials say. None have claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks. Burundi has accused neighboring Rwanda of supporting the anti-Nkurunziza rebels and there are concerns the violence could convulse the entire Great Lakes region, still haunted by Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Rwanda and Burundi both have ethnic Hutu majorities and Tutsi minorities. (Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Andrew Bolton)
By Anthony Esposito SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Heavy rains in central Chile have prompted global miner Anglo American Plc and state-owned producer Codelco to temporarily suspend operations at two major copper mines with combined annual capacity of 880,000 tonnes. Any outages will be keenly watched by copper investors as the market suffers its longest crisis in more than a decade amid concerns about oversupply as demand from top consumer China slows. Natural disasters in Chile, the world's top copper exporter, have crimped output. The torrential downpours during the weekend follow a September 2015 earthquake and March 2015 flooding, which also caused disruption. The heavy rains over the weekend have left one person dead, seven missing and millions without drinking water as landslides wreaked havoc and rivers breached their banks. Anglo American told Reuters on Sunday that it was normalizing mining activities at its flagship Los Bronces copper mine, after previously suspending them for security reasons. It said the plants at Los Bronces were operating normally. Mining activity at Anglo's smaller El Soldado copper mine remained suspended, but its plants were operating normally with stockpiled material, the company added. Neither of the mines suffered any damage to infrastructure and an access road to Los Bronces that had been blocked by debris has been cleared, it said. Meanwhile, world No.1 copper producer Codelco said late on Saturday it had suspended production at its century-old underground El Teniente mine, likely leading to the loss of 5,000 tonnes of copper production. The rains caused landslides, prompted waterways to breach their banks and damaged transportation infrastructure for personnel and minerals at El Teniente. "Work to restore basic services and systems in order to restart production is estimated to take at least three days, equivalent to production of 5,000 tonnes of fine copper," Codelco said. All of Codelco's other operations are operating normally, including its Andina mine, which borders Los Bronces, the company said. Antofagasta Plc's Los Pelambres copper mine, some 240 kilometers northeast of capital Santiago, was operating normally. The majority of Chile's copper mines are in the desert north, which has not been affected by the bad weather. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Louise Heavens, Bill Trott and Alan Crosby)
By Feroz Sultani KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan forces fought back a renewed series of attacks on Kunduz, killing dozens of Taliban fighters, officials said on Sunday as insurgent forces stepped up their bid to retake the northern city that they captured briefly last year. The attack on Kunduz, involving hundreds of insurgent fighters, has intensified just days after the Taliban announced the start of their annual spring offensive, aimed at driving out the Western-backed government in Kabul. The Taliban's brief capture of Kunduz last year underlined both their growing strength and the lack of readiness of Afghan security forces fighting largely on their own since the NATO-led international coalition ended its combat operation in 2014. Attacks overnight appeared aimed at cutting off Chardara district on the southwest outskirts of the city, which insurgents used as a base in last year's attack, with several checkpoints targeted, Kunduz police chief Qasim Jangalbagh said. "They wanted to cut the road which connects the district to Kunduz city to stop us sending reinforcements," he said. In addition, he said a major attack was driven back at Charkh Ab, to the east of Kunduz, as Taliban forces sought to stretch the city's defences. Casualty estimates provided by Afghan officials varied slightly, with Kunduz police saying 49 Taliban fighters had been killed and another 61 wounded, while the defence ministry said 38 were killed and 13 wounded over the past 24 hours. A police spokesman said four members of the security forces were killed and 11 wounded. Kunduz public health director Saad Mukhtar said six dead and 107 wounded had been brought to city hospitals over the past three days, which have been put under heavy strain by the destruction of the hospital run by aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres in a U.S. air strike last year. The heavy fighting around Afghanistan's fifth-biggest city underlines the concern highlighted in the United Nations' latest report on civilian casualties, which pointed to a sharp rise in the number of children killed or injured as a consequence of combat in built-up areas. The fall of Kunduz last year followed months of attacks that began in the spring. The attacks weakened security forces before Taliban fighters seized the city centre at the end of September, holding it for two weeks before pulling out. However, officials have made a major effort this year to reassure residents that there would be no repeat of last year's demoralizing collapse, which prompted thousands to flee to city. Although heavy fighting continued over the winter months in Afghanistan, notably in the southern province of Helmand, the approach of warmer weather is likely to bring an increase in operations in the north of the country as snow clears. (Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in KABUL; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)
By Anthony Esposito SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Heavy rains battered central Chile over the weekend, leaving one person dead, seven missing and millions without drinking water as landslides caused havoc and rivers breached their banks. A woman was killed by a landslide in the San Jose de Maipo valley, a mountainous region just southeast of the capital, Santiago, while police suspended the search for three people who disappeared in a landslide in the same area. Police said they would resume their search at sunrise on Monday, when more rain is expected. In total, seven people have gone missing, 95 homes have sustained major damage and about 80,000 people are without electricity, said Chile emergency office Onemi. Over the past four days, Santiago has seen about 3 inches (80 mm of rain), nearly five times the amount it normally gets for the whole month of April, said Cristobal Torres, meteorologist with the state meteorology service. Light showers are forecast for Monday before stopping on Tuesday morning, said Torres. Dirt and debris from the surrounding Andes mountains were washed into Santiago's potable water supply. An estimated 4 million people suffered cuts to their water supply and authorities asked residents to stock up on drinking water, prompting a rush on bottled water at the city's supermarkets. The heavy downpours also led global miner Anglo American Plc and state-owned producer Codelco [COBRE.UL] to suspend operations at two major copper mines. Many schools in Santiago and nearby coastal towns suspended classes for Monday, while streets in some parts of the city become overrun by floodwaters after the Mapocho River breached its banks. Television images showed muddy water flowing down streets and cascading into underground parking lots. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Alan Crosby and Peter Cooney)
MEHSANA, India (Reuters) - Protests by an Indian caste demanding the release of one of its leaders turned violent on Sunday, as police fought running street battles with stone-throwing demonstrators and detained hundreds. Statewide marches in Gujarat calling for the freeing of Hardik Patel, a young leader of the Patel community who has been in jail since last October on sedition charges, turned violent in the town of Mehsana. Police fired tear gas, deployed water cannon and staged baton charges against protesters. The local administrator imposed a curfew in Mehsana. Across the state more than 400 protesters were detained. At least two dozen people were injured in Mehsana, NDTV said in a report that could not immediately be confirmed. "The internet has been jammed so that no rumors are spread through WhatsApp and other social sites," said Mehsana District Collector Lochan Sehra. "Peace should be maintained throughout the city." Hardik Patel, 22, emerged overnight last year as leader of a mass movement demanding more government jobs and college places for the Patel -- or Patidar -- community that makes up 14 percent of Gujarat's 60 million population. Last year's protests caught the state and federal governments off guard, and challenged the promise of new job opportunities made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who ran Gujarat for 13 years before winning the 2014 general election. Earlier this year the Jat land-owning caste launched mass protests in another Indian state, Haryana, only backing down when the authorities yielded to their demands for more jobs and opportunities to study. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Louise Heavens)
LONDON (Reuters) - Hundreds of possible contacts of eight people infected with Ebola in Guinea have been vaccinated with an experimental Merck vaccine to try and halt a flare-up of the deadly disease, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The United Nations health agency's office in Guinea said more than 1,000 contacts of the eight latest Ebola cases have been identified and are under medical observation. In a so-called "ring vaccination" approach, the WHO said almost 800 people have been vaccinated over the past week, including 182 who are considered to be high-risk contacts. The re-emergence of Ebola in Guinea is the first since the major outbreak in the country was declared over in December 2015. In the flare-up, there have been eight cases, seven of them fatal, since late February. The WHO said six of the dead were from three generations of the same extended family. Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since emerging in Guinea in late 2013 and causing an unprecedented 20-month-long epidemic. The WHO said earlier this week that all original chains of virus transmission had now ended, although new clusters of infections would continue to occur due to reintroductions of the virus. The Ebola virus is known to persist in the semen of male survivors for a year or more. Merck's VSV-EBOV vaccine was shown in a clinical trial last year to be highly effective in preventing Ebola infection. It has since been used in Sierra Leone to contain a flare-up. The "ring vaccination" strategy involves swiftly vaccinating anyone who has come into contact with a person infected with Ebola, as well as contacts of theirs. The WHO said it had a team of 75 staff members working in the affected areas to support the government-led response, including epidemiologists, surveillance experts and infection prevention and control experts. (Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Intel Corp's shift to higher-growth businesses such as server chips and embedded chips for cars could drive a 25 increase in its shares in a year, according to a report on Sunday in the financial publication Barron's. While there is a risk Intel could cut its financial guidance for the year when the chipmaker reports earnings on Tuesday, it is likely to return to sustainable growth by year's end for the first time in seven years, the publication said. Investors who do not own stock in Intel should wait until after the earnings call to buy shares, it added. Intel has struggled to grow as demand for personal computer chips has dried up, Barron's said, but growth in the company's data center group, which includes server chips, could eventually bring in more revenue. The gap between the two businesses has closed over the past five years. Last year, the data center business's operating profit was $7.8 billion, slightly below the $8.2 billion earned by Intel's client computing division, which includes chips for desktop and notebook computers. In 2010, the data center division brought in just $4.4 billion, compared to the personal computer business's $13 billion. Meanwhile, the company's Internet of Things division, which includes chips for cars, medical devices and factories, composed just 4 percent of revenue last year but is growing at a high-single-digit pace. Intel shares closed on Friday at $31.46. (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by Alan Crosby)
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Internet was abuzz with praise for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday after clips showing him schooling a reporter on quantum computing went viral. While political opponents learned a lesson about underestimating the photogenic Trudeau, 44, during last years surprise electoral upset, the unnamed reporter fell into the same trap during an event at a Canadian research institute on Friday when he jokingly tested the former teacher's knowledge. Trudeaus explanation on quantum computing generated cheers and applause from the room and set social media abuzz. "I was like YEAHH I voted for this guy," said a Twitter user with the handle @smoakoverwatch. Canadian writer Anakana Schofield tweeted about the reporter's experience: "This is what teenagers call 'getting owned,'" using a colloquial expression for utter defeat. The exchange began when the reporter told Trudeau: Morning, sir, I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing" but quickly added a question on when the prime minister expected Canada to resume its mission against Islamic State militants occupying parts of Iraq and Syria. Trudeau immediately shot back with an explanation on quantum computers, explaining how they do not operate on the principles of conventional physics and are more powerful than current mainstream computers. I wish there were more like him, said a Twitter user with the handle @tonticologo. Trudeau addressed Canadas actions against the Islamic State militants directly afterward, although he did not announce any new measures. The son of a former prime minister, Trudeau led his center-left Liberals to a majority victory in last years election with a campaign that emphasized hope and optimism. His political opponents had attacked him as just not ready for the job, implying his best feature was his hair rather than his intellectual prowess. (Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Internet was abuzz with praise for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday after clips showing him schooling a reporter on quantum computing went viral. While political opponents learned a lesson about underestimating the photogenic Trudeau, 44, during last years surprise electoral upset, the unnamed reporter fell into the same trap during an event at a Canadian research institute on Friday when he jokingly tested the former teacher's knowledge. Trudeaus explanation on quantum computing generated cheers and applause from the room and set social media abuzz. "I was like YEAHH I voted for this guy," said a Twitter user with the handle @smoakoverwatch. Canadian writer Anakana Schofield tweeted about the reporter's experience: "This is what teenagers call 'getting owned,'" using a colloquial expression for utter defeat. The exchange began when the reporter told Trudeau: Morning, sir, I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing" but quickly added a question on when the prime minister expected Canada to resume its mission against Islamic State militants occupying parts of Iraq and Syria. Trudeau immediately shot back with an explanation on quantum computers, explaining how they do not operate on the principles of conventional physics and are more powerful than current mainstream computers. I wish there were more like him, said a Twitter user with the handle @tonticologo. Trudeau addressed Canadas actions against the Islamic State militants directly afterward, although he did not announce any new measures. The son of a former prime minister, Trudeau led his center-left Liberals to a majority victory in last years election with a campaign that emphasized hope and optimism. His political opponents had attacked him as just not ready for the job, implying his best feature was his hair rather than his intellectual prowess. (This version of the story was refiled to fix typo in first paragraph, replacing "an" with "a") (Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
(This story corrects that White House was discussing U.S. financial system, not global financial system in ninth paragraph.) By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's main goal in its nuclear talks with world powers was to secure access to the global financial system, and the United States must now do more to remove obstacles to the banking sector, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday. In January, world powers led by the United States and the European Union lifted most sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. But some U.S. sanctions remain, and U.S. banks remain prohibited from doing business with Iran directly or indirectly because Washington still accuses Tehran of "supporting terrorism". That has deterred European institutions, which fear they could face U.S. legal problems if they re-establish banking links. Zarif used the visit of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the first by a high-level EU delegation since the deal came into force in January, to make his point. "Iran and the EU will put pressure on the United States to facilitate the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran," Zarif said at a news conference in Tehran with Mogherini who said in a tweet that she was leading a team of seven EU commissioners. "It's essential that the other side, especially the United States, fulfil its commitments not on paper but in practice and removes the obstacles especially in banking sector," he said. Zarif and Mogherini said in a joint statement after the news conference that the EU and Iran were agreed on the expansion of economic relations, and "encouraging banking cooperation." The White House said on Friday that an agreement with Iran does not include giving it access to the U.S. financial system. Iranian central bank Governor Valiollah Seif met U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Thursday in Washington and said they discussed Iran's expectations under the nuclear deal. Lew told Seif that the United States would keep meeting "its sanctions-related commitments in good faith" as long as Iran continues to uphold its end of the bargain. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Julia Fioretti DUBAI/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran, seeking European leverage to secure better terms from the United States following last year's nuclear deal, asked the European Union to put pressure on Washington to ease its re-entry to the global financial system. In a visit to Tehran by a high-powered EU team in which both sides spoke of a significant expansion in economic and energy ties, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed EU support for its bid to join the World Trade Organisation and spoke of a "new beginning" in relations with Europe. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, whose team of seven commissioners was the biggest to visit Tehran in more than a decade, said it was in Europe's interest to make sure European banks felt confident to do business in Iran. But she chided Tehran for holding ballistic missile tests despite last year's nuclear deal and said the EU would continue to stand firm on human rights violations in Iran. Following last year's nuclear deal, world powers led by the United States and the EU lifted most sanctions on the long-isolated Islamic Republic in January in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Despite the nuclear agreement, some U.S. sanctions remain and U.S. banks remain prohibited from doing business with Iran directly or indirectly because Washington still accuses Tehran of supporting terrorism and permitting human rights abuses. Some European banks like France bank BNP Paribas or Germanys Commerzbank AG, once hit by huge U.S. fines for sanctions busting, fear falling foul of the many other restrictions imposed by Washington that remain in force. The White House said on Friday that the nuclear agreement did not include allowing it access to the U.S. financial system. "Iran and the EU will put pressure on the United States to facilitate the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran," Zarif said at a news conference in Tehran with Mogherini. "It's essential that the other side, especially the United States, fulfil its commitments not on paper but in practice and removes the obstacles especially in banking sector." Zarif and Mogherini said in a joint statement that the EU and Iran were agreed on the expansion of economic relations, and "encouraging banking cooperation." "EU will support and assist Iran to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO)," and will pursue opening a full EU diplomatic mission in Tehran, the statement said. "Today is a new beginning in Iran and EU relations. We hope this cooperation between the Iranian nation and European Union brings about shared interests and global development," Zarif was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA. Mogherini, who headed a team of seven EU commissioners, said cooperation on energy would also be important as Iranian oil and gas would again become a part of the European energy mix and help increase the bloc's energy security. MISSILES AND RIGHTS Iranian officials have complained their country is not getting the full economic fruits of the nuclear deal due to American "deceitfulness", but Washington believes it has been Iran's missile launches that have scared businesses off. Since July's nuclear deal, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has twice conducted ballistic missile tests and the U.S. Treasury has in return put new sanctions on entities and individuals linked to the programme. President Obama said this month that Iran had so far stuck to the nuclear agreement, but Tehran's launch of ballistic missiles "with slogans calling for the destruction of Israel" undermined the spirit of the deal. Mogherini said she did not see the missile tests as a breach of the accord between Iran and world powers, though she added it was a worrying step. "This doesn't mean that we are not concerned," Mogherini said. "On the contrary, we see this as a worrying step ... and we are encouraging (Iran) to abstain from further steps." Despite the lifting of nuclear related sanctions, the EU extended some of its sanctions on Iran because of perceived violations of human rights in the Islamic Republic. The EU is troubled by the more than 1,000 executions in Iran last year. Mogherini said the EU would continue to be firm on issue of human rights while maintaining dialogue with Iran. (This version of the story was corrected to change number of Iran's ballistic missile tests from 2 to 4) (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Julia Fioretti; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
BERLIN (Reuters) - The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Sunday Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and vowed to press for bans on minarets and burqas at its party congress in two weeks' time. The AfD punished Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats in three regional elections last month, profiting from popular angst about how Germany can cope with an influx of migrants, over a million of whom arrived last year. "Islam is in itself a political ideology that is not compatible with the constitution," AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "We are in favour of a ban on minarets, on muezzins and a ban on full veils," added Storch, who is a member of the European Parliament. Merkel's conservatives have also called for an effective ban on the burqa, saying the full body covering worn by some Muslim women should not be worn in public. But they have not said Islam is incompatible with Germany's constitution. The AfD's rise, which has coincided with strong gains by other European anti-immigrant parties including the National Front in France, has punctured the centrist consensus around which the mainstream parties have formed alliances in Germany. Last month, the party grabbed 24 percent of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, surpassing even the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's coalition partner in Berlin. The AfD, founded in 2013, also performed strongly in two other states. The party's rise has been controversial. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, has said Germany's far-right, led by the AfD party, is using language similar to that of Hitler's Nazis. Such accusations have not swayed the party from its anti-immigration course. "Islam is not a religion like Catholic or Protestant Christianity, but rather intellectually always associated with the takeover of the state," said Alexander Gauland, who leads the AfD in Brandenburg. "That is why the Islamisation of Germany is a danger," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. (Writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Louise Heavens)
MILAN (Reuters) - Italy said on Sunday it hoped Libya's U.N.-backed unity government could restore control of the country's borders to limit migrant flows from north and south and was ready to help in any way it could. The French and German Foreign Ministers visited Tripoli on Saturday to show support for the government and said they were ready to offer training for the country's security forces and border guards if asked. "We hope Libya blocks both its northern border, from where (migrants) leave to reach us, and its southern border, through which people coming from places such as the Horn of Africa enter the country and use it as a hub to reach Europe," Italian Interior Minister Alfano told TV channel Sky TG24. Alfano said some 90 percent of migrants arriving on Italian shores came from Libya. Rome was proposing European Union financial aid to African countries in exchange for help in controlling migrant flows. Alfano said he would meet his Libyan colleague soon, adding he would offer the Italian government's support to Tripoli. "I will tell my Libyan colleague that Italy is ready to give any help and cooperation," Alfano said, adding that Italian police could offer support to Tripoli. Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has played a prominent role in rallying international support for the new government. Western powers hope the new government can unite Libya's warring factions, end its political chaos and request foreign help to tackle Islamic State insurgents and migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean. (Reporting by Francesca Landini; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Rome (AFP) - A closely-watched Italian referendum on oil and gas drilling concessions failed to reach the required turnout threshold Sunday, in a win for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who had urged voters to stay home.
Pitting environmentalists against the government and big industry, the referendum was seen a key challenge for Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) after two years in office during which he has pushed through a string of pro-business and political reforms.
About 90 minutes after polls closed at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT), the interior ministry said near-complete figures showed turnout stood at around 32 percent.
Under Italy's referendum law, a referendum is only valid if more than 50 percent of the country's nearly 47 million registered electors cast their vote.
The result will be savoured by Renzi, who had openly called on Italians to shun the ballot in the hopes of sinking the referendum, a stance that frustrated the opposition and deepened a rift within his own camp.
The referendum centred around whether Italians wanted to repeal a new law about drilling near the country's coast.
The current legislation, passed in January, says existing concessions within 12 miles (19 kilometres) of the coast should remain valid until the fields are depleted -- to the dismay campaigners for renewable energy.
Environmentalists claim platforms near the shore present risks to health and protected habitats.
They argued that reversing the law would send a clear signal the country wants to go green and stop what they call "dirty deals" that benefit oil companies, in the wake of a recent scandal that saw a top minister resign over alleged favours to French oil giant Total.
But Renzi dismissed the referendum as "a hoax" this week and said a win for the "Yes" camp -- backed by environmentalists and opposition parties -- would lead to rig closures and massive job losses.
The referendum also fuelled a bitter internal battle within Renzi's party, with some PD members saying it was unacceptable for the premier to be the head of the pro-abstention campaign.
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"Those who wanted to settle accounts at all costs have lost. The winners are the 11,000 people whose jobs were at risk," Renzi said in a speech after the polls closed.
- 'Greenest country' -
He added that he was ready to continue the dialogue about the country's energy policies and that he wanted Italy to become "the greenest country in Europe".
A "Yes" victory would have been a heavy blow to the premier ahead of a constitutional reforms referendum in October, on which the 41-year-old has bet his political career.
As for the energy companies, it would mean that the 92 platforms within the 12-mile limit would have to start closing from 2018, with the last in 2034.
Observers had said ahead of the vote that the referendum outcome would have little effect on government income.
Concessions within the 12-mile band brought in a relatively modest 38 million euros ($43 million) in royalties in 2015, according to official data.
Opponents had warned that if the referendum failed, the door would be flung open to underhand dealings.
"The biggest favour to oil and gas -- extending extraction indefinitely -- allows them to avoid shelling out money to dismantle the platforms once the concessions have expired," said Michele Emiliano, president of the Puglia region.
The "Yes" camp had argued that far fewer than 11,000 jobs were at risk, as many of the 92 platforms in question are unmanned.
They were also furious that Renzi refused to hold the referendum on the same day as local elections later this year, a decision which will cost the taxpayer 300 million euros ($338 million), according to the regions and environmentalists.
Genoa Mayor Marco Doria said it was "outrageous" they had been kept separate in the hope Italians would head to the beach instead of voting.
ROME (Reuters) - A referendum aimed at curbing Italy's offshore oil and gas industry was sunk on Sunday when it failed to secure the necessary quorum, with a majority of voters shunning the ballot, initial official data showed. The result was a relief for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who had called on people to abstain, saying the ballot was unnecessary and would end up hurting the economy. Turnout after the day-long ballot was seen hovering around the 30-percent level, according to preliminary data published by the Interior Ministry, well under the 50 percent plus one vote needed to make it valid. The referendum asked Italians whether the government should stop renewing offshore drilling licenses within 12 miles (20 km) of the coast. New drilling concessions are no longer being handed out, but Renzi said existing sites should have the option to remain operational until they are fully depleted. (Editing by Crispian Balmer)
By Thomas Wilson and Emi Emoto TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's SMBC Nikko Securities, a unit of bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group <8316.T>, is setting up a niche investment banking team in New York, its chief said, testing the waters of global finance just as domestic rival Nomura scales back. The team will focus on mergers and acquisitions and then debt capital markets in business areas where the brokerage's parent has strong historical links, SMBC Nikko President and Chief Executive Yoshihiko Shimizu said in a recent interview. The team will grow to around 10 members by March next year, said Shimizu, a 38-year veteran of Japan's banking industry but newly installed at the head of Japan's third-biggest brokerage by assets. "We're going ahead in the industries where we're strong, where we've got a strong entrance ticket," said Shimizu, referring to sectors including pharmaceuticals, raw materials and technology. "We'd be foolish if we didn't use those links." The move comes despite headaches Japan's financial institutions have experienced in trying to make money overseas. Earlier this week, Nomura Holdings Inc <8604.T>, Japan's largest brokerage, began a partial exit from businesses in the Americas and the closure of its equities research unit in Europe after losing $3 billion overseas in almost six years. The move is the first time SMBC Nikko will offer dedicated M&A coverage in the United States since its precursor Nikko Cordial Securities Inc was sold by Citigroup to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in 2009. Former Barclays [BARCR.UL] banker Randy Gelber will lead the New York team. Breaking into the top 10 of U.S. M&A league tables would be "difficult", said Shimizu, who took the reins at SMBC Nikko this month. But the 60-year-old executive said he wants to see the company ranked among the top 10 in debt capital markets within three years. In Japan, SMBC Nikko ranks third behind rivals Nomura and Daiwa Securities Group <8601.T>. Between March-December last year it managed 44.6 trillion yen ($407 billion) of assets. (Reporting by Thomas Wilson and Emi Emoto; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
In a graveyard at his school in Indian Kashmir, principal Ghulam Ahmed Bhat stares sadly at a mound of freshly dug earth after another former pupil was killed in the region's conflict.
University student Shaista Hameed was caught in crossfire during a gunbattle between soldiers and militants in February, after she joined scores of residents who poured onto the streets to help the rebels escape.
Senior police officers say locals' efforts to help militants -- by putting themselves in harm's way -- is a worrying recent development in the decades-long insurgency in the disputed Himalayan territory.
"She had been one of the brightest students of the school," Bhat said of the 22-year-old, whose grave is adorned with flowers in Kakapora town in the Kashmir Valley.
Hundreds of mainly angry youth have converged in recent months on the scene of gunbattles that regularly erupt between government forces and militants opposed to Indian rule of the Muslim-majority region.
Often pelting stones and hurling abuse, they attempt to distract security forces to help trapped rebels escape their cordon. In several instances they have succeeded, security officials say. Three people including Hameed have been killed and scores injured.
"It becomes an extremely difficult task dealing with humongous mobs turning up during our counter-insurgency operations," Nalin Prabhat, inspector general of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force, told AFP.
"They try to take away our actual focus at hand which is to neutralise the terrorists."
Indian forces have been battling militants wanting independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan since an armed insurgency erupted in 1989. Tens of thousands of people, mainly civilians, have been killed.
Violence has sharply declined in recent years following a major crackdown by the hundreds of thousands of forces deployed in the region. But mass protests were staged in 2008 through 2010 against Indian rule.
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Today, about 200 militants, mostly locals, are active across Indian Kashmir, down from several thousand in the 1990s, according to security officials.
- 'Huge new challenge' -
A recent uptick in militant attacks has galvanised frustrated young Kashmiris, many of whom deeply resent the military's presence, and regularly hear allegations of rights abuses and repression, political historian Siddiq Wahid said.
"How can we forget what has been done to generations of Kashmiri people?" said a student in Kakapora taking part in the street actions.
Last Tuesday, angry residents in northern Handwara stormed an army bunker after a soldier was accused of molesting a local girl. Soldiers fired into the crowd, leaving three people dead, while two others have been killed in protests against the firing in recent days.
Bhat said it is difficult to stop his former students taking part in the distraction efforts or even joining the militants' ranks. Three ex-students turned rebels are also buried in the graveyard on the school's grounds.
"The militants may be underground but everyone knows who they are. They (locals) identify with them and their cause. They choose to be a part of fighting all this (through street action)," he said.
In March, a group of nine heavily armed rebels were trapped in an open field not far from Kakapora as troops moved in. Hundreds of villagers armed with stones descended on the field, as word quickly spread.
"Yes, it is a huge new challenge," Prabhat said, confirming the incident.
He said residents' efforts to thwart security operations were being orchestrated by "stooges and agents of Pakistan".
Government forces have been forced to change their counter-insurgency operations, becoming even more clandestine, to avoid tipping off villagers and causing civilian casualties, he added.
"We are now having to fight two-way battles, with the armed militants on one hand and fearless mobs on the other," another senior police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A month before the March incident, police and the army ordered residents within a two-kilometre radius to stay indoors during gun battles.
On the day Hameed died, local rebel Adil Ashraf was killed in the gunfight.
"My sons left home to safeguard their self-respect and fight for the nation," Ashraf's mother Rafiqa, whose second son is also a militant, told AFP.
"Stones are the people's weapon," she said, referring proudly to the support her sons have received from locals.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Kenya caused a huge upset to land their first ever major sevens title by thrashing defending world series champions Fiji 30-7 to win the Singapore tournament on Sunday. Collins Injera moved within two tries of Argentina's Santiago Gomez Cora leading mark of 230 in the all-time scoring charts with a double in the upset victory at the National Stadium to secure Kenya's first title in 17 years. Kenya had only scraped through to the knockout stages after beating Russia, drawing with Scotland and losing to South Africa, but a series of upsets on day one handed them a favourable draw. The Africans beat France 28-7 in the quarter-finals and Argentina 15-12 in the semis on Sunday before taking out the Fijians. Kenya shot up to seventh in the standings after their 22- point haul in Singapore, with Fiji extending their lead at the top to eight points over South Africa with two rounds remaining in France and England. South Africa, beaten narrowly by Fiji in the semis, finished third after thrashing Argentina 28-0. Samoa landed the second tier Plate title after causing another upset in beating New Zealand, Scotland edged United States to land the Bowl and Russia crushed Wales to win the Shield. Rugby Sevens will feature in the Olympics for the first time at this year's Games in Rio de Janeiro. (Reporting by Patrick Johnston, editing by Ed Osmond)
Bucharest (AFP) - Andrea Petkovic battled back from surviving two match points against her on Sunday as Germany enjoyed a 4-1 away win over Romania in the Fed Cup World Group play-off.
The 28-year-old showed an iron will after being demolished in the first set, then held her nerve to win the second-set tie-breaker and claim a 0-6, 7-6(7/1), 6-3 win over Monica Niculescu.
After Australian Open winner Angelique Kerber had put the Germans 2-1 up by beating Simona Halep in Sunday's opening singles rubber, Petkovic's victory gave the Germans an unassailable 3-1 lead.
"With these emotions and the support of this team, anything is possible," said an exhausted Petkovic, who needed just over two and a half hours to seal her win.
It was Petkovic's second long match in the space of 24 hours.
Her team-mates Annika Beck and Julia Goerges then finished the job with a 6-7(5/7), 7-6(7/4), 10-7 win over Irina-Camelia Begu and Alexandra Dulgheru in the dead doubles rubber.
It means Germany keep their place in the Fed Cup's top tier after beating the hosts in front of a sell-out crowd of 7,500 at the Sala Polivalenta Arena in Cluj-Napoca.
Kerber says she is back to her best after a dip in form following her Melbourne triumph in January.
"I have found my rhythm again and I am almost at 100 percent," she said, having needed just 67 minutes to blast her way past Halep 6-2, 6-2.
It had finished all square on Saturday as Halep needed just under three hours to secure her 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4 win over Petkovic after Kerber had beaten Begu.
Germany were in the play-off after their 3-2 defeat at home to Switzerland in February.
Romania are now relegated to the World Group II for 2017 following their second defeat this year after losing 3-2 to the Czech Republic in February.
By Ahmed Hagagy
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait reduced its crude oil output and refining production on Sunday as part of an emergency plan to help the OPEC member deal with the largest petroleum workers' strike in years.
Thousands of Kuwaiti oil and gas workers are striking to protest against a government plan for public sector pay reforms, although non-Kuwaiti workers in the industry are not on strike. Unions have not said how long the walkout will last.
Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) spokesman Saad Al-Azmi said in a posting on KOC's Twitter account that the company had cut crude output to 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) from its normal production level of about 3 million bpd.
State refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has also reduced production, to some 520,000 bpd from 930,000 before the stoppage started on Sunday, Kuwait's state-owned news agency KUNA reported.
It quoted KNPC chief executive Mohammed Ghazi Al Mutairi affirming its "success ... in implementing the emergency plan and operating the company's three refineries".
Khaled al-Asousi, a spokesman for KNPC, said without elaborating that there was an increase in fuel supply to the local market and to the ministry of electricity. Export ports were operational and tankers were loading, he said.
Oil sector spokesman Sheikh Talal al-Khaled al-Sabah said in remarks carried by KUNA that oil exports had not been affected by the strike and that Kuwait was capable of fulfilling the demands of its customers.
In a later statement on Twitter, al-Khaled said production rates were gradually improving and that normal levels were "not far off".
Kuwait's cabinet said in a statement carried by KUNA that the strike would hamper work in the vital sector and that it had authorised state oil companies to take all necessary steps to find labour and ensure production was not affected.
The cabinet also said it would take legal measures against any unacceptable practices.
Sheikh Mohammad al-Mubarak al-Sabah, minister for cabinet affairs, told Reuters the strike was illegal as union members had refused to negotiate ahead of the stoppage.
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"The members of the union were contacted by the committee headed by the manpower bureau. The members of the union refused to talk with them and went on strike. So they are in breach of Kuwaiti law. They can't strike without this (attempt at discussion)," he said.
"With the oil price being what it is, and the fact that oil income is a huge part of the (national) income, it is very difficult if not impossible for the government to provide new financial incentives."
(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall and Maha el Dahan; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Tripoli (AFP) - The United Nations said its staff had returned to Tripoli and Libya's unity government vowed further steps to assert its authority Sunday, on the eve of a crucial confidence vote.
UN envoy Martin Kobler said his staff were back after leaving amid violence in mid-2014, three years after Libya descended into chaos following the NATO-backed uprising that killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Their arrival comes a day before the recognised parliament votes on the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), supported by the international community in a bid to end years of chaos in the North African nation.
"The UN staff will be in Tripoli five days a week... I am not visiting Tripoli any more, I am working out of Tripoli," Kobler said at a joint news conference with Ahmed Maiteeq, deputy head of a UN-backed unity government.
Maiteeq, meanwhile, said the GNA would take control of three ministries from Monday, in the latest step to assert its authority over the conflict-torn country.
"More than six ministries are ready, of which three will be handed over administratively tomorrow," he said.
The deputy premier said the GNA would begin running the ministries of social affairs, youth and sports, and housing and public works from Monday, regardless of the results of the vote of confidence.
"The legislative authorities must quickly give the GNA its legitimacy through the House of Representatives in order for it to serve the Libyan people," Maiteeq said.
This, he said, would "endorse the GNA in order to save the Libyan people from all the problems".
The legislature's endorsement would be a key step for the unity government of prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj, which has been working to assert its authority in the war-torn nation.
- Power-sharing deal -
Libya has had two rival administrations since mid-2014 when a militia alliance took over Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the recognised parliament to flee to the remote east, where it is based in Tobruk.
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Sarraj's government was formed under a UN-backed power-sharing deal agreed in December and supported by some lawmakers from both sides.
The unity cabinet has been steadily winning support from local officials and state institutions, though the head of the Tripoli-based administration, Khalifa Ghweil, has refused to recognise its authority.
Kobler visited Tripoli shortly after Sarraj's government arrived in the capital under naval escort on March 30.
The UN envoy will be in Tobruk on Monday to encourage the recognised government and parliament to back the latest moves.
There has been a flurry of diplomatic trips to back the unity government, including a visit on Saturday by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
World powers see the GNA as a crucial partner in tackling jihadists behind a string of deadly attacks in Libya, as well as human traffickers exploiting the country's turmoil.
The first clashes since Sarraj's arrival broke out several hours after the ministers' visit, but had subsided by early Sunday.
Gunfire and small explosions were heard overnight as two armed groups clashed in the Hay el-Andalous district north of the capital, an upmarket area housing embassies and home to many politicians, an AFP correspondent said.
No information was immediately available on the cause or extent of the clashes or whether there had been any casualties.
By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is likely to see outbreaks of the Zika virus, with perhaps dozens or scores of people affected, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Sunday. The United States has seen more than 350 cases of people who were infected abroad and then returned to the country but has yet to confirm a case where someone was infected within its borders. That is likely to change, said Fauci. "It is likely we will have what is called a local outbreak," he said on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. The Zika outbreak was first detected in Brazil last year and is spreading through the Americas. It has been linked to thousands of cases of microcephaly, a typically rare birth defect marked by unusually small head size which often indicates poor brain development. The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in February. Zika, which is spread by mosquitoes and through sexual contact, can give adults the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome. The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which primarily transmits disease, is present in about 30 U.S. states. Fauci said he expected to see someone bitten by a mosquito here contract Zika but did not expect a large number of people to fall ill. "It would not be surprising at all - if not likely - that we're going to see a bit of that," he said. "We're talking about scores of cases, dozens of cases, at most." He also raised the prospect that other neurological ailments could be eventually linked to Zika, which he called "disturbing." "There are only individual case reports of significant neurological damage to people not just the fetuses but an adult that would get infected. Things that they call meningoencephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain and the covering around the brain, spinal cord damage due to what we call myelitis," he said. "So far they look unusual, but at least we've seen them and that's concerning." Fauci also pressed the administration's case for budgeting $1.9 billion dollars in emergency funds to fight the virus. Some Republicans have agreed. "We have to act now," he said. "I can't wait to start developing a vaccine." Still, Fauci refrained from recommending that U.S. women avoid becoming pregnant because of fear of giving birth to a baby with microcephaly. "Right now in the United States they should not be that concerned. We do not have local outbreaks," he said. (Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Louise Heavens)
Dozens are dead following a major earthquake along the northwestern coast of Ecuador, NBC News reported on Sunday.
Vice President Jorge Glas said at least 233 people died and at least 600 others were injured as the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on Saturday night, with states of emergency declared in "Esmeraldas, Los Rios, Manabi, Santa Elena, Guayas and Santo Domingo." According to NBC, tremors reached the capital of Quito some 100 miles away.
"The moment the Ecuador earthquake struck. At least 77 people were killed and 500 injured. https://t.co/beVIE4P85Q"
Death toll from Ecuador's 7.8-magnitude quake rises to at least 77, over 588 injured. Updates on #TodayinLAhttp://4.nbcla.com/3rnCS7r
Photos from Ecuador showed massive damage to cities and towns. Many buildings stood at odd angles with floors crushed or collapsed, and cars totally destroyed by debris lay on the streets.
Guayaquil #Temblor #earthquake #Ecuadorpic.twitter.com/AIQODIFLNG
"This is a very painful test," President Rafael Correa said, reported the BBC. "I ask the country to be calm and united... Let's be strong; we will overcome this.
"Roads and hospitals can be rebuilt; you cannot recover lost lives. That's what hurts the most."
An example of one of the many landslides affecting roads throughout Ecuador, outside town of Pilalopic.twitter.com/XKxQ9F23xa https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgPZ03kW8AAbC9P.jpg:large
Another example of damaged roads here in Ecuador post earthquakepic.twitter.com/3SHgesGgHB https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgPbhOgWQAA_SEh.jpg:large
Ecuador lays along the Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer "horseshoe of seismic activity" stretching from east of the coast of Australia through Southeast Asia and Japan to the West Coast of the U.S. and South America, the Guardian reported. According to the BBC, "there have been seven 7.0 magnitude or greater events within 250 kilometers of this latest tremor since 1900."
Update: April 17, 2016 at 11:32 a.m.
This post has been updated to reflect a higher official number of casualties.
(Reuters) - The man who fatally shot a Maryland firefighter and critically wounded another said he had thought he was stopping an attempted break-in when he opened fire, authorities said on Sunday.
The shooter, who has not been officially identified, was interviewed by police and released on Saturday evening, about 24 hours after the shooting took place, Prince George's County Fire Department chief spokesman Mark Brady said.
"The way we're looking at it now is it's a terrible, terrible tragedy for everybody involved," Brady said.
The firefighters were responding to a call on Friday to check on the well-being of a man whose brother had been unable to contact him, Brady said.
He said the brother told emergency responders that the shooter was a diabetic, was having difficulty controlling his blood sugar recently, and had passed out just days earlier.
When firefighters arrived, they pounded on the door and announced themselves as the fire department. When no one answered the door, the firefighters began forcing their way into the house and were struck by gunfire, Brady said.
John Ulmschneider, a 37-year-old firefighter and medic, died as a result of his injuries at an area hospital late on Friday. Kevin Swain, 19, a volunteer firefighter in Morningside, Maryland, remained hospitalized on Sunday and was showing signs of improvement, Brady said.
The shooter's brother was also struck in the shoulder by gunfire, but his injuries were not life-threatening, Brady said.
Two other volunteers with the department sustained less serious injuries while seeking cover in the shootings. They were released from the hospital on Saturday.
Prince George's County Police could not be immediately reached for comment.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Alan Crosby)
Former Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields appeared on CNNs Reliable Sources Sunday for her first interview since her battery charges against Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski were dropped last week.
Fields has been at the center of a media storm since she accused Lewandowski of forcefully grabbing her arm and nearly throwing her to the ground at a campaign event for the Republican presidential candidate in Jupiter, Fla., last month. But, she told CNNs Brian Stelter, the controversy is less about the alleged manhandling itself than the Trump campaigns dismissive response to her claim.
The reason why its such a huge story is because Corey lied, Donald Trump lied, they defamed me, said Fields, who resigned from Breitbart News after she said management at the conservative website failed to adequately support her in the wake of the alleged altercation. They went on this huge smear campaign against me, and I think it sheds light on the character of the campaign.
Trump publicly defended Lewandowski after Jupiter police charged him with simple battery last month, arguing that Fields was actually grabbing at me and that his campaign manager was acting as an intermediary.
On Twitter, Trump further attempted to put the blame on Fields, accusing the reporter of changing her story and claiming that she was inappropriately grabbing him and shouting questions after his Florida press conference had finished.
Can I press charges? Trump tweeted mockingly.
Asked about Palm Beach County District Attorney Dave Aronbergs decision last week to not pursue the assault charges against Lewandowski, Fields suggested the prosecutor may have been motivated by personal ties to Trump.
You look at the prosecutors wifes social media, they are at Mar-a-Lago, Trumps resort, all of the time, Fields said, noting that the website for Lynn Aronbergs public relations firm prominently features photos of the prosecutors wife with Donald and Melania Trump. I cant speak for anyone else, but if I was a prosecutor and my wife was trying to monetize her relationship with Donald Trump and its right there on her website, and Im partying all the time at Mar-a-Lago, I would recuse myself from the situation and the case.
Meanwhile, Lewandowski praised Aronbergs decision and declined to apologize to Fields during his own TV appearance Sunday.
Id be happy to have a conversation with her. But to apologize to someone Ive never spoken to and, candidly, dont ever remember having any interaction with is something that is a little unrealistic right now, Lewandowski told Fox News Chris Wallace. Id be happy to have that conversation if we could put this thing behind us.
MONTE CARLO (Reuters) - Rafa Nadal ended his four-year wait for a ninth Monte Carlo Masters title by defeating Gael Monfils 7-5 5-7 6-0 on Sunday in his 100th career final. Nadal won eight consecutive titles before losing the 2013final to Novak Djokovic and, after struggling for fitness in recent years, he demonstrated his return to form by overwhelming the home favourite in the third set to win his 28th Masters title. "Monte Carlo has been one of the most special places in my career," Nadal told the crowd on receiving the trophy. "It was a pleasure to play back here again and in a final. "It's been a special week for me, winning here in Monte Carlo is so special," he added. "See you next year." Monfils, seeded 13th and looking to become the tournament's first French winner since Cedric Pioline, started strongly, exchanging consecutive break points with Nadal, before losing the first set 7-5. Monfils broke Nadal to take an early 2-1 lead in the second,but the Spaniard broke back to level at 4-4 before Monfils wrestled back the initiative to take the set. Nadal dominated the final set, however, breaking Monfils, who appeared drained by his earlier exertions, three times towin his first Masters title since 2014 and his 48th clay crown. "Congratulations to Rafa," Monfils said. "An incredible match today and I'm very happy that you won again." (Reporting by Ed Dove, editing by Ed Osmond)
When a deadly avalanche hit Mount Everest a year ago, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita, one of the few Nepali women with expertise in climbing the world's highest peaks, headed straight there to help.
A gifted mountaineer who had summited Everest by the age of 22, she is part of a new generation of Sherpa women who are climbing peaks that have traditionally only been scaled by their men.
"People think mountaineering is a man's job, but I think we need more women in the mountains," the 31-year-old said.
Generations of men from Nepal's famed Sherpa community have climbed the Himalayas, while their wives and daughters have traditionally kept the home fires burning.
But in a sign of changing times, a string of Sherpa women are now breaking records themselves, not only on 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) high Everest but other dangerous peaks.
Some are now planning new summits during Nepal's spring climbing season, which started this month.
"Sherpa men train their sons to climb, not their daughters, they are expected to stay home," mountaineering expert Elizabeth Hawley told AFP.
"These female climbers are certainly breaking tradition, which takes some courage."
In the year since Nepal's massive earthquake, which triggered avalanches and landslides that killed almost 9,000 people, they have also led rescue and relief efforts.
"Everyone told me to stay behind, they said Everest base camp is gone, but I had to go," said Sherpa Akita, who was in a nearby village when the disaster hit.
- Orphaned at 15 -
Raised in the Himalayan town of Lukla, known as the gateway to Everest, she had long wanted to climb the mountain, inspired by the late Pasang Lhamu Sherpa -- the first Nepali woman to summit the peak in 1993.
After her parents died, leaving her orphaned at 15, she worked on trekking expeditions to earn money. In 2004, she signed up for a local mountaineering course, where she was one of only two women in a class of dozens of men.
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Sherpa Akita soon won a scholarship to train in the French Alps before returning to climb Everest. She also joined two Sherpa women and together they became the first female team to summit K2, the world's second-highest mountain, in 2014.
But her toughest test came when the 7.8-magnitude quake ripped through her country on April 25.
Sherpa Akita lost a friend in the subsequent Everest avalanche, her Kathmandu home suffered damage, and the sight of thousands of Nepalis huddling under tarps for shelter broke her heart.
She spent the next few months raising funds and travelling to remote villages to deliver emergency supplies and help run medical camps.
National Geographic magazine named her 2016's "Adventurer of the Year" for her efforts, the first Nepali woman to win the accolade.
- World records -
Although Sherpa women have faced a long wait for their turn in the mountaineering spotlight, they are making up for it by snatching world records.
In 2012, Chhurim Sherpa became the first woman to scale Everest twice in one week, while 42-year-old Lhakpa Sherpa holds a record for the most Everest summits by a woman, with six.
The daughter of a yak herder, Lhakpa Sherpa worked as a porter and kitchen hand on trekking and mountaineering expeditions when she was young, before climbing solo.
"I felt free up there, I found ordinary life much more difficult," she told AFP, referring to a years-long violent relationship that saw her eventually retire from climbing.
The mother-of-three is now preparing a comeback -- 16 years after she first scaled Everest -- determined to summit the mountain twice in a single season.
Eventually, she wants to beat the record held by male climber Apa Sherpa of 21 total summits.
Despite such feats, women say they continue to face an uphill battle in a male-dominated industry, including securing funding for their expeditions.
They have made 33 attempts to scale Everest, compared to 2,923 bids by Sherpa men, according to the authoritative Himalayan Database.
More than a year after Pema Diki Sherpa and her team became the first all-female expedition to summit the highest mountains on all seven continents, they still need to pay back a 10-million rupee ($95,000) loan.
Like others, the 28-year-old has temporarily set aside her climbing ambitions and financial concerns and thrown herself into relief work in Nepal, monitoring aid distribution in devastated Dolakha district.
"People had no food, nowhere to live, no access to roads because of landslides. It was very sad," she said.
But they plan to return to the peaks, if not this climbing season, then the next. "Once you begin climbing, you can't stop. The mountains are an addiction," Sherpa Akita said.
The news trucks have all driven away, and the national debate over gun control continues to simmer. But nearly four years after the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, how do the family members, friends, classmates, and colleagues of the 26 people20 children and 6 adultsgunned down pick up the pieces and move forward?
Midsummer in Newtown, a documentary premiering on Sunday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, shows us the transformative power of the arts and its abilities to help communities heal. (Disclosure: The film was produced in part by Participant Media, the parent company of TakePart.)
RELATED: Reading, Writing, Empathy: The Rise of 'Social Emotional Learning'
The arts are one way to channel certain feelings that you have," the films director, Lloyd Kramer, tells TakePart. "In the arts, it allows you to express yourself. Theres a kind of catharsis.
Kramer's film follows the experiences of Tain Gregory and Sammy Vertucci, two Sandy Hook Elementary students, as they audition, rehearse, and perform in a pop-rock version of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream. It also explores the heartbreak and resilience of parents Jimmy Greene and Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose six-year-old daughter, Ana Grace, was one of the first graders shot by Adam Lanza on Dec. 14, 2012.
The documentary has its roots in a conversation that took place between Oscar-nominated producer Tom Yellin and theater director Michael Unger outside a ballet class in New York City during the summer of 2014. As the two men waited for their daughters, they began talking about Ungers upcoming adaptation of Shakespeares play for NewArts, a Newtown-based foundation. The organization was formed in the community after the shooting and uses the performing arts to teach life skills to the kids.
RELATED: Giving Artists a Place at the Activism Table Could Be the Key to Social Change
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Yellin, intrigued by the concept, asked Kramer to film Ungers production of A Rockin Midsummer Nights Dream, which incorporated kids from Newtown as well as trained actors. Kramer and his crew started off just watching and filming the auditions for the play. We didnt have any angle. We were there as observers, just talking to people. And we let the story kind of reveal itself, he recalls.
Two students, Tain and Sammy, stood out to him right away: Tain, who was cast as Snug the Joiner, hid under a table during the shooting, and Sammy, who was cast as Mustardseed, is best friends with a girl who lost her sister in the shooting. You saw that they were conflicted, that they were shy, especially Sammy, who at the beginning was in her shell, says Kramer.
Theyre a lot more aware of lifes fragilityIm not sure if its good or bad, Kramer says of the kids. Once theyre touched by this, theres a kind of loss of some innocence. You just hope that theyas Tains mother saysyou just hope that theyll figure out that the world is not against them."
As Kramer and his team got to know the parents and kids in Newtown, they were very transparent about everything, he says. And inevitably, people would ask them, Well, have you talked to the families? And by the families they always meant the families that had lost a child, he says.
The crew hadnt intended to do that, but eventually, it connected with Jimmy Greene and Nelba Marquez-Greene. Jimmy had been so devastated by what happened to them, and the fact that he was a musician and also trying to find something positive [made their experience a natural fit for the film]," says Kramer.
Jimmy, a respected saxophonist, poured all the pain and joy he felt when he reflected on his slain daughter Ana into his music. Its amazing that [Jimmy] can say, You cant always choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond, says Kramer.
The film also shows how Marquez-Greene, a marriage and family therapist, initially focused her energy on curbing access to guns but transitioned her efforts to founding The Ana Grace Project, an effort that fosters empathy and love between young people. "It becomes a reflection in her mind of who her daughter was and is because empathy was how they raised her, and its a reflection of who she was, says Kramer.
Given that arts education budgets have been decimated nationwide, it's increasingly tough for students to learn empathy and express their creativity. Only 4 percent of elementary schools offered drama or theater instruction during the 20092010 school year, down from 20 percent a decade earlier, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Kramer acknowledges that schools may "have their own priorities," but if they can afford arts programs, they should add them. They are "very meaningful in terms of character formation," he says.
The producers screened the film for families in Newtown in advance of its premiere at Tribeca. We were just so aware of all the sensitivities in the town," Kramer says. "We didnt know what to expect. Theyre all coming to the premiere. So thats a sign, I think."
But making a political film about guns wasn't the focus of the project, he says. Our goal was to follow the kids and so things grew out of that.
However, when he began filming in Newtown in 2014, Kramer realized it would not be easy to gain the trust of the community. There was so much anger at the media, and here we were coming in. We were just going to follow the play, but it didnt matter, because a lot of people in Newtown are wary of any kind of coverage," he explains. You can imagine when the shootings happened, it was just like locusts. The media comes, and then they go."
The kids in Newtown were defined by the shooting in a lot of peoples eyes, and they didnt quite understand it, but they sensed that there was something they didnt like about it, Kramer says. But when they came together in this production, there was an energy, a kind of gaining of trust and confidence.
Along with being moved by the vulnerability and depth of Tain, Sammy, and the other kids who participated in the play, Kramer says he often reflects on a question Jimmy would frequently ask: How do you reflect love and beauty in the face of so much trauma?
We all go through life being tested by various things that are hard. You have to keep in your mind that you have the ability to choose. You can choose to be empathetic. You can choose to have your life reflect love and beauty, says Kramer. Not to be overly sentimental, but you can use that as a guiding principle. And when you hear it from Jimmy and you see it reflected in the other parents and the kids, its a reminder that life has so much joy in it."
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Original article from TakePart
By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A group that claimed responsibility for a major attack on a pipeline in Nigeria's oil-producing Delta region said it will carry out more strikes, just days after President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to crack down on "vandals and saboteurs". The Niger Delta Avengers has said it carried out the attack on a Shell underwater pipeline in February which interrupted oil flows and forced the company to shut down its 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal for weeks. Pipeline attacks and violence have risen in the southern swampland of Africa's biggest oil exporter since authorities issued an arrest warrant in January for a former militant leader on corruption charges. Last week Buhari, a former military ruler, said the government would crack down on pipeline saboteurs.. And on Sunday the vice president's office issued a statement that said a permanent pipeline security force was being considered. "We are not deterred by such threats as we are highly spirited and shall continue blowing up pipelines until the Niger Delta people are no longer marginalized by the Nigerian actors," said the Niger Delta Avengers in a statement. The Delta's oil provides 70 percent of state income in Africa's biggest economy but, like much of Nigeria, the region has seen little development which has prompted militants to demand a greater share of crude revenues. Niger Delta Avengers, unheard of before the Forcados attack, say they want to ensure that local people enjoy a quality of life which reflects the region's contribution to the national purse. The group said in its statement: "We take no pleasure in claiming innocent lives hence our struggle is geared toward attacking the oil installations in our region and not the people. And we shall stop at nothing until our goal is achieved." Buhari has extended a multi-million dollar amnesty signed with militants in 2009 but upset them by ending generous pipeline protection contracts. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited the damaged Forcados terminal on Friday. Sources have said repair work on the pipeline feeding Forcados crude oil to the export terminal is expected to take until June. But the vice president's statement said repair work was expected to end in May. (Additional reporting and writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Stephen Powell)
By most measures, the economy is doing great. The US labor market is creating around 200,000 jobs a month, which has brought the unemployment rate tumbling to 5%. Meanwhile, home prices are up and stock prices (GSPC) are near all-time highs.
So, why are there so many people so reluctant to acknowledge how good things are today?
One word: trauma.
Some people are still recovering from the trauma of what happened in 2007-2008, President Barack Obama said in an interview with Yahoo Finances Nicole Sinclair. You know, we went through a really scary time.
Trauma has the ability to distort how we perceive our present reality.
Consider the joy that comes from jumping on a trampoline or the thrill one gets from speeding downhill on a bicycle. For many folks, the unexpected and painful reality of a nasty spill and a couple of fractured bones will forever take away the bliss that once came from those activities. The trampoline and bicycle will continue to offer the same experience, but the trauma can be so intense that it can force many to keep their feet on the ground.
Losing your job, getting evicted from your home, and watching the value of your retirement savings crash can be deeply distressing. And so even when you get a new job, move into a new home, and recoup all of your investment losses, that new persistent feeling of uncertainty that followed the traumatic will discount everything you have.
"We had a great recession, which disappointed people," JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said to Yahoo Finance's Andy Serwer.
Today, people may have just as much, if not more, than what they had during their best times. But many don't actually perceive that, and so they'll buy into the campaigns of presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, whose platforms are based on convincing Americans that things have been terrible.
I think theres still an insecurity there, Obama said.
This is not to dismiss the Americans who are in fact struggling. As Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman pointed out, many are living their own personal recessions.
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"A lot of Americans havent seen the benefits of [the recovery] yet," Dimon said.
Trauma intensifies our behavioral biases
People are irrational. No matter how hard we try to be rational, we often dont act in the most rational ways because those ways often dont feel like the right or best decisions.
In the field of behavioral finance, one behavioral bias that is studied extensively is regret aversion. Regret aversion occurs when the unpleasant memory of bad decisions in the past puts undue and irrational influence on future decisions. For example, you lose 20% in the stock market in a very short period of time, so you decide never to buy stocks again because of your perpetual expectation that the market will soon crash again.
Theres no easy way to deal with this, especially since there is a very real chance that something bad will indeed happen again. Indeed, when it comes to the markets and economy, its always something.
Perhaps the first step is to acknowledge the possibility that it is our biases that are causing us to be so bummed out about the markets and economy all the time. Maybe then youll begin to think like folks like Warren Buffett who can simultaneously appreciate that terrible things are always happening while acknowledging that things have never been better than they are today.
Sam Ro is managing editor at Yahoo Finance
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DOHA (Reuters) - OPEC and non-OPEC producers on Sunday failed to reach a deal to freeze oil output, three oil industry sources told Reuters.
Sources said OPEC producers had told non-OPEC members they needed first to reach a deal within OPEC, possibly at a June meeting. After that, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be able to invite other producers to join.
(Reporting by Reuters OPEC team; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)
By David DeKok HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - Pennsylvania was poised to become the 24th U.S. state to legalize marijuana use for medical purposes after state legislators on Wednesday approved a bill that Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has promised to sign. The bill will allow use of marijuana oil and extracts, while still prohibiting the smoking of the drug, to treat or alleviate the symptoms of a long list of ailments including autism, epileptic seizures and nausea brought on by chemotherapy. The bill, which passed by a 149-46 vote in the state House of Representatives, sets up an infrastructure for growing, distributing, regulating and taxing medical marijuana. Statewide opinion polls consistently show that 88 percent or more of Pennsylvanians support medical marijuana. That reflects a 50-year national trend toward general acceptance of marijuana, especially among younger and more liberal Americans. "Marijuana is medicine and it's coming to Pennsylvania," state Senator Daylin Leach, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs who was one of two prime sponsors of the bill, said following the vote. "Children with intractable epilepsy, veterans with PTSD, grandparents with cancer, and thousands of other sick Pennsylvanians will finally get the help they need." The other prime sponsor, state Senator Mike Folmer, a Republican from Lebanon, has said on his website that his own experience as a cancer patient led him to believe patients "should have every opportunity to combat their illness," including use of medical marijuana. The Pennsylvania Senate passed the Folmer-Leach bill last year, but it stalled in the House because of vehement opposition from Republican House Speaker Mike Turzai. A spokesman for Leach credited House Majority Leader Dave Reed, also a Republican, with easing the bill around the speaker's opposition. The state's first medical marijuana bill was introduced by former Representative Allen Kukovich, a Democrat from the Pittsburgh suburbs, in 1979. He said Wednesday that he was inspired by early research showing the drug benefited patients with extreme seizure disorder, as many as 100 seizures per day. "It never moved," Kukovich said in an interview. "It got no support from the leadership in either party. Marijuana was being demonized then." Four U.S. states, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia, in the past few years have legalized recreational marijuana use through ballot initiatives. Voters in five more states are to vote on legalization in November. The drug remains illegal under federal law.
LIMA, April 16 (Reuters) - Peruvian health authorities on Saturday reported the first case of the Zika virus having been sexually transmitted in the country, after a resident contracted the disease while traveling in Venezuela and then infected his wife once back in Peru. Zika has been linked to thousands of suspected cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect, in Brazil. Health Minister Anibal Velasquez said a 32-year-old woman was infected with the virus after having sexual intercourse with her 39 year-old husband who had contracted the disease in Monagas, Venezuela. This is the seventh case of Zika virus detected in Peru, and the first case of it being sexually transmitted in the country, the Health Ministry said. Traces of the Zika virus were found in the semen and both wife and husband are in recovery, it added. U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,100 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. (Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By Karen Lema MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine presidential hopeful Rodrigo Duterte stuck to his guns on Sunday amid outrage over a remark he made about a murdered rape victim, saying he regretted his "gutter language" but would not apologize for being misinterpreted. A YouTube video appeared over the weekend showing Duterte speaking at a recent rally where he recalled his experience of being a local mayor during a 1989 prison riot in which an Australian missionary visiting the jail was raped and killed. The video clip showed Duterte, 71, telling supporters he was angry that a "beautiful" woman had been murdered. He said inmates had lined up to rape her and it was a "waste" because as mayor, he should have been first. The clip spread quickly on social media and prompted outrage from women's groups and politicians. Duterte, who has been mayor of the southern Davao City on and off since 1986, tops the latest opinion polls ahead of the May 9 presidential election, helped largely by his anti-crime platform. Duterte on Sunday told television reporters he would not say sorry - even if it cost him the presidency - for what he had said back in 1989 to an audience of criminals in "street language" they understood. "I said it in the heat of anger," he said. "I'm sorry in general. I'm sorry to the Filipino people, it's my style, it's my mouth, I said it in anger - listen to the story behind it." He added: "It was not a joke. I said it in a narrative. I wasn't smiling." Duterte's presidential rivals were quick to denounce him. Grace Poe, a senator seen as his biggest challenger, said his words were "distasteful and unacceptable". "No-one, whoever she is and whatever her looks may be, deserves to be raped and abused. Rape is a crime and no laughing matter," she said in a statement. Manuel Roxas, who is backed by President Benigno Aquino, said Duterte had a "bestial attitude" towards women. "Anyone who laughs at the ultimate assault on the dignity of women should not be allowed to wield power," Roxas said. But Duterte's tough, no-nonsense rhetoric has struck a chord with many Filipinos. The country's two biggest opinion polls last week saw him replace Poe in the lead. Duterte has promised to end crime and graft within six months if elected and has spoken of his support for vigilantism and the extra-judicial killing of criminals in his city. (Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Andrew Bolton)
Leading Philippine presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, whose campaign promises a ruthless war on crime, was condemned on Sunday after a video surfaced of him apparently joking about a murdered Australian rape victim.
Duterte, who promises mass killings of suspected criminals if elected next month, appears in a video uploaded on YouTube making the remarks about the female Australian missionary.
The woman, who was ministering in a prison in Davao in the southern Philippines, was raped and killed during a riot by inmates in 1989.
Duterte was the city's mayor at the time.
"They raped all of the women... There was this Australian lay minister... when they took them out... I saw her face and I thought, 'Son of a bitch. what a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first," Duterte is shown telling a crowd of laughing supporters at a campaign rally.
Duterte, who boasts of the extra-judicial killings of suspects by vigilantes during his time in Davao, is leading in the run-up to the May 9 election, according to the latest opinion survey on April 3.
His rivals, women's groups and commentators on social media quickly denounced his remarks but Duterte denied any levity.
President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma said the comments show "lack of fitness for the presidency" and his "utter lack of respect for women".
Aquino, who under the constitution cannot seek a second term, is supporting another candidate, his former interior secretary Mar Roxas who trails Duterte in opinion surveys.
Rival presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay called Duterte's remarks "simply revolting".
"You are a crazy maniac who doesn't respect women and doesn't deserve to be president," Binay told Duterte in a statement.
Another candidate Senator Grace Poe, who is just behind Duterte in the surveys, said his comment was "distasteful and unacceptable, and reflects his disrespect for women".
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In a response also uploaded on YouTube, Duterte insisted he had just been recounting the events of 1989 and was not making a joke about them.
"It was not a joke. I said it in a narrative," he said.
"I was very angry when I spoke. I said 'Sons of whores, she is as pretty as an American movie star. They got to her before me. So kill them all'."
Duterte refused to apologise for his remarks, insisting: "This is how men talk."
One Filipino remarked on Twitter: "I broke down after watching Duterte on Aussie rape. I can't fathom how his followers can laugh at it."
Women's group Gabriela also attacked the remarks, saying rape or any other form of sexual abuse was not "something to be trivialised in a joke", especially by someone seeking the presidency.
Many Filipinos have embraced Duterte for his vulgarity-laced speeches, his boasts of sexual conquests and his promised war on crime.
Even when he called Pope Francis a "son of a whore," in a speech last November, his followers in the devoutly Catholic nation quickly forgave him.
By Venus Wu HONG KONG (Reuters) - At least 1,000 protesters thronged the arrivals hall of Hong Kong's international airport on Sunday to rally against what they see as an abuse of privilege involving the Hong Kong leader and his daughter. While there were no reports of flight delays or cancellations, the protest could prove an embarrassment for the Beijing-backed Leung Chun-ying, who many expect to seek a second term of office next year when his five-year term ends. Chanting "Safeguard the sky of Hong Kong" and holding signs demanding Leung step down, the protesters staged a three-hour sit-in as international travelers streamed by at one of Asia's busiest aviation hubs. The demonstrators said they were angered by a March incident involving one of Leung's daughters at the airport after she accidentally left a carry-on bag outside. Some accused Leung of exercising his privileges as Hong Kong's leader to get airport staff to deliver the bag to his daughter in the airport's restricted area even though regulations say that bags must go through security with their owners. "It's not fair asking frontline staff to bring in something (to the airport's restricted area) which is unidentified or unattended for a period of time," said Dora Lai, a senior member the Hong Kong Cabin Crew Association, which organized the protest Organizers said about 2,500 people participated in the rally, while police put the turnout at 1,000 at its peak. Leung stressed he had not put pressure on airport authority officials or used any privilege over his daughter's bag, but said he did speak to airline staff using his daughter's mobile phone. The government said it understood the public's concern about aviation security, but that the bag went through security checks before entering the restricted area, and aviation safety was not in any way compromised by the incident. An investigation is continuing into the matter. Some tourists said they understood the protesters' cause but the controversy had tarnished their impressions of Hong Kong. "It should not have this kind of thing," said Maraiah Gavarasu, a Malaysian on holiday in Hong Kong. "You should have peace and calm. So for foreigners it looks like, hey, something (is) wrong, you know? It's a bad impression." The embattled Leung has seen his popularity ratings reach new lows this year, as he has struggled to mitigate growing social tensions after massive youth-led pro-democracy protests in late 2014 put pressure on Beijing's Communist Party leaders to grant the city full democracy. Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 amid promises that Beijing would allow the financial hub a high degree of autonomy, including an independent judiciary. (Editing by James Pomfret and Andrew Bolton)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pulitzer Prizes, established in 1917 with a bequest from trail-blazing publisher Joseph Pulitzer, are marking their 100th year on Monday with the announcement of the winners of what are regarded as the most prestigious awards in American journalism. The Pulitzers recognize excellence in categories that range from breaking news reporting to public service articles to feature photography. In addition to the journalism awards, there are prizes in fiction, history, drama, music and other literary forms. All told, there are 21 prizes in play every year. Winners are selected by an independent board after judges make nominations from a total of 2,400 entries across the range of categories. The board has the option of naming no winner in any category. The announcement takes place at 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT) on Monday at New York's Columbia University, which founded its School of Journalism with an endowment from Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World and other U.S. newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His will provided funding for the prizes in the early years and named Columbia to administer them. Over the years, the New York Times has taken more awards than any other news organization, receiving 117 Pulitzer Prizes and citations, according to the newspaper's website. Last year the paper won three Pulitzers, including an international reporting prize for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Last year's Pulitzer for Public Service went to Charleston, South Carolina's Post and Courier for its series on domestic violence. In the inaugural awards in 1917, Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York World was the prize winner in reporting for a series of articles entitled "Inside the German Empire," while the New York Tribune won the award for editorial writing on its piece on the first anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Frank McGurty and Mary Milliken)
LONDON (Reuters) - Qatar's oil minister Mohammed al-Sada said on Sunday OPEC needed more time for consultations to reach an output freeze deal.
Earlier on Sunday, oil industry sources told Reuters OPEC and non-OPEC producers failed to reach a deal to freeze oil output at talks in Doha, Qatar, but could resume discussions in June.
(Reporting by Reuters OPEC team; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)
Leicester (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri refused to condemn Jonathan Moss after the referee sent off Jamie Vardy for diving and gave West Ham a controversial penalty in a potentially damaging 2-2 draw for the Premier League leaders on Sunday.
Moss dismissed England forward Vardy when he threw himself to the turf in search of a second half penalty and compounded Leicester's frustration by awarding a late spot-kick for Wes Morgan's shove on Winston Reid.
Carroll converted that penalty and Aaron Cresswell then struck with four minutes left to put West Ham ahead at the King Power Stadium.
But Moss had one more contribution in the final seconds when he decided Carroll's soft tackle on Jeffrey Schlupp was worthy of another penalty and Leonardo Ulloa smashed home the equaliser with virtually the last kick.
Although Moss was booed off, Ranieri opted against criticising the official and instead saluted his title-chasing players for persevering to salvage a draw that leaves them eight points clear at the top.
"The sending off changed our match," Ranieri said.
"But I judge my players not the referee, the referee is not my matter.
"Our performance was fantastic, this is our soul, we play every match with this, blood, heart and soul, it was magnificent. This point is very important psychologically."
Second placed Tottenham can close the gap on Leicester to five points if they win at Stoke on Monday and Vardy's suspension for next weekend's clash with Swansea will add to the pressure on the leaders.
But Foxes right-back Danny Simpson agreed with Ranieri that the battling nature of Leicester's display after Vardy's 56th minute dismissal and then the shock of conceding two late goals showed their character and spirit won't be broken by the title race pressure.
"We have shown today our team spirit and togetherness," Simpson said.
"We will always fight to the death. We cannot control other things, we can fight and work hard.
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"Jeff Schlupp did well to get a penalty and Leonardo Ulloa slotted it away when there was a lot of pressure on him.
"I think that will turn out to be a massive point, not many teams go 2-1 down and do what we did.
"Psychologically it will give us a massive boost."
Indonesia's Sony Dwi Kuncoro beat Korean Son Wan-Ho to win the Singapore Open Sunday as Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon also triumphed, becoming the world's top female shuttler in the process.
The unfancied Kuncoro, who stunned two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan in the semi-finals, took the first set 21-16.
But some bad decision making cost the 31-year-old dearly when he succumbed 13-21 in the second set.
Recovering his composure, the 2004 Olympic Games bronze medallist claimed the deciding set 21-14.
Kuncoro, ranked 56th in the world, said he was surprised by his fairytale run.
"It's really unexpected that I won. It's such a big achievement to pass the qualifiers and eventually win this tournament," he said.
"I just enjoyed today's game and was able to play well."
This is Kuncoro's second title in the city-state after winning the tournament in 2010.
In the women's singles, Thai star Ratchanok beat defending champion Sun Yu of China to claim her third successive Superseries win in as many weeks after triumphs in India and Malaysia.
Ratchanok, the 2013 world champion, will displace Spain's Carolina Marin as number one when the weekly world rankings are updated Thursday.
Despite losing 18-21 in the first set as the lanky Sun Yu put her superior reach to better use, Ratchanok coasted to a 21-11 victory in the second.
She clinched the third set 21-14 as her opponent appeared rattled by several errors and a yellow card shown by the match referee.
"I think I performed better in the first set but I got nervous during the last two," Sun Yu, ranked 14th in the world, told reporters after the match.
Ratchanok, who has now established herself as one of the favourites for Olympic gold, said the win would give her a boost for Rio.
"Now I am more confident to get a gold at the Olympic games," she said.
"I thought that today would not be my day and she was playing well. My body was tired from the past few weeks but I just wanted to do my best."
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Top-ranked players were scalped early on in the tournament.
On Friday world number ones Chen Long of China and Carolina Marin of Spain crashed out in the quarter-finals, unceremoniously shown the door by young upstarts.
Chen fell to Hong Kong's 21-year-old Angus Ng, while Marin succumbed in three sets to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi.
Lin Dan became the latest casualty on Saturday when he suffered a stunning semi-final defeat at the hands of eventual winner Kuncoro.
Stone-throwing protesters clashed with police firing tear gas in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state on Sunday, the latest caste violence over demands for preferential treatment for jobs and university places.
Police also fired water cannon when violence flared after a rally in the Gujarat state town of Mehsana by thousands of members of the Patidar, or Patel, caste.
Television footage showed police armed with sticks known as lathis chasing crowds through the streets after demonstrators tried to march to a local jail where several caste leaders were being held.
Some 25 protesters were arrested and authorities slapped a curfew on the town and blocked mobile Internet access to try to calm the situation, Mehsana district collector Lochan Sahera said.
"After the rally the Patidars who had gathered in their thousands started marching towards the district jail and when the police tried to stop them, they pelted stones at them," Sahera told AFP.
Protesters told media they were hit by police with sticks after taking part in a peaceful rally.
Rioting by Patidar members erupted last year in Gujarat over the same issue, leaving at least 10 people dead in the worst violence to hit the state for more than a decade.
The Patidars are one of the western state's most affluent communities, but they say they are struggling to compete with less privileged castes for jobs.
Local leaders had organised Sunday's rally to press their demands for changes to the policy by the Gujarat state government and for the release of local leaders.
Hardik Patel, a young firebrand Patidar leader, remains in prison over last year's violence.
Clashes also took place in the neighbouring city of Surat on Sunday, forcing authorities to shut down mobile Internet access, police said.
India sets aside a proportion of government jobs and university places for some castes under measures intended to bring victims of the worst discrimination into the mainstream.
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But the policy causes deep resentment among other communities, who say it freezes them out.
In February in the northern state of Haryana about 30 people were killed in clashes between police and members of the dominant rural Jat caste over similar demands.
Gujarat director general of police P.P. Pandey told AFP that extra police have been deployed in Mehsana but that the situation was now under control.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry denied Sunday that a Russian jet that intercepted a US Air Force plane earlier this week had acted unsafely, dismissing the Pentagon's criticism.
The Pentagon said Saturday that a Russian SU-27 had flown in an "unsafe and unprofessional" manner while intercepting a US Air Force reconnaissance plane above the Baltic Sea on April 14.
"The entire flight of the Russian plane was conducted in strict compliance with international rules on the use of air space," defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. "There were no emergency situations."
Moscow said the SU-27 had been dispatched to identify an "aerial target travelling toward the Russian border at high speed."
The aircraft detected by Russia was an American RC-135 plane, which the Pentagon said was conducting a routine flight.
When the RC-135 established visual contact with the Russian jet, the American plane "changed its flight route away from the Russian border," Konashenkov said.
Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Seal said Saturday that the US aircraft had "at no time crossed into Russian territory."
The incident came shortly after Russian aircraft repeatedly buzzed the USS Donald Cook this past week, including an incident Tuesday in which a Russian Su-24 flew 30 feet (nine meters) above the war ship in a "simulated attack profile," according to the US military's European Command.
US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the warship flyby earlier this week, saying it was "dangerous" and could have lead to a shoot-down.
Russia said that it had observed all safety regulations in its flights.
Ties between Russia and the West have plunged to their post-Cold War nadir over Moscow's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Kiev and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
DOHA (Reuters) - Talks between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers in the Qatari capital of Doha have been running for over four hours with Russia and Saudi Arabia debating the wording of a proposed freeze on output, an industry source present at the talks said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Reuters OPEC team; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson and Elaine Hardcastle)
DOHA (Reuters) - Russia's oil minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday the country was not closing the door on a global deal to freeze output levels although he was disappointed that no decision had been taken. A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers including Russia fell apart after Saudi Arabia, during talks in the Qatari capital, demanded Iran join in despite calls on Riyadh to save the agreement and help prop up crude prices. Novak said he had traveled to Doha expected all sides to sign the deal instead of debating it. He said the deal fell apart because Saudi Arabia had demanded Iran join in and that this was "unreasonable" since Iran was absent from the talks. When asked whether Russia would freeze output levels, he said the government was not meant to regulate the output of private producers. (Reporting by Reuters OPEC team; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will announce on April 25 a comprehensive plan to prepare the kingdom for an era in which it does not rely heavily on oil, Bloomberg quoted deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as saying. The Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will include developmental, economic, social and other programs, Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg. Part of the vision, a package of economic reforms known as the National Transformation Plan (NTP), will be launched a month or 45 days after this months announcement, he was quoted as saying. The NTP includes asset sales, tax increases, spending cuts, changes to the way the state manages its financial reserves, an efficiency drive, and a much bigger role for the private sector. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia)
Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud
Saudi Arabia threatened to sell up to $750 billion worth of US assets held by the Kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be sued over 9/11, reports The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti.
Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, personally passed on the message last month during a trip to Washington, according to The Times.
The foreign minister was referring to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, (JASTA) which would let victims of 9/11 and other terrorist acts sue foreign sponsors of terrorism.
As Vice News noted when it was reintroduced in September, the Senate bill would pave the way for a lawsuit to proceed over Saudi Arabia's alleged role in the 9/11 terror attacks.
Saudi Arabia has been arguing that it's immune from liability over 9/11 under a 1976 law that makes it difficult to sue foreign countries in US courts. However, the JASTA legislation would allow victims of terrorism on US soil to sue foreign sponsors of terrorism.
The Obama administration has been lobbying Congress to block the bill's passage, administration officials and congressional aides from both parties told The Times. The administration argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas.
Meanwhile, "the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon," writes Mazzetti. "The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation."
The Saudi government has routinely denied any involved in 9/11. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."
However, Mazzetti writes that suspicions about Saudi involvement have lingered because a 2002 inquiry from Congress cited evidence that Saudi officials living in the US were part of the 9/11 terror plot.
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Notably, the Saudis' statement comes at time when US-Saudi relations are not as great as they once were following attempts to (kind of) patch things up with Iran, the Saudis' regional rival, and ongoing questions about the roles both countries should play in the Middle East.
Check out the full story at the New York Times.
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AMMAN (Reuters) - Senior Syrian opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush, representing Jaish al Islam, a major rebel group, said on Sunday rebels should retaliate against what he called Syrian army attacks on civilians. "I say this response should be retaliation so that the regime does not think of attacking civilians as it escalates its attacks," Alloush told Arabic TV al Hadath "I don't think this is a call to escalate violence, it is a call for self-defense no more," he said. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Jim Drury A 40 meter long photovoltaic computer which provides clean water, while generating electricity to recharge external devices, has been designed by an Italian company for use in the developing world. Watly, set up by entrepreneur Marco Attisani, has started an Indiegogo campaign to fund the third version of its solar technology. "What you are looking at is a big machine, it's an infrastructural machine. It's 40 meters long, 15 meters wide, and 15 tonnes," Attisani told Reuters. "Primarily it's a computer, a big computer that deals with things that computers do normally. They calculate, they broadcast, they collect, they send them to the cloud, they interact with humans." The Watly 3.0 thermodynamic computer uses solar energy to sanitize more than 5,000 liters of water a day, as well as generating electricity and connectivity. The machine combines photovoltaic and thermal solar technologies. Solar heat collected by vacuum-tubes is used to vaporize and sanitize water fed into the machine. It can clean contaminated water, including ocean water, within two hours. The photovoltaic panels located on the roof generate off-grid electricity to power the internal electronics of the machine, and also for recharging external devices such as mobiles phones and portable computers. "Watly purifies water from any source of contamination - chemical, bacteriological, or physical - without the need of filterings," said Attisani. "It also generates electricity because it combines also photovoltaic technologies and through photovoltaic technologies we actually generate electricity off the grid that can be used for empowering the machine itself, the electronics inside the machine but as well for recharging external devices - thousands of them, such as portable phones, computers." According to Attisani, similar products use reverse osmosis - otherwise known as filtering - which requires expensive maintenance. The company says that a single unit will last for 15 years and, because it is emission free, can save as much as 1,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2), equivalent to 2,500 barrels of oil, while purifying millions of liters of water and generating 1GWh (1,000 megawatt hours) of free electricity. Each unit communicates with a Central Network Management Platform, and also other units via radio-link, 3G or 4G networks, or satellite connections. Individual units can be adjusted to changes in climate or environment. Attisani says that while one Watly is a stand-alone machine, using two or more Watly becomes a network that can power cities. The company successfully trialled its second, far smaller, prototype, the Watly 2.0, in Abenta Village, Ghana last October. Attisani, Watly CEO and founder, told Reuters it transformed Abenta, providing what he calls the three pillars that modern society needs to prosper: water, power and connectivity. He believes the technology will prove empowering for impoverished communities. "This technology does not patronize them with water wells," said Attisani. "I'm not at all criticizing this solution but you can't uplift a community around the world in the 21st Century by digging wells. People are made of water, but they need much more than water. You need to bring the 21st Century technology. You need to bring there water, yes; electricity which is the fire of the modern era, and connectivity because if you are off-line you are not in the present." A single unit will cost 400,000 euros (450,000 USD), but Attisani expects the cost to be borne by outside investors. "These are investments that normally are carried out by big investors, public sectors," he said. "This is establishing a technological paradigm. The users will pay as they go. That means they pay for the water they collect and electricity that they use, but the entire infrastructure big corporations and public sector will pay for that. And the point is that this machine is a vending machine. It pays back its own investment in six months, 18 months." Watly won two rounds of the prestigious European Union (EU) sponsored award, Horizon2020, which helped fund the first pre-industrial version of Watly 3.0. The device will be presented in September 2016.
Madrid (AFP) - Police said Sunday they had rescued 29 Chinese women who had been drugged and forced into prostitution in hotels and nightclubs across Spain in an operation that smashed a human trafficking ring.
Another 29 people were arrested as part of the operation carried out with the help of Chinese police, police said in a statement.
"The victims were forced to take drugs or medication to overcome their resistence to prostituting themselves in their homes, or hotels or nightclubs," the statement said.
Police said further details would be given at a news conference in Madrid on Monday.
Just over 191,000 Chinese nationals live in Spain, making the Chinese immigrant population the fourth largest foreign community in the country, according to national statistics institute INE.
Tripoli (AFP) - The United Nations' envoy to Libya Martin Kobler said Sunday that his staff had returned to the capital Tripoli after leaving amid violence in mid-2014.
"The UN staff will be in Tripoli five days a week... I am not visiting Tripoli any more, I am working out of Tripoli," Kobler said at a joint press conference with Ahmed Maiteeq, the deputy head of a UN-backed unity government.
By Julia Symmes Cobb and Daniel Tapia PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) - The death toll from Ecuador's biggest earthquake in decades soared to at least 246 on Sunday as rescuers using tractors and bare hands hunted desperately for survivors in shattered coastal towns. The 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and collapsing buildings and roads in a swath of western towns. President Rafael Correa rushed home from a trip to Italy to supervise the emergency and was due to address the nation on Sunday evening. "The immediate priority is to rescue people in the rubble," he said on Twitter. "Everything can be rebuilt but lives cannot be recovered and that's what hurts the most," Correa told state radio. The government said 246 people had died and 2,527 were injured in the latest tally early on Sunday evening. Coastal areas nearest the epicenter were worst affected, especially Pedernales, a rustic tourist spot with beaches and palm trees now laden with debris from pastel-colored houses. Reuters witnesses said dazed residents sat in destroyed streets, going through rubble looking for loved ones or belongings, and using makeshift coffins for the dead. Authorities said there were some 163 aftershocks, mainly in the Pedernales area. A state of emergency was declared in six provinces. The quake has piled pain on the economy of OPEC's smallest member, already reeling from low oil prices, with economic growth this year projected at near-zero. BURYING THE DEAD Tents housing the injured and dead were set up in a blue-and-white sports stadium in Pedernales, where some 60 percent of houses were destroyed, according to Police Chief General Milton Zarate. About 91 people died there, he said, when the quake brought down parts of the town. "I was speaking with some friends when it started to shake and then it became strong so we ran," Consuelo Solano, a 40-year-old craftswoman, said as she tried to enter the stadium where clothes and water were being distributed. "We had to sleep in a school. My house collapsed and they robbed me." Amid the rubble, families prepared to spend the night on mattresses on their patios or in hammered-together shelters in empty lots. Soldiers patrolled the town, where some streets were entirely blocked off due to collapsed houses. Locals used a small tractor to remove rubble and also searched with their hands for trapped people. Women cried after a corpse was pulled out. Enner Munoz, 40, a teacher from Pedernales, said he was in his car when he saw wooden houses and lamp-posts collapse around him. "It was devastating. All the roads are cracked open, there were two landslides," he said by phone, adding that bricks had landed in the bed of his home in Pedernales. His terrified family spent the night on the patio. In Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, rubble lay in the streets and a bridge fell on top of a car. "It was horrible. It was as if it was going to collapse like cardboard," said Galo Valle, 56, who was guarding a building in the city where windows fell out and parts of walls broke. "I prayed and fell to my feet to ask God to protect me." About 13,500 security force personnel were mobilized to keep order around Ecuador, and $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated for the emergency, the government said. Ramon Solorzano, 46, a car parts merchant in the coastal city of Manta, headed away from built-up areas with his family. Photos from Manta showed Red Cross workers arriving, police hunting through debris, a smashed sculpture, injured people receiving treatment under tents in front of a hospital, and badly damaged buildings. "Most people are out in the streets with backpacks on, heading for higher ground," Solorzano said, speaking in a trembling voice on a WhatsApp phone call. "The streets are cracked. The power is out and phones are down." REFINERY SHUT, GALAPAGOS UNSCATHED The government called it the worst quake in the country since 1979. In that disaster, 600 people were killed and 20,000 injured, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In international aid, Venezuela, Chile and Mexico were sending personnel and supplies, the left-leaning Correa government said. The Ecuadorean Red Cross mobilized more than 800 volunteers and staff and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was sending a team from Colombia. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that two Canadians were among the dead and that the "scope of the devastation in Ecuador is shocking." The U.S. State Department said in an email that it was working to confirm reports of Americans injured in the quake, although it had no reports of any U.S. citizens killed. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted his nation's solidarity and offered assistance. Although tsunami warnings were lifted, coastal residents were still urged to seek higher ground in case tides rise. The government said oil production was not affected but closed its main refinery of Esmeraldas, located near the epicenter, as a precaution although it is likely to restart soon. Residents on the Galapagos islands far off Ecuador's coast, home to numerous rare species, said they had not been affected by the quake. The Ecuadorean quake followed two large and deadly quakes that struck Japan since Thursday. Both countries are located on the seismically active "Ring of Fire" that circles the Pacific, but according to the U.S. Geological Survey large quakes separated by such distances would probably not be related. (Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Cristina Munoz in Quito, Yuri Garcia in Guayaquil, Guillermo Granja in Manta, Girish Gupta in Bogota, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Diane Bartz in Washington, D.C., Adriana Barrera in Mexico; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Kieran Murray, Alan Crosby, Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis)
Aden (AFP) - Four Yemeni soldiers were killed Sunday in a suicide attack on a checkpoint near the international airport in second city Aden, home to a growing jihadist presence, a security official said.
"A suicide bomber driving a bomb-laden vehicle blew himself up on Sunday upon arrival at a checkpoint near Aden airport," the official told AFP.
"Four soldiers were killed and two others were wounded," he added, without blaming any group for the attack.
Yemen has been rocked by more than a year of fighting between Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces, supported by a Saudi-led coalition.
Jihadists have exploited the unrest, with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group strengthening their presence in the south, including in Aden which is serving as the government's temporary capital.
Both groups have claimed several attacks against army and government installations in the port city.
On Friday, a car bomb exploded in the port city near a building housing the foreign ministry, without causing casualties, security sources said.
IS claimed responsibility for that attack and also for a suicide bombing on Tuesday in Aden targeting army recruits that killed five.
Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi have launched operations against jihadists in recent weeks, backed by the firepower of the Arab coalition.
Late Saturday, five Al-Qaeda suspects were killed in coalition air strikes on two vehicles carrying jihadists in Jaar, a town in the southern province of Abyan, security officials said.
Other strikes hit suspected militants in Abyan's provincial capital Zinjibar, the sources said, without giving a casualty toll.
Pro-government forces on Friday expelled Al-Qaeda fighters from Huta, another provincial capital close to Aden, and arrested 49 people suspected of being militants, security officials said.
The United Nations has raised the alarm over the growing influence of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and the mounting civilian toll from coalition air strikes as it pushed all sides to come to the negotiating table for talks to be held in Kuwait on Monday.
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A nearly week-long ceasefire, between the rebels on one side and the government and Arab coalition on the other, does not apply to jihadist groups.
The truce has been repeatedly violated since it began at midnight last Sunday, with fighting continuing non-stop in Nahm in the north between rebels and loyalists.
Fresh clashes on Sunday northeast of the rebel-held capital Sanaa killed nine pro-government soldiers, military sources said.
More than 6,400 people have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition began its air campaign in March last year against the rebels, who still retain control of Sanaa.
London (AFP) - A British Airways plane struck an object believed to be a drone as it was coming in for landing at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, police said.
An investigation has been launched into the incident, which follows a string of near misses involving drones and is believed to be the first case of a collision in Britain.
The plane, an Airbus A320 with 132 passengers and five crew on board, was on its final descent into Heathrow when it was struck.
"A pilot on an inbound flight into Heathrow Airport from Geneva reported to police that he believed a drone had struck the aircraft," a spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan Police said.
"The flight landed at Heathrow Terminal Five safely. It transpired that an object, believed to be a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft".
A BA spokesman said the plane had been examined after landing and was cleared to operate its next flight.
"Safety and security are always our first priority and we will give the police every assistance with their investigation," the spokesman said.
The UK Airprox Board, an air safety agency, said last month there were 23 near-misses between drones and aircraft in the six months between April and October last year.
In one incident on September 22, a Boeing 777 reported narrowly passing a drone as it was taking off.
Investigators concluded that the drone was at the same height as the aircraft and within 25 metres of it.
A drone then came within a few metres of an Airbus A319 landing at Heathrow only a few days later on September 30.
"It was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don't understand the risks and the rules," said Steve Landells, flight safety specialist at the British Airline Pilots Association.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said it was "totally unacceptable" to fly drones close to airports and anyone flouting the rules faced possible imprisonment.
Under British legislation, drones cannot be flown near planes, helicopters and airports and must be kept below 400 feet (122 metres).
Geneva (AFP) - The Syrian opposition's chief negotiator on Sunday said there could be "no compromise" on Bashar al-Assad's ouster, as he called for renewed attacks on regime forces despite a truce.
Mohammed Alloush, a leading political figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group, is in Geneva as the senior negotiator of the High Negotiations Committee.
"There can be no compromise on the issue of Bashar al-Assad... For us, it's a closed book -- you cannot trade an entire people for one man," Alloush told AFP.
Alloush's Jaish al-Islam is party to the fragile ceasefire deal between Syria's government and non-jihadist rebel groups.
Jaish al-Islam is the most powerful rebel group in the Eastern Ghouta opposition bastion outside Damascus.
The stocky opposition figure sparked controversy earlier on Sunday when he called for attacks on Syrian government forces despite the truce deal.
"Don't trust the regime and don't wait for their pity," Alloush wrote on Twitter.
"Strike them at their necks (kill them). Strike them everywhere," he said, reciting a passage from the Koran dealing with war.
Other opposition figures said his statement was not representative of the HNC, and Alloush later told AFP that he was calling on rebel groups to defend themselves against regime truce violations.
Brokered by the US and Russia, the truce had seen violence drop across parts of Syria since it came into force on February 27.
But a recent surge of fighting in the northern province of Aleppo has threatened to derail both the deal and the peace talks in Switzerland.
Alloush said government attacks on Aleppo city were evidence that "in (the regime's) eyes, the ceasefire is over".
He was relatively unknown before joining the HNC because he had spent much of his life in Saudi Arabia pursuing Islamic religious studies.
More than 270,000 people have been killed and millions more have been displaced since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011.
Geneva (AFP) - The Syrian opposition delegation threatened to quit the Geneva peace talks, due to resume Monday, as a renewed flare-up in violence in Aleppo killed another 22 civilians.
The opposition High Negotiations Committee said indirect negotiations could collapse if Syria's regime refuses to compromise on political and humanitarian issues.
"We might suspend (our participation in) the talks if things carry on this way, and then there will be no prospect for any political solution," HNC member Abdulhakim Bashar told AFP.
The opposition's chief negotiator also said there could be "no compromise" on Bashar al-Assad's ouster, and called for renewed attacks on regime forces despite a fragile ceasefire.
The truce has seen violence drop across parts of Syria, including the northern city.
Areas controlled by the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, and other jihadists are exempt from the ceasefire, but renewed clashes around Aleppo are straining the truce as other rebel groups are being dragged into the fighting.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the number of civilians killed in Aleppo city was one of the highest single tolls since the truce began on February 27.
At least six civilians were killed and eight wounded in regime air strikes on rebel-held eastern parts of the city on Saturday.
And a barrage of rockets and sniper fire by opposition groups onto government-controlled western districts killed 16 civilians, including 10 children and two women.
Rebel groups fired more rockets at western areas of Aleppo city late Sunday, but there was no immediate information on new casualties.
- 'Direct threat to truce' -
"There's a clear escalation. This was the bloodiest incident in Aleppo and its province" since the ceasefire began, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"This escalation directly threatens the truce."
The HNC has questioned the regime's commitment to a political solution to Syria's five-year war, particularly in the wake of the renewed violence in Aleppo.
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"The humanitarian situation is continually deteriorating, the issue of the detainees has not seen any progress, the ceasefire has almost collapsed, and now there is an attack on Aleppo from three sides," Bashar said in Switzerland.
"Given these factors, we are reviewing everything, and we will continue our meetings today (Sunday) so that tomorrow we can decide what to do."
A second member of the HNC delegation, speaking anonymously, said the talks were nearly at "an impasse".
The fate of Assad has remained the main sticking point in peace talks, with Syria's opposition clinging onto its call for his ouster since the conflict began in 2011.
But the regime has ruled out his departure, calling it "a red line".
"There can be no compromise on the issue of Bashar al-Assad... For us, it's a closed book -- you cannot trade an entire people for one man," opposition chief negotiator Mohammed Alloush told AFP in Geneva.
UN mediator Staffan de Mistura is expected to sit down with the Damascus government Monday morning and meet the opposition delegation in the afternoon.
- 'Strike them everywhere' -
Earlier, Alloush called for renewed attacks on regime forces, despite the shaky truce.
"Don't trust the regime and don't wait for their pity," tweeted Alloush, a leading political figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group.
"Strike them at their necks (kill them). Strike them everywhere."
A fellow opposition figure said Alloush's hawkish statement did not represent the HNC's position.
Alloush himself later told AFP that he had been calling on rebel groups to defend themselves against regime truce violations.
The peace plan outlined by De Mistura and backed by world powers envisions a political transition, a new constitution, and presidential and parliamentary elections by September 2017.
But Syria's government hosted its own parliamentary elections last week only in government-held areas, which Assad's ruling Baath party easily won.
The opposition denounced the election as a "farce".
Brokered by Russia and the United States, the ceasefire has largely held across parts of Syria, despite frequent accusations of violations by both sides.
IS has seized fresh territory from rebel groups in the north, threatening the key opposition town of Azaz, just eight kilometres (five miles) south of the Turkish border.
The jihadist onslaught has forced 30,000 Syrians to flee, and tens of thousands more are at risk of displacement.
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, half of Syria's population has been displaced -- including five million who have fled to neighbouring states.
More than 270,000 people have been killed.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Senior Syrian opposition negotiators on Sunday urged rebels to strike back against the Syrian army, accusing it of using a cessation of hostilities to gain ground, and cast doubt over whether they would continue Geneva peace talks indefinitely. A senior opposition figure who asked not to be quoted by name said pressure was growing for a speedy decision to leave talks. In a internet message to fighters on the ground, chief negotiator Asaad al-Zoubi said there was a limit to how long he would negotiate if government advances continued and there was no progress on a key opposition demand for political transition without President Bashar al Assad. He gave no deadline. "We will not stay for long negotiating.. .In the event a missile targets them (rebels), they have to retaliate with ten missiles," said Zoubi whose mainstream opposition group has been accused by fighters of being divorced from realities on the ground. In heightened rhetoric as the Syrian army and its allies expand operations against rebel-held territory, Zoubi, who is in Geneva, said rebels "must gain control of as many areas as possible, they must take advantage of the ceasefire as the regime has done". The mainstream opposition includes both political and armed opposition to Assad. It includes rebel groups such as Jaysh al-Islam and a number of Free Syrian Army rebel factions deemed moderate by the West, some of which have received military support from Assad's foreign enemies. Senior Syrian opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush, representing Jaysh al Islam, which operates in the suburbs of Damascus, also said rebels should retaliate against what he called Syrian army attacks on civilians. "I say this response should be retaliation so that the regime does not think of attacking civilians as it escalates its attacks," Alloush told Arabic TV al Hadath. "I don't think this is a call to escalate violence, it is a call for self-defense no more," he said. CRITICISM OF UN Both comments by Geneva negotiators point to the possibility of the mainstream opposition leaving peace talks. They have also been infuriated by an idea they say United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura had suggested to them in Geneva that Assad could stay on in power in a symbolic role. [L5N17J0GU] "The regime is intransigent and de Mistura is clearly now tilting towards a much more ambiguous stance on a political transition without Assad," he said. More than 250,000 people have been killed in the five-year-old conflict. A rival rebel group Ahrar al Sham launched a scathing attack on the opposition negotiators and the peace process saying the outcome "so far was negative and it had provided free political gains for the regime". Fighting near Aleppo has been escalating for two weeks, mostly to the south of the city where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah and other militias have been waging fierce battles with rebels including the Nusra Front. Zoubi said in the internet recording he had told de Mistura they would not be ready discuss to any other proposal other than the transfer of power from Assad to a transitional body. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Ralph Boulton)
AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian opposition chief negotiator Asaad Zoubi urged rebels to strike back against the Syrian army, accusing it of using a cessation of hostilities to gain ground. In a internet message to fighters on the ground he also said he would not continue for long with negotiations in Geneva if government action continued and there was no progress on a key demand by the opposition for political transition in Syria without President Bashar al Assad. He gave no deadline "We will not stay for long negotiating...In the event a missile targets them they have to retaliate with ten missiles and to exploit the truce as the regime has done," said Zoubi whose mainstream opposition group has been accused by fighters of being divorced from developments on the ground. The mainstream opposition includes both political and armed opposition to Assad. It includes rebel groups such as Jaysh al-Islam and a number of Free Syrian Army rebel factions deemed moderate by the West, some of which have received military support from Assad's foreign enemies. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Bilbao (Spain) (AFP) - Thousands of people marched in Bilbao in northern Spain on Sunday calling for the return of prisoners from the armed Basque separatist group ETA being held outside the region.
Former ETA prisoners for the first time led the march in the Basque region's most populous city. Past marches have been led by family members of the convicts, who are dispersed across dozens of prisons in Spain and neighbouring France.
The demonstrators, many of them waving red, white and green Basque flags, chanted "prisoners to their home" as they made their way through the streets under an overcast sky to city hall where letters from three ETA prisoners were read out.
Among those who took part in the march was veteran separatist leader Arnaldo Otegi, 57, who was released from jail in March after serving a six-and-a-half year sentence for trying to resurrect the outlawed Basque separatist party Batasuna.
Otegi, who is credited with helping end violence in the northern Spanish region, has said he aims to become the next leader of Spain's Basque Country which will hold regional elections at the end of the year. He declined to speak to reporters at the march
The protest was called by a group of former ETA prisoners.
ETA is blamed for more than 800 killings in its campaign of bombings and shootings to create an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.
The group's last deadly attack in Spain was in August 2009.
In October 2011, it declared a "definitive end to armed activity" but it has yet to formally disband or disarm as the Spanish and French governments demand.
The group wants negotiations on several issues, including the fate of around 400 ETA prisoners, before it fully decommissions its armed wing. Many ETA prisoners are kept in jails far away from the Basque region, making visits from family difficult.
In its most recent statement issued last month, ETA said "the consequences of the conflict have not been resolved, the main knot being the situation of Basque political prisoners which still has not been untangled."
The Spanish and French governments have refused to negotiate with ETA.
(Reuters) - Three people were fatally shot in a Philadelphia row house on Sunday, with the suspect finally surrendering to police after he barricaded himself inside the home for about an hour and fired shots at officers, local media said.
The three people killed were the suspect's brother, the brother's girlfriend and an unrelated man living in the home, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
All three victims had been shot in the head, NBC 10 in Philadelphia cited police as saying.
Philadelphia police did not respond to requests for comment.
Police Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan told reporters at the scene that police were called to the neighborhood after reports of gunshots in the predawn hours of Sunday. A SWAT team was deployed and hostage negotiators spoke with the suspect, eventually persuading him to end the standoff.
At one point, the suspect fired several shots at the officers, but no one was hit, NBC 10 reported.
"It has been a long night, and unfortunately, here it has been quite a tragic night," Sullivan said.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei called Donald Trump an "irrational type" in an interview published Sunday, slamming the Republican presidential frontrunner's calls for a trade war with the Asian giant.
Lou told The Wall Street Journal that the United States "wouldn't be entitled to world leadership" if Trump's proposal to impose tariffs as high as 45 percent on Chinese imports was realized.
China is a frequent target of the brash New York real estate developer in his campaign for the White House. Trump has accused the world's second largest economy of manipulating its currency and said he would impose high tariffs and renegotiate trade deals to compel Beijing to "behave."
Lou, who was in Washington for International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, is known for being an outspoken member of the Chinese leadership.
According to the Journal, almost any across-the-board tariff increase would violate World Trade Organization rules.
In such a situation, Lou was cited as saying, the United States wouldn't be entitled to its position as a world power.
In an election cycle in which both Republicans and Democrats have demonized China, Americans should realize that the two countries "are mutually dependent on each other," with much to lose in a trade war, Lou said.
"Our economic cycles are intertwined," he was quoted as saying. "We have more in common than sets us apart."
Lou is the most senior Chinese official to comment specifically on Trump, the Journal said.
Last month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang noted that the US election was "lively and caught the eyes of many."
(Reuters) - Actor-comedian Tracy Morgan performed a show near the site of a New Jersey car crash two years ago in which he was nearly killed for an audience that included medical staff who treated him, People magazine said on Sunday. The Saturday performance at the State Theater in New Brunswick was attended by doctors, first responders and nurses who took care of Morgan at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital after his accident in June 2014. "These people are heroes and I love them all from the bottom of my heart," he told People. "To be standing on stage with the people that saved my life in the audience was an overwhelming experience." "I will never fully be able to thank the doctors, nurses, first responders and everyone else that got me back on that stage enough," added Morgan, 47, who donated proceeds from the sold-out show to the hospital. After the show, Morgan invited the hospital employees in attendance to come to his dressing room for pictures and hugs, People reported. The former "Saturday Night Live" and "30 Rock" cast member suffered a serious brain injury and broken bones in the 2014 collision that killed a fellow comedian. Their minibus limousine was in a crash with a truck. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Ankara (AFP) - Turkey on Sunday denied claims that its military opened fire on Syrian refugees fleeing clashes between Islamic State group jihadists and rebels in northern Syria.
Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Turkish border guards of shooting at the refugees as they approached the border in Syria's Aleppo province.
"As civilians flee ISIS fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion," HRW researcher Gerry Simpson said, using an acronym for the jihadists.
The Turkish foreign ministry, however, said the allegations had "nothing to do with the reality", adding that Turkey was hosting nearly three million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country.
At least 30,000 civilians have fled fighting between jihadists and rebels in northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, calling on Turkey to open its border to them.
The Turkish foreign ministry added that thousands of Syrians had been displaced as a result of "Daesh attacks", an Arabic acronym for IS group.
"Our country's aid organisations are taking necessary measures on both sides of the border to help Syrians," it said.
Paris (AFP) - Bestselling US crime writer Harlan Coben discovered a passion for screen writing during his work on new TV drama "The Five" which now looks set to compete with his career as a novelist.
The 54-year-old writer has sold some 60 million novels across the world, but it was an offer by French producer Sydney Gallonde to work on the adaptation of his novel "No Second Chance" that first brought him to the world of television, he told AFP.
A 10-part British drama which began showing on Sky One on April 15, "The Five" is about a group of children, one of whom disappears, with the story picking up 20 years later when his friends are all grown up and the mystery resurfaces.
The idea came about when Nicola Shindler, producer of the hit British police drama "Happy Valley" asked about the possibility of doing something with one of his unpublished novels.
"I said I have this idea that I had played around in my head. I was thinking of making it a novel but it was more visual. Like a painter who sees an oil on canvas," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Series Mania festival in Paris where his new drama is competing for the Grand Prix.
"So I said five kids and what happens, she said 'Sounds good, you think you could make it into a series?'
"Instead of a novel, I thought it would be interesting."
Impressed by the European series he had seen, Coben jumped at the chance to work in Britain, away from the heavy hand of a US network or studio.
"I like the quality, I just thought that this could be a good partnership... that wont get too much interference by a network or a studio, that we would get some independence in the UK that we might not get somewhere else."
- 'All about collaboration' -
The series was made in collaboration with Sky One and Studio Canal, both of whom "had the same vision" for the drama, he said.
Working collaboratively on a story was a new experience for a writer whose 28th novel, "Fool Me Once", has just hit the shelves in America.
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"As a novelist, I am the actor, director, star. I find the settings, I do everything... No other people really interfere," he said.
But penning a TV drama is completely different.
"Series is all about collaboration and presence," he says, giving the example of a character which is developed by input from everyone involved.
"It is something that grows like a tree, it doesn't have to be all completely under my control... Working with all these people, it is much more collaborative and I enjoyed that too."
After working solo for so long, it has been a welcome experience.
"Its a long time to sit alone. So the fact that I could do it this way, I think it is much more fulfilling," he says.
But it doesn't mean his book-writing days are over.
"Well I'm not leaving books! I will still write my novels."
Abdon Calderon (Ecuador) (AFP) - First came the flood and then the "long, long" earthquake, a shaking so hard the two-story, covered market came down in a heap in this small town in western Ecuador.
Dazed residents began the week in flood waters up to their chests -- and ended it Saturday evening with a devastating 7.8-magnitude quake.
"It's only been a week and nature has punished us so badly," said Nelly, a 73-year-old who declined to give her last name.
At least 235 people were killed across Ecuador, the government said.
In Abdon Calderon, 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of the epicenter, at least two people were killed in the collapse of the town market.
"On Monday, water flooded the town. There wasn't a house that wasn't submerged. The water was up to our chests in the main avenue," Nelly said.
Then on Saturday, she said, the market came down "like a house of cards."
Too fearful to stay indoors, she spent the night in the streets. Now she finds herself standing outside the flattened market, hugging herself to keep warm as she tearfully recounted the town's double misfortune.
- Scream for help -
A short distance away a firefighter picked through the market ruin, looking for a way to retrieve the body of a man pinned under the mound of rubble and twisted steel.
"They've already taken the body of one poor little man out of there," Nelly said.
When the earthquake struck, she rushed into the streets and saw that the market had collapsed.
"How can I not cry?" she sobbed. "There was a person trapped who screamed for help, but then the screaming stopped. Oh, it was terrible."
Firefighters said when they arrived, the building had already been flattened.
"Two shakes and everything came down, all at once. We've found two victims so far," said Alberto Santana, one of the firefighters on the scene.
- 'God protected us' -
In the town of Portoviejo, hairdresser Fernando Chavez, 45, was in his home at the back of his salon with his wife and three children when its ceiling was crushed by the rubble from a neighboring building.
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When the quake hit "we wanted to react but we didn't have time. We all got trapped in the dark and all we could do was press ourselves to the walls," he told AFP.
Then the walls too started to collapse.
"We could not get out. The earthquake lasted two minutes and when it stopped shaking we started stumbling towards the door. We couldn't open it. It was blocked by rubble," he said. "It was horrific."
In the end the family squeezed out of the house with just a few scratches. Chavez's wife and children left to stay with relatives in another town.
It was a "miracle" they survived, Chavez said.
"The cloak of God protected us."
- Widows and orphans -
One of the victims in Abdon Calderon was 51-year-old Francisco Mendoza, known by his nickname Pancho, who had a stand outside the market on weekends.
His father, 73-year-old Colon Mendoza, said his son had just gone inside the market to use the bathroom when the quake struck.
"This earthquake was unlike any I've felt before. It was stronger, the house shook so much it scared me, it was a tremendous rattle."
"The earthquake was long, long," he said.
Choking back tears, he looked to the ground and said, "Now what's going to happen to Pancho's widow and two orphans?"
(Reuters) - Two teenagers swept out to sea over the weekend from a beach in San Francisco were presumed dead from drowning, a Coast Guard official said on Sunday after an extensive search for the missing boys.
The boys, both 17 years old, entered the sea with three other friends on Saturday. Three of the group made it back to shore while the two, considered weak swimmers, did not, the official said.
The search on land, sea and air included Coast Guard lifeboats, a cutter and a helicopter. The San Francisco Fire Department, police and park police also joined in the search.
The names of the two teenagers have not been released.
The five had locked arms, walked into the surf and were separated after they were knocked down by a large wave, fire department spokesman Jonathan Baxter was quoted as saying by television station KNTV. Baxter said the area is known for having strong currents.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States condemned on Sunday what it said was a "severe response to recent peaceful protests" in The Gambia, where a party youth leader has been killed and some senior opposition leaders arrested. Security forces in the tiny West African nation arrested senior opposition members and their supporters on Saturday after they accused authorities of killing a party leader. One of the people arrested was Ousainu Darboe, leader of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), along with supporters and party officials who had gathered at his home. He had been pushing for information about the case of Solo Sandeng, the party's national organizing secretary, who was reportedly tortured to death while in detention. Sandeng had been arrested during a protest to push for election reforms and free speech protection. "The United States condemns the government of The Gambias severe response to recent peaceful protests. We call for an immediate end to violence and urge all Gambians to exercise restraint," said John Kirby, a State Department spokesperson. The Gambia is headed by President Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994 and has made headlines for eccentric proclamations, including a claim to have invented a cure for HIV/AIDS. The former military man, who once told a reporter he could lead The Gambia for "a billion years," is expected to extend his rule in elections in December. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Alan Crosby)
KINSHASA (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo said on Saturday it had received new allegations of sexual abuse against its soldiers. The United Nations announced earlier this month that it was investigating accusations that Tanzanian peacekeepers based in northeastern Congo had sexually abused and exploited five women and six girls, leaving them all pregnant. The head of the U.N. mission in Congo, Maman Sidikou, told reporters in the capital Kinshasa that those 11 cases had involved members of Tanzanian units that left Congo last July but that seven more allegations had since surfaced. Five involve Tanzanian soldiers who arrived last September, one involves the South African contingent and the seventh case involves forces from Malawi. "All of these cases are presumed cases of either pregnancy or of paternity ... and eight of the victims are minors," Sidikou said, adding that investigations were underway. U.N. peacekeeping missions have been beset by accusations of sexual abuse. The United Nations reported 99 such allegations against staff members across the U.N. system last year. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, which was initially established during a civil war that lasted from 1998-2003, is the world's largest, with around 20,000 uniformed personnel. (Reporting By Aaron Ross; Editing by Gareth Jones)
DAKAR (Reuters) - The United Nations on Sunday condemned a government crackdown in Gambia that it said had led to the death of three opposition party members who were arrested during protests on Thursday. In a statement echoed by the U.S. state department, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "dismay" at reports that a leading member of the United Democratic Party (UDP), Solo Sandeng, and two other party members had died while in custody. Government officials were not immediately reachable for comment. The three opposition party members were held after a small demonstration near the capital Banjul on Thursday in which they demanded electoral reform and protection of free speech in the tiny West African country. The clampdown continued on Saturday when security forces arrested senior opposition members including the head of the UDP Ousainu Darboe, whose home was raided by police. The identities of the two other party members were not released and their deaths could not be immediately verified by Reuters, though the UDP said in a statement on Sunday that three of its members had been killed. Amnesty International had said on Saturday that one detained UDP member, Fatoumata Jawara, was believed to be suffering from serious injuries. Ban Ki-moon called for a "prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the circumstances that led to their death while under state custody". U.S. state department spokesman John Kirby called on the Gambian government to "uphold its international obligations ... including the right to peaceful assembly." The statements are likely to put pressure on President Yahya Jammeh, who was in Turkey this week attending a summit of Islamic countries. He is expected to return on Sunday. Jammeh, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994, has made headlines for his eccentric proclamations, including a claim to have invented a cure for HIV/AIDS, and his recent surprise decision to make Gambia an Islamic republic. But he is also regularly denounced by rights groups and foreign governments for ruthlessly stamping out political dissent in the nation of 2 million people, which is a popular beach destination for budget-conscious European tourists. The former military man, who once told a reporter he could lead Gambia for "a billion years", is expected to extend his rule in elections in December after scrapping constitutional term limits. The ECOWAS regional bloc refused to send observers to the last elections in 2011, citing intimidation of the opposition and the electorate. (Reporting by Edward McAllister; Editing by Catherine Evans)
By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday transferred nine Yemeni men to Saudi Arabia from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, including an inmate who had been on a hunger strike since 2007, under a long-sought diplomatic deal between Washington and Riyadh, U.S. officials said. The transfer, which took place just days before President Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia for a summit of Gulf Arab allies, marked the latest step in his final push to close the controversial detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba before he leaves office in January 2017. The Saudis agreed, after lengthy negotiations that at one point involved Obama and Saudi King Salman, to take the nine Yemenis for resettlement and put them through a government-run rehabilitation program that seeks to reintegrate militants into society, the officials said. The group announced by the Pentagon was the largest shipped out of the Guantanamo Bay prison since Obama rolled out his plan in February aimed at shutting the facility. But he faces stiff opposition from many Republican lawmakers as well as some fellow Democrats. There are now 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, most held without charge or trial for more than a decade, drawing international condemnation. The most prominent of the transfers was Tariq Ba Odah, a 37-year-old Yemeni whom the military had been force-feeding daily since he went on a hunger strike in 2007. His legal team said he was down to 74 pounds, losing about half of his body weight. Ba Odah's lawyer, Omar Farah, said the U.S. government had "played Russian roulette" with his client's life and that his transfer "ends one of the most appalling chapters in Guantanamo's sordid history." His case was a source of legal wrangling between the U.S. Department of Justice and his lawyers, who had unsuccessfully sought his release on humanitarian and medical grounds, and also created divisions within the Obama administration. TRANSFERS PRECEDE OBAMA'S VISIT The transfers took place as Obama prepared to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday for a summit with the Gulf Cooperation Council at a time when U.S.-Saudi relations have been strained by the nuclear deal with Iran, their Shi'ite regional rival, and what Riyadh sees as a weak U.S. response to Syria's civil war. The Saudis have also threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets should the U.S. Congress pass a bill that could hold the kingdom responsible for a role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported. A U.S. official said the transfer - the result of years of negotiations, including an Oval Office appeal by Obama to the visiting Saudi monarch in September and visits to the kingdom by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry - was not orchestrated for Obama's trip and the timing was a coincidence. Republicans have expressed opposition to such transfers, voicing concern that more released Guantanamo prisoners will return to militant activities. But the transfer was considered a breakthrough since Riyadh had long resisted taking any non-Saudi nationals from the prison. All nine men have family ties in Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen. The Obama administration has ruled out sending Yemenis to their homeland because it is engulfed in civil war and has an active al Qaeda branch. "The United States is grateful to the government of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture," the Pentagon said in a statement. Guantanamo prisoners were rounded up overseas when the United States became embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. The facility, opened by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, came to symbolize aggressive detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture. Obama's plan for shuttering the facility calls for bringing the several dozen remaining prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. U.S. law bars such transfers to the mainland but Obama has not ruled out using executive action to do so. Ba Odah, who was captured by the Pakistani army along the Afghan border and was accused of receiving weapons training in order to fight with the Taliban, had been force-fed by nasal tube since he stopped taking solid food in protest at his detention. He was cleared for transfer in 2009. Pentagon officials had said he was receiving proper care. But his case was seen, until a recent uptick in transfers, as evidence of the Pentagon resisting Obama's efforts to close the detention center. The other prisoners involved in the transfer were identified as: Umar Abdullah Al-Hikimi, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Nasir, Ali Yahya Mahdi Al-Raimi, Muhammed Abdullah Muhammed Al-Hamiri, Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman, Abd al Rahman Al-Qyati, Mansour Muhammed Ali Al-Qatta, and Mashur Abdullah Muqbil Ahmed Al-Sabri. They were among a group of lower-level inmates, now numbering 26 and mostly Yemenis, who have been cleared for transfer by a U.S. government inter-agency task force. U.S. officials have said they expect to move out all members of that group by this summer. (Additional reporting by David Rohde; editing by Grant McCool, G Crosse)
LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister George Osborne said a vote to leave the European Union in a referendum in June would do permanent damage to the country's economy, which he warned would be 6 percent smaller by 2030 than if it stayed in the bloc. The government is due to present on Monday a "serious, sober analysis" of the long-term economic impact of a so-called Brexit, a source familiar with the document said. Osborne was quoted as saying the loss to the economy would be the equivalent to each household of 4,300 pounds ($6,100) a year by 2030. "The conclusion is clear: for Britain's economy and for families, leaving the EU would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound," he wrote in a column due to be published in The Times on Monday and which the newspaper reported on Sunday. Opinion polls have shown the rival campaigns running almost neck and neck, although gambling firms predict that British voters are more likely to decide to keep Britain in the EU at the June 23 referendum. Osborne said the hit to the economy of a vote to leave would be permanent because of lower trade and investment. The latest appeal by Osborne, an ally of Prime Minister David Cameron, for Britons to vote to stay in the 28-member bloc is likely to spur accusations from "Out" campaigners that the government is using scare tactics. One of the leading "Out" campaigners, London Mayor Boris Johnson, wants Britain to strike a trade deal with the EU similar to that reached between the bloc and Canada. But Osborne said that kind of agreement would leave Britain's economy 6 percent smaller by 2030 than if it stayed in the EU. Osborne and Johnson are rivals to become Britain's next prime minister. With Britons divided over whether to stay in the EU, those campaigning to leave, including some of Cameron's top ministers, have said the government is selling Britain short by saying it cannot stand alone. But the Treasury's words chime with those of other economic institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, in warning that Britain could deal a damaging blow to the fragile global economy if it votes to leave the bloc. Last week, Osborne said Britain's homeowners could face higher borrowing costs if there was a British exit. In his newspaper column, Osborne said every alternative to EU membership would leave Britain with an economy that was less interconnected with the rest of Europe and countries beyond. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to say during a visit to Britain this week that he believes the country is better off economically and politically if it stays in the EU. (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and William Schomberg; Editing by Catherine Evans and Peter Cooney)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called on Gambia to thoroughly investigate the death in detention of opposition activist Solo Sandeng and two other party members.
Ban "learned with dismay" of the deaths after Sandeng and dozens of opposition members were arrested Thursday for taking part in a peaceful protest in the capital Banjul, a statement from his spokesman said.
Sandeng had recently been promoted to organizing secretary of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP).
UDP leader Ousainou Darboe confirmed Sandeng's death to AFP on Saturday and said two women who were also detained were in a coma.
The UN statement did not release details of the two other activists who also died in custody.
Ban "calls on the authorities to conduct a prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the circumstances that led to their death while under state custody," said the spokesman.
Expressing deep concern about the "apparent use of excessive force and the arrest" of peaceful demonstrators, Ban called on the government to "immediately and unconditionally" release all those arrested including leader Darboe, who was hauled away by police during a second round of demonstrations on Saturday.
President Yahya Jammeh must "uphold the rights of the Gambian people to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," he added.
A military officer and former wrestler, Jammeh has ruled the west African country since he seized power in a coup in 1994, and is regularly accused of human rights abuses.
During the protest on Thursday, Gambian security forces beat dozens of UDP activists, rounded them up and took them to an unknown location.
Sandeng was taken away separately from his colleagues. He had previously been detained by the authorities in 2013, according to Amnesty International.
Colonia Suiza (Uruguay) (AFP) - Storms and floods in Uruguay have killed seven people and driven 2,000 from their homes in recent days, authorities said Sunday.
Four people were killed when a storm struck the western city of Dolores on Friday and three others were later found to have died when trying to cross flooded rivers in the region, according to a new government toll released Sunday.
President Tabare Vazquez declared Sunday a day of national mourning.
"We are going to rebuild Dolores," he said, in comments broadcast on the radio.
Countless buildings were destroyed in Dolores, an AFP reporter in the town saw.
The National Emergency System said on Sunday that floods caused by heavy rain had forced more than 2,000 people to abandon their homes after rivers burst their banks.
Flooding also forced the closure of the main national highway that links the capital Montevideo to the tourist town of Sacramento de Colonia and to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, an AFP reporter saw.
Paris (AFP) - The "Up All Night" protests that are sweeping France are increasingly being marred by violence and police have warned the organisers not to let their peaceful cause be hijacked by troublemakers.
The "Nuit Debout" demonstrations began in March in opposition to the government's proposed labour reforms, but the movement has now embraced a range of grievances and begun to take on a revolutionary feel.
In recent days, after up to 3,000 predominantly young demonstrators have occupied the giant Place de la Republique square in Paris each evening, small groups of hooded youths have moved in, apparently determined to clash with police.
More than 400 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began.
In the latest flare-up, 21 people were detained after setting fire to wooden pallets and pelting police with objects on the Place de la Republique early on Saturday. Several police officers were hurt.
Paris police chief Michel Cadot said Saturday the violence "just cannot be accepted" and blamed the organisers "for a lack of control which is allowing these incidents to happen".
He said while the protests were well-ordered early in the evening, after midnight "small, violent groups... try either to march, or to attack the security forces and damage shop windows or businesses, especially banks, nearby".
"I want to remind the organisers of these gatherings of their responsibilities and ask them to stick to their commitment to stop at 1:00 am and to ensure that the participants disperse at that time," Cadot said.
- 'Fascists' -
Many demonstrations in France descend into violent clashes between demonstrators known as "casseurs" -- literally "breakers" -- and riot police.
The "Nuit Debout" movement -- the translation of the name also has a sense of rising up against power -- officially condemns such violence.
"It's a pacifist, citizens' movement aimed at opening up a new debate," said a 24-year-old demonstrator in Paris last week, who only wanted to be identified as Gregory.
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In the Place de la Republique, the participants sit and debate everything from the cause of migrants to environmental issues and the tax evasion highlighted in the Panama Papers.
When emotions run high, some protesters are prepared to take "direct action".
Valentine, a 25-year-old student, told AFP: "If someone makes a direct proposal to take action and no-one objects to it, people get up and do something about it.
"We're not going to wait for permission, this comes from the heart."
She said, for example, she would happily join a group of activists in ripping down metal barriers erected to prevent migrants from setting up a camp in the Stalingrad area of northeast Paris.
And the "pacifist" nature of the movement was also called into question when Alain Finkielkraut, a high-profile philosopher seen as having pro-establishment beliefs, found himself roundly abused by demonstrators when he went to the square on Saturday.
As he fled the square with comments ringing in his ears from demonstrators who clearly felt he did not share their desire for change, the 68-year-old Finkielkraut accused his abusers of being "fascists".
He said later he was "hounded from a square where democracy and pluralism should be the order of the day".
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis got a warmer welcome when he greeted the crowd in Paris at the weekend, telling demonstrators that President Francois Hollande was "devaluing French labour" with the job market reforms that originally sparked the protests.
The "Nuit Debout" protests have spread to Rennes and Nantes in western France and to Montpellier in the south, although the demonstrations there have been peaceful so far.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's lower house of Congress began voting on Sunday on whether President Dilma Rousseff should face an impeachment trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budgetary accounts. The opposition needs votes from 342 out of the 513 congressmen to push forward with Rousseff's impeachment and potentially end 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in the midst of a deeply divided nation. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
By Mohammed Ghobari KUWAIT (Reuters) - Yemen's warring parties are sending conciliatory signals ahead of U.N.-backed talks starting on Monday, in a rare sign of mutual willingness to end a year-old conflict that has caused one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. A deal may help defuse tensions between regional powerhouses Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are allied to opposing sides in Yemen and whose rivalry has helped fuel wars and political struggles across the volatile Middle East. Air strikes and heavy combat persist in many parts of the country, while armed forces who could yet play a spoiling role loom throughout Yemen's tangled political scene. Police said they foiled two car bomb attacks in the southern port of Aden on Sunday. In one case a policeman died when a car exploded after police opened fire on it rushing at a checkpoint at high speed. But the recent rhetoric of the main combatants has been unusually mild. "We are ready for a political transition which excludes no one ... The world now looks to the Kuwait consultations as a landmark of peace for Yemenis, and we will give everything we can to alleviate the suffering of the people," Foreign Minister Abdel Malek al-Mekhlafi, from the Saudi-backed government now based in Aden, told state news agency Saba. Mohammed Abdul-Salam, spokesman for the Houthi movement which controls the capital Sanaa and which Gulf Arab states say is allied to Iran, appeared conciliatory in an interview with Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai on Saturday. "There should be a consensus authority during a definite transitional phase to decide every political dispute," he was quoted as saying. "Iran does not have any role in our sovereign decisions and we are not tools in anyone's hands." In a further sign of goodwill, he said on his Facebook page that his group had received 30 prisoners from the government side. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies joined the war on March 26 of last year to back Yemen's government after it was pushed into exile by the Houthis. U.N. talks in June and December failed to end the war that has killed about 6,200 people, about half of them civilians. The war has allowed al Qaeda fighters to seize territory and opened a path for Islamic State militants to gain a foothold. A partial naval blockade imposed by the Arab coalition has caused food shortages and prices for necessities to skyrocket in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country. An unprecedented calm achieved between the two main antagonists beginning in March suggests that exhaustion over costs and casualties may be mounting. The Houthis agreed with Saudi Arabia to reduce attacks on the kingdom in exchange for a halt to Saudi-led air strikes on Sanaa, and the two sides carried out a prisoner exchange. "This represents the best opportunity to end the war since it started - real progress has been made," said Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. SPOILERS The fate of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president of 33 years who was ousted by "Arab Spring" protests in 2012 and who has formed an alliance with the Houthis, remains unclear and could complicate transition plans. While Saleh's party will take part in the talks, the former leader has refused to depart Yemen's political scene. The spread of al Qaeda and Islamic State in the south also makes it more difficult to resolve the conflict. "There are a slew of potential spoilers. The past year has seen a proliferation of warlords whose power is tied to the conflict continuing," added Baron. Hailing from a Shi'ite sect that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962, the Houthis said they were leading a revolution against corruption. They pushed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi from power in September 2014 and formed an alliance with his predecessor Saleh. Regional Arab countries accuse the group of a power-grab which would benefit their archrival Iran, and have fought to restore Hadi's government. (Additional reporting and writing by Noah Browning; editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)
By Jarni Blakkarly (Reuters) - Donned in eye-patches and a spaghetti bridal headdress, two New Zealanders have celebrated the first legally recognized 'Pastafarian' marriage on board a pirate ship, in a milestone of recognition for the bizarre global 'religion'. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose stated beliefs are in a god made of spaghetti, have amassed followers around the world. The group initially formed as a sarcastic criticism of Christian creationist teachings at schools in the United States. "We decided to do a pirate wedding mainly because it shows respect to the Pastafarian faith. Pastafariansm believes that all humans are decendants of pirates," groom Toby Ricketts said alongside bride Marianna Fenn. Followers who wear colanders on their heads and revere pirates insist that they are not a spoof church and that their beliefs are genuine. The group also celebrates holidays such as 'Talk like a pirate day'. New Zealand's government earlier this month agreed to an application from member Karen Martyn to become a legal marriage celebrant after the group was deemed to comply with the country's regulations. "Does ye take this feisty wench to be yah lawfully wedded best mate? Does yea promise to stay at the helm even when seas are rough?" Karen Martyn, and self-declared 'Ministeroni' asked the couple. Martyn told reporters that many more Pastafarian weddings were being planned. (Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Nacogdoches, TX (75965)
Today
Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 66F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph..
Tonight
Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 66F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph.
The company, which had five models in top-10 selling cars in 2014-15, saw compact model Celerio enter the list at the seventh position in 2015-16.
New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki India tightened its grip in terms of best selling cars with six of its models featuring in the the top-10 list for the just concluded fiscal.
The company, which had five models in top-10 selling cars in 2014-15, saw compact model Celerio enter the list at the seventh position in 2015-16.
Besides, volume share of the company in top-10 models has shot up to 73 per cent with six of its models accounting for 10,29,639 units out of a total of 14,19,768 units sold in the fiscal.
The companys volume share in top 10 stood at 68 per cent in 2014-15 with sales of 9,12,415 units. As per the data, the companys Alto, Dzire, Swift and WagonR were the first, second, third and fourth biggest selling models during the fiscal.
The company sold 2,63,422 units of Alto during 2015-16 compared with 2,64,492 units in 2014-15.
Its compact model Celerio also made it to the top 10 for the first time. It stood at 7th position with sales of 87,428 units during the fiscal. Its van Omni retained its ninth position.
Epic first sued Tata in 2014 with allegations that it illicitly downloaded documentation for software it had been hired to help install at Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.
A jury in Wisconsin has awarded medical software company Epic Systems $940 million in damages in a trade secret lawsuit against Indian information technology provider Tata Consultancies, believed to one of the largest trade-secrets verdicts on record.
Epic first sued Tata in 2014 with allegations that it illicitly downloaded documentation for software it had been hired to help install at Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, accusing the Indian company of "brazenly stealing" confidential information and trade secrets in order to help its competing healthcare software provider, Med Mantra, according to court documents. It filed an amended complaint in 2015.
The jury in federal court in Wisconsin on Friday found in Epic's favor on seven claims including breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition and unfair enrichment. It awarded $240 million in compensatory damages and $700 million in punitive damages, court documents said.
An Epic spokesman declined to comment.Tata plans to appeal the decision, the company said in a statement.
"The jury's verdict on liability and damages was unexpected as the company believes they are unsupported by the evidence presented during the trial," the statement said. "The company did not misuse or derive any benefit from downloaded documents from Epic System's user-web portal."
Tata also said it "appreciates the trial judge's announcement from the bench that he is almost certain he will reduce the damages award."
Epic, a privately held company based in Verona, Wisconsin, is the leading provider of medical records systems used in hospitals and other healthcare facilities throughout the United States.
Tata Consultancies, part of the sprawling Tata conglomerate, is one of the largest global providers of information technology software and services, with 324,000 employees worldwide, according to the company's Website.
The case is Epic Systems Corporation vs. Tata Consultancy Services Limited and Tata America International Corporation, Western District of Wisconsin, case number 14-cv-748-wmc.
Washington: India on Sunday asked the World Bank to increase its developmental fund to USD 100 billion a year from the existing USD 50-60 billion and called for enhancing the share and voice of developing nations in the management of institutions providing assistance under it.
The World Bank provides developmental assistance through International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
"These three institutions provide approximately USD 50-60 billion per annum in concessional, non-concessional and private sector resources," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in his address to the Development Committee of the World Bank.
"Within next five years, we should work to raise annual financing volumes from the World Bank Group to USD 100 billion a year," said Jaitley, who is here to attend the annual Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"This would be a kind of minimum contribution from the Bank Group for the developing countries, in their task of bringing about development and finance reconstruction," he said.
Observing that the World Bank is highly capital constrained, Jaitley said the IFC has no space to invest today even at low level volumes it has been doing for some years.
IBRD would not be able to maintain lending levels of even USD 20 billion per annum in two years' time, he said. To better reflect the increasing weight of Developing and Transition Countries (DTCs), their share and voice in the management of these institutions also needs to grow, Jaitley asserted.
"We should therefore plan to have a Selective Capital Increase (SCI) to raise Developing and Transition Countries(DTCs') voting share to 50 per cent and a large general capital increase in IBRD and IFC for being able to finance USD100 billion per annum going forward," he said.
Jaitley stressed that the time has come for raising partnership of DTCs in the IBRD and IFC to 50 per cent. This would require that the economic weight captured by GDP remain the primary factor in the formula, with share of purchasing power parity (PPP) based GDP of not less than 60 per cent.
From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40.
Doha: Major oil producers began talks in Qatar on Sunday to try to reach a deal on capping production to boost prices, despite Irans absence. Talks were delayed by several hours after some countries demanded changes to a draft agreement that calls for freezing production until October, a delegate said.
The delegate said a small team of experts was assigned to make the changes before the ministers went into the official meeting in the afternoon. Top energy officials from some 15 countries, including the worlds top crude producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, were at the Doha talks.
Nations inside and outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) are anxious to stem a market nosedive that has cost exporters billions in lost revenue. From above $100 in mid-2014, oil prices dropped to 13-year lows of around $27 in February due to a supply glut, though they have since rebounded to about $40.
The meeting in Doha is a follow-up to talks in February between OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela plus Russia in which they first mooted the output freeze.
Saudi Arabia has insisted that all major producers must be on board for the freeze to work, including fellow Opec member and regional rival Iran. But Tehran, which has boosted production following the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal with world powers, has rejected any talk of a freeze.
Iran had initially said its Opec representative would participate in the talks but on Sunday oil minister Bijan Zanganeh announced Tehran would send no delegation at all.
Influential Saudi deputy crown prince Mohamed bin Salman reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg that the kingdom would not accept a freeze without Tehrans cooperation.
Mumbai: The condition of veteran actor Dilip Kumar is stable but the doctors at the suburban Lilavati Hospital here today said that he would be under close observation for the next two days.
Kumar, 93, was admitted to the hospital in suburban Bandra on April 15 after he complained of respiratory problems.
Read: Dilip Kumar is recovering well, not in the ICU: Saira Banu
"Dilip sahab's condition is stable since the time of admission. There have been multiple investigations that have been done and we have roped in concerned consultants who have been checking him regularly," said Dr Jalil Parkar of the
hospital, who has been attending to him.
Dilip Kumar was admitted to a hospital after he complained of respiratory problems on April 15.
"He is fine. He is better than earlier. He is having food," Parkar said, adding they have conducted some tests. When asked if he is out of danger, Parkar said, "We can't say whether he is out of danger or not. He will be under close observation for the next two days. Depending upon his condition, doctors will decide whether to shift him to the ICU or discharge him."
Kumar's wife, actress Saira Banu tweeted through his official account that he was hospitalised as he was suffering from high fever and chest infection since last night.
Dr Jalil Parkar addresses the media, talks about Dilip Kumar's health condition.
"Oral drugs would not act as fast as the IV injections, the doctors advised. Hence it became necessary to shift him to a hospital. He is recovering well and is stable by the grace of God and the care of the doctors treating him. He is in a room and in the hospital and not in the ICU as spread by rumours," she said.
The legendary actor, whose real name is Mohammad Yusuf Khan, acted in many superhit films during his six-decade long career such as "Madhumati", "Devdas", "Mughal-e-Azam", "Ganga Jamuna", "Ram Aur Shyam" and "Karma". He was last seen in the film "Qila" in 1998. He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 1994 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015.
Dont miss how Karans tee reads Groom while the guys t-shirts have Karans Monkey Pack written on them.
Mumbai: Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover are all set to walk down the aisle on April 30 and the two have headed off to their respective bachelorette and bachelor parties.
Read: Bipasha Basu sends out wedding invite to ex-boyfriend Saif Ali Khan
On Saturday, the bride-to-be had a Hen-party for her girl gang who came dressed in tees which announced that they were with `Team Bride'. The bachelorette took an interesting turn when Karan gatecrashed. The two hopped around inside a balloon tube joined at the middle.
Bipasha wrote, "And guess who crashed my bridal shower ... The groom and his#monkeypack !!!!"
Bipasha posted a series of pictures and wrote, "Am so so so blessed to be loved by so many amazing ladies. My closest friends and my sisters Whattttt a night ladies Thank you all"
Later Karan headed off to Goa with his 'monkey pack' that includes close friends Deepesh Sharma, designer Rocky S, actor Ayaz Khan. Dont miss how Karans tee reads Groom while the guys t-shirts have Karans Monkey Pack written on them.
Mumbai: On April 15, Friday, late TV actress Pratyusha Banerjees boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh, who is accused of abetment of his girlfriends suicide, threatened to jump off the hospital building.
Reportedly, two hours after returning from the Bangur Nagar police station, Rahul locked himself up in the hospitals washroom. After several minutes, his worried relatives sent for the doctor. When the doctor tried to convince Rahul to unlock the door, he threatened to jump off the building.
Later, Rahul calmed down and stepped out of the washroom. After a psychic evaluation, Rahul was discharged from the hospital on Saturday (April 16) evening.
However, father of deceased actress Pratyusha Banerjee has filed a complaint to the Indian Medical Association (IMA) via email on Saturday against Shree Sai hospital in Mumbai for protecting Rahul Raj Singh and conniving with him by taking money.
In his letter, Mr Banerjee has said that he suspects foul play and fears that the hospital is saving Rahul from police investigation by declaring him unwell.
According to Mr Banerjee, his wife and he suspect that their daughter was killed by Rahul and after her death, Rahul, on the pretext of some illness, got admitted to Shri Sai Hospital, which is looking like a high-handed conspiracy between the accused and the hospital management.
Mr Banerjees letter said, We also have doubts that they have unofficially taken money from Rahul as well and are giving him protection and helping him to get bail on medical grounds, which is a matter of serious concern. We are also doubtful regarding the registration of the hospital and its doctors.
Mr Banerjee further alleged that they have learnt that in the past too, Shri Sai Hospital has shielded criminals by taking huge amounts of money from them. Hence, an inquiry should be conducted against the hospital and its management.
Meanwhile, Dr Goel rubbished Mr Banerjees claims saying that the police was keeping a close eye on Rahul and that initially, he was admitted for vomiting but later, they found he was suffering from mental illness because of which the psychiatrist treated him accordingly.
He was constantly saying things and showing suicidal intentions, so we are treating him. If we had taken money from him, how could we have discharged him now, said Dr Goel, adding that there was no conspiracy and they being doctors, were treating him.
(with inputs from Ashita Dadheech)
Revisiting her role of Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow in Marvels 'Captain America: Civil War' is a pleasure for Scarlett Johansson. I really cant think of any other opportunity, certainly in this format in film, where I would have the chance to grow with the character as I have, says the actor. When we first met Natasha in Iron Man 2, she was Natalie and you got to see her undercover work. It wasnt until the end of that film that her true identity was revealed as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. We see her in her own environment in Avengers, as a functioning agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. In the second Captain America movie, my character starts to question her identity and her own choices. In Avengers 2 she allowed herself to want things and to envision a life for herself outside of this universe. Now that we find her again and after all we know from whats happened in Avengers 2, she has a greater calling and I think thats what makes this character really heroic.
In the movie, as the Sokovian Accords lead to oversight of the Avengers and the Avengers split into two opposing sides over the issue, Natasha has to choose a side. Johansson explains her characters point of view, Natasha sees the Sokovian Accords as something that probably would not be so complicated. I think she sees it as an obstacle, in the way of the greater picture. She is looking at it as a strategic stance. The path of least resistance is not necessarily the wrong path. We can duck undercover for a while, do what we always do and move on when the time is right. But of course, things get very complicated because obviously there are a lot of personalities involved.
Continuing, she adds, Some other characters take this very personally, but Natashas strong point is that she doesnt take anything personally, which allows her to have a much clearer perspective than some of the other characters. That also positions her well for a leadership position because shes very fair- minded.
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff.
Despite her loyalty and friendship with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Natasha disagrees with his position and in a surprise move, joins Tony Starks team, in support of governmental oversight. But that does not necessarily mean shes a fan of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). Natasha is a bit torn in her relationship with Tony, offers Johansson. I think she really sees Tony very clearly and sees his weaknesses as being a danger for the team. That kind of hazard that weve seen in the past films is very real and involves a lot of casualties. Tony is very emotional and thats scary for Natasha, especially when youre talking about the number of lives that are at stake and these huge, life-changing, decisions this team is responsible for making.
Though Natashas relationship with Steve Rogers suffers with her choice to join Starks team, Johansson says, Natasha hopes that Steve lives his life, not just his work life. Thats what she wants for him because I think she sometimes sees versions of herself in him, as different as those characters are. Maybe she doesnt want him to live with the sense of loss that she feels.
Scarlett as Natasha with Captain America.
Johansson looked forward to working with Chris Evans again on Marvels 'Captain America: Civil War'. I cannot imagine anybody but Chris playing this role, says Johansson. Its a very difficult role to play because you have this character that has a very strong moral compass. It can be challenging to find the conflict in that. Conflict is what makes characters interesting. But Chris has grounded this character in something very humana kind of longing, a regret, a loss of identity. Hes questioning the choices that have been made for him. And thats where the conflict lies. To watch Chris, as an actor and also as a person, grow with that character and to have a deeper understanding of what it means to be self-reflective is awesome. Hes always a pleasure to work with and its really great because our characters have been able to deepen the dynamic of their relationship this time around.
When Black Panther comes on scene, Natasha sees a Super Hero with potential. I think she sees him as someone whos smart, emotionally grounded, unexpected and highly skilled, says Johansson. Shes interested in him and interested in recruiting him.
Working with Chadwick Boseman, who plays Black Panther,was a plus for Johansson. Ive gotten to do a couple of scenes with Chadwick, and theyve been great, comments Johansson. Hes such a soulful actor and so professional, so present. He really gives so much to the other person. As the universe grows and expands, Marvel is so consistent at cherry picking such fine actors to bring onto the team. Hes added to this group immensely. Hes awesome and his presence on set raises the stakes a little bit for everybody.
Shooting the epic battle scene between the two Avengers warring factions was an experience that Johansson will always remember. It was pretty surreal having that face-off with everybody on the tarmac, relates Johansson. There have been a few moments in these films where you look around and realize youre in good company. Youve got your costume on and youre ready to kick some booty. I remember doing the first Avengers and all of us getting together in the circle and having our hero moment and again in Avengers 2. This scene felt like that kind of unbelievable epic moment where you know this is really big.
On working on location in Germany, Johansson offers, I like the lifestyle. It brings a unity amongst the crew when were all experiencing these sometimes challenging, sometimes exciting, sometimes strange experiencesthings that bring us out of our comfort zone. I like that, so its been fun this time to come here. I havent really had the opportunity in the past. When the films have gone to Korea or parts of Africa, I haven't been able to tag along. So this time I feel like I had my international experience.
Describing her look in the movie, Johansson says, The suit has had many incarnations but its pretty streamlined. This time around we gave her a sleeker uniform look. In the past its been utilitarian-looking. This time its a little bit closer to the actual comics, which I think the fans will like. Theres something about it thats kind of basic and I like that. It doesnt have crazy bells and whistles. But I actually dont really wear my suit that much in this movie. Im more in my regular civilian clothing.
In Marvels 'Captain America: Civil War', Natasha has a lot of hand-to-hand combat and some gun play as well. Whether Im in the suit or in the civilian clothes, whether its Natasha or Black Widow, the idea is that these characters can still maintain the dynamics of their relationships with all the other characters and its sort of seamless, says Johansson. When you see somebody fighting in the super suit and you know them as the person that they really are, it ups the stakes for the audience, which grounds these movies even in these unbelievable locations or outfits.
A still from 'The Avengers'.
Commenting on her second time working with directors Anthony and Joe Russo, Johansson says, The Russos bring a grittier side to the Cap movies. Theyre very grounded. Theres something very practical and tactile about the way that they work. They cut the fat out of stuff, which is awesome, especially when you have something this epic with this many characters.
When moviegoers sit down to watch Marvels 'Captain America: Civil War', Johansson thinks that the conflict between both sides is what will start the conversation rolling. When they leave the theater, they can hopefully still argue for either side. It will give them something to take home. We build a case for either side and as the stakes become higher and higher, the personal stakes rise as well, says Johansson.
AMR is resistance of a microbe to an antimicrobial medication that used to be effective in treating or preventing an infection caused by it. (Photo: Representative image)
Tokyo: Antimicrobial resistance is not only a health issue but a challenge which also has "serious" economic consequences, Health Minister JP Nadda said as he underlined the need to regulate the availability of drugs to tackle it.
Antibiotics resistance and failure to tackle infections "undermine" advancements that have been made in surgery and medicine, said Mr Nadda, while delivering the ministerial address at the Asian Health Ministers' meeting on Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Tokyo.
AMR is resistance of a microbe to an antimicrobial medication that used to be effective in treating or preventing an infection caused by it.
"Tackling AMR requires rational use of drugs, regulating their availability and sale. AMR is not just a health issue; it is a development challenge and has serious economic consequences.
"Antibiotics resistance and failure to tackle infections undermine advancements in surgery and medicine," Mr Nadda said in a series of tweets.
Diarrhoeal illness in four developing nations, including India, leads to consumption of around 500 million courses of antibiotics and it could go up to over 622 million courses by 2030, a recent study had said while noting it could be reduced by 60 per cent through improved sanitation.
Experts have maintained that increasing drug resistance is likely to disproportionately affect lower and middle-income countries with their twin burdens of underdeveloped public health infrastructure and high infectious disease rates.
"Roadmap to combat AMR drawn up at New Delhi conference this February, a useful guide for the action plan. Key points of Delhi AMR Roadmap: better awareness, multi-sector surveillance, infection control, rational use of antimicrobials, R&D," Mr Nadda said.
He also met Japan's Health minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki and discussed issues related to cooperation in the health sector between both the countries.
Mr Nadda had yesterday visited the Tamagawa hospital here and hoped that it would continue to assist India in the area of dialysis treatment, a "critical" requirement for India's healthcare system.
Agra is the only place in the country where such 'toll tax' is collected from visitors to historical monuments.
New Delhi: Entry fee to World Heritage Monument Taj Mahal is likely to go up again as the Agra Development Authority (ADA) has proposed an increase in its share, weeks after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) effected a steep hike in ticket cost.
Entry ticket to Taj Mahal consists of two components ASI fee and ADA charge, called 'toll tax'. Agra is the only place in the country where such 'toll tax' is collected from visitors to historical monuments.
From April 1, ASI had effected a three-fold increase in its share in the entry ticket for the 32 World Heritage Monuments, including Taj Mahal, to Rs 30 from Rs 10 for domestic visitor, while it was raised by 100 per cent to Rs 500 from Rs 250 for a foreign national.
At present, a foreigner pays Rs 1,000 as entry fee for Taj Mahal with ASI and ADA bagging Rs 500 each, while domestic visitors shell out Rs 40 - Rs 30 as ASI fee and Rs 10 ADA charge.
"There is a proposal for increasing the toll tax. It is pending with the state government for its approval," ADA Chairman Pradip Bhatnagar said.
However, he declined to give a time frame for the implementation of the proposal, saying the government has to give green signal to the long-pending proposal.
Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) President Subhash Goyal said if such a proposal is implemented, it would further reduce the number of Taj visitors, which is already witnessing a decline.
"ADA has demanded increasing its fee by 100 per cent to Rs 1,000 from the current Rs 500. If ASI's fee of Rs 500 is added to it, then a foreign national would be paying Rs 1,500 for visiting Taj. Similarly, there would also be hike in fee for domestic visitors. This is going to badly affect the number of Taj visitors," he said.
He said tour operators are against any move to increase the ticket price and would protest if the demand of ADA for fee hike is accepted.
Mumbai: Gone are the days when one had to dress up, step outside their home, travel all the way to a restaurants to satisfy their cravings. Thanks to the technically advanced world that we now live in, everything lies just a click away. Online shopping services not only satisfy your clothing needs but also your basic physiological needs; food.
Ordering food online is a trend nowadays as its quick, easy, hassle free and most importantly, it delivers food at your door steps. But.. with pros come the cons. What will be your reaction when you find a hair strand in your food? You will obviously feel disgusted.
But.. what if your food box comes along with a condom inside it? Oh, the horror!
One such shocking case recently took place in Jamshedpur. A woman ordered chilli paneer from a restaurant named Dosa Hut through a newly-launched food app Gravycart.com.
The woman ordered spring roll dosa and chilli paneer around 8.45 pm and the food was delivered by 9.20 pm. Right on time but what happened next was absolutely scandalising.
As soon as the box of chilli paneer was opened, what we found was disgusting, inhuman and horrendous beyond imagination. The box of paneer chilli had a CONDOM....!!!!!,posted Shitiz Dogra, womans friend on a Facebook page.
(Photo: Facebook/ Shitiz Dogra)
The original post read:
Hello Friends, Need you help/opinion on a very sensitive issue. I'm making this post on behalf on my friend who has faced something horrendous/disgusting and inhuman today with a food chain. The friend is so shocked and numb that it cannot be described. So what has happened actually. My friend had ordered two items from this chain called Dosa Hut Sakchi, Jamshedpur today. The order details are as below:-
1 Spring Roll Dosa, 1 Chilli Paneer. Order Total- 205.
The food was delivered by a delivery startup in Jamshedpur called Gravycart.com. The details received from Gravy Cart upon order confirmation with order no F0F13865-B1A-BA0 and estimated time of delivery- 0:45 mins. The order comes, delivered by Gravycart.com. As soon as the box of chilli paneer was opened, what we found was disgusting, inhuman and horrendous beyond imagination. The box of paneer chilli had a CONDOM....!!!!! The pic is attached for everyone to see. Now, how would you feel if you have to face something like this..? My friend was so disgusted, she had to return the order as it took sometime to even absorb, let alone comprehend what just happened. Adn when we returned, the delivery boy had the audacity to say "aapko 2 minute khaane k baad samajh aaya k isme kya hai " THIS is the audacity of these b******s. If you can live without killing the delivery boy on hearing this very moment, you have to be some special kind of human being. Food companies make mistakes, fine. A hair strand, a mosquito etc is commonplace, but this is plain disgustingly inhuman and violent. When we reached out to Gravycart.com, their reply was that they are only purveyors and just pick stuff and deliver. The onus of food quality is not on them. Now, we reached out to this stupid, filthy outlet Dosa Hut Sakchi, their front manager did not reply courteously on call. We asked him to pass on his manager's contact details and he did. His name is Mr Sudip Datta. His contact No. is-7209698189. We tried talking to him, but he kept cutting calls. He picked once and said , he will call after ten mins and he did. We told him, what we just went through and his first reply was "Gravy Cart walon ne kia hoga. Aap unse baat kijiye. hamne nahi kia. hamare yahan teen log khaana pack karte hain. ho hi nahi sakta. He kept beating about the bush and kept ranting that it's not his mistake, let alone responsibility of food safety." Now, the important question is, who's to be blamed..? The Food Company and The delivery Company, both are accusing each other and just passing the buck. But, none of them, none of them tried to reach out to the customer of their own accord to assure them of any draconian measures they wish to take. Instead, both the parties are trying to save their grace and defending their hollow practices. We understand, this isn't a normal case of a food messed up delivery, it's rather violent and inhuman. We want your opinion on should we go legal, we definitely want to and want it bad. Such filthy joints should not exist and their fssai licences and everything should be confiscated and they should be removed from every food portal that exists on internet. This cannot be "just another case", there could be more dark versions of this and can happen in any city (Let's not go on blaming Jamshedpur just for the heck of it). Inhuman elements can be everywhere, but the example has to be shoved in the face of such inhuman rascals who have polluted something as sacred as food and violated a human being. Please help, how should we go ahead with this case. Admin- Please feel free to remove this post, if you think this isn't in everyone's interest. Thanks
Gravycart received complain about the same within next 5-6 minutes and the delivery boy was sent to collect the food back.
The restaurant usually delivers 6 pieces of chilli paneer and when it was returned it only had 3 pieces. We dont know whose fault it was. We have refunded the whole amount to the customer, says Gravycart founder director Nitin Sharma to Deccan Chronicle.
The restaurant people however blamed the portal for the mistake and said it wasnt their fault at all. Sudip Dutta, the owner of Dosa Hut, alleged the woman for deliberately doing this thing.
The delivery boy was checked thoroughly by Sharma and he found nothing that could point at him.
He has been working with us, since 3-4 months, this has never happened before. We talked to him but he denied his involvement. However, he has been dismissed and the restaurant has also been delinted,says Sharma.
This is the first complaint that the food portal has received since its launch last year in December. As per Sharma, all the restaurants in the list are reputed ones and such incident has never occurred before.
We have decided to give seal to every restaurant that will be used for delivery henceforth. No food can be delivered without that. The seal on the food package cannot be opened without tearing the plastic that will be used outside ,says Sharma.
Though the portal is unaware of how condom landed in the food box, Sharma feels that its a conspiracy by other upcoming companies to spoil their company's name as it has been performing well.
Vijayalaxmi said that her husband suspected her fidelity and used to trouble her over that continuously. (Representational Image)
Hyderabad: A 45-year-old housewife allegedly killed her husband in Nallakunta in the wee hours of Saturday. Police said the housewife, Vijayalaxmi, stabbed her husband Gangadhar with a knife while he was asleep and later surrendered at the police station. Vijayalaxmi said that her husband suspected her fidelity and used to trouble her over that continuously.
Police said that M. Gangadhar, 48, and M. Vijayalaxmi, 45, from Nizamabad, got married nearly 30 years ago. Gangadhar was working as a labourer and Vijayalaxmi was a housewife. The couple has two daughters who are married.
Ten years ago the couple came to Hyderabad and were staying at a rented house at Narsimhanagar in Nallakunta. Vijaya-laxmi was working at a nearby school as a helper, but Gangadhar who was addicted to alcohol, was not working.
Meanwhile, Gangadhar started suspecting her fidelity and harassed her everyday and also used to assault her severely. On Friday night he came home heavily drunk and started beating Vijayalaxmi.
Around 3 am she took a vegetable knife, stabbed him in the abdomen as he was sleeping and killed him, Nallakunta inspector V. Yadagiri Reddy said. Later, she came to the police station and surrendered. Based on her confession a murder case was registered and she was produced before court.
Man held for extortion bid
CCS police arrested a man on Saturday for trying to extort money from the joint sub-registrar of RR district. The man, M. Vamshi Krishna, claimed to be an ACB officer and demanded Rs 2.5 lakh from the official.
He threatened to conduct ACB raids if money was not paid. The man used to phone the sub registrar and threaten him. Krishna was earlier involved in stealing 40 tolas of gold from his uncles house at Yousufguda.
Ambassador of the Netherlands to India Alphonsus Stoelinga in a letter to Kumar also suggested that adaptive reusage of these old buildings, on the banks of Ganga, could be found.r (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: The Netherlands has appealed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to spare the demolition of Patna Collectorate, one of the last surviving signatures of Dutch history of Bihar's capital, and list the centuries-old structures under the state archaeology department.
Ambassador of the Netherlands to India Alphonsus Stoelinga in a letter to Kumar also suggested that adaptive reusage of these old buildings, on the banks of Ganga, could be found.
"I came across reports about the possibility of this shared built heritage of India and the Netherlands being demolished anytime.
"I sincerely believe that this built heritage depicting the Indo-Dutch history can be restored and alternate uses can be planned. I am writing this letter to appeal to you to list the complex of buildings as per the norms of the state archaeological department," said Stoelinga.
Highlighting the vulnerabilities of unprotected heritage buildings in the city, heritage body INTACH and members of civil society, including eminent historians, architects and former judges had on April 6 also urged the Bihar chief minister to spare its dismantling and restore it.
Patna Collectorate alongside Patna College's main administration building and the remains of the opium godown in Gulzarbagh, comprise the last remnants of Dutch history of Patna.
The government's move has upset experts and commoners alike and the civil society in its appeal to Kumar had also asked to "restore it to its original glory and reuse the site as a tourist attraction".
The Ambassador in his letter also cited the book 'Patna: A Monumental History' brought out in 2008 by the state government's Department of Art, Culture and Youth, where Patna Collectorate and Patna College are listed among the heritage buildings of the capital city.
A senior official at the Dutch Embassy here said, "Bihar, especially, cities of Patna and Chhapra have intrinsic links to the Dutch past, and the riverine trade and history of that era. Places like Patna Collectorate could become focal points in storytelling of shared history between the two countries."
"The buildings once restored could also serve as a backdrop for celebrating the local culture of Patna and Bihar on the banks of Ganga. That way, it will attract both foreign tourists and engage the local people with their own history," the official said.
The Dutch came to India in early 17th century with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company which traded in various Indian cities like Surat, Patna, Chinsurah (Bengal) and Pulicat (Coromandel region of Tamil Nadu). Patna was one of the major trading centres for opium and saltpetre and the Dutch built factories and godowns there on the banks of Ganga as the river played a major role in trade operation until the advent of railways in 19th century.
Srinagar: The Army Chief, General Dalbir Singh Suhag, on Sunday visited Jammu and Kashmir to discuss with local commanders the situation arising out of the shooting incidents in frontier Kupwara district in which five protesters were killed and few others injured earlier this week.
The protests were sparked by an alleged molestation of a 16-year-old student in a public lavatory close to an Army camp in north-western town of Handwara on April 12. The Valley also witnessed shutdowns and official curfews and violent clashes, leaving 202 security personnel and 27 civilians injured.
On April 12, word spread in Handwara, 72-km from Srinagar, that a local school girl has been molested by an Army jawan inside the lavatory. Soon irate crowds took to the streets but were confronted by police and Army which opened fire, killing two youth and a 53-year-old woman and injuring another person.
The girl who is since in police custody along with her father and aunt on Sunday reiterated that she did not see any Army soldier inside the lavatory and that it were two local youth who harassed and even slapped her as she was leaving the place.
Soon after arriving at the headquarters of Northern Command (NC) in garrison town of Udhampur, Gen. Suhag closeted with chief of NC Lt. Gen. DS Hooda and corpse commanders and other senior Army officers for a review of the situation. Lt. Gen. Hooda briefed the Army Chief on the overall security situation in the command theatre, defence spokesman Colonel S. D. Goswami said.
He added, The Army Chief interacted with the Corps commanders and took a firsthand assessment of the prevailing internal security situation specifically in view of the recent incidents at Handwara and Natnusa (in Kupwara district).
On Friday evening soon after a teenage boy was killed and three other protesters were injured in Army firing at Natnusa, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, spokes to Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, on the phone to urge him to ensure the Army exercises restraint in dealing with the unrest. Earlier, she also met Lt. Gen. Hooda, and told him that Handwara and Natnusa like incidents come as a major setback to the efforts of the State government in consolidating peace dividends in the state and are hence unacceptable.
While the State government ordered a judicial inquiry into the April 12 incident at Handwara, the Army is on its own probing it and also the Natnusa shooting and has assured that anybody found guilty will be dealt as per the law.
The school girl on Saturday evening recorded her statement before the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Handwara in which she stood by her earlier statement that she was not molested by any Army soldier. A statement issued by police here on Sunday said that the girl (name withheld) was along with her father produced before the CJM (Handwara) and her statement was recorded in case FIR Number 130/2016 registered at the local police station under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty) of the States Ranbir Penal Code.
In her statement before the CJM, she revealed that on 12-04-2016 after school hours while proceeding to her home with her friend she entered in a public lavatory near main chowk Handwara for answering the call of nature, the police station said. It added As soon as she came out of lavatory she was confronted, assaulted and dragged by two boys and her bag was snatched. One of the boys was in school uniform.
Earlier during the day on Saturday, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had directed the police to cite the law under which it has detained the girl. The student, her father Muhammad Akbar Ganai and aunt Zeba Begum were detained by police even though a video was circulated by Army on April 13 showing the girl saying she was, in fact, harassed by two local youth and that there was no Army jawan present in the public lavatory where she was believed to have been molested the previous day.
The video released by the Army was apparently recorded in a police station and the girls family had said she has not been allowed to return home since and that, on Wednesday night, her father was called to the Handwara police station. Later her aunt was also detained.
Taja Begum, mother of the girl, filed a petition before the High Court seeking release of her daughter and two other relatives from illegal detention of police. In her petition, she pleaded that her daughter, husband and sister have been kept in illegal detention in violation of the constitutional rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. She also said that she fears that the lives of her minor daughter, husband and sister are in jeopardy.
Besides issuing notice to the state, Justice M. H. Attar directed the Superintendent of Police Handwara and SHO of the concerned police station to tell the court under which law they have detained the minor girl, her father and aunt. The court also directed the police to present the girl before the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Handwara or a judicial magistrate at the nearest place for recording of statement. The court issued notice to the respondents asking them to file objection to the petition. The case has been listed for next hearing on April 20.
Referring to the video circulated by the Army on Wednesday, Ms. Begum had said earlier that her daughter had given the statement under pressure. She said that after school, her daughter went to the washroom close to an Army camp in the towns main square and when she was inside an Army jawan emerged and she began screaming. The boys who were there could not tolerate the screams of their sister. A crowd assembled. The police and Army opened fire, she said.
New Delhi: In the wake of reports of clashes in Mehsana town, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday called up Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, who apprised him on the prevailing situation there.
During the telephonic talk, the Home Minister took stock of the situation in Gujarat's Mehsana district, where clashes broke out between protesters. Patel informed Singh about the steps being taken by the state government to control the situation and maintain peace, official sources said.
Curfew was on Sunday clamped in Mehsana town in Gujarat and mobile internet service banned as a massive rally of the Patel community demanding reservation and immediate release of their jailed leaders turned violent with two buildings being set ablaze and some police vehicles damaged.
A godown of Food Corporation of India and a district office were set on fire, police said, adding 15 persons have been detained in this connection. Five policemen and two officials sustained injuries in the incidents, police said while agitators claimed that 25 of their supporters were injured in police action.
Patel protesters had gathered at Modhera crossroad as part of the 'Jail Bharo' agitation announced by the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), one of the prominent groups seeking OBC status.
The incident brought fears of a revival of the Patel community's quota agitation. Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said that some information from Gujarat has come but the Central Government was awaiting for a detail report. "The Gujarat government is acting on it." he said.
During his four-day visit, he is expected to hold talks with top Chinese leaders and Defence officials and meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Beijing: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar arrived in Shanghai on Saturday on his first visit to China to shore up defence ties amid strains in bilateral relations over Beijing's move to block India's attempts in the UN to ban Pakistan-based terror group JeM chief Masood Azhar.
He is the first Indian Defence Minister to visit China in three years. His predecessor A K Antony visited China in 2013.
During his four-day visit, he is expected to hold talks with top Chinese leaders and Defence officials and meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Officials say during his visit he will also visit Chengdu Military Area Command which looks after the border with India.
Mr Parrikar accompanied by a high-level delegation arrived by regular Air India flight.
He will arrive in Beijing today after addressing a get-together of Indian professionals based in Shanghai being organised by the Indian Association.
He is scheduled to hold talks with top Chinese defence officials on Monday.
Indian officials said while no agreements were expected to be signed during Mr Parrikar's visit, it is aimed at firming up defence ties.
His visit follows high-level visits by top Chinese defence officials including the highest ranking Chinese General Fan Changlong, the Vice Chairman of Central Military Commission (CMC) to India last year.
CMC headed by President Xi Jinping is the overall commanding authority of China's 2.3 million armed forces.
In the last two years, defence cooperation between the two countries has been enhanced with high-level interactions.
Both sides had also set up Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to discuss the issue of incursions along the 3,488-km long disputed border.
Officials on both sides acknowledge that it helped to address the tensions.
His talks with Chinese defence officials will be immediately followed by the visit of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who would be attend the 19th boundary talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.
Doval and Yang, who are designated Special Representatives for boundary talks, also have a mandate to discuss entire gamut of bilateral issues.
China's decision to block India's move to ban Azhar in UN for his alleged role in Pathankot terrorist attack is expected to figure in their talks.
More than 13 thousand 600 polling stations have been put up including 311 model booths. (Photo: PTI)
Birbhum: The second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections began here on Sunday with beefed up security, including adequate deployment of Central paramilitary forces.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged all voters to turn out in large numbers.
"As Phase II of the West Bengal polls begins, I urge all those voting today to turnout in record numbers & vote," he tweeted.
As Phase II of the West Bengal polls begins, I urge all those voting today to turnout in record numbers & vote. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 17, 2016
383 candidates including 33 women are in the fray for the 56 seats spread in seven districts.
About One crore 21 lakh people are enrolled for the second round of polling to vote for 5 constituencies in Alipurduar, 7 in Jalpaiguri, 6 in Darjeeling, 9 in Uttar Dinajpur, 6 in Dakshin Dinajpur, 12 in Malda and 11 in Birbhum districts.
More than 13 thousand 600 polling stations have been put up including 311 model booths.
Read: EC puts TMC leader Anubrata Mondal under surveillance
Voting at two polling stations in Malda was delayed by 20 minutes due to technical problem in EVM
Besides the general and Police observers, 1563 micro observers will keep watch during the polling today.
A BJP delegation yesterday called on the state CEO in Kolkata and demanded that the West Bengal Chief Secretary be removed from his post for answering a Notice of the Election Commission on behalf of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Commission had show-caused Banerjee for her utterances which were made by her as a TMC leader at an electoral rally.
Read: I will continue to do or say as I like: Mamata slams EC
The delegation insisted that by answering on Banerjee's behalf the top official has worked as her party agent.
The Chief Secretary had sent the reply yesterday that Banerjee did not violate the election code by her speech to make Asansol a separate district.
The decision to this effect was taken by the state cabinet on 18th December and the issue was discussed in the Assembly, well before the election dates were announced.
The clashes broke out despite heavy security deployment in the area. (Photo: ANI/Twotter)
Birbhum: Despite the heavy security deployed in the region with the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections underway, clashes broke out between different party workers in Birbhum on Sunday in which at least three people were injured.
A violent scuffle broke out between Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Bharatiya Janata Party workers near a polling station in Birbhum.
#WATCH: Clash between CPI(M) and TMC workers outside a polling booth in West Bengal's Malda, two injuredhttps://t.co/KyVPBgtvMY ANI (@ANI_news) April 17, 2016
Last night the Congress, CPI (M) common office in North Dinajpur was vandalised and ransacked. The Congress alleged TMC's hand in it.
There seems to be no dent in the incidents of violence despite the beefed up security, including adequate deployment of Central paramilitary forces.
383 candidates including 33 women are in the fray for the 56 seats spread in seven districts.
About one crore 21 lakh people are enrolled for the second round of polling to vote for five constituencies in Alipurduar, seven in Jalpaiguri, six in Darjeeling, nince in Uttar Dinajpur, six in Dakshin Dinajpur, 12 in Malda and 11 in Birbhum districts.
More than 13 thousand 600 polling stations have been put up including 311 model booths.
Voting at two polling stations in Malda was delayed by 20 minutes due to technical problem in EVM
Besides the general and Police observers, 1563 micro observers will keep watch during the polling today.
Paramilitary jawans during flag march on the eve of second phase of polling. (Photo: PTI)
Birbhum: West Bengal on Sunday recorded 79.70 per cent voting in the second phase of assembly polls in 56 constituencies which the Election Commission said was 'by and large' peaceful, barring a clash between workers of rival political parties.
The Commission said the final figure would increase as the poll percentage was based on text messages sent by polling officials from the state to Commission headquarters here at 5 pm.
Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena told a press conference that the polling percentage in the 56 assembly constituencies which went to poll Sunday was 86.51 per cent in 2011 assembly elections and 82.70 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
There were no poll violence-related deaths but a polling officer, Gopi Chakravarty, died of heart attack in Alipurduar constituency.
"There were reports of disruption of polling due to EVM errors. The EVMs were replaced quickly... in the beginning hours, near polling station 78 of Bolpur constituency, there was a clash between (workers of) two parties in which three people were hurt," the Deputy EC said.
Read: Controversial TMC leader casts vote wearing party symbol
In another incident, a presiding officer of a polling station was replaced and disciplinary proceedings initiated after he was found helping a voter near a voting compartment.
In the run up to the second phase of elections, authorities executed 15,623 non-bailable warrants to keep trouble-makers under check. Similarly, over 5000 people were kept under watch to ensure they did not influence voters.
Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged all voters to turn out in large numbers.
Read: Turn out in 'record numbers', PM tells voters as phase 2 of WB polls begins
"As Phase II of the West Bengal polls begins, I urge all those voting today to turnout in record numbers & vote," he tweeted.
As Phase II of the West Bengal polls begins, I urge all those voting today to turnout in record numbers & vote. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 17, 2016
383 candidates including 33 women are in the fray for the 56 seats spread in seven districts.
About one crore 21 lakh people are enrolled for the second round of polling to vote for five constituencies in Alipurduar, seven in Jalpaiguri, six in Darjeeling, nine in Uttar Dinajpur, six in Dakshin Dinajpur, 12 in Malda and 11 in Birbhum districts.
More than 13 thousand 600 polling stations have been put up including 311 model booths.
Meanwhile, despite the heavy security deployed in the region, clashes broke out between different party workers here today in which at least three people were injured.
Read: WB polls: Three injured in clash between Congress, BJP, CPI(M) workers
A violent scuffle broke out between Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Bharatiya Janata Party workers near a polling station in Birbhum.
Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has appealed to non-BJP parties to make a 'Sangh-mukt' (Sangh-free) country to save democracy.
"Sangh-mukt Bharat banane ke liye sabhi gair BJP parties ko ek hona hoga (to usher in a Sangh-free India, all non-BJP parties have to come together)," the JD(U) chief said at the 'Advantage Conclave' in Patna.
"Uniting against BJP and its divisive ideology is the only way to save democracy," said Mr Kumar, who has already talked about "largest possible unity" among secular parties.
The BJP on Sunday said the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader was 'daydreaming'.
What is Nitish Kumars credibility to call for a BJP-mukt Bharat when he himself had been BJP-yukt (associated with BJP) for 17 long years? BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain said.
Hussain said such statements were a 'desperate bid on the part of a regional party leader' to hog the limelight. Nitish Kumars JD-U is a regional party that has never contested on all the seats even in Bihar, he said.
Hussain said the Bihar chief minister was dreaming of playing a crucial role in national politics. These are his dreams but these dreams will not be realised. The Janata Dal is not united even in Bihar. So Nitish Kumar first needs to build his party at a national level before giving such statements, Hussain added.
The BJP, the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS, had launched itself into the 2014 Lok Sabha elections with a call for "Congress-mukt Bharat" or Congress-free India, an election war-cry it has used in every subsequent poll.
The Chief Minister said he was not against any party or individual, but against "divisive" ideology of the Sangh, the ideological parent of BJP.
"The three stalwarts of the BJP -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi -- have been sidelined within the party and power has gone to people who have no faith in secularism and communal harmony," he alleged.
A day after becoming JD(U) president, Mr Kumar had, on April 11, said that he would strive for forging the "largest possible unity" against BJP by bringing Left and regional parties on one platform before the 2019 general elections.
In an apparent dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar said, "Management is more important than event management."
"Event management could benefit for sometime. But, there is a need to go into the depth of the issue. Sincere work done for the welfare of people itself reaches the masses," he said.
Referring to prohibition in Bihar, he said, "I have visited three-four districts (after announcement of total ban on liquor on April 5). I found its not only women, but even men are happy with it."
MDMK general secretary Vaiko is greeted by a temple priest as he embarks on his election campaign at Anna Nagar on Saturday.
Chennai: After 20 years, MDMK leader Vaiko is all set to contest the May 16 Assembly polls and will try his luck from Kovilpatti constituency. The much-awaited morale booster for MDMK cadres came from their party leader during an election rally here on Saturday.
We are happy that our leader is again in the fray and he will win by at least 40,000 votes as the constituency is traditionally a strong bastion of Communist parties and have a large number of MDMK voters, said MDMK functionary Poonga Nagar Ramadoss.
It may be noted that in 1996, Vaiko contested from Vilathikulam constituency and lost by a very narrow margin of 634 votes to DMK. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he lost in Virudhunagar. Meanwhile, MDMK has announced candidates for 29 seats.
A press release said of the 29 seats allotted in the DMDK-PWA combine, MDMK has named candidates for 27 and announced that two seats would be for its allies, fringe Tamil nationalist outfits.
Gail India will deploy drones on pilot basis on its main trunk pipeline as part of higher safety measures. (Representational image)
New Delhi: Gail India, the country's biggest gas transporters, will deploy drones on pilot basis on its main trunk pipeline as part of higher safety measures it is implementing to secure its vast network.
In the aftermath of the June 2014 accident at its pipeline in Andhra Pradesh that killed at least 18 people, the state-owned firm has taken a number of initiatives to raise safety standards including replacing old pipelines and using advanced technology.
"We plan to use drones on a pilot basis on a 200-km stretch of the HBJ pipeline in the Chambal Ravines in Madhya Pradesh," GAIL Director (Projects) Ashutosh Karnatak told PTI.
The company has already tendered for drones and the response has been encouraging. "We hope to award the tender in a months time," he said.
The drones will be used to patrol the pipeline to detect physical abnormal activity like encroachment or intrusion on the pipeline. GAIL India has also started using satellite surveillance to monitor its 13,000-km of gas pipeline network.
A government probe into the June 2014 accident had highlighted safety lapses at the firm and prompted sector regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to slap a penalty.
Karnatak said drones will be used to detect encroachments around pipelines as they are a big safety hazard. In the pilot, a drone will fly over the pipeline, capturing pictures and other data using smart technology. The data will be analysed to detect any potential hazard.
"We estimate a drone may cost Rs 2.5 crore or so," he said adding the company is experimenting if technology can replace patrolling.
If successful, drones will be used on other key pipelines. GAIL, at present, uses foot patrolling to spot encroachments and seeks local administration's help in getting them cleared.
Drones will however not be able to detect any leakage, for which the company will continue to reply on sensors and patrolling, he said. "We started using live satellite monitoring of the pipelines this year and we are now integrating advance Unmanned Ariel Vehicle (UAV) with this system," he said.
Pipeline securities is a major issue across the world and with recent progress in satellite sensing technology, availability of new high resolution satellites and object oriented image analysis, there is a possibility to introduce space technology for pipeline monitoring applications.
GAIL did pilot project on satellite monitoring on its 610 km Dahej-Vijaipur pipeline.
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Bhubaneswar: After Mumbai Central, RailTel,the telecom arm of the Indian Railways on Sunday launched high-speed public free WiFi service at Bhubaneswar railway station in partnership with Google.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu accompanied by Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha, launched the WiFi service which will benefit 1.4 lakh visitors at Bhubaneswar station daily.
The Minister also announced that similar service will be made available at Puri Railway Station ahead of Lord Jagannth's annual Rath Yatra in July this year. The project will eventually be rolled out to cover 400 railway stations across India.
On Congress protest outside the station against the reported move to shift the proposed rail wagon repair factory from Narla in Kalahandi district, both the ministers were critical of the UPA government for having announced the project without making the requisite budget allocations for it.
"We do, what we say. But, earlier, they (UPA government) announced the project without making budgetary provision. There was no mention of Narla project in the pink book. The announcement was made on political consideration," Sinha said.
"We are committed to the announcements made by us. This time during budget presentation, I have placed facts before Parliament on the work done by us as regard the announcements made in the previous budget," said Prabhu during his speech here.
Stressing that no factory can be made by simply making announcements without required provisions, Prabhu said "we have said 100 stations will get WiFi service this year and we will do it. We do not make false announcements".
Noting that Odisha got a meagre Rs 719 crore in 2012-13 rail budget and Rs 812 crore in 2013-14, the Railway Minister said the amount for the state was substantially raised by NDA government and this year it is Rs 6,000 crore.
On the proposed Narla wagon repair factory, Prabhu had yesterday announced that a joint working group will be formed to decide how to set up projects in Kalahandi and Ganjam districts, announcements for which were made by previous UPA government.
The group will decide what kind of projects could come up at Narla and Sitapalli of Ganjam if wagon repair factories are not economically viable in those places.
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New Delhi: Skills and talent development firm NIIT aims to train about 20,000 students this year on future technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), robotics and Virtual reality (VR) to meet the changing skill set requirement of various industries.
The company will launch the new courses from next month to be offered from its centres and later extend them to engineering colleges later.
"We have been a global leader in skills and talent development. Once again, we want to revolutionise the landscape by introducing these pioneering programmes. Looking at the digital transformation across industry verticals, we want to create a talent pool that is equipped with skill sets required," NIIT President (Global Skills and Careers Group) Prakash Menon told PTI.
These programmes will cover Java Stack, Mean Stack, Big Data and Data Sciences Stack, Cloud Stack, IoT Stack, robotics and VR, he added.
"India, with a strong technology ecosystem of MNC R&D centres, service providers, IT global in-house centres and startups, is well placed to play key role in the digital era...Our aim is to train about 20,000 people in the first year," he said.
NIIT will roll out 12-14 week courses from 150 centres and later expand them to other centres and engineering colleges as well. The fees start at about Rs 25,000.
"The focus of the courses is building products rather than software. The students will be required to work on two projects for the course," Menon said.
According to industry reports, India is home to digitally ready talent pool of five lakh engineers suitable to execute digital transformation projects. This is expected to increase to over a million engineers trained in digital transformation technologies by 2020.
"Owing to this growing demand, entry-level and experienced workforces with Digital Transformation Skills are attracting higher salaries as well compared to those with traditional IT skills," he said.
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The experiment will collect usage data on spending, location, frequency and so on, before all of this is turned into big data and the government gets a good idea of the ideas potential.
Japan is introducing a system which could replace both cash and credit cards. There are hopes the move will attract more tourists to the country, while easing payment and dispensing with the need for cards or cash. Tests are starting this summer. The system will calculate how much money a customer has based on a fingerprint.
The idea itself is not new a version already exists at a bank and a theme park in Nagasaki Prefecture. Customers there can make payments at over 30 restaurants and businesses.
Whats so convenient about it is you only have to go through one scan when arriving to Japan and youre good to go (assuming you have money this is Japan, after all). The customer places two fingers on a scanner to complete payment.
One obvious feature of this for tourists is, of course, no longer having to fill out tax exemption forms. Everything will be faster even checking into hotels, which will certainly require foreign guests to show a passport.
The experiment is about to start and will feature some 300 businesses of all shapes and colours in areas most popular with tourists.
All of this is done ahead of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, when the government hopes to have wired up the entire country with fingerprint payment terminals. The idea is to increase the number of foreign visitors to 40 million by then.
The experiment will collect usage data on spending, location, frequency and so on, before all of this is turned into big data and the government gets a good idea of the ideas potential.
Some, however, doubt that everyone will be fine with submitting their fingerprints. Either way, Aeon Bank in Tokyo promises to become the first bank in Japan to have an ATM relying on your fingerprint for identification. One bank official told the Yomiuri Shimbun that the system is also superior in the area of security, such as preventing people from impersonating our customers.
Source: www.rt.com
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Mumbai: A report by a Korean Daily suggested that Samsung Displays may supply tech giant Apple with 100 million units of 5.5.-inch OLED displays panels starting 2017.
According to a Macrumors report, the $2.59 billion deal will help the Cupertino-based firm to eliminate the need of backlight used in traditional LCD displays, and also scale down the size of their present line of devices.
Other than that, OLED display panels will also allow sharper and vibrant images, albeit at a higher cost and lower life-span. If Apple can overcome these problems, its future devices will definitely be a force to reckon.
Earlier reports that emerged said that Apple would start adopting OLED displays by end 2018 but newer rumours suggest that the company might release a smartphone with OLED display by 2017.
Moreover, well-known KGI securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and a report from Digitimes had pointed out earlier that Apple will be working on a larger-screened device. However, the new report about the 5.5-inch OLEd panels kills all previous rumours.
Kuo also envisaged a massive design overhaul for the 2017 iPhone, which will witness the company dropping its customary two-year upgrade policya major redesign followed by a minor touch-up.
He also predicted that the 2017 version of the iPhone will be a glass-backed device along with wireless charging, and biometric recognitions.
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Washington: A US Air Force reconnaissance plane was intercepted by a Russian SU-27 jet in an "unsafe and unprofessional" manner while in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, the Pentagon has said.
"The US aircraft was operating in international airspace and at no time crossed into Russian territory," Laura Seal, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said of Thursday's incident.
It came shortly after Russian aircraft repeatedly buzzed the USS Donald Cook this past week, including an incident Tuesday in which a Russian Su-24 flew nine metres above the war ship in a "simulated attack profile," according to the US military's European Command.
Russia has denied the actions were reckless or provocative but they have been seen as exacerbating tensions between the rival powers.
"This unsafe and unprofessional air intercept has the potential to cause serious harm and injury to all aircrews involved," Seal said of the latest incident in a statement.
"More importantly, the unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries."
The US aircraft in question was an RC-135 and the Pentagon said it had been flying a routine route. "There have been repeated incidents over the last year where Russian military aircraft have come close enough to other air and sea traffic to raise serious safety concerns, and we are very concerned with any such behavior," the Pentagon said.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry had strong words about the recent warship flyby. "We condemn this kind of behaviour. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down," Kerry told CNN Espanol in Miami.
Kerry added: "People need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated on the high seas."
"We are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is and our hope is that this will never be repeated," he said. The Russian maneuvers began Monday while the destroyer was located about 70 nautical miles from the Russian base in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea.
One US defence official called the actions of the Russian planes "more aggressive than anything we've seen in some time."
The destroyer's commanding officer Charles Hampton told journalists in Lithuania that "very low, very fast" flybys were "inconsistent with the professional norms of militaries in international waters or international airspace."
But Russia countered the criticism, insisting it had observed all safety regulations.
The US military's European Command (EUCOM) released video showing warplanes zooming so close past the Cook that one sailor can be heard saying: "He is below the bridge wing," meaning the plane was flying lower than the highest point of the ship.
The event was aimed educating Americans and thousands of tourists about the Sikh culture. (Photo: via web)
New York: The iconic Times Square was seeped in the colours of the Sikh culture as thousands of community members gathered here to celebrate Vaisakhi and educate fellow Americans about Sikhism in the wake of growing incidents of hate crimes and discrimination against them.
Legendary Indian sportsman Milkha Singh graced the occasion and addressed one of the largest such celebrations in the US, calling on the Sikh community to educate the young generation about the significance of the Sikh culture.
Hundreds of excited tourists and children queued up at the popular city destination to get turbans tied on their heads in bright colours by members of the Sikh community and took pictures and selfies wearing them as Turban Day was also celebrated at the event.
Today if the Sikhs have a name, are known around the world, it is because of the turban. Milkha Singh is called a Flying Sikh because I have the turban on my head. My beard and turban are the reasons for the respect and recognition that I have across the world, Singh said.
Kumamoto, Japan: Scores of people were feared buried alive on Saturday after two powerful quakes hit southern Japan a day apart, killing at least 42 according to CNN and as a forecast storm threatened more devastating landslides.
Homes, roads and railway lines were swept away when huge hillsides collapsed, as thousands of tonnes of mud was dislodged by the thunderous seismic tremors. Buildings were reduced to rubble, including a university dormitory and apartment complexes, with dozens of people unaccounted for over a wide area.
We are aware of multiple locations where people have been buried alive, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said. Police, firefighters and Self Defense Force personnel are doing all they can to rescue them. Around 91,700 people have been evacuated, including 300 from an area close to a dam thought to be at risk of collapse.
A hospital was left teetering by Saturday morning's 7.0 quake, with doctors and patients rushed from the building in darkness. Isolated villages in the mountainous area of Kumamoto were completely cut off by landslides and damage to roads.
Aerial footage showed a bridge on a main trunk road had crashed onto the carriageway below it, its pillars felled. The quake came as emergency responders were working to reach areas affected by a quake.
Philippine presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte talks to the media before boarding his flight for his hometown of Davao City. (Photo: AP)
Manila: Leading Philippine presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, whose campaign promises a ruthless war on crime, was angrily condemned on Sunday after a video surfaced of him joking about a murdered Australian rape victim.
Duterte, who promises mass killings of suspected criminals if elected next month, appear in a video uploaded on YouTube making the joke about the female Australian missionary.
The missionary, who was ministering in a prison in Davao in the southern Philippines, was raped and killed during a riot by inmates in 1989.
Duterte was the city mayor at the time.
"They raped all of the women... There was this Australian lay minister... when they took them out... I saw her face and I thought, 'Son of a bitch. what a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first," Duterte is shown telling a crowd of laughing supporters at a campaign rally.
Duterte, who boasts of the extra-judicial killings of suspects by vigilantes during his time in Davao, is the preferred candidate in the run-up to the May 9 election, according to the latest opinion survey on April 3.
His rivals, women's groups and commentators on social media quickly denounced his remarks.
President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma said the comments show "his lack of fitness for the presidency" and his "utter lack of respect for women".
Aquino, who under the constitution cannot seek a second term, is supporting another candidate, his former interior secretary Mar Roxas who trails Duterte in opinion surveys.
Rival presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay called Duterte's remarks "simply revolting".
"You are a crazy maniac who doesn't respect women and doesn't deserve to be president," Binay told Duterte in a statement.
Another candidate Senator Grace Poe, who is just behind Duterte in the surveys, called his comment "distasteful and unacceptable, and reflects his disrespect for women".
One Filipino remarked on Twitter: "I broke down after watching Duterte on Aussie rape. I can't fathom how his followers can laugh at it."
Women's group Gabriela attacked Duterte's remarks, saying rape or any other form of sexual abuse was not a joke "nor something to be trivialised in a joke", especially by someone seeking the presidency.
Many Filipinos have embraced Duterte for his vulgarity-laced speeches, his boasts of sexual conquests and his promised war on crime.
Even when he called Pope Francis a "son of a whore," in a speech last November, his followers in the devoutly Catholic nation quickly forgave him.
Spokesmen for Duterte had no immediate comment when approached by AFP. Many of his followers brushed off the controversy.
"We won't apologise for he has done nothing wrong, it was a clear joke for God's sake," one Filipina supporter said on Twitter.
Rome: The Syrian refugees taken in by Pope Francis following his visit to the Greek island of Lesbos have hailed the pontiff as a "saviour" for offering them a new life.
In a hugely symbolic move seen as a lesson in solidarity for Europe, Francis, who is himself the son of Italian migrants in Argentina, on Saturday took 12 Syrians from three families -- all Muslims -- home with him from Lesbos to the Vatican.
"All refugees are children of God," the 79-year-old pope said on the flight back to Rome referring to their religion, adding that though his gesture was "a drop in the ocean" he hoped "the ocean will never be the same again".
In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, the families, who spent their first night in Rome at a Catholic charity, expressed their gratitude to the pontiff for his "gesture of hope".
"We saw friends and relatives die in the rubble, we fled Syria because we no longer had any hope," said Hasan, an engineer from Damascus, who arrived in Italy with his wife Nour and two-year-old son.
After fleeing to Turkey, Hasan and his family joined the migrant trail to Europe, piling into a rubber dinghy that set out from the Turkish coast for Greece. "But it was overloaded," said Hasan, recalling the pitch black of the sea at night and the waves rocking the vessel.
Escape from Lesbos 'prison'
"In Lesbos, we understood that we were stuck in a place that we could not leave, (we were) in a trap, a prison", he said describing the pope as "our saviour" for whisking them off the island, where thousands of migrants risk being sent back to Turkey under a new EU-Turkey deportation deal.
Wafa, who was also on the papal flight from Lesbos with her husband Osama, eight-year-old daughter Masa and six-year-old son Omar, together with her husband, described the "constant bombardments" in recent months around their home.
"Since then (my son) has barely spoken... he is locked in an impenetrable silence," she said. "Even today, he wakes up every night crying and we cannot get him to play with his sister."
Wafa said she and her husband, who are from Damascus suburb of Zamalka, had opted to cut ties with the past.
"But we know we took the right decision," she said. After their stay on Lesbos, which seemed interminable, "Francis gave us a new life," she said.
Ramy, a 51-year-old teacher from the eastern Islamic State-occupied city of Deir Ezzor, fled Syria with his wife Suhila and three children -- sons Rashid, 18 and Abdelmajid, 16, and seven-year-old daughter Al Quds -- after their home was destroyed in the war.
"We discuss a lot and find it hard to imagine what life will be like in the future: we don't know whether we will start over in Europe or whether, one day, we will be able to return to a Syria free of war and violence," he told La Stampa.
Vatican leading by example
"We are grateful to the pope, we will prove ourselves worthy of this opportunity and the gift he gave us," he told La Stampa, while adding he did not know whether he would remain in Europe for the long-term or "one day, return to a Syria that is free of war and violence."
The three families, who had initially set their sights on reaching Germany or another European country, are now expected to seek asylum in Italy.
Their arrival brings to around 20 the number of refugees living in the Vatican, which has under 1,000 inhabitants.
A similar intake across Europe would see six million people given asylum on the continent of 300 million.
Last year, the pope had appealed to every Catholic diocese in Europe to take in a refugee family -- an appeal that fell on deaf ears in most parts of the continent.
Migrant arrivals in Greece have drastically fallen since Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants landing on the Greek islands in return for billions in EU cash and other concessions.
Over 1.1 million people have crossed clandestinely from Turkey to Greece since the start of 2015, with hundreds drowning en route.
It is estimated that around 30,000 people from 100 countries have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other extremist groups. (Photo: AP)
London: Some Islamic State recruits who do not have "blood on their hands" and have returned to their home countries in Europe from Syria and Iraq should be enrolled to combat the dreaded terror group, a senior European Union counter-terrorism official has said.
Gilles de Kerchove, EU's Counter-terrorism Coordinator, said that in cases where they were not considered a threat, such people could be used by governments to reveal details of the brutal conditions within the so-called caliphate of ISIS.
"Some returnees who don't have 'blood on their hands' are a strong credible voice for counter-narrative purposes," Kerchove said.
"They can explain what they have experienced, that they thought they were joining a nice idea of the caliphate but encountered people sexually abusing others, or being violent,? he was quoted as saying by 'The Observer'.
He added that a blanket criminalisation of all individuals returning from Syria and Iraq was unproductive. "If there is no evidence that they are an active jihadi for instance, they crossed the border and spent a week with the organisation but were really just washing dishes, a fourth-rank foot soldier, then saw people beheaded and rushed to leave, saying, 'I made a big mistake' is it really worth putting them on the trail that leads to prison? "Prisons are major incubators of radicalisation," Kerchove said.
"Therefore, if you can avoid prison for those who do not have blood on their hands and are genuinely ready to engage in a rehabilitation programme, why don't we try alternatives?" he said.
It is estimated that around 30,000 people from 100 countries have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other extremist groups.
More than 800 individuals have travelled from the UK to fight around half of whom are believed to have since returned.
"Decisions on people who return from Syria and Iraq are taken on a case-by-case basis. Some may have been exposed to traumatic experiences," said a UK Home Office spokesperson.
Parrikar, who arrived in Beijing from Shanghai by a special aircraft, will hold talks with Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) General Fan Changlong and others. (Photo: Twitter)
Beijing: Recurring incidents of incursions, implementation of an agreement to reduce tensions between border patrols and Sino-India strategic concerns were among the issues expected to figure in Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's talks with top Chinese military officials on Monday.
Parrikar, who arrived in Beijing from Shanghai by a special aircraft, will hold talks with Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) General Fan Changlong and others.
CMC which is the supreme commanding body of the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) is headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Parrikar will call on Premier Li Keqiang. Later, he would visit China's recently integrated western command military headquarters which has jurisdiction over border with India.
The minister is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry.
While Indian officials said the talks were expected to review the whole gamut of bilateral ties which showed considerable improvements in the recent times, India's concerns over aggressive patrolling by Chinese troops especially in the Ladakh sector remained high.
China denies any incursions, asserting that its troops patrolled areas of its territory in the 3,488-km long disputed border.
The two countries may discuss further modalities of the 2013 Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) which has outlined various measures to address tensions arising out of the aggressive patrolling by both sides.
India and China also conduct an annual dialogue of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination to deal with aggressive patrolling by troops.
It helped to bring down tensions over Chinese incursions during the key visits of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2013 followed by President Xi Jinping a year later.
Both sides opened several border points for troops and officers on the ground to interact with each other to build good relations.
Recent reports from India spoke of the presence of Chinese troops in the forward positions of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) which People's Liberation Army (PLA) dismissed as "groundless".
The two militaries also have strategic concerns over each other's military tie-ups with other countries and development of their militaries.
Ahead of Parrikar's visit, China hinted that it may take up the recent decision by India to open up military bases to US for logistics and efforts to conclude a pact to share aircraft sharing technologies.
Parrikar is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry.
Beijing: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday arrived in Beijing on his first official visit to China for high-level talks with top military officials to consolidate ties between the armed forces of the two countries.
Parrikar arrived from Shanghai by a special aircraft and will hold talks with top Chinese officials, including Defence Minister Gen Chang Wanquan and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) Gen Fan Changlong tomorrow.
He is also due to call on Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Later, he would visit China's recently integrated western command military headquarters which has jurisdiction over border with India.
Parrikar is accompanied by senior officials from army and navy, besides the defence ministry.
Indian officials said the visit is aimed at further consolidating the defence relations between the two countries which showed considerable improvement in the last few years with periodic high-level interactions between the two armed forces.
Parrikar's five-day visit will be immediately followed by a visit by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who is scheduled to hold 19th Boundary Dialogue with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi later next week.
Doval and Yang, who are designated Special Representatives for boundary talks, also have a mandate to discuss entire gamut of bilateral issues.
The contentious issue of China blocking India's attempts in the UN to ban Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mummad's chief Masood Azhar is expected to figure in their talks.
Earlier today before leaving for Beijing, Parrikar visited Urban Planning Exhibition Centre in Shanghai where he was briefed by the Chinese officials on the urban planning achievements in China's biggest metropolis which has population of over 22 million.
The briefing focussed on use of innovative technologies and smart city transportations, Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a statement.
He also addressed members of the Indian community at a meeting held at the Shanghai Consulate where he spoke of his government's "steadfast commitment" at securing interests of Indians living abroad.
The defence minister said there was a significant momentum in India's economy, which had been successful in attracting large investments under the 'Make in India' initiative.
He also answered questions from the audience on issues ranging from India's self-reliance in defence production, education to high-end technologies and retaining skilled talented students, the statement said.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will travel to the United Kingdom Monday on a three-day visit to attend a bilateral strategic dialogue.
During his stay in the UK from April 18 to 20, Aziz will also participate in the meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, Foreign Office said in a statement.
"Aziz and Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will review the progress on bilateral relations and discuss future plans to develop a deeper dialogue between the two countries," it said today.
The dialogue represents a long-term commitment by both sides to work together for greater prosperity and security.
Pakistan and the UK share longstanding ties that are marked by cordiality and close cooperation in many fields. The UK is one of Pakistan?s foremost trade and development partners, it said.
The Enhanced Strategic Dialogue, which was signed in 2011, sets out the UK and Pakistans strategic partnership focusing on areas including trade and business relations; development cooperation; education and security.
The last review was held at the Foreign Ministers level in March 2014.
Saudis warn of economic reprisals if Congress passes 9/11 bill
Saudi Arabia is warning it will sell off billions in American assets if the U.S. Congress passes a bipartisan bill that would allow victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to sue foreign governments.
Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir issued the warning to U.S. lawmakers last month during a visit to Washington, two senior State Department officials told CNN. A source with knowledge of the Saudis' thinking said investments would be put in jeopardy if this bill passes, so they are trying to protect themselves from risk....
The Obama administration has, in turn, applied heavy pressure on Congress to block the bill. Top officials from the State Department and Pentagon warned Senate Armed Services Committee staffers last month that the bill could bring economic risks to the U.S.
The White House had no comment Saturday and the Saudis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in February, Secretary of State John Kerry said the legislation could "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent."
The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, opens the door for families of 9/11 victims to sue foreign states and financial partners of terrorism.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, the co-chair of the 9/11 congressional inquiry, told CNN's Michael Smerconish Saturday morning that he is "outraged but not surprised" by the warning from the Saudi government.
"The Saudis have known what they did in 9/11, and they knew that we knew what they did, at least at the highest levels of the U.S. government," Graham said on "Smerconish."
The government of Saudi Arabia, a longtime and key strategic U.S. ally in the Middle East, has never been formally implicated in the 9/11 attacks and Saudi officials have long denied any involvement. But 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, and in February, Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" who pleaded guilty to participating in an al Qaeda conspiracy in connection to the 9/11 attacks, alleged members of the Saudi royal family supported al Qaeda.
Twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 Commission Report, which are said to focus on the role of foreign governments in the plot, remain classified. Saudi officials asked the U.S. to release the redacted 28-page section in 2003, saying this would give them the opportunity to defend themselves against claims of involvement.
China's yuan gold benchmark to launch with 18 members -source
Top Chinese banks and gold miners, along with the world's biggest jewellery retailer, will be among 18 members taking part in Beijing's new yuan-denominated gold benchmark, a source familiar with the matter said.
Two foreign banks will also join the benchmark-setting process, when it launches on April 19, marking China's biggest step to become a price-setter for gold.
As the world's top producer, importer and consumer of gold, China has baulked at having to depend on a dollar price in international transactions, and believes its market weight should entitle it to set the price of gold.
A yuan gold fix is not expected to pose an immediate threat to the gold pricing dominance of London and New York, but it could ultimately give Asia more power, particularly if the Chinese currency becomes fully convertible.
WASHINGTON In 1942, 13-year-old Jean Revels lost her father, Captain Anders Johanson, to a torpedo attack from a German U-Boat.
My dad went down with the ship and saved all his men, Revels, now 87, recalled from her home in Charleston, S.C.
Johanson was captain of the SS Dixie Arrow, an American oil tanker sunk off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., on March 26, 1942. Ninety other ships met similar fates off Cape Hatteras, turning the area into the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Its a burial ground, their tomb, to honor where their last moments living were, said Dale Revels, Jeans son and Captain Johansons grandson.
Preserving this submerged military graveyard is the goal of a proposal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to expand the already existing Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, which protects the site where the Civil War battleship USS Monitor went down, to include the World War II shipwrecks.
But that idea, first raised in 2014, has met determined opposition from North Carolina officials and residents who fear further regulation of the waters will cut into livelihoods dependent on tourism and fishing.
Our concern is not for today but for tomorrow, said Warren Judge, a member of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, which has gone on record against the proposal. Our experience has been that within 40 to 50 years we will be prohibited to use the sanctuary and so we are concerned for our future generations access to use the resource.
Tane Casserley, a marine archaeologist and the research coordinator for the Monitor sanctuary, says the concerns are misplaced. People will still be allowed to dive and fish in the expanded sanctuary, he said. What they wont be able to do is take artifacts off the ships or otherwise damage them.
Bell found in shop
It was Jean Revels discovery in 1998 that the bell of the Dixie Arrow was hanging as a trophy in a Cape Hatteras dive shop that gave rise to the proposal for a sanctuary.
She was appalled at what she felt was the equivalent of grave robbing and began a letter-writing campaign to protect the final resting place of Merchant Marine vessels. NOAA finally proposed the expansion in June 2014.
We need to protect this as a battlefield and a monument for the fallen sailors of the war, Casserley said. Under current federal law, only about six of the 91 wrecks are protected, he said.
David Alberg, the superintendent for the Monitor sanctuary, says a final proposal is in the works, now that the public comment period, which closed March 18, has ended. The final plan, he pledged, will take in public concerns expressed in those comments and gathered during five hearings four in North Carolina and one in Washington.
The final proposal is about working together to honor this history, in so doing showcasing the heritage, and appreciation of the role North Carolina played in World War II, Alberg said.
Not many Americans know about it, he added, and it needs to be honored.
Author Ed Offley, who has written two books about the role of German U-Boats in World War II and the Battle of Atlantic, thinks the government is going in the right direction to expand the sanctuary.
Most of these ships are grave sites, Offley said.
Lack of trust
But residents who make their living from the sea are less interested in the dead than in preserving their livelihoods.
I dont trust NOAA, I dont trust the government, as they will do whatever they want with or without permission, said Mike Warren, owner and operator of Hatteras Blue Fishing Charters in Hatteras, N.C.
He said others who make their livelihoods from the sea tackle shops, restaurants workers, fishermen, charter boat captains and more share his concern.
When they get their hands on something, more things always come, he said, referring to federal officials and regulations.
Jim Bunch, a Kill Devil Hills, N.C., resident who represents recreational diving on the Monitor Advisory Council, is not against expanding the Monitor sanctuary as long as NOAA follows through with what they are planning to do.
But he also understands others trepidations. The fishing industry has had a rough past, so they are less trustful, he said.
Alberg pledged that the oppositions totally reasonable concern will be taken into account.
NOAA is aware of the concern from the fisherman and local citizens as their livelihoods are mainly from the Outer Banks, Alberg said. We are aware of it, we are being sensitive about it.
The Cape Hatteras sanctuary isnt the first to face opposition. When NOAA proposed the Thunder Bay sanctuary in Lake Huron in Michigan in 1991, it met local opposition the nearby city of Alpena in 1997 even voted in a referendum to oppose the sanctuary.
But the opposition was eventually overcome with a revised proposal, and in 2000 the sanctuary was established.
For the Revels family, the establishment of a Cape Hatteras sanctuary would end a years-long search for recognition of a nearly forgotten chapter in U.S. history.
My grandfather went down with the ship, said Dale Revels. The crew managed to escape, but all of the officers went down with the ship, and there really isnt a memorial for them.
NOAA is just trying to preserve a historical graveyard like Gettysburg or Normandy, to preserve the historic efforts of these men.
Lets talk about a state thats significant in every presidential primary.
Its primary isnt the first election in the lineup, but its a state thats consistently willing to support underdog candidates; a state looked to as a place to give momentum to a campaign.
Its a state that has hosted historic debates and a place where news writers can boldly proclaim: If you dont campaign here, you dont win.
Its a state that only recently backed a charismatic upstart over a favorite son a sitting U.S. senator for the state prompting the home state candidate to withdraw after a landslide loss.
Were not talking about Florida in 2016.
Were talking about Oregon, circa the 1960s.
Although 2016s primary election may be one of those odd ones in which the contest for the nomination in the two major parties is not yet wrapped up by the time Oregonians vote on May 17, it wasnt that long ago that Oregon was an important state in the primaries in every election.
In fact, prior to the 1972 election, Oregon was one of just a handful of states to have a direct primary that required delegates to party conventions to vote for the candidates who won the states popular vote.
As for that all-important momentum, back in that day, Oregon was seen as important because it was the last state to vote before the election in the largest primary state, California.
The Oregon System
Oregon was not the first state to hold a presidential primary. That honor is generally accorded to North Dakota, which held its first presidential primary on March 19, 1912, about a month before Oregon held its first presidential primary. But the inventor of the presidential primary, according to Oregon newspapers of the era, was Oregon.
According to the Oregon Historical Society, from 1902 to 1914, Oregon created a number of laws that gave citizens more direct control over their government, including the creation of a system that allows voters to put measures on the ballot, direct elections for U.S. senators and the ability to nominate candidates for public office in primaries. These progressive reforms were collectively known as the Oregon System.
In fact, when California was adopting similar reforms in 1911, the San Francisco Call declared in its Jan. 13 edition California to Adopt Oregon System.
Oregon created its own direct primary law in 1904, but it initially did not include the presidential election, leaving it to the parties to appoint their delegates for the national conventions. According to issues of the Morning Oregonian from November 1910, voters approved an amendment to the 1904 primary law on Nov. 8 that changed the law delegates to the conventions would be legally bound to vote for candidates who won a popular vote in the state.
Even though it was a pioneering measure, it didnt even make the front page of the Morning Oregonian on Nov. 9. (Although, to be fair, that ballot featured 32 separate measures that the paper had to report on.) Instead, the paper relegated the passage of the measure to page 7.
The presidential primary bill has a strong lead, was all the paper said in a roundup of preliminary election results. The paper got around to explaining the measure in its Nov. 15 issue.
The Medford Mail Tribunes issue that same day declared in a headline on a front-page story that Oregon will be first to ballot, before explaining that the passage of the bill meant Oregonians would get to express a preference for president before nominations were made.
The primary election idea was supported by editorials, including some which appeared in the Gazette-Times. Copies of the paper from that month are missing from both the Benton County Historical Societys collection, and the Corvallis-Benton County Public Librarys microfilm archives of the paper.
However, that year the G-T featured a few passionate editorials in support of primary elections. Wrote editor N.R. Moore in one editorial, published on Feb. 12, 1910: I also note that the voters not only of Oregon but of other states are becoming more interested and wiser politically. They fully realize that the direct primary promotes independent voting and independent voting is the only salvation and hope of the people.
Moore said the method of selecting nominees before the direct primary law resulted in rotten and disgusting politics in which insiders traded bribes, influence and favors for nominations.
The people are thinking for themselves and intend to act for themselves and for their interests, Moore continued. They do not believe in the disenfranchisement of the voters of Oregon; but they do believe in the intelligence and the sovereignty of the common people.
On Feb. 28, 1911, the Morning Oregonian quoted Jonathan Bourne, one of Oregons senators, as praising Oregons primary law and denouncing then-president William Howard Taft for controlling the Republican Party to secure his own renomination.
The paper paraphrases Bourne, then president of the Progressive Republican League, as saying that when all states enact Oregons primary law, it would destroy the power of the Federal machine to re-nominate a president or demand his successor.
The paper quoted him as saying that it was a more direct form of democracy, not subject to influence or intimidation.
The composite citizen knows more and acts from higher motives than any single individual, however great or well developed. In the composite citizen, selfishness is minimized, while in the individual it is maximized.
The headline over The New York Times Sept. 3, 1940 obituary for Bourne noted that he had Fathered the Oregon System for the Election of Senators by a Popular Vote. The 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the election of senators by popular vote.
In July 1911, the Morning Oregonian was reporting that four other states had patterned presidential primaries on Oregons law, noting that contrary to general impression the state would not be the first to hold a presidential primary, but would instead follow North Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska and New Jersey in the elections the next year.
The steam roller
Bournes statements claiming Taft would use the party mechanisms to secure his own renomination proved prescient.
According to an August 2008 story in the Smithsonian Magazine, former President Theodore Roosevelt was unhappy with Taft, who had succeeded him in office, and challenged him in the primaries in 1912.
On the Republican side, Oregon and both Benton and Linn counties supported former President Theodore Roosevelt over the sitting president. The G-T reported on April 20, 1912, that Roosevelt secured 395 votes in Benton County to Tafts 319; in Linn County, Roosevelt had an 847-549 edge. (On the Democratic side, Woodrow Wilson prevailed in Oregon and Benton and Linn counties.)
Showing that the primary system was still new to many readers, the G-T ran an article on April 23 explaining some interesting facts about recent primaries, specifically that Oregons 10 delegates would be required to vote for Roosevelt at the convention no matter their personal preference.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, although Roosevelt would win all the primary states except Massachusetts, Taft dominated among states that appointed delegates. He would secure the nomination in a highly contentious Republican convention, but even before it ended, Roosevelt was looking at a third party run.
Ted may head new party now the June 21, 1912 G-T wrote, talking about the contentious convention and the steam roller preventing Roosevelts nomination.
Roosevelt eventually did create a new Progressive Party to run in the presidential election. The G-T noted that this seemed to split support among local Republicans, noting that one local Roosevelt partisan was wearing a red bandanna the size of a tablecloth to indicate his support of Roosevelts new party, but other party members hadnt lined up with him.
Roosevelts Progressives would eventually place second in the election behind Wilsons Democrats because of the split in the Republican vote.
The mixed system
The presidential primary continued to be discussed in Oregon newspapers over the next decade, but the idea didnt gain much traction across the nation.
The Morning Oregonian wrote on Nov. 16, 1914 that it had been believed the 1912 conventions would be the last to nominate the president, but that no longer appeared to be the case.
Congress has been remiss about acting on the presidential primary and that remissiveness has not been altogether due to oversight, the paper wrote.
The Sunday Oregonian reported on May 9, 1920 that both parties were dropping attempts to create national presidential primary law.
Little probably will be heard from now on of the once loud and persistent agitation for presidential primaries, the paper wrote.
Geoffrey Cowan, whose work rewriting the rules for the Democratic Convention in 1968 helped create the modern primary system, said in his 2016 book Let the People Rule, that political scientists consider 1912 the beginning of the mixed system of presidential nominations. Around a dozen states held primaries in that time, but Cowan said the parties were able to ignore or overcome the results of the primaries, giving 1952 as an example.
In that year, the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson for president in 1952 over Estes Kefauver, whom Cowan said won 11 of 12 primaries. In fact, Stevenson didnt campaign in any state. And Cowan added that Dwight Eisenhower was nominated that year even though he won only five states and lost six to William Howard Tafts son Robert Taft.
Oregon and Linn and Benton counties all strongly backed Kefauver, the G-T reported on May 17 that year. On the Republican side, Eisenhower was the big winner in Oregon and the two counties.
Two days later, the G-Ts editor and publisher, Robert C. Ingalls, wrote an editorial in which he worried the Eisenhower committees had selected too many inexperienced delegates to send to the Chicago convention, people who might be tricked into voting for someone other than Eisenhower.
It is far better to send experienced men to Chicago, men and women who are for Eisenhower and know how the convention manipulations are worked, Ingalls wrote. Somehow, however, Eisenhower emerged from the 1952 as the party nominee and went on to win the presidency.
Memorable moments
Oregons presidential primary also has helped to generate other notable moments:
For example, the 1948 Republican primary in Oregon was significant because it hosted the first broadcast debate, according to an National Public Radio article published in 2015. The May 17, 1948 G-T reported that all the major radio networks would transmit a debate in Portland scheduled for that night between Thomas E. Dewey and Harold Stassen. The debate was centered around a single question: shall the Communist Party in the United States be outlawed?
The 1960 primary featured a result that was echoed this year in the Florida primary that knocked Sen. Marco Rubio out of the race. Oregon and Benton County backed John F. Kennedy in its primary, the G-T reported May 21, over Sen. Wayne L. Morse, from Oregon. Morse, who was considered a favorite son by many in the Oregon election, dropped out of the race after his loss in Oregon, his seventh straight loss to Kennedy.
The 1964 Republican nomination contest offered another example of how Oregon could shape the course of a race. Oregon voters backed the underdog, Nelson Rockefeller, who campaigned heavily in the state (an advertisement for Rockefeller in the G-T was headlined He Cared Enough to Come to Corvallis.) Rockefellers win snapped a losing streak for him to Barry Goldwater.
Rockefellers upset victory in Oregon belatedly lifted his presidential campaign off the ground today and revived his hopes for winning the more crucial California presidential primary, said a G-T article on May 16, 1964. Rockefellers win in Oregon put him back into contention in California, but Barry Goldwater, the eventual nominee, posted a narrow victory there.
The dominant primary
The last election to take place in the mixed era was 1968. Facing a primary challenge from the anti-Vietnam War candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson chose not to run and instead supported his vice president, Hubert Humphrey.
Robert Kennedy campaigned in Oregon, even visiting Corvallis and the mid-valley twice. Eugene McCarthy also campaigned heavily in the state. Kennedy, who had entered the race after the primary season had begun, had not lost to McCarthy, who had won in the earliest voting states.
McCarthy upset winner of RFK, the G-T declared May 29, and the paper once again wrote of the importance of the victory on the coming California election. (Kennedy did post a narrow victory over McCarthy in Linn County.)
Meanwhile, Richard M. Nixon handily won Oregon, including big wins in Linn and Benton counties. Nixon also visited Corvallis that year, and had campaigned in the city in 1952 as well.
Oregon would once again not match Californias result, and Robert Kennedy proved victorious, but the race was thrown into chaos when he was assassinated during a victory speech.
Reporting on the death on June 6, the G-T reported that Robert Kennedys had spoken twice in Corvallis during the campaign.
The senator came to Corvallis on almost the last of his public appearances, arriving late in the afternoon of May 27 for a 20-minute speech on the steps of the courthouse. From here he went to Portland to board a plane for campaigning in California.
The paper said he also visited the city for an address at Gill Coliseum April 18, where he drew an audience of around 6,500.
Cowan, writing in Let the People Rule, said McCarthy and Robert Kennedy captured the public imagination in the primary, but that didnt overcome the power of the incumbency.
Humphrey, who had not won a single primary, seemed certain to capture the nomination, particularly after Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 6. ... In order to prevent that from ever happening again, I helped create a commission that led the 1968 Democratic Convention to change the partys delegate selection rules for the future.
Nixon won the presidency that year, and Cowan said following the 1968 election both parties ultimately adopted rules that would make it difficult for a candidate who had not competed in the primaries to be nominated.
A stab at relevancy
As more states began to hold primary elections following the 1968 election, Oregons influence faded.
In reporting on Democrat George McGoverns win in the state in the May 23, 1972 primary, the G-T said only McGovern had bothered to campaign in the state; his rivals choose to bypass Oregon.
Oregon did attempt to become more relevant in 1996 by moving its primary up to March 12. However, with incumbent President Bill Clinton facing no challenge, only the Republican race was in play, and only Bob Dole campaigned in the state.
The G-T gave Roses to the 53.7 percent of Oregonians to vote in the primary on the editorial page on March 15 that year, which it said it was the highest level of any state that had voted up to that point.
People are still sure to question the cost of holding a presidential vote apart from the May primary, given that it cost $700,000 to run the primary plus $270,000 to produce the Voter Pamphlet for it. The goal cited for the early date was to draw more attention from candidates, but only Dole came through the state in the period immediately before voting.
Before the 2000 primary election, Oregons legislature returned the primary date to its place in May, where it had been located for decades. This years primary occurs on May 17.
Pope Francis brings 12 Syrian refugees to Italy
MORIA, Greece In an extraordinary gesture both political and personal, Pope Francis brought 12 Syrian Muslims to Italy aboard his plane Saturday after an emotional visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, which has faced the brunt of Europes migration crisis.
Refugees on the overwhelmed island fell to their knees and wept at his presence. Some 3,000 migrants on Lesbos are facing possible deportation back to Turkey under a new deal with the European Union, and the uncertainty has caused heavy strains.
Francis decided only a week ago to bring the three refugee families to Italy after a Vatican official suggested it. A2
NATION
Scholars: Senate doesnt have to vote on Garland
WASHINGTON So what gives Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the right to block Senate consideration of Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obamas pick to the Supreme Court?
The U.S. Constitution, say several congressional and legal scholars. Even dissenters acknowledge the Senate can pretty much do what it wants.
Led by McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Republicans have vowed not even to consider Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Republican leaders would rather leave the seat vacant in the hopes that a Republican wins the presidency in November.
McConnell and Grassley have draped themselves around Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution that says the president shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme court.
The president may nominate judges of the Supreme Court, Grassley wrote. But the power to grant, or withhold, consent to such nominees rests exclusively with the United States Senate.
Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill constitutional law professor, says McConnell and Grassleys position is bolstered by Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, which states that the two chambers of Congress the Senate and the House of Representatives may determine the Rules of its Proceedings. A11
COLUMNISTS
Mike McInally A10
George Will A10
Philip S. Wenz C2
John Rosemond C3
Carolyn Hax C3
Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- A British Airways flight landed safety after a suspected drone hit the plane as it headed towards Heathrow Airport in London, the Metropolitan police said.
Police said the pilot reported that he thought an object, apparently a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft. Flight 727, which was heading from Geneva to Heathrow, then landed safely in London Sunday afternoon, a British Airways spokesperson told ABC News.
The plane "was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight," British Airways said.
No arrests have been made and aviation police based at Heathrow are investigating, police said.
"Safety and security are always our first priority and we will give the police every assistance with their investigation," the airline added.
Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
April 17, 2016 | 01:25 am PT
More than 2,000 employees from a Taiwanese shoe company gathered at the factory gate on April 15, and threw rotten eggs and shrimp paste at anyone who crossed the picket line in protest of low salaries and heavy workloads.
Employees at KaiYang have to work for up to 12 straight hours per day but are unable to achieve the unreasonably high targets set by the company, which results in salary deductions.
At the start of the year, the company installed a fingerprint machine to record employees work hours, but the machine has broken down many times and workers have not received wages for the days they have been in work.
Workers have petitioned the management board a number of times but the company says there is nothing wrong with the machine.
In addition, workers do not receive unemployment allowances when the firm temporarily lays them off due to a lack of orders.
Workers resorted to throwing rotten eggs and shrimp paste after being attacked by a group of strangers, a female worker said.
The company previously invited two people to represent the employees at talks with Hai Phongs labor federation to resolve the dispute, but nobody stepped forward.
The company was established in 2004 and has more than 2,700 workers.
Just a few days before the strike, about 1,000 workers at a Korean company in Hai Phong walked off the job to protest against unfair working conditions.
Li Me You was arrested by Binh Duong police. Photo: Nguyet Trieu
The chairman of the board of directors at Kingmaker Footwear Group has died after being stabbed eight times in the head by a Chinese storekeeper.
Li Me You, 45, the Chinese storekeeper, attacked 63-year-old boss Chen Ming Hsiung over a work dispute.
The incident happened on April 15 when Chen Ming Hsiung accused Li Mee You of stealing shoes from the company. He responded by pulling out a knife and attacking the boss and two others in Chens office.
You was overpowered by the companys security guards following the incident and was arrested by Binh Duong police a day later.
Kingmaker is a Taiwanese shoe manufacturer based in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park in the southern province of Binh Duong, and employs 10,000 workers.
Crew members from Myanmar rest inside their cabin aboard the New Imperial Star casino cruiser at Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, China April 15, 2016. Captain Valerie Lyzhyn and his 45 crew are stranded in Hong Kong, big losers in a gambling slump triggered by a Chinese crackdown on corruption that has scared off the high-rollers. The crew refuse to leave their 140 metre (460 ft.) casino cruiser the New Imperial Star until they get the six months of pay they say they are owed. Hong Kong's Marine Department has impounded the ship due to what it called
Captain Valerie Lyzhyn and his 45 crew are stranded in Hong Kong, big losers in a gambling slump triggered by a Chinese crackdown on corruption that has scared off the high-rollers.
Lyzhyn, 62, a Russian-born Ukrainian and veteran seaman, and his colleagues, refuse to leave their 140 metre (460 foot) casino cruiser the New Imperial Star until they get the six months of pay they say they are owed.
Hong Kong's Marine Department has impounded the ship due to what it called "serious deficiencies" found during an inspection.
Rations are running low, the ship's owners can't be reached and the cobalt blue felt covering the 16 baccarat tables is gathering dust.
"There's one egg per crew member per day," Lyzhyn told Reuters onboard the ship, which is moored a short barge ride away from a bustling port in eastern Hong Kong.
Breakfast was particularly miserable: "No sausages, no bacon, no milk, nothing."
Hong Kong's casino cruises flourished alongside the world's biggest gambling hub of Macau, across the mouth of the Pearl River from Hong Kong, until 2014.
It was then that Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a wide-reaching anti-graft campaign, snaring officials and powerful businessmen who had used Macau as a cash playground.
The gamblers have been steering clear.
"Really, business has gone down," Lyzhyn said, dressed in a tan uniform with gold and black lapels.
"One year ago we had 200 passengers, before we stopped operating we had only 50."
CONVOLUTED OWNERSHIP
Lyzhyn said the ship was detained in October last year after the owners failed to pay maintenance fees and as a result, it did not pass its inspections.
The crew is waiting to be paid salaries totaling $400,000, he said.
He said he did not know who the ship's owners were but it was managed by a company called Skywill Management Limited.
Phone numbers for Skywill did not work while Sea Hawk Asia, the captain's previous manager, said it was not able to comment on the situation.
Prior to 2014, there were 12 casino ships operating out of Hong Kong but Lyzhyn said that number has plunged to four.
The cruises typically pick up passengers at the teeming Tsim Sha Tsui pier in Hong Kong's Kowloon district and set sail at 8 p.m. for international waters, returning to Hong Kong 12 hours later, after a night of gambling.
The boats are mostly owned by Macau junket companies which make use of convoluted ownership structures with multiple investors.
On the New Imperial Star, flies buzz around the kitschy chandeliers and the crew of 20 Ukrainians, 18 from Myanmar and 8 Chinese can only wait. They may be there a while yet.
Lyzhyn said he hoped Hong Kong authorities would formally impound the ship in two weeks and then a legal process would start which he hoped would end, after a few months, with him and his crew being paid.
Rescue team members wait outside a clinic that was evacuated after tremors were felt resulting from an earthquake in Ecuador, in Cali, Colombia, April 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga
Ecuador's strongest earthquake in decades, a 7.8 magnitude tremor, struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday, killing at least 41 people and causing damage near the epicenter as well as in the largest city of Guayaquil.
President Rafael Correa declared a national emergency and urged the Andean nation's 16 million people to stay calm.
"Our infinite love to the families of the dead," he said on Twitter, while cutting short a trip to Italy to return home.
Authorities urged people to evacuate coastal areas for fear of rising tides. Alarmed residents streamed into the streets of the highland capital Quito, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, and other towns across the nation.
The Andean nation's government recommended residents leave coastal areas over concern for rising tides following the quake.
Alarmed residents streamed into the streets of the capital Quito, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, and other towns across the nation.
"There is considerable (structural) damage in the area near the epicenter as well as points as far away as Guayaquil," the Geophysical Office (IG) said.
President Rafael Correa, on a visit to the Vatican, sent a message of support on Twitter. "Authorities are already out evaluating damage and taking action" as needed," he said.
Vice President Jorge Glas also said on Twitter that a national emergency committee had been activated. "I am on the way to the national emergency center to coordinate operations nationwide. We will keep you informed," he said.
With a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles), the quake struck at 2358 GMT about 173 km west-northwest of Quito and just 28 kilometers south-southeast of Muisne, the US Geological Survey said.
A tsunami warning was issued for local coasts. "Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters, hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 kilometers of the earthquake epicenter," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
Buildings swayed in Quito but authorities did not immediately report injuries or damage. The strong movement was felt in northern and southern parts of the metro Quito area, knocking out electricity in many areas.
Cristina Duran, 45, grabbed her three pets and stood under a large doorway to avoid shards of glass falling from shattered windows. "I was frightened. And I just kept asking for it to be over," she told AFP.
Panic on the streets
Aftershocks kept rattling the country, as structural damage was reported in the coastal provinces of Manabi and Guayas. At the airport in the port city of Guayaquil passengers awaiting flights dashed out of terminals when they felt the shaking.
"Lights fell down from the ceiling. People were running around in shock," said Luis Quimis, 30, who was waiting to catch a flight to Quito.
In northern Quito, people ran out of their homes frightened, as power lines swayed back and forth and cables danced.
"Oh, my God, it was the biggest and strongest earthquake I have felt in my whole life. It lasted a long time, and I was feeling dizzy. I couldn't walk. ... I wanted to run out into the street, but I couldn't," said Maria Torres, 60.
In fact, two earthquakes jolted the same area just 11 minutes apart, the USGS said. The first had a magnitude of 4.8 and the second of 7.8.
The quake also rattled northern Peru, according to authorities there.
The major jolt came as rescuers in Japan were racing against the weather and the threat of more landslides to reach people still trapped by two big earthquakes that hit that country's south.
At last 41 people are known to have died in the double disaster, with at least six still missing -- feared buried in shattered houses or under torrents of mud.
With the aim to bring more Viglacera construction products to Cuban people, the corporation will continue introducing its products at 15 outlets of the Escambray chain, he added.
The Vietnamese firm recently participated in the 11th International Construction Fair (FECONS 2016), in Havana.
Viglacera exhibited products including sanitary wares, ceramic tiles, glass for construction and showers.
Vietnam is the second largest Asian trade partner of Cuba, with two-way trade value exceeding USD205 million in 2014.
Rice and aquatic products are among Vietnamese key exports to Cuba./.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
Two self-driving cars on Saturday afternoon wrapped up a 2,000-km (1,240 miles) journey in China's first long-distance road test for autonomous vehicles.
The vehicles, produced by Chang'an Automobile, left the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing on Tuesday and arrived at Beijing at about 5 p.m. Saturday.
The cars successfully drove distance from other vehicles, changed lanes, overtook and performed other maneuvers including three-point turns automatically but still need the help of a driver in certain road sections and gas stations, the designers said.
The maximum speed of the cars reached 120 kilometers per hour.
Tan Benhong, deputy director of the Chang'an Automobile Engineering & Research Institute, said they would improve the technologies based on the results of the test and then to prepare for mass production.
Chang'an plans to put driverless cars into commercial use in 2018, Tan said.
Worldwide, at least 18 companies are developing autonomous cars, including BMW, Audi and Toyota. China's contenders include auto makers BAIC group, GAC Group, SAIC Motor, Chang'an and BYD.
Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan on Saturday called for broadening the use of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s basket of reserve currencies to advance the reform of the International Monetary System (IMS).
"The IMS has inherent deficiencies and faces new challenges from globalization, financial innovation, and volatility in capital flows," Zhou said in a statement for the meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the IMF's policy setting committee, on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
"The SDR has the potential to resolve the existing deficiencies in the IMS," Zhou said, referring to the Special Drawing Right, an international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969.
The value of the SDR is currently based on a basket of four major reserve currencies: the U.S. dollar, euro, the Japanese yen, and British pound. The IMF decided last year to include the RMB in its SDR basket as the fifth currency, effective October 1, 2016.
"We can start now to gradually broaden the use of the SDR, including using it as a reporting currency in parallel with the USD and exploring issuance of SDR-denominated assets," Zhou said, adding that China has released foreign exchange reserve data denominated in the SDR in addition to the U.S. dollar starting from this month.
Zhou said China will also explore issuing SDR-denominated bonds in the domestic market and look forward to the IMF's further analysis on strengthening the role of SDR this year.
"We support the examination of the possible broader use of the SDR," the IMFC said Saturday in a communique after the meeting of the 24-member committee.
"The IMF will discuss the case for a general allocation of SDRs and the reporting of official reserves in SDR," the communique said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
Trend:
Armenians refuse to recover the dead bodies of their servicemen, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry told Trend Apr.17.
Armenians, as always, violate the reached agreements, do not reckon with the initiative of the international mediators and being aware of their impunity, demonstrate their actions towards increasing the tension, said the ministry.
Despite the agreement reached earlier to hand over the dead body of an Azerbaijani serviceman, Armenia's subsequent refusal in this issue shocked the mediators from both sides of the frontline, according to the Defense Ministry.
Another matter of regret is that the mediators do not make haste to take tough measures against Armenia and to evaluate their actions, said the ministry, adding that this negatively affects the image of such international organizations as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the OSCE.
Armenia also ignores the repeated warnings from the mediators about prohibition of taking photos and videos while recovering the dead bodies of the servicemen from both sides, according to Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
"Armenians do it covertly and then share those materials in social networks," said the ministry. "Those materials were deleted only after Azerbaijan expressed protest to the international mediators."
The Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan has created perfect conditions for Armenians for recovering the dead bodies of their servicemen.
Nevertheless, Armenians are not active in searching the dead bodies of their soldiers and officers, thereby showing that they are not interested in handing over the dead bodies of the servicemen to their families, according to the ministry.
Possibly, those dead bodies left by Armenians in the battlefield are the bodies of the terrorists conscripted as "volunteers", according to Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers.
The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.
Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides,
Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry earlier said. Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Details added (first version posted on 15:26)
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
Trend:
Armenians refuse to recover the dead bodies of their servicemen, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry told Trend Apr.17.
Armenians, as always, violate the reached agreements, do not reckon with the initiative of the international mediators and being aware of their impunity, demonstrate their actions towards increasing the tension, said the ministry.
Despite the agreement reached earlier to hand over the dead body of an Azerbaijani serviceman, Armenia's subsequent refusal in this issue shocked the mediators from both sides of the frontline, according to the Defense Ministry.
Details added (first version posted on 15:26)
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
Trend:
Armenians refuse to recover the dead bodies of their servicemen, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry told Trend Apr.17.
Armenians, as always, violate the reached agreements, do not reckon with the initiative of the international mediators and being aware of their impunity, demonstrate their actions towards increasing the tension, said the ministry.
Despite the agreement reached earlier to hand over the dead body of an Azerbaijani serviceman, Armenia's subsequent refusal in this issue shocked the mediators from both sides of the frontline, according to the Defense Ministry.
Another matter of regret is that the mediators do not make haste to take tough measures against Armenia and to evaluate their actions, said the ministry, adding that this negatively affects the image of such international organizations as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the OSCE.
Armenia also ignores the repeated warnings from the mediators about prohibition of taking photos and videos while recovering the dead bodies of the servicemen from both sides, according to Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
"Armenians do it covertly and then share those materials in social networks," said the ministry. "Those materials were deleted only after Azerbaijan expressed protest to the international mediators."
The Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan has created perfect conditions for Armenians for recovering the dead bodies of their servicemen.
Nevertheless, Armenians are not active in searching the dead bodies of their soldiers and officers, thereby showing that they are not interested in handing over the dead bodies of the servicemen to their families, according to the ministry.
Possibly, those dead bodies left by Armenians in the battlefield are the bodies of the terrorists conscripted as "volunteers", according to Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers.
The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.
Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 at 12:00 (UTC/GMT + 4 hours) with the consent of the sides,
Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry earlier said. Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
Trend:
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by chairman of the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Republic of Turkey Ismail Rustu Cirit.
President Ilham Aliyev recalled with pleasure his participation in the 13th Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) recently held in Istanbul.
The head of state described the high-level representation of the Islamic countries in this event as a manifestation of their attitude towards Turkey. President Ilham Aliyev noted that his meetings with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu were fruitful.
Chairman of the Supreme Court of Appeal of Turkey Ismail Rustu Cirit said the relations between the two friendly and fraternal countries were developing successfully in all areas, adding the people of Turkey appreciate this. He noted that national leader Heydar Aliyev`s "one nation, two states" saying, which reflects the Azerbaijani-Turkish brotherhood, demonstrated the level of relations between the two countries and peoples. Ismail Rustu Cirit offered condolences to President Ilham Aliyev over the martyrdom of Azerbaijani servicemen in the latest developments on the line of contact of troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh, and wished those wounded the soonest possible recovery. He said Turkey had always stood by Azerbaijan in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
At the meeting, the sides noted that the successful cooperation between the judicial systems of the two countries contributed to the expansion of the bilateral ties even further.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
South Korea has unblocked a large part of Iran's frozen assets, an Iranian petrochemical official said.
Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari, secretary of the Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporations (AIPC), has said that Iran had exported petrochemical products to South Korea during the sanctions era and the money from the exports was blocked under international sanctions, Mehr news agency reported.
He further added that Iran's total assets blocked in South Korea is less than $1 billion.
The official said that some Iranian petrochemical companies have managed to receive their assets following the removal of sanctions, but some others still have difficulties to collect their money due to the banking system's failures.
The official, however, predicted that the problems with banking system will be removed soon.
In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of the JCPOA, aka nuclear deal, and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran. The EU confirmed that the legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective, according to the statement.
Under the deal, Iran will have access to billions of dollars in assets frozen overseas, however the exact amount of the blocked assets still remains unclear.
Russia's negotiations with Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member states on freezing oil production levels may continue, but require additional time to consider positions of Saudi Arabia and Iran toward the deal, Russian Permanent Representative to OPEC Vladimir Voronkov said Sunday, Sputnik reported.
On Sunday, the Qatari capital is hosting talks of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members with other oil producing states.
The negotiations are aimed at securing a deal to freeze oil output to stabilize slumping global oil prices.
In February, the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela, and Russia discussed the current oil market situation in Doha and agreed to freeze oil production at January levels if other countries followed suit, in a bid to keep the oil prices from falling further.
"According to how the situation has developed, the negotiations will probably continue. The question is very difficult, we need additional time to align [positions of oil producing countries]," Voronkov told RIA Novosti.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Apr. 17
By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:
Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has given instructions regarding the development of hydrocarbon resources in the country's Caspian Sea shelf, read a message from Turkmenistan's government.
This issue was discussed during the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Director of the State Agency for Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources under the President of Turkmenistan Yagshygeldi Kakaev was tasked to take measures for attracting foreign investments in this sphere.
The resources of Turkmenistan's offshore fields are estimated at 12 billion tons of oil and 6.5 trillion cubic meters of gas excluding the contracted blocks. Currently, Petronas, Dragon Oil, Buried Hill, RWE Dea AG, Itera and Eni have been involved in developing the Turkmen part of the Caspian Sea.
Turkmenistan's Oil and Gas Ministry earlier said that Turkmenoil state concern will start to implement the plans for developing the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea.
Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh reported of signing a contract to sell 700,000 barrels oil to European countries saying that EU regards Iran as a trustable partner to supply energy, IRNA reported.
Zangeneh said that the way to facilitate Iran, EU ties was discussed in his meeting with visiting EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete
He said that permanent talks are to be held between the two sides to make a better supply of oil and gas from Iran to Europe.
He added that European companies are supposed to start investment in Iranian oil, gas and petrochemical industry supprted by their governments.
Before lifting sanctions, Iran exported 500,000 to 600,000 barrels of crude oil to Europe and during the sanctions, 100,000 barrels per day was exported to Turkey.
Some European companies like Total (France), CEPSA (Spain) resumed buying oil from Iran in post-sanction era.
Greece oil refineries are also supposed to start import oil from Iran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 17
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Supplying S-300 missile system to Iran indicates close and serious cooperation between Iran and Russia, a senior Iranian official said.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has said that Iran and Russia also have significant cooperation regarding the issue of Syria and the fight against terrorism, Tasnim news agency reported.
During a meeting with visiting Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in Tehran, Velayati predicted a bright future for ties between Iran and Russia ties.
The cooperation between Iran and Russia will contribute to establishing security and peace in the region, he said.
Iran displayed the first batch of S-300 air defense system delivered by Russia recently during a ceremony to mark the National Army Day in Tehran on April 17.
Eariler on April 11, Hossein Jaber Ansari, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that the country has received the first batch of S-300 missile system from Russia.
Iran and Russia have had ups and downs over the S-300 system deal which dates back to 2007. Iran filed a complaint against Russia at the International Court of Arbitration in 2010 as Moscow suspended the delivery of the system under the $800 million-deal due to the international sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
However, with the scrapping of the international sanctions as part of a nuclear deal, which went into force Jan. 16, Iranian officials became confident that they would receive the missile system soon.
Tehran, Iran, April 17
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Grounds are fully prepared for Indian investors to work in Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj in Tehran.
The strategic cooperation between Iran and India regarding transportation projects that connect Central Asia to the CIS and China is getting along slowly and Iran expects longer strides to realize the projects, Zarif underlined, IRNA news agency reported April 17.
Iran and India are engaged in a giant transportation project that connects the latter to Russia and Europe, using sea and land routes to reduce transport time from 40 days to 14.
Appreciating bilateral cooperation in Iran's special economic zone Chabahar, the diplomat expressed satisfaction over joint projects carried out in energy, trade, banking, and investment so far.
India recently offered $20 billion investment in LNG and petrochemical projects in Chabahar. India is seeking to turn the area into a reliable footing and a trade hub to fight China's plans for the nearby Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Swaraj, for her part, said India is prepared to ease visa requirements for Iranian businessmen.
She also appreciated the achievements of Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's recent visit to Iran. Tehran and Delhi reached fundamental agreements on developing Farzad B gas field during Pradhan's recent visit.
Swaraj urged joint efforts to ease business atmosphere for both sides and implement agreements the two sides have already made.
At least 140 people, including women and children, have reportedly been killed after gunmen attacked an area near Ethiopia's border with South Sudan, Press TV reported.
According to a Saturday statement from the Ethiopian Government Communication Affairs Office, the attack took place on Friday when gunmen from South Sudan raided the Jakaya area, in Ethiopia's Gambella region.
"140 civilians died in the attack carried out by bandits that crossed from South Sudan," the statement said.
The statement added that Ethiopian troops had crossed the border to pursue the attackers, saying "60 of the assailants have been killed so far."
The Ethiopian region hosts thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled conflict in the world's youngest nation. It is also home to Ethiopian and South Sudanese armed groups that attack government installations and soldiers.
The statement also said that the armed men had no relation with South Sudanese government troops or rebel forces that fought the government in the capital, Juba, in a civil war that ended with a peace deal signed last year.
South Sudanese officials were not immediately available for any comment.
South Sudan plunged into chaos in December 2013, when fighting erupted outside Juba, between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by rebel leader Riek Machar.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over two million others.
The warring sides reached an internationally-mediated peace deal in August 2015 and agreed to share out ministerial positions in January.
The official death toll from Ecuador's earthquake has risen to 233, the country's president, Rafael Correa, said on Sunday.
"The official death toll has risen to 233. Manta has been greatly affected. Pedernales has been destroyed. The vice president has left for Portoviejo," Correa said in his official Twitter.
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Ecuador on Saturday, with its epicenter near the town of Pedernales. Earlier figures put the number of victims at 77 people dead and over 580 injured.
French President Francois Hollande is set to arrive in Egypt on Sunday, in the second leg of his mideast tour which started in Lebanon on Saturday.
This will be Hollande's second visit to the country in less than a year.
The French president, who will be accompanied by an economic delegation, is expected to oversee the signing of a number of bilateral economic agreements.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Hollande are expected to sign memorandums of agreement in a number of fields and projects, including training, electricity, generating renewable energy, the Cairo metro, and sewage system projects.
The delegation accompanying Hollande will include over 60 French businessmen.
The two presidents will also discuss the crisis in Syria, Libya and Yemen and the French initiative for the Middle East process peace, according to a statement by Egypt's State Information Service.
The French president visited last in Egypt on 6 August 2015, when he attended the inauguration of the new Suez Canal. His visit to Cairo comes as part of a Middle East tour that includes visits to Jordan and Lebanon.
Egypt and France have signed several large arms deals in the past two years.
Hollandes visit will also include meetings with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Al, local cultural figures, and French expats.
According to the State Information Service, the value of trade between Egypt and France amounts to 2.6 billion euros annually, and France is Egypts sixth largest importer.
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When several thousands of protesters erupted into deafening chants in Downtown Cairo Friday, they made all the right noises before the watching eyes of Egypts security forces in a scene seldom seen for long.
The demonstration, which was originally planned as a nationwide spectacle before an expected confrontation with police forces saw marchers divert their paths to the press syndicate, was a display of rare defiance for weary non-Islamist protesters who have been largely idle since Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi came to power in mid-2014.
They were primarily protesting against a decision by the government to hand over two Red Sea islands to neighbour and ally Saudi Arabia after the two countries signed maritime demarcation accords during a visit to Cairo by King Salman last week.
Sisi, backing an earlier statement by the cabinet, said Wednesday that the islands belong to Saudi Arabia. The accord must be ratified by parliament before taking effect.
Protesters argue that the two islands, named Tiran and Sanafir, fall under Egypts sovereignty and that any decision over their fate must be put up for public debate and a referendum.
While demands that Egypt backpedal over the accord constituted the biggest chunk of their incessant chants, protesters sounded optimistic for other reasons.
Our message today is that we are still alive. No matter what happened over the past two years, we are still able to regroup and challenge injustice, said Mohamed Masoud, a 23-year-old protester who joined others at the press syndicate.
Whether or not their demonstration could yield tangible results remains unclear, but they took solace from the fact that they were finally able to challenge, en masse, a much-criticised protest law.
There have been some protests over the past few months over incidents of police abuse, including against doctors, but Fridays protest was different in the sense that it brought together disgruntled youth for a matter of national pride, protesters argue.
We are back to the scene and they (the state) should fully know that we are not going to simply let them do whatever they want," Masoud added.
A restrictive protest law, which was passed in late 2013, and a fierce crackdown on dissent saw authorities round up scores of Islamist and liberal activists, effectively putting an end to street demonstrations.
Fear barrier
Sisi, who admitted more than once that he has yet to reach out to angry youth, retains his popularity among many Egyptians but critics have grown more vocal in recent months, including some television presenters who are normally pro state.
A crumbling economy, an insurgency in North Sinai and incidents such as the killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni and the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai increased pressure on Sisi as he approaches the second anniversary of his ascendancy to power.
He is unlikely to face an immediate threat, with some rival demonstrations that back him taking place in Egypts second biggest city Alexandria. But his adversaries believe they have at least managed to throw stones into a still pond.
The fear barrier has been demolished, the 6 April Youth Movement, which played a key role in the 18-day 2011 revolt which eventually saw autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak step down, said on its Facebook page.
Most protesters left the vicinity of the press syndicate after dusk fell and the remaining hundreds were dispersed with tear gas. Tens of demonstrators were detained nationwide, according to rights groups, but many were released in the early hours of Saturday.
That could be a sign authorities opted for a soft approach by their standards, but it remains to be seen whether this will be the case when protesters take to the streets again in a planned demonstration 25 April, which marks the day Israeli occupation forces completely withdrew from Sinai in 1982.
We will be back; its not over yet, yelled one protester as he left the scene.
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Egyptian prosecutors questioned a number of protesters on Saturday who were arrested a day earlier while demonstrating against a government decision to hand over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia.
Several thousand people demonstrated in downtown Cairo on Friday in one of the biggest protests in recent months.
Dozens of protesters were arrested at the rally and at demonstrations in other governorates, security sources had said, after teargas was fired to disperse demonstrators. Many of them were later released.
Prosecutors in central Cairo opened an investigation on Saturday into the 26 protesters who were arrested at the main demonstration outside the Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo, a judicial source told Ahram Online.
They face charges of "protesting without a licence" and "possession of fireworks."
A controversial 2013 law bans all but police-sanctioned demonstrations; violators are often jailed.
The interior ministry has not provided the total number of those arrested during Friday's protests.
During a visit by Saudi's King Salman last week, the Egyptian government announced it was handing over the two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia.
The announcement has sparked widespread public outcry, with critics accusing President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi of "selling" the islands.
Egyptian and Saudi officials say the islands belong to the Gulf kingdom and were only under Egyptian control because Riyadh had asked Cairo in 1950 to protect them.
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The road from the airport to the presidential palace in Heliopolis, eastern Cairo, is already lined with pictures of French president Francois Hollande and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
Egyptian and French flags also decorate the path Hollande will take upon arrival in Cairo on Sunday for a three-day visit that Egyptian authorities are hoping will help divert negative reporting on Egypt in the international press in the past few weeks.
Egyptian officials say Egypt has recently suffered some bad news coverage: the scepticism of Italian authorities over the cooperation of the Egyptian police and prosecution in the case of the Italian researcher Guilio Regini, whose body was found in the first week of February; negative remarks of Russian President Vladmir Puttin that cast doubt over airport security in Egypt; and political protests against the executive decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to the Saudis, ostensibly to end a maritime demarcation dispute.
Today, Cairo is hoping for good news as Hollande, one of the strongest allies of the government in Egypt, arrives with a delegation comprising more than 60 buisnessmen and heads of major French companies to sign an expansive arms deal and 25 agreements and MOUs that cover cooperation in renewable energy, urban planning, transport, culture and technical training.
Hollandes visit is an important one for sure, not just because it offers a definite opportunity for some good news to be reported about the efforts the government and the president are exerting to pursue serious development, but also because it allows for Egypt and France, traditionally strong allies, to discuss a host of regional issues of interest to both sides, said an Egyptian diplomat.
On top of the list of regional developments is the situation in Syria that is not, according to concerned European and Arab diplomats, moving forward.
I understand the issue of managing the refugees crisis that is happening as a result of the Syrian plight, and that has been influencing Europe significantly particulary countries of southern Europe, including France is essential to President Hollande, the same diplomat said.
Hollande is arriving to Cairo on his way from Lebanon, the first leg of a three-stop Middle East visit that will end in Jordan, to which he arrives late Tuesday afternoon.
In Lebanon, Hollande met with the prime minister and speaker of parliament, given the continued presidential vacancy that he appealed to Lebanese to bring to an end. During his visit, Hollande pledged 100 million Euros in aid to Lebanon.
The question of Syrian refguees, over which countries like France are losing much sleep, will also figure high on Hollande's talks in Jordan, that is also playing host to considerable share of Syrian refugees.
Also on the agenda of common regional issues of interest to both for Egypt and France is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The government of Hollande is hoping (one Palestinian diplomat says "hoping against hope") to hold an international conference on long stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The French envoy for the peace process was in Cairo, as part of a regional tour, a few days ago but failed as of yet to formulate a clear proposal on what needs to be done to allow for the peace conference the French are promoting to happen.
According to concerned Egyptian diplomats, Cairo is offering maximum possible support to French efforts despite a realistic awareness that its chances make a difference are close to zero.
In the analysis of some Palestinian and Egyptian diplomats, the French are simply trying to hold on to their traditional diplomatic status in Middle East, and it is not proving easy.
The French have been unable to fix the presidential vacancy of Lebanon for three years now, and they cannot claim any particularly warm relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, to expect him to give them any concessions, small or big, to make any negotiations process with the Palestinians possible, no matter how compromising [Palestinian Authority chair Mahmoud Abbas] is or will be, said a Palestinian diplomat.
But it is worth supporting anyway, at least to keep the file afloat, rather than have it firmly buried. Maybe we will reach the UN General Assembly in autumn with a potential ministerial meeting to start to defrost Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said an Egyptian diplomat.
During his state visit President Hollande is assured, according to informed sources, to bring up issues that are not to the liking of his host president El-Sisi: conditions of human rights in Egypt, the unresolved case of the murder Italian researcher Regini, and the case of a French citizen who was allegedly killed in a Cairo police station in the autumn of 2013.
The family of Eric Lang, a French teacher in Egypt, according to the French press, has been recently pressing upon the French authorities to ask Cairo to reveal the "real story" behind the death of their son.
Upon growing European concern over the case of Regini, Hollande is expected to bring up the matter with his Egyptian counterpart. The situation of human rights in Egypt, which was discussed with the French special envoy who was in the country last month, is forcing itself on the agenda of the two-day French-Egyptian talks.
Cairo last month welcomed a French decision to block a diplomatic demarche to bring up the issue of "forced disappearances" in Egypt in the UN Human Rights Council, saying it had accommodated the "open and relatively unequivocal remarks of the French human rights envoy."
This week, Cairo seemed confident that Hollande would pay more attention to the biateral economic relations, arms deals and the peace process than Lang, Regini.
We expect our French friends to realise that we are going through a war on terror in Sinai and that we cannot take risks on matters of security, said the Egyptian diplomat.
The visit of Hollande to Egypt comes at a weak moment for the socialist French president whose chances to run for a second term next year appear to be vanishing amid growing disapproval over his performance, rather than by the rise of the right and centre right.
During a widely followed TV interview a couple of days ahead of his Middle East tour, Hollande said he would wait towards the end of this year before he announces any plans on an additional presidential run.
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The visit of the Russian delegation is expected to last until 23 April
A Russian delegation is expected to arrive in Cairo Sunday to inspect security measures at airports in Egypt, a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation read.
"The Russian delegation in coordination with officials from the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation will examine Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada airports," the statement explained.
The visit is expected to last until 23 April.
This is the second Russian delegation to inspect security measures following the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai late last year.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that for his country to resume flights to Egypt, Russian officials need to work with Egyptian authorities in checking passengers and luggage boarding flights, Russian news agency TASS reported.
In November 2015, following the downing of the Russian airliner that killed 224 people, Russia and several European countries suspended flights to Egypt's Red Sea resort cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, citing concerns over lax security at Egyptian airports.
Last month, Egypt hired a British security firm to reevaluate security measures at its airports.
Russian tourists represent one of the largest groups of international visitors to Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea.
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Some have described the conference as an opportunity to affirm that all journalists stand by the 'unified press law' draft presented to parliament by the press syndicate
Egypts Journalists Syndicate launched on Sunday its fifth general conference with this years theme titled Towards a new legislative environment at a time when parliament is discussing new press laws.
The conference, part of the syndicates diamond jubilee celebrations and the first since 2004, will last four days and will include sessions on a number of journalistic and media topics.
Some of the topics for discussion include press freedoms in a climate dominated by security concerns over terrorism, the future of state-owned newspapers, and the future of private and partisan outlets.
The parliament is currently reviewing a unified law regulating media and press operations drafted by 50 press and law experts and presented by the Journalists Syndicate, as well as press law drafts prepared by the state.
The conference is considered an affirmation that journalists stand united behind the unified press law as there are attempts to portray the community as divided, Karem Mahmoud, head of the syndicates legislation committee, told Ahram Online.
Mahmoud added that the conference is also an important opportunity for journalists to draft modern syndicate bylaws to replace those in place since 1970.
Discussions of the new bylaws are likely to involve articles on online news outlets, as they did not exist during the drafting of the original bylaws. It could also include changing the conditions for admitting members, as the current conditions only admit journalists with print newspapers and after they get a permanent contract in their respective organisations.
The Journalists Syndicate has been advocating for laws that give greater freedoms to journalists and eliminate prison sentences in publication offences.
The syndicate recently called for a general assembly to discuss the new press laws, but the meeting was postponed twice for lack of quorum.
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Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Sunday three-year jail sentences for 17 Al-Azhar students convicted of rioting in December 2013.
In March 2014, the defendants were convicted on numerous charges including rioting, thuggery, attacking police officers, protesting without a permit, joining an armed terrorist group, and destroying public and private property.
The 17 defendants appealed the sentences successfully, and a retrial has been ordered by the court, though it is unclear whether the students will be released pending trial.
Al-Azhar University, which follows the Al-Azhar institute the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning saw frequent clashes between supporters of president Mohamed Morsi and security forces in the months following his 2013 ouster.
Many students were expelled by Al-Azhar's high board over their participation in protests that turned violent in 2013. Most of the expulsions were later overturned by Egypt's Administrative Court, which said it was safeguarding students' "educational future and welfare."
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Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are undertaking a joint military drill in the Gulf country's waters aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two Arab states, the Egyptian army spokesperson said on Sunday in a statement posted on his official Facebook page.
The "Khalifa II" military and naval exercise, which began last week, is being held off the coast of the UAE and is expected to last for several days.
During the exercise, Egyptian and Emirati naval forces showcased their proficiency in combat training techniques, including handling enemy targets at sea, storming suspect vessels, ship combat, while coordinating with air forces to receive air support, the statement read.
The drill is aimed at "bolstering military cooperation and exchanging expertise between the forces of both countries," the statement said.
Cairo has carried out similar joint drills in recent months with Arab and European allies including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, France and Russia amid growing concerns over threats of terrorism in the region.
The UAE has emerged as one of Egypt's main backers following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, providing Cairo with billions of dollars in aid.
A previous release order was cancelled for the suspects, who were arrested at a protest against Egypt's recent deal giving Saudi Arabia two Red Sea islands
Egypt's Qasr El-Nil prosecution ordered on Sunday the four-day detention pending investigation of 25 protesters, reversing an earlier release order for the suspects who were arrested at a protest against Egypt's recent agreement to give Saudi Arabia two Red Sea islands.
Around 80 protesters were arrested at the so-called "Land Friday" demonstrations in Cairo, human rights groups report.
The suspects are accused of participating in a protest that "threatens public safety," blocking roadways and disrupting traffic.
Lawyers for the defendants say they discovered that the release order was cancelled late Saturday as they were following up on procedures to free the 25 protesters, lawyer Mohamed Abdel-Aziz said on his Facebook page.
Calls for protest were made online after Egypt announced it was giving Saudi Arabia the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, which the government says are rightfully Saudi. Many Egyptians, however, insist the islands belong to Egypt and view the deal as a violation of the country's sovereignty.
Thousands participated in the downtown Cairo protest, the country's largest in recent years, which security forces dispersed with teargas.
More protests over the island issue are planned for 25 April, which marks the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sinai in 1982.
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French President Francois Hollande arrived in Cairo on Sunday for a three-day official visit and was received by his Egyptian counterpart President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi at Cairo International Airport.
The Elysee said on Twitter that the French-built Rafale fighter planes, which were purchased by the Egyptian army, escorted Hollande's plane as it approached Cairo.
The visit aims at boosting economic ties between the two countries, with both presidents expected to sign agreements in a number of fields and projects, including electricity, generating renewable energy, the Cairo metro and sewage system projects.
The two presidents will also discuss the civil conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen, as well as the French initiative for the Middle East process peace, according to a statement by Egypt's State Information Service.
Hollande's visit to Cairo comes as part of a Middle East tour that includes visits to Jordan and Lebanon.
The French president last visited Egypt in August 2015 when he attended the inauguration of the New Suez Canal.
Hollandes visit will also include meetings with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Al, local civil society figures and French expats.
Egypt and France have signed several arms deals in the past two years.
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WASHINGTON - China's central bank deputy governor Yi Gang said on Thursday he is confident that the Chinese currency the yuan will remain stable.
Yi made the remarks at an event at the Brookings Institute. He emphasized that China pursues a managed floating exchange rate regime that is based on market supply and demand and with reference to a basket of currencies.
Yi said the US dollar still has a very large weight in the basket, but the yuan is referenced against the basket as opposed to being pegged to it.
He also emphasized that market forces remain the number one factor in determining the value of the yuan, but tremendous market volatility is not good for China or the rest of the world, especially considering weak global demand.
According to the deputy governor, China on one hand is open to market forces, but on the other has to avoid sharp market volatility.
Considering China's current account, foreign direct investment and outward direct investment, the yuan exchange rate is still within the equilibrium level, said Yi.
Yi also expressed confidence in the Chinese economy, citing economic data in the first quarter, which indicates that the Chinese economy has kept robust growth.
According to latest data from China's National Bureau of Statistics, the Chinese economy expanded 6.7 percent in the first quarter, meeting expectations.
China has created solid macro-economic policies this year, and there is no need to exaggerate and overreact to the risks, said Yi, adding that he is confident the country will secure 6.5 percent to 7 percent growth this year.
According to the deputy governor, the greatest difficulty China now faces is implementing reforms. Compared to monetary and fiscal moves which could deliver policy goals in a fast way, structural and supply-side reforms are faced with some fundamentally rooted problems, such as labor market and property rights issues.
China is undergoing economic transition, which will take several years, but progress has been made. Last year, consumption contributed to over 66 percent to GDP growth, and the services sector made up more than 50 percent of the overall economy, and was 10 percentage points higher than the share of the manufacturing sector.
Yi also pointed out that a high savings rate is a difficult issue for China to deal with in its transition, as unleashing those savings would lead to more investment both at home and abroad and hold the investment share of GDP at a high level.
The agreement to give two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia will 'soon' be reviewed by parliament; MP Nadia Henry asks for national referendum, while others say step is not necessary
The speaker of Egypt's parliament, Ali Abdel-Al, said Sunday that the "border demarcation agreement" signed between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on 8 April will be presented to parliament "soon" for legal and constitutional review and final ratification should MPs vote in favour.
Abdel-Al's announcement came in response to a question raised by MP Nadia Henry.
Henry, in a word before parliament on Sunday, launched a scathing attack against the government, accusing it of keeping parliament "in the dark" about the deal in which Egypt agreed to give Saudi Arabia two Red Sea islands.
"The agreement caused a lot of anger on the Egyptian street and made people slam parliament for being the last to know about it," said Henry.
The agreement, signed during a five-day visit by Saudi King Salman Bin Abdel-Aziz, has stirred up a lot of controversy as it states that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir long believed to be part of Egypt are rightfully Saudi.
Henry, commenting on the government's policy statement delivered before parliament on 27 March, accused the government of Prime Minister Sherif Ismail of showing "no respect" for the House of Representatives as the deal was made "without informing parliament or making it part of his policy statement."
She added that "we, the people and parliament, were all surprised by the Saudi-Egyptian agreement and as a result some people resorted to protesting on the street to vent their anger over this disrespect."
Henry insisted that "while the government is presenting its programme to seek parliament's confidence, it has shown no confidence in the country's parliament and people."
"I am sorry to say that this government does not take parliament as a partner in drafting the country's policies."
She said that although the party she is affiliated with the Free Egyptians Party announced it would vote for the government, "I cannot prevent myself from expressing my deep worry about the policies of this government as it does not trust us and we as MPs should not trust it."
Henry said her personal view is that the return of the two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia must be put to a national referendum.
"This is important to calm the street and contain anger, especially as people no longer trust us," said Henry.
In response, Abdel-Al said that "the government has the right to sign and announce border demarcation agreements at any time, and parliament only has the right to discuss these agreements and have the final say on them."
Leading MPs affiliated with the Free Egyptians Party said after a meeting with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday that "the agreement on the two Red Sea islands does not need a public referendum."
Many MPs said that "border demarcation agreements" do not fall under Article 151 of the constitution, which stipulates that "sovereignty agreements" must be put to a national plebiscite.
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President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said he understands some Western concerns over human rights issues in Egypt, but urged critics to bear in mind the current circumstances amid "persistent attempts from evil powers" that aim to isolate the country.
El-Sisi spoke during a news conference with French President Francois Hollande in Cairo on Sunday, where they discussed regional issues and bilateral relations.
Hollande started on Sunday a two-day visit to Cairo, his second in less than a year. The French president last visited Egypt in August 2015 when he attended the inauguration of the New Suez Canal.
Economic cooperation
The visit aims at boosting economic ties between the two countries, with both presidents signing agreements in a number of fields and projects, including electricity, generating renewable energy, the Cairo metro and sewage system projects.
We want to intensify economic relations with Egypt, Hollande said.
A lot of companies came here. But they will not be able to work unless there is security. This is the condition for economic development everywhere in the world, the French president said, adding: Here, the French companies chose Egypt and will continue to invest in it.
Hollande said that Egypt is safe now, calling upon tourists to visit.
We would like to demonstrate that security is back and it possible for all those who love Egypt and they are numerous to come as tourists and spend the necessary time, Hollande said.
Egypt's 'human rights vision'
Egypt has been facing mounting criticism over its human rights record, especially following the murder of Italian student Gulio Regeni whose body was found, bearing signs of torture, in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo on 3 February.
"I offered my condolences over the death of the Italian student more than once and I said we are transparent and ready to receive any Italian investigative team to assure them [over the investigations]," El-Sisi told a news conference following a question to Hollande by a French journalist over Egypt's human rights record.
"But I want to clarify something important to the European community and Egyptians as well: There are attempts to tear down Egypt's institutions such as the police, judiciary and even the parliament.
"Those attempts aim at isolating Egypt from its Arab and European roles. Our job is to protect a nation of 90 million people; you can't imagine what will happen to the whole world if this country falls."El-Sisi also said it would be "difficult to implement the European standard of human rights in a country of 90 million people that is fighting terrorism."
"I assured [the French president] that Egypt considers human rights a top priority and I am asking all our European friends to consider our vision regarding human rights issues, which mainly includes the right to education, health and housing," he added.
During his speech at the press conference, Hollande said that fighting terrorism requires firmness, but that there should be a state of law, which France refers to when it talks about human rights.
Because human rights are not a constraint, they are also a way to fight terrorism, when stability is ensured, Hollande said.
Human rights mean freedom of the press and freedom of expression, but it is also having a judiciary system that can respond to all questions that are asked, the French president added.
Hollande said he spoke with Sisi "in detail" about human rights issues but that France greatly needs to cooperate with Egypt in the fight against terrorism.
"I discussed with President El-Sisi the murder of Regeni in Cairo as there are many questions regarding this and other incidents," Hollande said in response to a question from a journalist, though he added that "we cannot neglect the importance of Egypt in terms of fighting terrorism and facing extremism."
The fight against terrorism
El-Sisi said that uprooting terrorism not only needed security solutions, but also a comprehensive way to tackle extremist ideologies.
"Any organisations bent on destroying and controlling parts of the state need to be confronted by all means. We must also stop their source of funding," he stated.
Hollande said Egypt and France had instituted agreements between both countries concerning the security of the region and that of Egypt.
We cannot hide that the situation in the Middle East is serious and that terrorism has deep roots, and that we should fight it with determination, Hollande said, adding, for us, Egypts security is the regions security. And the regions security is also Europes security.
The French president spoke of the importance to coordinate efforts in the fight against terrorism.
Terrorism is no longer simply groups, but also pieces of land which are controlled by them here in the Middle East. And we should be convinced also that terrorism has roots also in Europe, and we need to fight the causes and consequences, Hollande said.
El-Sisi and Hollande also agreed on the necessity of supporting a Libyan unity government that is accepted by Libyans, with the Egyptian president calling for the lifting of an arms embargo on the country as it grapples with terrorism.
Libya's new UN-backed unity government has secured six ministry buildings in Tripoli and will take administrative control of some of them on Monday, a deputy prime minister said earlier on Sunday, despite the volatile security situation.
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Four Yemeni soldiers were killed in a Sunday suicide attack on a checkpoint near the international airport in second city Aden, home to a growing Islamist militants' presence, a security official said.
"A suicide bomber driving a bomb-laden vehicle blew himself up on Sunday upon arrival at a checkpoint near Aden airport," the official told AFP.
"Four soldiers were killed and two others were wounded," he added, without blaming any group for the attack.
Yemen has been rocked by more than a year of fighting between Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces, supported by a Saudi-led coalition.
Islamist militants have exploited the unrest, with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group strengthening their presence in the south, including in Aden, which is serving as a temporary capital for the government.
Both groups have claimed several attacks against the army and government installations in the port city.
On Friday, a car bomb exploded in the port city near a building housing the foreign ministry, without causing casualties, security sources said.
IS group claimed responsibility for that attack and also for a suicide bombing Tuesday in Aden targeting army recruits that killed five.
Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi have launched operations against militants in recent weeks, backed by the firepower of the Arab coalition.
Late Saturday, five Al-Qaeda suspects were killed in Arab coalition air raids against two vehicles carrying militants in Jaar, a town in the southern Abyan province, security officials said.
Other strikes hit suspected militants in Abyan's provincial capital Zinjibar, the sources said, without providing a casualty toll.
Pro-government forces on Friday expelled Al-Qaeda fighters from Huta, another provincial capital close to Aden, and arrested 49 people suspected of being militants, security officials said.
The United Nations has raised alarm over the growing influence of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and the mounting civilian toll from the coalition air strikes as it pushed all sides to come to the negotiating table for talks to be held in Kuwait on Monday.
More than 6,400 people have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign in March last year to push back the rebels, who still retain control of the capital Sanaa.
*This report was edited by Ahram Online
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday that the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights would "forever" remain in his country's hands as his cabinet held its first meeting in the territory.
"The Golan Heights will remain in the hands of Israel forever," Netanyahu said at the start of the cabinet meeting, in comments broadcast on public radio.
"Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights."
Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu planned the cabinet meeting as a statement amid fears Israel could come under pressure to return the Golan -- which it seized from Syria in 1967 -- as part of a future peace deal for its war-torn neighbour.
Saying it was doubtful that Syria can return to what it was, he urged the international community to recognise Israel's claim on the territory.
Israel fears Lebanese Shia Hezbollah could establish a front against it along the Syrian border and that militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group could also pose a threat.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
Netanyahu's comments come amid a fragile ceasefire in Syria and indirect negotiations in Switzerland between Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition.
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Several hundred demonstrators took part in a renewed sit-in in central Baghdad on Sunday to call for reforms, following another that lasted for two weeks last month.
The protesters began gathering at Baghdad's Tahrir Square on Saturday following the failure of a parliamentary session aimed at selecting a replacement for the speaker.
Iraq has been hit by weeks of political turmoil surrounding Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's efforts to replace the cabinet of party-affiliated ministers with a government of technocrats.
"Our sit-in aims to end the political quotas," said Mohammed Khayoun, one of the participants in the demonstration, referring to senior government positions being shared out among parties.
Imad Shaeet, another participant, said that: "Our demands are for reform aimed at securing our future and the future of our children."
Security forces closed streets around the sit-in site, causing major traffic jams in the area.
Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr organised a two-week sit-in in March outside Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered, but called it off after Abadi presented a new cabinet lineup to parliament.
The premier has faced significant opposition to his cabinet reform efforts from powerful political parties that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.
Both the United Nations and Washington have warned that the political wrangling could undermine Iraq's fight against the Islamic State jihadist group, which overran large areas in 2014 but has since lost significant ground.
Political blocs submitted their own ministerial candidates, leading to a second lineup on which most of Abadi's nominees were replaced.
Lawmakers then began a sit-in at parliament, while two subsequent sessions ended in a fistfight and a vote to remove speaker Salim al-Juburi, overshadowing the cabinet issue.
Juburi insists the session at which MPs voted to sack him lacked a quorum and that the decision is therefore invalid, but his opponents say the move was legitimate.
They attempted to hold a session on Saturday aimed at selecting replacements for Juburi and his deputies, but it collapsed after 23 MPs from the Shiite Badr bloc announced they would not participate, meaning it lacked a quorum.
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Jordanian security forces mistakenly raided the headquarters of the kingdom's largest Muslim Brotherhood group on Sunday after confusing it with the offices of an outlawed organization, the government said.
Police raided the Islamic Action Front offices after they "mixed up" the IAF headquarters with those of a nearby, unregistered branch of the Islamist group, according to government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani. He confirmed that the IAF was registered.
The government should "apologize for this action which touched the Islamic Action Front," IAF spokesman Murad Adaileh said.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan split in March 2015 over its ties with the mother movement in Egypt. The IAF severed its relationship with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, but affiliates that did not have been outlawed by Jordan.
Over the past week, the government has shut down seven branches of the Islamist group across the kingdom, carrying out raids in the capital Amman and the cities of Jerash and Tafileh.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the region's oldest Islamist movement, and its affiliates won a series of electoral victories following the Arab Spring uprisings but provoked a backlash in several countries.
Egypt's former president, Mohamed Morsi, hailed from the Brotherhood, was ousted after popular protests in 2013 after a divisive year in power. Egypt later outlawed the group, branding it a terrorist organization.
*The story was edited by Ahram Online.
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Yemen peace talks are set to resume Monday in Kuwait, which aim at resolving the year-long conflict between the warring parties under UN sponsorship amid a fragile truce and hopes to end a 'staggering' humanitarian crisis in the Arab world's poorest country.
There have already been several failed attempts to defuse the conflict in Yemen between between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi government and allies, which has drawn in regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The warring parties last sat down to talk in Geneva in December, but six days of negotiations ended with no major breakthrough.
The ceasefire, which was announced on 10 April, calls for a halt to all combat activities and military movements by land, sea and air, across the entirety of Yemeni territory, airspace and borders. The document was signed by both parties.
As UN Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed indicated, the parties are wrangling over interpretations of five points related to UN Resolution 2216 which Mohammed Ali Marem, director of the office of Yemeni President Hadi, summed up as: the ceasefire, withdrawal and the surrender of weapons, restoration of legitimacy to government, creating the climate for the return of the representatives of the political forces to complete arrangements and preparations for the interim phase.
Hadi's internationally recognised government insists on the rigid application of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 calling for the political process to resume and for the houthi rebels to withdraw from Yemen's cities while surrendering their weapons.
Yet, briefing the Security Council Friday ahead of the talks, Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who has conducted months of shuttle diplomacy, said Yemen has "never been so close to peace", AFP reported.
Houthi militias, backed by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdallah Saleh, have been struggling for control against pro-Hadi loyalist forces since last March.
A Saudi-led military coalition, which includes Egypt and other Arab states, was launched in the same month with the purpose of restoring legitimacy in Yemen as to halt the advancement of the Iranian-backed Houthis and their allies in Yemen and to restore Hadi.
The civil war in Yemen marked its first year last March, which marks the beginning of the Saudi-led Operation Storm of Resolve a year ago.
Yemen was already the Arab world's poorest country before the conflict escalated but now the humanitarian situation is "staggering", according to the UN.
More than 6,300 people have been killed in Yemen since March last year -- around half of them civilians -- and 82 percent of the population need aid, UN report says.
On top of the large civilian death toll, Jamie McGoldrick, UN resident humanitarian affairs coordinator for Yemen, told a press conference in Muscat earlier this month that 14 million Yemenis needed essential and urgent relief and assistance due to the current conflict, and that humanitarian relief efforts in Yemen would require $1.8 billion in 2016, AFP reported.
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A surge in activity at North Korea's atomic test site suggests preparations for a fifth nuclear test are in their final stages, possibly before a key political event in early May, South Korean media reported Sunday.
The frequency of vehicle, workforce and equipment movements at the Punggye-ri site have "increased two to threefold," since last month, Yonhap news agency said, citing multiple government sources.
Officials believe the trucks seen moving in and out of the complex are likely carrying nuclear technicians.
"If they are signs of nuclear test preparations, it seems the preparations are in the final stages," Yonhap quoted one government source as saying.
North Korea is gearing up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month, at which leader Kim Jong-Un is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear weapons programme to new heights.
Numerous analysts have suggested the regime might carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength just before the congress opens.
A successful test might also go some way to erasing the embarrassing failure on Friday of a medium-range ballistic missile test meant to mark the birthday of the nation's founder Kim Il-Sung.
Pyongyang has claimed a series of achievements in recent months, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile, developing a warhead that can withstand atmospheric re-entry, and building a solid-fuel missile engine.
Tension has been running high on the divided peninsula since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
The UN Security Council responded with its toughest sanctions to date, angering the North. It has since made repeated threats of attacks targeting Seoul and Washington.
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Related Air France cabin crew to Tehran told to wear headscarf
The first Air France flight between Paris and Tehran for eight years landed in the Islamic republic's capital on Sunday, bearing a government minister and a business delegation.
The airline's route had been suspended since 2008 because of international sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
However, sanctions have been lifted under an accord with world powers that has now been in force for three months.
Flight AF738 from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle touched down at Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport at 1530 GMT, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, an AFP journalist said.
French Transport Minister Alain Vidalies was on board, along with members of a delegation some 15-strong who will spend two days in the Iranian capital.
At a welcoming ceremony Vidalies said he was "proud of the resumption of these direct flights" and said being "able to move between Paris and Tehran was crucial... for entering into partnerships".
Iran's deputy transport minister, Ali Abedzadeh, said he was happy to see the Air France service resume.
Frederic Gagey, the airline's chief executive, spoke of its "great pride in returning to Iran".
However, resumption of the service caused controversy in France after unions said the airline sent an internal memo saying female cabin crew would have to wear trousers on board with a loose fitting jacket and must cover their hair with a scarf when they leave the plane.
The headscarf rule is already in place when flying to certain destinations such as Saudi Arabia.
But on Monday, a company official said female staff would be allowed to opt out of the route and the airline will appoint a "special unit" to replace those who do not want to fly to Tehran.
Italy's Alitalia, Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa of Germany already fly to Tehran, and British Airways is planning to resume its London-Tehran service in July.
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A bus carrying artists of an opera troupe plunged 76 metres (250 feet) into a gorge in eastern India Sunday, killing at least 25 people, media reports said.
The accident happened when the driver of the vehicle carrying around 40 members of the troupe, including women and children, tried to negotiate a sharp turn in the state of Odisha, the Press Trust of India said.
The bus was returning from Deogarh district to Bargarh, PTI said, adding that 11 people were also critically injured.
"Twenty-five bodies have so far been recovered and 11 injured persons, who are in a critical condition, rescued from the mishap site," it quoted Sarah Sharma, Deogarh's superintendent of police as saying.
She said firefighters and police had launched a rescue operation and that some of the injured had been rushed to Deogarh hospital for treatment.
Generators were being used to facilitate rescue operations in the dark, but hilly terrain, dense forest and low visibility were impeding rescue efforts, the SP said.
Fatal traffic accidents are common in India, which has some of the world's deadliest roads with more than 200,000 fatalities annually, according to the World Health Organization.
A packed passenger bus plunged off a bridge into a river in western India in February killing at least 37 people in one of the deadliest road accidents in recent years.
In October, 15 members of a wedding party, including three children, were killed when a vehicle they were travelling in collided with a bus in the south of the country.
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Egypt will delay an international bond issuance until at least the first half of fiscal year 2016/17 and has not begun talks for an IMF loan, Finance Minister Amr el-Garhy said Saturday.
Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive an economy battered by political upheaval since the 2011 revolt and ease a dollar shortage that has crippled import activity and hampered recovery.
Cairo has repeatedly delayed a return to international debt markets after selling its first international bond in five years last June.
It previously said it would look to sell a second, similar-sized bond, by this June and has blamed delays on global turbulence caused by the economic downturn in China, which has dried up liquidity for emerging market debt.
Garhy, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the spring World Bank and IMF meeting, said Egypt would consider returning to the debt market with a dollar-denominated bond in the first half of the 2016/17 fiscal year, which begins in July, but expressed caution.
"This will depend on the state of the market, the pricing, and the timing for which we would need this type of funding," he said.
The World Bank has said it will provide the first $1 billion tranche of a $3 billion loan to Egypt after its parliament approves a recently presented government economic program that includes reform measures such as a long-delayed Value Added Tax (VAT).
Asked whether Egypt had begun discussions for a similar IMF loan, Garhy said "not yet".
"If there are institutions which are prepared to deal with us in the context of this government programme that we have put forward, then we have no problem with that."
Garhy expects the economy to grow between 4 and 4.2 percent during the current fiscal year with an increase in foreign direct investment.
Egypt's economy grew by about 4.1 percent last fiscal year. This rate was expected to jump above 5 percent this year until a Russian plane crash in the Sinai last October that hit the tourism industry, a key pillar of the country's economy.
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Egypt's main index EGX30 edged up on Sunday by 0.72 percent to register 7,517 points driven by Egyptian institutions, which were net buyers to the tune of EGP 24 million.
Daily stock turnover was at an average level of EGP 571.5 million.
Blue chip Commercial International Bank (CIB) dipped 0.53 percent to EGP 39.5 per share, while Orascom Media and Technology (OTMT) Holding gained 2.78 percent to EGP 0.74 a share.
OTMT and CIB issued statements published on the bourse on Sunday clarifying that they will still pursue the acquisition deal after a decision by the financial regulator to delay its approval for OTMT's offer to buy CIB's investment arm CI Capital through its subsidiary Beltone Financial.
According to the OTMT statement, its investment arm Beltone financial extended its offer 14 days to 28 April.
On Wednesday, the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority decided to postpone its approval, citing a pending court appeal made by several CI Capital shareholders refusing to sell their shares, as well as the resolution of OTMT violations of pre-existing pledges to the financial regulator.
Egyptian business tycoon and Orascom Telecom CEO Naguib Sawiris had expressed fears last month that the government was delaying the approval necessary to complete his acquisition of CI-Capital over "national security" concerns.
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Renowned Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said it is eager to open a permanent office in Egypt as the Arab nation can provide promising investment opportunities, according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency.
The statement by the Tokyo-based corporation came at a Saturday meeting in Cairo between CEO Shunichi Miyanaga and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in a follow-up to memorandums of understanding signed during the latters visit to Japan last month.
Last week, Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr agreed with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on the provision of the second finance tranche for Cairo's metro line IV project.
In March, Nasr signed three concessional loan agreements with JICA worth more than $450 million to finance projects in the energy and transport sectors during El-Sisis visit to Japan.
Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe said in March that Japanese companies are set to take part in Egyptian projects worth some 2 trillion yen ($17.7 billion) in the electricity and other sectors.
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The Visual Memory exhibition organised and hosted by Al-Ahram Establishment Art Gallery and comprising artworks from the establishments art collection, opened Saturday.
The exhibition was inaugurated by Ahmed El-Sayed Al-Naggar, chairman of the board of Al-Ahram Establishment, in the presence of politician Mostafa El-Feki, former ministers of culture Shaker Abd El-Hameed and Saber Arab, actors Mahmoud Hemeda, actor and member of the Actors Syndicate Sameh El-Sereti, and actress Wafaa Salem, among others.
Also present at the opening ceremony were Hamdy Abo El-Maaty, head of the Fine Arts Syndicate, Khaled Srour, head of the Fine Arts Sector, Safiya Al-Qabbani, dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, and artists Adam Henin, Adel El-Sewi, Khaled Zaki and Khaled Hafez.
The ceremony also hosted renowned violinist Abdo Dagher who played some of his famous compositions.
The exhibition celebrates the 140th anniversary of the founding of Al-Ahram and displays a selection of artworks chosen from over 750 art pieces including paintings, sculptures, and graphic pieces by Egyptian leading artists, representatives of the modern and contemporary arts scene in Al-Ahram's collection.
At the ceremony, Al-Naggar delivered an opening speech in which he stressed on Al-Ahrams magnificent treasure of artworks that was accumulated over generations, reported Al-Ahram Arabic website.
He added that whether we agree or disagree with the establishments political orientation now or in past times, there cannot be any doubt that the establishment has always been a fortress of enlightenment, battling the forces of darkness, backwardness and extremism.
Among the many works on display in the exhibition, which runs until 28 April, are some by iconic masters such as painters Mahmoud Said (1897-1964), Ragheb Ayad (1892-1982), Salah Taher (1911-2007), Gazbia Sirry (born 1925) and Inji Aflatoun (1924-1989), among others.
The artistic treasures in Ahrams art collection, Al-Naggar asserted constitute a unique variety, [with works] from different schools and artistic orientations, and which express joy, grief, power, weakness, anger, defiance, love and victory, adding that art was created to occupy the souls of audience members and interact with them, and not be confined to locked rooms.
Al-Naggar also revealed the establishments upcoming project, a museum of art, which will comprise an important selection from Al-Ahrams enchanting possessions.
For her part, dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts Safiya Al-Qabbani told Al-Ahram Arabic website, I feel like Im at my school (the School of Fine Arts), in the company of its pioneers and iconic professors who have been presenting fine art for 107 years now.
Al-Qabbani added that the exhibition comprises works by artists who are also featured in the schools new museum, which is scheduled to open 12 May.
Al-Qabbani thanked Maher Dawood, professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts and the manager of Al-Ahrams art collection and the establishments possessions, who fetched these artistic works from storage rooms and restored some, thus exhibiting what Al-Qabbani described as much loyalty to his teachers.
Artist Wafaa Salem also praised the exhibition, applauding Al-Ahrams originality, and how it continues to maintain authenticity by presenting all that is of value.
Al-Ahram was founded on 5 August 1875 by two Lebanese brothers, Beshara Takla and Saleem Takla, and soon became the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper.
Later, it expanded to become the biggest press establishment in Egypt and one of the leading press foundations in the Middle East and North Africa. Today, Al-Ahram publishes numerous newspapers and periodicals, in Arabic, English and French.
For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture
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Dry Hot Summer had its world premiere at the 13th Dubai International Film Festival early in 2016
The award-winning Dry Hot Summer (Har Gaf Sayfan) by Egyptian filmmaker Sherif El-Bendary has been selected for the opening of Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, 18th edition.
Dry Hot Summer was written by Nura El-Sheikh and co-produced by Claudia Jubeh (Germany) and Hossam El-Ouan (Egypt).
The 30-minute film captures the chance meeting of two lonely Egyptians on a bustling and hot summer day in Cairo. The day's journey disturbs the stifling routines of the two characters, taking them on an expedition of self-discovery.
The short fiction film had its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival's 13th edition, 2016.
It won the Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize for International Cooperation at a gala held during Berlinale Talents, a six-day creative summit for up-and-coming filmmakers at the Berlin Film Festival.
The Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentary and Shorts takes place every year in Ismailia to promote an intercultural dialogue for a deeper understanding of others by presenting their creative works to the audience, and to support filmmakers of documentary and short films.
The 17th edition of the festival took place in 2014, and the 18th edition was set to take place the in 2015 but was postponed to 2016.
The film festival runs from 20 to 26 April.
For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture
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The new drug has a 100 percent success rate and will cost around $300, drug maker Pharco says
Egyptian pharmaceutical company Pharco made news in the past few days after it signed an agreement covering clinical testing and a scale-up of a new treatment for hepatitis C (HCV) costing less than $300, one boasting a 100 percent cure rate.
Dr Amr Fahmy, corporate marketing director at Pharco, told Ahram Online that the company collaborated with the non-profit organisation Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) to produce the new drug, which combines two existing medications: sofosbuvir and ravidasvir.
Fahmy said that in a phase three clinical trial, the drug was tested in Egypt on 300 patients. The cure rate was 100 percent.
"The drug was tested and most efficient with genotype 4, which makes up 92% of hepititis C cases in Egypt, but we are collaborating with DNDi to further develop the drug to deliver the same results with other genotypes and serve the whole world," he added.
Sherine Helmy, CEO of Pharco, told Ahram Online that the company is looking to make the cost of the new treatment the lowest worldwide. "We are excited to make a world free of hepititis, and our first hope is Egypt," he said.
Regarding the official price in Egypt, Fahmy said that drug registration was applied for and is awaiting the approval of the Ministry of Health, which will also determine the final price.
DNDi and Pharco stated in a press release that they hope the drug will be available in Egypt within 12 months, and later available worldwide.
HCV is a blood-borne virus that in most cases causes chronic liver disease, leading to fatal liver failure and cancer.
According to World Health Organisation data, virus C patients worldwide surpass 150 million.
Egypt has the worlds highest rates of carriers of the virus. In 2015, the health ministry announced that the number of Egyptians suffering from hepatitis reached more than 6 million, but various reports and studies point out that the actual number could reach up to 15 million out of a population of approximately 90 million.
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News Analysis: UN chief candidates pressed on how to tackle global challenges
2016-04-16 22:22
(NEW YORK, April 15, 2016 (Xinhua) -- This combination photo shows the candidates for the nextUnited Nationssecretary general. Upper row from left to right: Montenegro's deputy prime minister and foreign minister Igor Luksic, former president of Slovenia Danilo Turk, former prime minister of Portugal and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres. Middle row from left to right: former Croatian foreign minister Vesna Pusic, director-general of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Irina Bokova, former minister of foreign affairs and European integration of Moldova Natalia Gherman. Bottom row from left to right: President of the 62th session of the United Nations General Assembly and former minister of foreign affairs of Macedonia Srgjan Kerim, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Helen Clark, President of the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Serbia Vuk Jeremic. The first public interviews with the current nine candidates vying to be next UN secretary-general, a three-day event which is first of its kind in the 70-year history of the world body, concluded at the UN headquarters Thursday with 193 UN member states judging their performance and answers to the questions from the globe. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)
by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The first public interviews with the current nine candidates vying to be next UN secretary-general and a three-day event which is first of its kind in the 70-year history of the world body, concluded here Thursday with 193 UN member states judging their performance and answers to the questions from the globe.
The questions - which also came from members of civil society - to the five men and four women along with their answers were heard via webcast. In fact, the public hearings, also known as "informal dialogues" within the United Nations, rekindled the debate on how to make the global organization more relevant, transparent, efficient and effective in efforts to deal with grave global challenges, such as climate change and terrorism.
The questions, put forward either by a diplomat on the scene or a child through video, were intended to help choose the best person to succeed the current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose tenure is to end on Dec. 31.
The questions were challenging, illustrating high expectations of the international community to see a strong UN chief at the helm of the world's most universal and authoritative organization.
There were questions that illustrated how different countries have different concerns based on their national interests.
For instance, African and Caribbean countries worry about a lack of access to concessional funds from industrialized nations in their development efforts, while Algeria and other states also voiced concerns at the unbalanced and inequitable composition of UN staff at headquarters in New York in terms of gender and geography.
African and Asian countries asked questions on how the next UN head will strengthen cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations. Other countries, including Sierra Leone, wondered how the UN would execute its "zero tolerance" policy in a bid to end sexual abuse by peacekeepers in conflict-torn countries such as the Central African Republic.
A representative from Rwanda, who complained that "the conflict" raged in a regular pattern, particularly in Africa," asked Helen Clark, one of the nine candidates and former prime minister of New Zealand, what measures she would take to reverse the trend.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, asked the candidates how they would end the Isareli-Palestinian conflict.
Small island countries, on the other hand, said they have been haunted by the impact of climate change. "What would you do to make sure countries take actions to stop catastrophic climate change?" a child asked via video.
Meanwhile, Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, which form the Group of Four (G4), asked most of the nine candidates about how he or she would reform the UN Security Council, the most powerful body in the UN family. Each of the G4 aspire to become permanent members.
There were also questions related to gender equality, human rights, sustainable development, the UN budget, UN management and UN peacekeeping operations.
Mogens Lykketoft, President of the UN General Assembly, told reporters that the event is just a "starting point" in the process of selecting the next UN secretary-general.
"I am surprised by the large number of countries and members of civil society coming forward to ask questions," Lykketoft said. "It's more than I expected."
At this moment, there is still no public comments either by diplomats or senior UN officials on the performance of the nine candidates. People here at the United Nations are still arguing whether gender or geographical rotation should be the only criteria for the selection of the new top diplomat in the world.
But a key question remains: what impact will the open interviews have on the final decision by the UN Security Council, the 15-nation UN body which has the final say in deciding who will be the next UN chief?
Under the UN Charter, the secretary-general is chosen by the 193-member General Assembly on the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council.
In practice, this has meant that the council's five permanent members, namely Britain, China, France, the United States and Russia, have veto power over the candidates. That will not change in deciding who succeeds Ban.
Related:
GA president asks new candidates for next UN chief to come forward quickly
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 (Xinhua) -- UN General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft said Thursday that new candidates for the position of next UN chief should come forward quickly.
A three-day public audition of nine candidates running for the UN top job concluded earlier Thursday.Full story
China warns against worsened tension on Korean Peninsula
2016-04-16 20:31
BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China urged all parties to avoid any action that might worsen tensions on the Korean Peninsula following a reportedly failed launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile by Pyongyang on Friday.
The UN Security Council resolution was clear about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) missile issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular news briefing when asked to comment Pyongyang's latest move.
"As the current situation on the Peninsula is complex and sensitive, we hope all parties can comply with the Security Council resolution and avoid worsening tensions," Lu said.
Lu called on all parties to work to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Asked if China had expressed goodwill to the DPRK on the birthday of late DPRK top leader Kim Il Sung, the spokesman said as friendly neighbors, both countries have "maintained some traditions for friendship."
Related:
China warns DPRK not to escalate tension following missile launch
BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China urged the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to comply with UN resolutions and stop any action that might escalate the tension on the Korean Peninsula, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
The spokesperson made the remarks when asked to comment on the DPRK firing of what the Republic of Korea's military assessed as a Rodong ballistic missile on Friday morning. Full story
S.Korea denounces DPRK's ballistic missile launch
SEOUL, March 18 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Friday strongly denounced the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s launch of a ballistic missile in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement that the DPRK launch bluntly violated UN Security Council resolutions, which ban all launches based on ballistic missile technology, strongly slamming Pyongyang for the Friday firing of a ballistic missile.Full Story
China opposes unilateral sanctions against DPRK
BEIJING, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China voiced opposition to the new sanctions imposed by the United States on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday.
"China has always opposed any unilateral sanctions by any country," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing.Full Story
Senior military officer inspects armed forces along eastern coast
2016-04-16 20:31
BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Xu Qiliang, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), concluded an inspection tour of east China's Jiangsu and Fujian provinces, a CMC statement said on Thursday.
During the tour, he called for loyalty to the Party leadership and confidence in the ongoing military reform campaign, according to the statement.
The armed forces should allocate more time to instilling a sense of loyalty and political discipline among officers and soldier, Xu said.
The political work of the armed forces should also contribute to their combat readiness, he said.
As China's military undergoes a critical period of restructuring, it is important that the armed forces consolidate confidence among servicemen and women, and improve their understanding of the reform campaign, he said.
China, Australia seek to make bigger "cake" of shared interest
2016-04-16 20:31
BEIJING, April 15, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese PresidentXi Jinping(R) meets with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2016. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)
BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met here on Friday with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, vowing to make a larger cake of common interests to benefit the people of the two countries.
Turnbull, accompanied by a large business delegation, is paying his first official visit to China since taking office in September 2015.
The China-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership is full of vitality, which serves the fundamental interests of the two countries and their people and is also beneficial to peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, said Xi.
The two sides should keep the relations on the right track, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, so as to ensure the continuous, sound and stable development of China-Australia ties, he said.
The president called for alignment of China's Belt and Road initiative with Australia's northern development plan, as well as the synergy between China's national strategy of innovation-driven development and Australia's national innovation and science agenda.
He also suggested the two sides do a good job in implementing the China-Australia free trade agreement, explore more cooperative projects, and advance exchanges and cooperation in the areas of judiciary, law enforcement and defense.
China-Australia friendship lies in the two peoples, said Xi, calling on the two sides to take more measures to facilitate visa application process and promote cooperation in tourism, education and local affairs.
China values Australia's role in international and regional affairs, and is willing to enhance cooperation with Australia within the framework of G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC), the East Asia Summit, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), so as to jointly make contributions for infrastructure connectivity in the region, said Xi.
For his part, Turnbull said President Xi's historic visit to Australia in 2014 greatly boosted the development of bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.
Voicing Australia's confidence in China's economy and its impact on the world, Turnbull said his country hopes to forge a closer relationship with China, synergize development strategies of both countries and deepen cooperation in trade and innovation.
Turnbull said Australia is ready to enhance communication and coordination with China in international and regional affairs and that he looks forward to attending the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou in September.
Earlier Friday, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and Turnbull together met with entrepreneurs that participated in the fifth Australia-China CEO Roundtable Meeting.
Wang said the visit of more than 1,000 Australian business leaders to China has reflected that bilateral trade relations have reached new heights.
Wang takes the visit of the delegation as an opinion poll for the prospect of bilateral trade cooperation. He believes that it shows Australia's optimistic expectation for China's economic outlook.
Turnbull said Australia-China relations have entered a track of rapid development, saying that the success of the roundtable meeting has fully demonstrated the confidence and expectation of the Australian business community for the development of bilateral ties.
Australia welcomes more investment from Chinese enterprises and is ready to work with China to push for greater development of economic and trade cooperation, said Turnbull.
Related:
Premier Li says confident for China-Australia relations prospect
BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang voiced confidence for the prospects for the China-Australia relations in the fourth annual talks between the two countries' prime ministers.
The meeting, on Thursday afternoon at the Great Hall of the People, was co-chaired by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is paying his first official visit to China since taking office in September 2015, with a large business delegation. Full story
Chinese investment in Australia growing and diversifying: report
BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese investment in Australia last year returned to positive growth and is rising strongly with a record number of deals bringing Chinese investors into new industries, according to a Monday report by KPMG Australia and The University of Sydney.
Mega deals, with seven involving 500 million Australian dollars (AUD) or more during the year, helped bring the total value of investment to 15.09 billion AUD (11.1 billion U.S. dollars), a 32.9-percent increase from the previous year in USD terms (or a 59.5-percent increase in AUD), according to the report. Full story
Mainland urges Taiwan to give fraud suspects 'punishment they deserve'
2016-04-17 07:52
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
BEIJING -- A Chinese mainland spokesman on Saturday urged Taiwan to give fraud suspects "the punishment they deserve," stressing that the release of them will only make fraud more rampant and harm cross-Straits law enforcement cooperation.
Taiwan police earlier on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud.
"By releasing the suspects, Taiwan authorities disregarded many victims' interests and harmed them a second time. It also harmed the two sides' cooperation in jointly cracking down on crimes," said An Fengshan, the spokesman with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.
Taiwan phone scammers come clean
BEIJING - Phone scams are nothing new, and yet the people behind this faceless crime continue to swindle billions of yuan from hapless victims every year.
Boiler rooms run by scammers from Taiwan were responsible for over 50 percent of all telecom fraud in China's mainland. Nearly all major cases with reported losses in excess of 10 million yuan ($1.54 million) were organized by scammers from Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
In the past seven days, 77 alleged fraud syndicate members, including 45 from Taiwan, were repatriated to China's mainland from Africa.
In interviews with Xinhua, some of the suspects from Taiwan came clean about this illicit practice.
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
WHO, HOW
One suspect from Taoyuan in Taiwan, identified only by his surname Jian, traveled to Kenya to join a boiler room in 2014.
According to Jian, the organization he worked for divided its members into first-, second- and third-tier groups according to their roles. All worked off pre-written scripts when talking to their "clients."
The first-tier group, a team of about a dozen people, masqueraded as managers of medical insurance accounts to acquire their victims' personal information, Jian explained.
In the calls, the victims were told that they were victims of identity theft, and their "case" would be transferred to the police after they had confirmed certain information.
Then it was time for the second-tier group, the "police officers," to take over the case. This team informed the victims that their identities had been used to facilitate money laundering, said Jian, who was one of the "police officers."
The victims were then pressed for more information, such as family background, occupation, income and bank account details. The second-tier group would then try and wheedle out how much cash the victims had in their bank accounts.
"If there was not much money, we would talk the victims into transferring their balance to us," said Jian, "however, if they were holding large deposits we would transfer the case to the third-tier group."
Another suspect, who was identified by the surname Xu, was a member of this third-tier group. His bluff was that he was the director of the financial crime department.
"We told the victims that their money must be transferred to our 'safe account' for investigation, and instructed them how to do this at an ATM," said Xu.
The fraudsters used software that changed the numbers they called from to those registered to mainland police stations.
"Any 'savvy' victim could check the number while we were on the phone," he said, "and they would be reassured."
The gang even played recordings of police stations or hospitals as background noise during the calls to further win the trust of their unsuspecting victims.
According to the police, members of the gang received a monthly salary based on their performance. The third-tier group, usually the most skilled fraudsters, earned the most, getting up to eight percent of the money earned in each deal.
Police said that the bosses and core members of many fraud rings were from Taiwan. In Jian and Xu's case, only members of the first-tier groups were from the mainland, who were usually new to the world of telecom scams.
Investigators found that during recruitment, fraud rings often favored those with criminal records.
"I am familiar with how phone scams work, so that was why the boss asked me to join," said Xu, who served a seven month sentence for fraud in Taiwan's Taichung City in 2010.
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
EXPORTING FRAUD
The people of Taiwan have been aware of phone scams and for this reason, around 2002, fraud rings from Taiwan began to target mainlanders.
These fraud gangs are oldhands at writing convincing scripts and devising new methods to cheat victims out of their money and information, said Zhang Jun from the criminal investigation department of the MPS. Some, he added, even create mirror websites of mainland judicial agencies to further support their back stories.
Authorities on the mainland and Taiwan worked hard to improve cooperation and stamp out telecom fraud across the Strait. However, rather than packing up and "going straight," many gangs just relocated to Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania.
Since 2011, police from both sides have arrested more than 7,700 suspects implicated in telecom fraud gangs working in Southeast Asia, with about 4,600 of them from Taiwan.
"To hide from the police, many telecom fraud rings established themselves far from Chinese eyes, like Kenya in this case. But we are confident that we will find them, no matter where they are," said Zhang.
The minister said the order was an attempt to create stagnation in the higher education sector and that it was definitely a setback for the sector's progress.
#COVID-19 New COVID-19 cases post sharp on-week rise amid resurgence woes South Korea's new COVID-19 cases stayed below 30,000 for the fifth consecutive day Sunday, but the daily count recorded a sharp hike from the previous week amid rising concerns ove...
#illegal gambling China-based online gambling ring busted; 20 arrested Law-enforcement authorities here said Sunday they have busted an online gambling ring based in China for illicit operations in South Korea, worth a total of 5.7 trillion won (US$3....
There's nothing better than a good death scene.
It sums up a film, puts an annoying character out of their misery or, in some cases, lets you have a good cry. Here's ten of the best...
10. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING BOROMIR (Sean Bean)
You can't talk about death scenes in film without mentioning Sean Bean. He dies in everything. We could have done a Top 5 of Sean Bean's on-screen deaths and it would have totally been amazing. We really like this one, however, because it was done so well. And plus, how long did it take for Sean Bean to go down? He just kept at it, didn't he? Amazing. Maybe he was fighting against it, y'know? "I'm not going down in this one... Urghhh.."
9. FATAL ATTRACTION ALEX FORREST (Glenn Close)
If you've never seen Fatal Attraction, you're missing out. You know the term Bunny Boiler? It came directly from this film. Glenn Close plays Alex Forrest, an attractive woman who engages in an extra-marital affair with Michael Douglas. The catch? Glenn Close / Alex Forrest is actually batshit insane and then tries to kill Michael Douglas and his wife, Anne Archer.
8. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY TERMINATOR T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
If this scene didn't bring a tear to your eye, you're just as robotic as, well, the Terminator going into the molten lava. It's the thumbs up at the end that really makes it.
7. JAWS QUINT (Robert Shaw)
The first time you watch Jaws, it's a constant pressure-cooker. Who's going to get it? Granted, there's only three of them on the boat, but you really don't expect the old-timey captain to get it? Do you?!
6. AMERICAN BEAUTY LESTER (Kevin Spacey)
American Beauty is easily one of Kevin Spacey's most memorable roles and this scene was equal parts heartbreaking and beautiful. Everything is leading up to it. It's the perfect end to an almost perfect film.
5. PULP FICTION MARVIN (Phil LaMarr)
Marvin was a small character in the film, sure. But his death sets in motion what is easily the best storyline of the film. The real question is why somebody would turn around and point their gun at somebody in a completely innocuous way in the way John Travolta did.
4. COMMANDO SULLY (David Patrick Kelly)
This film is just one-liners and Arnold Schwarzenegger killing people. You will never need to watch another film again.
3. SCARFACE TONY MONTANA (Al Pacino)
Much like Boromir in Lord of the Rings, it takes Tony Montana more than just one shot to take him down. His death is like the rest of the film loud, gory and goes on longer than it needs to.
2. ALIEN KANE / CHESTBURSTER (John Hurt)
True story. The chestburster scene was almost entirely unscripted. Tom Skerritt said that none of them, except John Hurt, was aware of what was going to happen with the alien. So when it burst out of his chest and the blood hit Veronica Cartwright in the face, she actually went into hysterics. We couldn't find a clean version of the clip. Sorry about the meows. It'll make sense when you click the video.
1. THE GODFATHER, PART I SONNY CORLEONE (James Caan)
There are so many scenes in The Godfather that are instantly recognisable and define the film. If it's not the scene where Michael kills the police chief and Sollozzo in the Italian restaurant, it's the final baptism scene. This, however, is our favourite. Sonny's been set up by his brother-in-law and is rushing to his house to beat the crap out of it. He's stopped at the turnpike and then...
Vogue Williams' documentary series has been picked up for another season by RTE and was recently sold to TLC, where she'll be joining such documentary specials as Breaking Amish, Say Yes To The Dress and Sister Wives.
Which is about polygamy. Right so.
Vogue's new series of her doing things will break new boundaries and, in an Irish television first, she will take psychoactive drugs on camera. That's right, the former Fade Street is going to be off her face on either LSD, ketamine or whatever they can obtain legally.
"It was never my thing, but we are going to do it for the show as we are looking at addiction - my mother is going to be delighted Im sure," said Williams in a recent interview. That strikes us as a bit odd as psychoactive drugs typically aren't addictive, so why would taking them be about addiction? Who knows.
Of course, this isn't the first time psychoactive drugs have been done on-air in Irish broadcasting. The Rubberbandits' Blindboy Boatclub famously took yokes - which were obtained legally through a legal loophole - whilst being interviewed by Tom Dunne on Newstalk.
What's more, Channel 4 ran a series of live drug tests in 2012 where presenters and personalities, such as Jon Snow (the journalist, not the lad who knows nothing), took MDMA whilst under the supervision of medical professionals.
However, when asked about the details of the show and what precisely Vogue Williams will be taking, RTE reported in a statement that the details have not been finalised.
Via Sunday World
Gallery North is please to present a short documentary about Alina Margolis-Edelman who was a nurse in the Warsaw Ghetto and later a pediatrician and a humanitarian activist in Medecins du Monde. She was also married to Marek Edelman, the deputy commander of the Warsaw-Ghetto uprising. In 1968 she left Poland for France, and when she returned after 1989, she started the Nobody's Children Foundation, which fights all forms of child abuse. The film presents her life and work through documentary footage and original animation, based on the first modern Polish reading primer whose heroine, Ala, was named by the author after his Jewish friends' daughter - little Ala (Alina) Margolis. The film, directed by Edyta Wroblewska, and produced by Kaleidoskop, is in Polish with English subtitles.
The Community Art Center will also present wonderful artwork by the local artist and poet Judy Sacucci. Raised in a Jewish family in Brooklyn and educated as a teacher, Judy started painting as an adult. After her travels in Eastern Europe and especially after visiting Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, she was compelled to transfer her emotions into art. Just like Alina Margolis's life work, it transcends suffering and speaks to what's most beautiful and humane in all of us.
Description
A ONE-OF-A-KIND POETRY EXPERIENCE: Hear poets included in VEILS, HALOS and SHACKLES, an international anthology that focuses on the abuse and empowerment of women in our time. During an open-mic period that follows, participants are invited to share a poem that originates from another country.
Veils, Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women features more than 250 poems by writers from over two dozen countries, as well as testimony that is wise, direct, and haunting. It tells the truth about the violence and oppression women are subjected to. Its goal is to motivate nations and individuals to support and protect women.
The anthology was conceived in response to the vicious gang-rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey in December 2012 and to the unprecedented public activism for womens safety that followed it.
Books will be for sale at the event.
Smita Sahay (who will not be in attendance) is an Indian English-language writer whose works have appeared in Celebrating India, Muse India, the Pedestal Magazine, the Cha Journal, and Kitaab, among others. She has read her poetry at 100-1000 Poets for Change in Pune and Mumbai, the Prakriti Poetry Festival in Chennai, and Pen at Prithvi in Mumbai. She co-conceptualized and served as associate editor of Veils, Halos & Shackles and is a member of the founding team of Cappuccino Readings, a poetry-reading initiative in Mumbai.
Charles Ades Fishman is an award-winning poet, known for his memorable imagery and sensitivity to the depth of human experience. He completed a Doctor of Arts degree in contemporary American poetry and poetry-writing at SUNY Albany in 1982, and received a Fellowship in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1995. Fishman co-founded the Long Island Poetry Collective in 1973, and created the Visiting Writers Program at Farmingdale State College in 1979. He was the founder and coordinator of the Paumanok Poetry Award competition, and series editor for the Water Mark Poets of North America Book Award. He is currently poetry editor of PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators.